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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   28522 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 21, 2025

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I don't know exactly what your ideology is, but murdering the disabled for being a burden is a thing I associate with liberal democracies like Canada, or with Nazi Germany(as far as I know there were not other fascist regimes that did this). It's not exactly associated with monarchism or reactionary government generally.

but murdering the disabled for being a burden is a thing I associate with liberal democracies like Canada

It wouldn't be my disability that would get me executed; that would just get me cut off from the welfare teat and left to starve. No, I'd expect it to be my atheism that would do it.

I mean, reactionary authoritarian governments are generally not interested in interrogating random poor people about their innermost beliefs. American Franco would be content if you just shut up.

Modern "reactionary authoritarian governments" are still too modern — I don't recall any of them restoring feudalism and hereditary aristocracy, let alone pre-Reformation attitudes on the role of the Church. Franco was, ultimately, a failure, primarily because he wasn't nearly reactionary enough.

Franco was a failure because of a handful of specific mistakes- among them choosing a compromise candidate for the throne rather than a carlist and choosing to repress the basques.

All of these had reasonable explanations at the time, and probably would have been survivable if it wasn’t for Vatican II. The Catholic Church bureaucrats maintaining his regime(fascism does not have enough staying power) were very affected by this. ‘Not enough power for the Catholic church’ is a baffling criticism of Franco.

Franco, like Emperor Franz Joseph, committed the grace political mistake of living too long.

‘Not enough power for the Catholic church’ is a baffling criticism of Franco.

Which is why my criticism isn't "not enough power for the Catholic church" so much as "didn't turn the clock back far enough, and in too few areas." As you note, fascism does not have enough staying power; I'd say that's because it's way too modern.

Show me a leader who will give his best efforts to roll back every part of society he can — except science and technology — to before 1500 AD, and that would be a proper reactionary.

Edit: as I've said to people before, most Americans' vision of the "sci-fi far future" looks like Star Trek — ranging from TOS for the Republicans to Kurtzman's abominations for the Woke (or, for some of the well-read "Grey Tribe" techno-optimists in places like this, it looks something like "The Culture" (shudders)).

Me? It looks more like Battletech, Dune, or Warhammer 40,000.

Your ideal society is western Saudi Arabia?

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