What is Fascism? (And related ideologies)

[Yatogami]

 I am going to go out of my way to break down what Fascism is, and what isn't Fascism. Since everyone seems to have no fucking idea today, what it is apparently. So hopefully this will be informative to some of you.

 

 

(Btw, this wasn't from Churchill, but I could not find the original author)

 

There is no single definition of "Fascism". Since is a very complex spectrum of government, and control. You also might have noticed, that Google recently changed the definition to "Right-wing extremism" recently. This is factually and historically false. (This is also Fascism, ironically) "Fascism" is neither Right nor Left wing. It is neither. (Also Google has become biased as fuck, over the last couple of years. They also helped fund Clinton's campaign, and started censoring results. I used their search engine for a long time. One day, Id be googling stories and find them easy. Then in the next day, after new "Stories" came out that I knew I would have to debate. The same stories I googled yesterday, were suddenly gone)

 

"Fascism" is simply the method of control, rather than what it contains. A Fascist government, would not have elections, and is usually run by a "Leader" of absolute power. Its methods of control, would usually revolve around "Psychological warfare", and militaristic actions. Fascism revolves around promoting "Nationalism" (Not to be confused with Nazi socialism, which is a combination of other factors as well) as a method of unity. You make people love their country, tell them its the best, and they work together to make it a reality. (America has always been low-key Nationalist btw) A Fascist dictator, would do anything to make this a reality. m. 

 

Nationalism, is an independent belief/Concept. Separate from a form of government. Nationalism, isn't always paired with "Fascism" and can be part of Democratic governments as well. For example, "Patriotism" is a form of Nationalism. There is also things like "Sports Nationalism" where you root for your country's team. (The Olympics). So it isn't inherently a bad thing, but it was used for bad things, which gave it a stigma. Like what Hitler did, employing Fascism, Nationalism, and a combination of Capitalistic and Marxist methods. (Nazi socialism, isn't right wing either. Since Hitler hated both Capitalists and Marxists, his country was Authoritarian Centrist). Fascism, and Marxism have many similarities as well. Marxism, is the fascism of the social scale. Which is why it was such a dangerous mix at the time. (A perfect example of a very Nationalistic country, is Japan)

 

I'll include Paxton's 7 stages of Fascism: (With thoughts, and on how I see Fascism today)

 

The primacy of the group. Supporting the group feels more important than maintaining either individual or universal rights. (The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few)

 

Believing that one's group is a victim. This justifies any behavior against the group's enemies. (We are being oppressed, but we can't tell you by whom. WE just know we are. Therefor we are going to riot, and attack anyone who opposes us or disagrees with our sentiment.) 

 

The belief that individualism and liberalism enable dangerous decadence and have a negative effect on the group. (The fall of Morality, Rise of Hedonism, and the prevalence of degeneracy will destroy the country)

 

A strong sense of community or brotherhood. This brotherhood's "unity and purity are forged by common conviction, if possible, or by exclusionary violence if necessary." (United by culture, and common interests.)

 

Individual self-esteem is tied up in the grandeur of the group. Paxton called this an "enhanced sense of identity and belonging." (IF our country is winning, you are winning)

 

Extreme support of a "natural" leader, who is always male. This results in one man taking on the role of national savior. (Insert anyone you imagine as the best leader here, that is also a man)

 

"The beauty of violence and of will, when they are devoted to the group's success in a Darwinian struggle," Paxton wrote. The idea of a naturally superior group or, especially in Hitler's case, biological racism, fits into a fascist interpretation of Darwinism.  (Survival of the fittest, no helping the poor and weak. Dog eat dog world)

 

 

So what things does Fascism have in common with Marxism, Socialism, etc? I will define (Using Google): (I will include what I saw, during the recent election for examples, so yes it will seem a bit biased)

 

Propaganda: information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. (Aka, any "News" that is trying to spell out a Narrative that Hillary Clinton was fucking amazing. Telling everyone Trump is literally Hitler)

 

Censorship: the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security. (Political correctness, removal of opposing information through any means. Controlling the source of all information such as all of media, the internet, and destroying privacy. Shutting down any kind of "leaks", usually with the threat of violence. Remember that movie "V for Vendetta" and how they bagged people and you never saw them again? That kind of censorship is the result for treading the Slippery slope with censorship. That is why you must not tread on it AT ALL.)

