15 thoughts on “Fourteen Characteristics Of “Fascism””
Whether one would agree with all of the arguments, I would not call the linked essay a “fisking.”
The author lists what are considered to be the Tenets of Fascism, and then writes an essay, point-by-point, how those Tenets are misapplied and misunderstood.
Someone could complain that ascribing this understanding to Liberals/Progressives is a “straw-man argument.” President Obama, frequently ascribed beliefs or modes of understanding to Conservatives/Libertarians, and he was called out for offering a “straw-man argument” in many cases.
That said, the article is refreshingly not a fisking (should I use NOT for Internet emphasis?). I hate, hate, with a white-hot hate where people take a paragraph someone else has written and intersperse it with snarky remarks how the author is wrong. I hate this style of writing in responding to review commentary in a scholarly paper, and I eschew doing it. I hate it when smart-Aleks on Slashdot “rebut” or “fact-check” someone else’s post this way, as I hate the words rebut or fact-check, and I apply this equally to the Left and the Right.
“I hate, hate, with a white-hot hate where people take a paragraph someone else has written and intersperse it with snarky remarks how the author is wrong.”
How do you reference the words of another without a quote and isn’t a quote a better way to present information to the reader than the characterization of the words of another? Is it the length of fisking that is the issue, where everything is gone over rather than just a few bits pulled out?
Quote the sentence, the paragraph or the whatever.
Then offer your counterargument.
This business of interspersing portions of a quote with snippets of response is lame.
It does make it hard to read and is often disjointed, especially the longer it gets.
Fascism is a type of government.
It was Italian type of government.
It basically idea is about a government being able run things better, and the self proclaimed fascist Italian government attempted to run many things, like railroads, better.
Or government running railroad could similar to the Italian fascist government.
Anyone supports a government running a railroad could be called a believer of fascist governments.
The Italian fascist government appear to many people which were involved government everywhere around world to be good idea. President Wilson was fascist. Some one who agree:
Woodrow Wilson: America’s Worst and First Fascist President https://conservativecolloquium.wordpress.com/2008/05/29/woodrow-wilson-americas-worst-and-first-fascist-president/
A problem for fascists is having a good excuse for a government to do something that government should not do.
In some instances, it could be or might be good idea for a government to “take over” a business. It generally related to emergency situations and during times of war. One say Trump did “fascist move” when forced companies to make ventilators and other things related to China Pandemic. But it’s not really a “fascists move” as Trump was following US law. Or it’s known and made into law that it was allowable in an emergency situation. Or if there was not really a actual pandemic and Trump said it emergency and it wasn’t an emergency- then that would actually be a “fascist move”.
But Amtrak can be called fascist or socialist.
Since a war, could regarded as an emergency, having more wars, or calling thing wars {War on Poverty or War of Drugs] can be excuse for government doing things, it should not do.
Probably biggest thing in US related to Fascism is related to classified material. Or a government of free people should not have things which are secret- but on matters of war, secrets are regarded as needed. But there is no need for the amount stuff which is classified and it seems people who should not know classify material, know it, and general public doesn’t. Or if wrong people know it, the whole idea is pointless and expensive activity.
Anyhow a lot things could said to fascist.
But in terms big picture, saying the world is going to end {when it’s not} is quite fascist. Green New Deal is exactly Fascist or government that wants to control every aspect of everyone’s lives.
The insane idea that the problem is the people who being governed are too stupid, and government is smarter and are more capable to do things better, is entire idea behind fascism.
But NASA could viewed as following a fascist idea- not saying it could not have some good excuses for it. And to degree that NASA attempts to get private sector involved with things related to space- that soften it’s obvious fascist foundation. But when NASA wants to mine the Moon- well, there you go.
“The Nazis were Marxists, no matter what our tainted academia and corrupt media wishes us to believe. Nazis, Bolsheviks, the Ku Klux Klan, Maoists, radical Islam and Facists — all are on the Left, something that should be increasingly apparent to decent, honorable people in our times. The Big Lie which places Nazis on some mythical Far Right was created specifically so that there would be a bogeyman manacled on the wrists of those who wish us to move “too far” in the direction of Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater. ” – “The Nazis Were Marxists” – Bruce Walker, American Thinker, 11/25/07
To see where Nazism/Fascism falls on the political spectrum all one has to do (besides ignore what your college professor and the media tells you and instead look at their policies and note how they follow the standard socialist agenda of government control) is to go back to pre WWII and see who was singing the praises of Adolf and Benito (as well as Uncle Joe in the USSR) in the US and UK. It was the leftists, the socialists. In academia and media. But once the evil nature of their true intentions became realized the leftists had to distance themselves from these tyrants (well, not Uncle Joe because he was on our side. After dividing Poland with Adolf that is). So they started spreading the lie that Adolf, Benito and all fascism (which is nothing more than a particular “flavor” of socialism) was right wing. They have done this now for ~80 years and the majority of the media elite, academia, Hollywood etc. have spread this lie because it suits their own political agenda while the masses accept it blindly because that’s what they’ve been taught.
