MayorofOysterville
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User ID: 3800
MayorofOysterville
8hr ago
Fascism has always been pretty hard to define because it was disparate, but it was always conceived of as a third way instead of democracy or Communism and something different then the plethora of conservative parties that existed all over Europe in the interwar period. It was revolutionary and saw the state as the chief power with which to mold society in an alternative modernity. There was also a fair bit of anti-clericalism though the western Fascists tended to see a strong role for the church though even here Franco had to create a coalition of the Falange and Carlists showing that they weren't just the same even there.
Of course when people use Fascism as a sneer word they aren't talking about 1920s Italian Futurism or the Fascist international, they are talking about the Nazis and trying tar someone by association with that and the Nazis and the Nazis were anything but standard boring God and country conservatives.
I fail to see how Singapore could be viewed as Fascist in anyway they have free and fair elections in a Westminster system and all their institutions are a legacy of England. Their laws may be harsh but anyone arrested has the rights of Englishmen and a fair trial they aren't going to summarily execute you. China closer but given they explicitly promote racial harmony and still want to achieve Communism, well idk. I don't think anyone is really Fascist, which was at best only vaguely defined and what people want to do is associate it with the Nazis which well even Neo-Nazis don't really believe the tenants of National Socialism it's dead German ideology that people set up as a scarecrow.
MayorofOysterville
1d ago
The Nazis were in many ways closer to Mao then Xi Jinping. They had all sorts of revolutionary plans for society they just put them on hold until the end of the war.
Sure and that all makes sense and I don't doubt that Francoist Spain would be reviled as Fascist. One of my hobby horses is that Fascist doesn't simply mean "right wing Authoritarian" The Fascist movements in Italy and especially Germany conceived of themselves as revolutionary and I personally do think they represented a true third way. Nazi Germany really represented something new, closer to ancient Assyria or the Khmer Rouge then the stodgy conservative Catholic governments that existed after or that Franco represented. The Nazis considered destroying Catholicism in Germany after the war for example and planned to create their own syncretic new religion.
Though Spain certainly was part of a moment in the 30s as you mention. But I think Spain's coalition of rightwing groups as a opposed to a unitary Fascist state together with Franco created a moderating influence that we wouldn't see in an ascendant Germany and to a lesser extent Italy.
MayorofOysterville
1d ago
Sure but the requirements listed were, not ruled over by people who hate you and low taxes.
MayorofOysterville
1d ago
We know that Ilhan Omar is not an American because she is a tribal person from a tribal society. She doesn’t dress like an American, talk like an American, eat like an American, pray like an American, or even think like an American. Moreover, she doesn’t want to. She wants to use her political power to extract kickbacks for her foreign tribal co-ethnics. She didn’t become an American out of any strong belief in the American Way, the American Dream, abiding future in the American way, etc. etc. SWe know that Ilhan Omar is not an American because she is a tribal person from a tribal society. She doesn’t dress like an American, talk like an American, eat like an American, pray like an American, or even think like an American. Moreover, she doesn’t want to. She wants to use her political power to extract kickbacks for her foreign tribal co-ethnics. She didn’t become an American out of any strong belief in the American Way, the American Dream, abiding future in the American way, etc. etc.
This is interesting to me because I have almost the exactly the opposite view of Ilhan Omar. I view her clothes an an exotic costume but hse herself is deeply deeply American, wherever her "Somali tribalism" would conflict with progressive orthodoxly, she caves to progressive orthodoxy. How does she pray? I suspect like most progressives she doesn't. She wears a hijab but I doubt she looks down on women who don't and her daughter certainly doesn't. She acts from public speaking like dozens of Americans I met in university and very little like a proper actual foreigner. The progressiveness that drips off her is incredibly Western. And she's married to a non-Muslim white man, that's enough to get a proper Somali woman killed. She is in every sense of the word totally assimilated.
MayorofOysterville
1d ago
I wasn't saying they were. Just that a gun ban would likely prevent them.
MayorofOysterville
1d ago
Does Communism work? No. Never.
Do right wing dictatorships work? Sometimes, with a large range of outcomes including very bad ones.
The CCP seem to be outpacing any right wing dictatorship by any metric you could name.
Does Democracy work? Yes, usually, although highly dependent on the intelligence of the voters and susceptible to takeover by communists.
What democracies, besides Venezuela, have been taken over by Communists. I don't think it's ever happened in a middle or high income country or really basically ever outside of Venezuela or basically non functioning African countries that could hardly be called democracies. So that leaves us with a data point of one against Europe, South America and a fair bit of Asia.
If your Democracy gets corrupted by communism, is it worth rolling the dice on a right wing dictatorship? Maybe, depending on how bad things get. In the US or Europe, almost certainly not. In Brazil... maybe.
What did Lula do that was so bad last time that it's worth throwing out democracy for. The great thing about democracy is if Lula fucks up the economy or whatever he can just be voted out.
MayorofOysterville
1d ago
Which notably was not Fascist. The Falange were the the Fascists party in Spain and if they'd had their way Spain would have joined the war and been bombed to rubble with the other Fascist powers.
MayorofOysterville
1d ago
Ilhan Omar acts nothing like a typical Somali woman. She's educated a divorcee, totally independent of her husbands or any man and supports Gay marriage and trans rights. She's incredibly assimilated!
MayorofOysterville
1d ago
How is it not? Ultra-nationalist racial supremacists turns out they don't like other races I'm shocked. The Japanese treated the white people under their rule pretty terribly and they had a significantly white city in Harbin at the time. If you mean some sort of East Asian non-democratic technocracy well that's hardly what people mean by facism.
I feel like you and Opt-out are treating Fascism the way campus leftists treat socialism. Actual existing Fascism was not about raising prosperity for everyone with competent government, it was about raising prosperity for the chosen group.