 

Scapegoating: is the practice of singling out any party for unmerited negative treatment or blame as a scapegoat. (Things like "All white people are racist", or advocating for violence against people who have different political opinions of you "#punchanazi #supporttrumpgetjumped)

 

Powergrabbing: When the government seeks to gain more power, either by devious methods, or straight out "You cannot stop me". (The government telling you there is a problem, then selling a "Solution" to you is the most common way they do this. For example: "Our country is being invaded by ISIS, you must let us go through all your private information so we can find the culprits and prosecuting them. So vote for X bill, so we can catch those terrorists! Thus, under the guise of safety, you just gave away another one of your rights.)

 

 

 

If you fight against fascism too long, you become a fascist yourself.

[Anthracite_Impreza]

I love how you completely ignored all the propaganda, nationalism and distrust of the media (the media's against you, I'm the real saviour) Trump spewed out.

[Yatogami]

11 minutes ago, Anthracite_Impreza said:

I love how you completely ignored all the propaganda, nationalism and distrust of the media (the media's against you, I'm the real saviour) Trump spewed out.

I didn't say it, because the same thing can be said for anything the Left also spews out. I also mentioned my statements would be biased. So... Also, propaganda is the tool for both Marxists/socialists and Fascists. Both sides are guilty of it.

 

This thread also isn't about whether or not Trump is a Fascist or a Nationalist. It is about knowing what it is. I think he has some Nationalist views personally. Fascist though? No. Because Trump's personality, and how he reacts to things. Sure he might get mad at someone, and call for something. Doesn't mean he is going to do it. So until he actually starts doing, instead of saying. Then its fine. We must not dissolved the barrier between words and violence. 

 

 

[SithAzathoth WinterDragon]

All media is propaganda, they do nothing but spread lies, or they share half the story changing it into something that it isn't which starts protests which lead to a lot more than what is intended. 

[Rynn]

What you posted were not the seven stages of fascism according to paxton. Paxton only named five (different from yours):

Spoiler

In his 1998 paper "The Five Stages of Fascism," he suggests that fascism cannot be defined solely by its ideology, since fascism is a complex political phenomenon rather than a relatively coherent body of doctrine like communism or socialism. Instead, he focuses on fascism's political context and functional development. The article identifies five paradigmatic stages of a fascist movement, although he notes that only Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy progressed through all five:

1. Intellectual exploration, where disillusionment with popular democracy manifests itself in discussions of lost national vigor
2. Rooting, where a fascist movement, aided by political deadlock and polarization, becomes a player on the national stage
3. Arrival to power, where conservatives seeking to control rising leftist opposition invite the movement to share power
4. Exercise of power, where the movement and its charismatic leader control the state in balance with state institutions such as the police and traditional elites such as the clergy and business magnates.
5. Radicalization or entropy, where the state either becomes increasingly radical, as did Nazi Germany, or slips into traditional authoritarian rule, as did Fascist Italy.^[6]

In his 2004 book The Anatomy of Fascism, Paxton refines his five-stage model and puts forward the following definition for fascism:

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.^[7]

Managed to find a free pdf of this book online: https://libcom.org/files/Robert O. Paxton-The Anatomy of Fascism -Knopf (2004).pdf

This is the conclusion to his book. It mentions the things you posted. They're underlying ideas or 'mobilizing passions' of fascism, they aren't fascism itself.

Spoiler

What Is Fascism?

The moment has come to give fascism a usable short handle, even though we know that it encompasses its subject no better than a snapshot encompasses
a person.

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

To be sure, political behavior requires choices, and choices—as my critics hasten to point out—bring us back to underlying ideas. Hitler and Mussolini, scornful of the “materialism” of socialism and liberalism, insisted on the centrality of ideas to their movements. Not so, retorted many antifascists who refuse to grant them such dignity. “National Socialism’s ideology is constantly shifting,” Franz Neumann observed. “It has certain magical beliefs—leadership adoration, supremacy of the master race—but [it] is not laid down in a series of categorical and dogmatic pronouncements.” On this point, this book is drawn toward Neumann’s position, and I examined at some length in chapter the peculiar relationship of fascism to its ideology—simultaneously proclaimed as central, yet amended or violated as expedient. Nevertheless, fascists knew what they wanted. One cannot banish ideas from the study of fascism, but one can situate them accurately among all the factors that influence this complex phenomenon. One can steer between two extremes: fascism consisted neither of the uncomplicated application of its program, nor of freewheeling opportunism.