All totalitarian systems are “left wing” because all totalitarian systems by definition depend on centralized government control to maintain control over the people. Nazis would certainly qualify as would the Communists.
There is nothing in right wing / conservative / libertarian political philosophy that can create any sort of dictatorship because the central guiding philosophy of TRUE right wing political philosophy is small, non-centralized government. A dictator cannot control a country or it’s people with a small non centralized right wing government therefore a right-wing dictator is a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron.
The left has warped the definitions of left wing / right wing political theory to the point of being meaningless solely in an attempt to recast THEIR GUY Hitler (and he was the left’s guy, and proudly so, up until he started killing too many people) as a “right winger”. If examined closely it just doesn’t work, you have to jump through too many hoops to come to the conclusion the left wants you to come to. It has only survived this long because the leftist media / academia / entertainment industry are willing participants in the charade and because we on the right have not fought back against the lie.
Hitler is right wing, if you put the dividing line between Hitler and Uncle Joe, which is where the left wishes to be. Hitler is far left, if you put the dividing line somewhere closer to those that fought hard to free the United States from the truly oppressive governments of Europe. IOW, I agree other than to use the left’s argument to frame who they are.
“The left has warped the definitions of left wing / right wing political theory to the point of being meaningless solely in an attempt to recast THEIR GUY Hitler (and he was the left’s guy, and proudly so, up until he started killing too many people)”
Actually, till the day after the Germans abandoned the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact when Operation Barbarossa commenced.
Good point, I should have stated “up until he started killing the wrong people”
Well, to understand the progressive left-right axis when it comes to communists vs fascists vs Nazis, you have to understand that they’re using a fashion scale. If the uniforms are really snazzy and the officer’s wives are dressed to the nines, it’s a right-wing government. If instead the officers and their wives like they’re refugees who just abandoned their potato farm, it’s a left-wing government.
Their understanding really doesn’t go any deeper than that.
The main thing I notice about these lists of fascist characteristics (apparently popular with the Stupid Left, where New Left and Old Left shake hands with the Dumbest Generation) is the absence of The Elephant in the Room: statism. How are you going to have an intelligent discussion of fascism without mentioning statism?
statism suggests to me, a more established fascism.
Or one can lives with statism for decades, and doesn’t appear to be doing much damage {but it certainly is} and fascism is something that starts and in few years rapidly falls a part, though could take decades to “fix”. And fixing is like putting a cast on broken leg- it’s not really curing, but seems better, and is better in sense it might continue to get worse. Repeated attempts of fascism, leads to statism, and US has huge amount of statism, which is just limited to the Federal government, but federal government certainly encourages it everywhere.
Soviets had competing “companies” regarding their space activity {and I guess with other stuff] and sort like US big 3 car companies. Either could be call statism- but both had some level of competition involved.
Of course with US, small companies are the economy and drive the US economy. Also one might say the 3 big car companies in US have useful function of being distraction to governments from doing even more harm to economy. All the big companies are all pols tiny skulls can see- and as significant source campaign funding and most amount of lobbying.
And likewise currently the giant tech companies are being helpful in distracting government, but could take over the government- or currently seem to controlling the elections- though some claim AI is in control. I tend to think AI is sort of the new fascism- and likewise is inherently unstable. AI can’t win, humans will continue to be the top predator- though obviously a top predator with ever increasing tool kit.
God save the poor space aliens.
Related:
–“What’s changing is our response to these phenomena. Each crisis is presented as an opportunity to save humanity, and each requires giving more control to central planners.
Whether one would agree with all of the arguments, I would not call the linked essay a “fisking.”
The author lists what are considered to be the Tenets of Fascism, and then writes an essay, point-by-point, how those Tenets are misapplied and misunderstood.