Nobody in S America could ever convince me that Democracy is better than Fascism.
Actually existing Fascism ended up with their cities reduced to rubble and their countries occupied by foreigners which a way worse outcome then electing some leftist. If you just mean right wing authoritarian governments South America had plenty of those too and it's not like they had spectacular results. Chile did but it also didn't all collapse when democracy was restored and they voted for leftwing parties. Do you really think life will be dramatically different under Lula then Bolsonaro? Both Lula and Bolsonaro's father were presidents before it hardly seem like a crisis. Jetisoning democracy gives the government way too much power which works ok if they are competent in South America this is unlikely regardless of if they are rightwing or leftwing.
Modern Brazil itself is the product of a rightwing dictatorship. Which hardly makes going back to that any kind of panacea。
MayorofOysterville
1d ago
On the other hand, I’m not sure how you really stop something like this
Armed response on campus with proper rifles and body armor. In some kind of command center with cameras over the school. Not a security guard walking around with a pistol. Sounds insane the euros would sneer but it's probably what's needed and would cost less than people think. Outside of the cost to create some secure room, just cut two school administrators and hire ex-military combat arms.
MayorofOysterville
1d ago
Your not wrong and America is too awash with guns to make any ban effective. However, most school shooters lack the connections to get illegal firearms. I don't think we should ban guns but a gun ban would likely significantly reduce school shootings.
As terrible as the idea sounds, the only thing we can probably do to is to in some form or fashion make sure that the places where shootings are likely to happen have at least someone who is armed
Schools having an arms room with at least two men on duty with M16s and body armor should do it. It's politically a non starter but it would work and wouldn't even be that expensive. Just cut two school admin flunkies and replace them with ex-infantry or current national guard.
MayorofOysterville
7d ago
Singapore and to a lesser extent Dubai fit this.
MayorofOysterville
7d ago
Singapore fits most of those. You'll likely need to live in an apartment in a tower block though. Still it's a conservative common law country.
MayorofOysterville
7d ago
A financial situation is not a constant. You can improve it. Look at Hickman he joined the US Coast Guard and now he has the finance to do all that. If you join the military with an eye towards law enforcement or healthcare, you'll get skills for a job plus the VA loan for a house and the GI bill for a free degree.
Now I don't know your situation and maybe age or health preclude you from that. But a decent enough paying job to buy some land in rural America is a very modest attainable goal with many many paths there.
MayorofOysterville
7d ago
I just meant that they can raise their kids to follow their values outside of the failings of the American lower class without large amounts of money.
MayorofOysterville
8d ago
There may be some prestige in going your own way and blazing a trail, but it quickly wears off when faced with the prospect of never achieving much of anything, never advancing much of anything, and never being much of a "somebody" at all.
i guess I'm not sure that I consider most white collar workers who live in the suburbs to have much prestige or "be somebodies"
This is kind of what I expected. A lot of these kind of grouchy iconoclastic guys do a ton of work to carve out their own path but then lack any kind of community and their kids just leave because there's not a community for them to become an adult in. I wrote a longer post above but his entire problem basically boils down to lack of any community that shares his ideas.
It seems like his real problem is not lack of money but lack of community. If you gather 5 large families that's enough to form homeschool group and friends for the kids, if you can't well... that's the problem. The Hasdics don't money to do all this the Amish don't either because they have a real community. If he's Catholic why can't his kids be homeschooled and make friends at church? You need a community for your kids to grow up in and into.
And his idea of Nantucket? of all places? Like moving to a very blue place in Massachusetts is going to lead his kids to be conservative Catholics and a state where it's considered child abuse to not transition your kids. There are dozens of states where childhood transition is illegal he could go there. Or St. Mary's the tradcath Mecca.
Ultimately though I think your wrong about family autonomy. He has family autonomy no one is going to force him to stop going to Church and if he doesn't like how the state educates his children he is free to do it himself or move to a state that's more in line with his values. Now I agree that the schools teaching weird gender stuff is a problem I really do. However, the issue he is really worried about is not family autonomy it's that his kids will convert to a different ideology do to him being a lone man in the sea of mass society. If the schools were that powerful they'd convert all the Muslim youth in Europe into good therapeutic deist liberals who support LGBTQ+.
Anyway you really don't need to deal with any of it if you don't want to. You just need to move to a red county in a red state and turn off the internet and get involved with the school board. Ideally somewhere like Wyoming or Nevada where the population is more libertarian. That's it. It‘s really not that hard or insurmountable.
MayorofOysterville
8d ago
I don't think many were suggesting total subsistence farming. There's enough jobs in healthcare, education, resource extraction and law enforcement to find something decent in a rural area. Especially the first two as it's hard to get PMC types to move out there.
MayorofOysterville
9d ago
There are still all male country clubs and a lot of the fraternal organization are all male, fraternities too.
MayorofOysterville
10d ago
There is a draft and obviously some people don't want to. But polling and Ukrainian politics show high support for the war. Armies which actually don't want to fight tend to disintegrate. See Afghanistan.
MayorofOysterville
11d ago
In other words they completely lack the libertarian, don't-tread-on-me attitude that pervades the current Red Tribe. American conservatism as thought of by its mostly white practitioners
Is this a majority of Republicans? It certainly describes a faction of Republicans and likely the majority in places like Nevada and Wyoming. But the religious right when it was ascendant certainly didn't have those attitudes.
This is a horrible idea, because it's introducing so many loosely controlled guns into the school environment. Easy for a teacher to leave one in the bathroom accidently or students to nick them. You want dedicated armed security and some form of arms locker. Not teachers going about their day with guns.
Edit: I see I misread your comment seems we agree.
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