I believe that the ideas that underlie fascist actions are best deduced from those actions, for some of them remain unstated and implicit in fascist public language. Many of them belong more to the realm of visceral feelings than to the realm of reasoned propositions. In chapter 2 I called them “mobilizing passions”:

• a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of any traditional solutions;
• the primacy of the group, toward which one has duties superior to every right, whether individual or universal, and the subordination of the individual to it;
• the belief that one’s group is a victim, a sentiment that justifies any action, without legal or moral limits, against its enemies, both internal and external;
• dread of the group’s decline under the corrosive effects of individualistic liberalism, class conflict, and alien influences;

• the need for closer integration of a purer community, by consent if possible, or by exclusionary violence if necessary;
• the need for authority by natural chiefs (always male), culminating in a national chieftain who alone is capable of incarnating the group’s historical destiny;
• the superiority of the leader’s instincts over abstract and universal reason;
• the beauty of violence and the efficacy of will, when they are devoted to the group’s success;
• the right of the chosen people to dominate others without restraint from any kind of human or divine law, right being decided by the sole criterion of the group’s prowess within a Darwinian struggle.

Fascism according to this definition, as well as behavior in keeping with these feelings, is still visible today. Fascism exists at the level of Stage One within all democratic countries—not excluding the United States. “Giving up free institutions,” especially the freedoms of unpopular groups, is recurrently attractive to citizens of Western democracies, including some Americans. We know from tracing its path that fascism does not require a spectacular “march” on some capital to take root; seemingly anodyne decisions to tolerate lawless treatment of national “enemies” is enough. Something very close to classical fascism has reached Stage Two in a few deeply troubled societies. Its further progress is not inevitable, however. Further fascist advances toward power depend in part upon the severity of a crisis, but also very largely upon human choices, especially the choices of those holding economic, social, and political power. Determining the appropriate responses to fascist gains is not easy, since its cycle is not likely to repeat itself blindly. We stand a much better chance of responding wisely, however, if we understand how fascism succeeded in the past.

 

Why did you decide to make up your own definition of fascism instead of just picking one of the already existing ones, or just picking the one Paxton wrote in the same chapter you quoted?

Wikipedia on the definition of fascism:

Spoiler

What constitutes a definition of fascism and fascist governments is a highly disputed subject that has proven complicated and contentious. Historians, political scientists, and other scholars have engaged in long and furious debates concerning the exact nature of fascism and its core tenets.

 

A significant number of scholars agree that a "fascist regime" is foremost an authoritarian form of government, although not all authoritarian regimes are fascist. Authoritarianism is thus a defining characteristic, but most scholars will say that more distinguishing traits are needed to make an authoritarian regime fascist.^[1]

 

Similarly, fascism as an ideology is also hard to define. Originally, "fascism" referred to a political movement that was linked with corporatism and existed in Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. Many scholars use the word "fascism" without capitalization in a more general sense, to refer to an ideology (or group of ideologies) that was influential in many countries at many different times. For this purpose, they have sought to identify what Griffin calls a "fascist minimum"—that is, the minimum conditions that a certain political movement must meet in order to be considered "fascist".^[2]

 

Several scholars have inspected the apocalyptic, millennial and millenarian aspects of fascism.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8][9]} According to most scholars of fascism, there are both left and right influences on fascism as a social movement, and fascism, especially once in power, has historically attacked communism, conservatism and liberalism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism The wikipedia article then explains 19 different ways of defining fascism. If you want to debate all of those, we're going to be here for a while. 

 

And what source did you get these from?:

 

So what things does Fascism have in common with Marxism, Socialism, etc?