Someone could complain that ascribing this understanding to Liberals/Progressives is a “straw-man argument.” President Obama, frequently ascribed beliefs or modes of understanding to Conservatives/Libertarians, and he was called out for offering a “straw-man argument” in many cases.
That said, the article is refreshingly not a fisking (should I use NOT for Internet emphasis?). I hate, hate, with a white-hot hate where people take a paragraph someone else has written and intersperse it with snarky remarks how the author is wrong. I hate this style of writing in responding to review commentary in a scholarly paper, and I eschew doing it. I hate it when smart-Aleks on Slashdot “rebut” or “fact-check” someone else’s post this way, as I hate the words rebut or fact-check, and I apply this equally to the Left and the Right.
“I hate, hate, with a white-hot hate where people take a paragraph someone else has written and intersperse it with snarky remarks how the author is wrong.”
How do you reference the words of another without a quote and isn’t a quote a better way to present information to the reader than the characterization of the words of another? Is it the length of fisking that is the issue, where everything is gone over rather than just a few bits pulled out?
Quote the sentence, the paragraph or the whatever.
Then offer your counterargument.
This business of interspersing portions of a quote with snippets of response is lame.
It does make it hard to read and is often disjointed, especially the longer it gets.
Fascism is a type of government.
It was Italian type of government.
It basically idea is about a government being able run things better, and the self proclaimed fascist Italian government attempted to run many things, like railroads, better.
Or government running railroad could similar to the Italian fascist government.
Anyone supports a government running a railroad could be called a believer of fascist governments.
The Italian fascist government appear to many people which were involved government everywhere around world to be good idea. President Wilson was fascist. Some one who agree:
Woodrow Wilson: America’s Worst and First Fascist President
https://conservativecolloquium.wordpress.com/2008/05/29/woodrow-wilson-americas-worst-and-first-fascist-president/
A problem for fascists is having a good excuse for a government to do something that government should not do.
In some instances, it could be or might be good idea for a government to “take over” a business. It generally related to emergency situations and during times of war. One say Trump did “fascist move” when forced companies to make ventilators and other things related to China Pandemic. But it’s not really a “fascists move” as Trump was following US law. Or it’s known and made into law that it was allowable in an emergency situation. Or if there was not really a actual pandemic and Trump said it emergency and it wasn’t an emergency- then that would actually be a “fascist move”.
But Amtrak can be called fascist or socialist.
Since a war, could regarded as an emergency, having more wars, or calling thing wars {War on Poverty or War of Drugs] can be excuse for government doing things, it should not do.
Probably biggest thing in US related to Fascism is related to classified material. Or a government of free people should not have things which are secret- but on matters of war, secrets are regarded as needed. But there is no need for the amount stuff which is classified and it seems people who should not know classify material, know it, and general public doesn’t. Or if wrong people know it, the whole idea is pointless and expensive activity.
Anyhow a lot things could said to fascist.
But in terms big picture, saying the world is going to end {when it’s not} is quite fascist. Green New Deal is exactly Fascist or government that wants to control every aspect of everyone’s lives.
The insane idea that the problem is the people who being governed are too stupid, and government is smarter and are more capable to do things better, is entire idea behind fascism.
But NASA could viewed as following a fascist idea- not saying it could not have some good excuses for it. And to degree that NASA attempts to get private sector involved with things related to space- that soften it’s obvious fascist foundation. But when NASA wants to mine the Moon- well, there you go.
“The Nazis were Marxists, no matter what our tainted academia and corrupt media wishes us to believe. Nazis, Bolsheviks, the Ku Klux Klan, Maoists, radical Islam and Facists — all are on the Left, something that should be increasingly apparent to decent, honorable people in our times. The Big Lie which places Nazis on some mythical Far Right was created specifically so that there would be a bogeyman manacled on the wrists of those who wish us to move “too far” in the direction of Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater. ” – “The Nazis Were Marxists” – Bruce Walker, American Thinker, 11/25/07
To see where Nazism/Fascism falls on the political spectrum all one has to do (besides ignore what your college professor and the media tells you and instead look at their policies and note how they follow the standard socialist agenda of government control) is to go back to pre WWII and see who was singing the praises of Adolf and Benito (as well as Uncle Joe in the USSR) in the US and UK. It was the leftists, the socialists. In academia and media. But once the evil nature of their true intentions became realized the leftists had to distance themselves from these tyrants (well, not Uncle Joe because he was on our side. After dividing Poland with Adolf that is). So they started spreading the lie that Adolf, Benito and all fascism (which is nothing more than a particular “flavor” of socialism) was right wing. They have done this now for ~80 years and the majority of the media elite, academia, Hollywood etc. have spread this lie because it suits their own political agenda while the masses accept it blindly because that’s what they’ve been taught.