• Propaganda
• Censorship
• Scapegoating
• Powergrabbing

What do propaganda, censorship, scapegoating and powergrabbing have to do with socialism? You didn't mention socialism in your explanations of these concepts even once, and it sure isn't obvious how a mostly economic, fiscal ideology has anything to do with propaganda or scapegoating. And what kind of socialism are you even talking about? Socialism as it exists in many western european countries today? Socialism as it existed in China in the 1950's? Those things are radically different. Some forms of socialism are radically anti-capitalist, while others build on capitalism. 'Socialism' is too broad of a concept to conclusively say anything about it other than Wikipedia's characterization: Although there are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them, social ownership is the common element shared by its various forms. 

 

And what do those bulletpoints have to do with Marxism? Marxism isn't even a political ideology. It's descriptive, not prescriptive (marxism is an analysis describing historic class struggles based on Hegel's philosophy of 'thesis - anthithesis -> synthesis', it's not telling you to do anything with that information). It would be less of a stretch to connect those bullet points to Marxist-inspired Leninism.. Is that what you meant?

 

And what do you mean with 'etc'? What other ideologies are included in 'etc'?

 

And I don't think it's fair for you to say that we can't mention Donald Trump because this thread is about the definition of fascism, but you yourself do keep bringing up the supposed fascist tendencies of a mythical monolithic 'Left' (even broader and vaguer than 'socialism'). You've got to play by your own rules here.

 

And really, political correctness isn't censorship. Censorship is something the government does. The government isn't locking anyone up for having unpopular opinions. They may be locking people up for threatening other people, but that's because that's a criminal offense.

Google can restrict access all it wants, doesn't make it censorship. Google is a company that can do whatever it wants with its products. 

 

And you really think white people and nazis are being scapegoated more than muslims? How...? What? 

[ChillaKilla]

@Laurann IKR? Like the left is TOTALLY the only ideology to use propaganda and scapegoating...

[Yatogami]

14 minutes ago, Laurann said:

What you posted were not the seven stages of fascism according to paxton. Paxton only named five (different from yours):

  Reveal hidden contents

In his 1998 paper "The Five Stages of Fascism," he suggests that fascism cannot be defined solely by its ideology, since fascism is a complex political phenomenon rather than a relatively coherent body of doctrine like communism or socialism. Instead, he focuses on fascism's political context and functional development. The article identifies five paradigmatic stages of a fascist movement, although he notes that only Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy progressed through all five:

1. Intellectual exploration, where disillusionment with popular democracy manifests itself in discussions of lost national vigor
2. Rooting, where a fascist movement, aided by political deadlock and polarization, becomes a player on the national stage
3. Arrival to power, where conservatives seeking to control rising leftist opposition invite the movement to share power
4. Exercise of power, where the movement and its charismatic leader control the state in balance with state institutions such as the police and traditional elites such as the clergy and business magnates.
5. Radicalization or entropy, where the state either becomes increasingly radical, as did Nazi Germany, or slips into traditional authoritarian rule, as did Fascist Italy.^[6]

In his 2004 book The Anatomy of Fascism, Paxton refines his five-stage model and puts forward the following definition for fascism:

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.^[7]

Managed to find a free pdf of this book online: https://libcom.org/files/Robert O. Paxton-The Anatomy of Fascism -Knopf (2004).pdf

This is the conclusion to his book. It mentions the things you posted. They're underlying ideas or 'mobilizing passions' of fascism, they aren't fascism itself.

  Reveal hidden contents

What Is Fascism?

The moment has come to give fascism a usable short handle, even though we know that it encompasses its subject no better than a snapshot encompasses
a person.

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

To be sure, political behavior requires choices, and choices—as my critics hasten to point out—bring us back to underlying ideas. Hitler and Mussolini, scornful of the “materialism” of socialism and liberalism, insisted on the centrality of ideas to their movements. Not so, retorted many antifascists who refuse to grant them such dignity. “National Socialism’s ideology is constantly shifting,” Franz Neumann observed. “It has certain magical beliefs—leadership adoration, supremacy of the master race—but [it] is not laid down in a series of categorical and dogmatic pronouncements.” On this point, this book is drawn toward Neumann’s position, and I examined at some length in chapter the peculiar relationship of fascism to its ideology—simultaneously proclaimed as central, yet amended or violated as expedient. Nevertheless, fascists knew what they wanted. One cannot banish ideas from the study of fascism, but one can situate them accurately among all the factors that influence this complex phenomenon. One can steer between two extremes: fascism consisted neither of the uncomplicated application of its program, nor of freewheeling opportunism.

I believe that the ideas that underlie fascist actions are best deduced from those actions, for some of them remain unstated and implicit in fascist public language. Many of them belong more to the realm of visceral feelings than to the realm of reasoned propositions. In chapter 2 I called them “mobilizing passions”:

• a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of any traditional solutions;
• the primacy of the group, toward which one has duties superior to every right, whether individual or universal, and the subordination of the individual to it;
• the belief that one’s group is a victim, a sentiment that justifies any action, without legal or moral limits, against its enemies, both internal and external;
• dread of the group’s decline under the corrosive effects of individualistic liberalism, class conflict, and alien influences;

• the need for closer integration of a purer community, by consent if possible, or by exclusionary violence if necessary;
• the need for authority by natural chiefs (always male), culminating in a national chieftain who alone is capable of incarnating the group’s historical destiny;
• the superiority of the leader’s instincts over abstract and universal reason;
• the beauty of violence and the efficacy of will, when they are devoted to the group’s success;
• the right of the chosen people to dominate others without restraint from any kind of human or divine law, right being decided by the sole criterion of the group’s prowess within a Darwinian struggle.

Fascism according to this definition, as well as behavior in keeping with these feelings, is still visible today. Fascism exists at the level of Stage One within all democratic countries—not excluding the United States. “Giving up free institutions,” especially the freedoms of unpopular groups, is recurrently attractive to citizens of Western democracies, including some Americans. We know from tracing its path that fascism does not require a spectacular “march” on some capital to take root; seemingly anodyne decisions to tolerate lawless treatment of national “enemies” is enough. Something very close to classical fascism has reached Stage Two in a few deeply troubled societies. Its further progress is not inevitable, however. Further fascist advances toward power depend in part upon the severity of a crisis, but also very largely upon human choices, especially the choices of those holding economic, social, and political power. Determining the appropriate responses to fascist gains is not easy, since its cycle is not likely to repeat itself blindly. We stand a much better chance of responding wisely, however, if we understand how fascism succeeded in the past.

 

Why did you decide to make up your own definition of fascism instead of just picking one of the already existing ones, or just picking the one Paxton wrote in the same chapter you quoted?

Wikipedia on the definition of fascism:

  Reveal hidden contents

What constitutes a definition of fascism and fascist governments is a highly disputed subject that has proven complicated and contentious. Historians, political scientists, and other scholars have engaged in long and furious debates concerning the exact nature of fascism and its core tenets.

 

A significant number of scholars agree that a "fascist regime" is foremost an authoritarian form of government, although not all authoritarian regimes are fascist. Authoritarianism is thus a defining characteristic, but most scholars will say that more distinguishing traits are needed to make an authoritarian regime fascist.^[1]

 

Similarly, fascism as an ideology is also hard to define. Originally, "fascism" referred to a political movement that was linked with corporatism and existed in Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. Many scholars use the word "fascism" without capitalization in a more general sense, to refer to an ideology (or group of ideologies) that was influential in many countries at many different times. For this purpose, they have sought to identify what Griffin calls a "fascist minimum"—that is, the minimum conditions that a certain political movement must meet in order to be considered "fascist".^[2]

 

Several scholars have inspected the apocalyptic, millennial and millenarian aspects of fascism.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8][9]} According to most scholars of fascism, there are both left and right influences on fascism as a social movement, and fascism, especially once in power, has historically attacked communism, conservatism and liberalism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism The wikipedia article then explains 19 different ways of defining fascism. If you want to debate all of those, we're going to be here for a while. 

 

And what source did you get these from?:

 

So what things does Fascism have in common with Marxism, Socialism, etc?

• Propaganda
• Censorship
• Scapegoating
• Powergrabbing

What do propaganda, censorship, scapegoating and powergrabbing have to do with socialism? You didn't mention socialism in your explanations of these concepts even once, and it sure isn't obvious how a mostly economic, fiscal ideology has anything to do with propaganda or scapegoating. And what kind of socialism are you even talking about? Socialism as it exists in many western european countries today? Socialism as it existed in China in the 1950's? Those things are radically different. Some forms of socialism are radically anti-capitalist, while others build on capitalism. 'Socialism' is too broad of a concept to conclusively say anything about it other than Wikipedia's characterization: Although there are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them, social ownership is the common element shared by its various forms. 