All totalitarian systems are “left wing” because all totalitarian systems by definition depend on centralized government control to maintain control over the people. Nazis would certainly qualify as would the Communists.
There is nothing in right wing / conservative / libertarian political philosophy that can create any sort of dictatorship because the central guiding philosophy of TRUE right wing political philosophy is small, non-centralized government. A dictator cannot control a country or it’s people with a small non centralized right wing government therefore a right-wing dictator is a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron.
The left has warped the definitions of left wing / right wing political theory to the point of being meaningless solely in an attempt to recast THEIR GUY Hitler (and he was the left’s guy, and proudly so, up until he started killing too many people) as a “right winger”. If examined closely it just doesn’t work, you have to jump through too many hoops to come to the conclusion the left wants you to come to. It has only survived this long because the leftist media / academia / entertainment industry are willing participants in the charade and because we on the right have not fought back against the lie.
Hitler is right wing, if you put the dividing line between Hitler and Uncle Joe, which is where the left wishes to be. Hitler is far left, if you put the dividing line somewhere closer to those that fought hard to free the United States from the truly oppressive governments of Europe. IOW, I agree other than to use the left’s argument to frame who they are.
“The left has warped the definitions of left wing / right wing political theory to the point of being meaningless solely in an attempt to recast THEIR GUY Hitler (and he was the left’s guy, and proudly so, up until he started killing too many people)”
Actually, till the day after the Germans abandoned the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact when Operation Barbarossa commenced.
Good point, I should have stated “up until he started killing the wrong people”
Well, to understand the progressive left-right axis when it comes to communists vs fascists vs Nazis, you have to understand that they’re using a fashion scale. If the uniforms are really snazzy and the officer’s wives are dressed to the nines, it’s a right-wing government. If instead the officers and their wives like they’re refugees who just abandoned their potato farm, it’s a left-wing government.
Their understanding really doesn’t go any deeper than that.
The main thing I notice about these lists of fascist characteristics (apparently popular with the Stupid Left, where New Left and Old Left shake hands with the Dumbest Generation) is the absence of The Elephant in the Room: statism. How are you going to have an intelligent discussion of fascism without mentioning statism?
statism suggests to me, a more established fascism.
Or one can lives with statism for decades, and doesn’t appear to be doing much damage {but it certainly is} and fascism is something that starts and in few years rapidly falls a part, though could take decades to “fix”. And fixing is like putting a cast on broken leg- it’s not really curing, but seems better, and is better in sense it might continue to get worse. Repeated attempts of fascism, leads to statism, and US has huge amount of statism, which is just limited to the Federal government, but federal government certainly encourages it everywhere.
Soviets had competing “companies” regarding their space activity {and I guess with other stuff] and sort like US big 3 car companies. Either could be call statism- but both had some level of competition involved.
Of course with US, small companies are the economy and drive the US economy. Also one might say the 3 big car companies in US have useful function of being distraction to governments from doing even more harm to economy. All the big companies are all pols tiny skulls can see- and as significant source campaign funding and most amount of lobbying.
And likewise currently the giant tech companies are being helpful in distracting government, but could take over the government- or currently seem to controlling the elections- though some claim AI is in control. I tend to think AI is sort of the new fascism- and likewise is inherently unstable. AI can’t win, humans will continue to be the top predator- though obviously a top predator with ever increasing tool kit.
God save the poor space aliens.
Related:
–“What’s changing is our response to these phenomena. Each crisis is presented as an opportunity to save humanity, and each requires giving more control to central planners.
Rahm Emmanuel popularized the phrase “Never let a good crisis go to waste,” but it was economist Robert Higgs who showed that crises are the mortal enemy of liberty. His great work Crisis and Leviathan lays bare the state’s tradition of claiming new powers during emergencies, powers that rarely are relinquished fully when the crisis ends.–
https://fee.org/articles/forest-fires-aren-t-at-historic-highs-in-the-united-states-not-even-close/
Inked from:
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/
The “Never let a good crisis go to waste,” is fascist.