 

And what do those bulletpoints have to do with Marxism? Marxism isn't even a political ideology. It's descriptive, not prescriptive (marxism is an analysis describing historic class struggles based on Hegel's philosophy of 'thesis - anthithesis -> synthesis', it's not telling you to do anything with that information). It would be less of a stretch to connect those bullet points to Marxist-inspired Leninism.. Is that what you meant?

 

And what do you mean with 'etc'? What other ideologies are included in 'etc'?

 

And I don't think it's fair for you to say that we can't mention Donald Trump because this thread is about the definition of fascism, but you yourself do keep bringing up the supposed fascist tendencies of a mythical monolithic 'Left' (even broader and vaguer than 'socialism'). You've got to play by your own rules here.

 

And really, political correctness isn't censorship. Censorship is something the government does. The government isn't locking anyone up for having unpopular opinions. They may be locking people up for threatening other people, but that's because that's a criminal offense.

Google can restrict access all it wants, doesn't make it censorship. Google is a company that can do whatever it wants with its products. 

 

And you really think white people and nazis are being scapegoated more than muslims? How...? What? 

I don't have a lot of time, so I'll be brief in this post.

 

The "7 stages" where not from his book "The 5 stages of Paxton", the excerpts were from somewhere else. Sorry if I caused some confusion there. I also don't understand how you can say a guy, who talks about "Fascism" isn't talking about Fascism. Since there is no true definition of Fascism, you can only talk about what can be observed. So things like "Mobilizing passions" is part of Fascism. The guy is literally talking about how it works. Just because there is no definition, doesn't mean we cannot observe how it works. 

 

Wikipedia isn't a reliable source. There is no proper definition of Fascism, so no. You cannot just pick one. I read a accumulation of things, to help explain what it is. If you want to discuss specifics. I would be glad to. I was just trying to make an overall post. Albeit, I am terrible at articulation. So I am easily misunderstood.

 

AS for the bullet points, those are tools that those ideologies use to accomplish their goals. The Socialism I am referring to is the anti-capitalist type, who hopped on the "Social justice" train and into Law. They will employ similar methods, on the social level to obtain "total control" of the social environment. Allowing the demonization of opposing ideas, the destruction of Freedom of speech, and expression. Perfect example is Social Justice warriors, who do not actually want equality. But to silence those who don't support their views. No matter how much "propaganda", of equality and love and fairness they put out, to rally people to their cause ignorant of the end results. 

 

Your comment about Marxism isn't totally accurate. Marxism, and its related ideology Socialism are ideologies. Since I was not specifically defining everything as a "political structure" and more focused on the methods. 

 

As for the comment about Donald Trump, I don't want to talk about it because its already been said many times on this Forum. I realized you were new. So I will just say this. I have defended Trump against unreasonable bullshit for the last 2 years. I don't want this thread mucked up about stuff I have already debated. The Left in USA, has become extreme left. There is hardly a moderate Left anymore. Which is why I usually equate "The Left" with socialism and Marxism. Me? I am literally the most moderate person on this forum. If you find my views extreme. Then it is possible, you might be an extremist. (I am Centrist, smack dab in the middle of the political map)

 

Political correctness leads to censorship. You cannot honestly say it doesn't. IT is literally a logical slippery slope that results in censorship.

 

Let me break it down for you:

 

People identify as X, and they want everyone to respect them (Despite the fact respect is earned, not given). So they advocate for respect, parade about, and always make themselves out to be helpless victims. Implying no one can call them out on dishonesty, because they are the "victims". Disarming logical arguments. Tearing down anyone that doesn't cater or agree with them. No matter how sensible a counter argument can be, because they "Feel" like X is 100% infallible truth to them. Their X becomes their identity, and the core aspect of their personality. Not their character, not their merit. They become their Label. Then, after initially achieving their goals. They move onto another, if not more vague target. Since in their minds, there is no end goal. They will never be equal. They will never be "Not oppressed". They will keep finding things that offend them. So they go political, and demand establishments to stop the opposition. To be biased against there opposition, because it "Hurts them" despite it just being words. The establishment will always agree, because it can gain more power over freedom of speech. It only agrees, so it can censor, not to help the people being offended. This is how every single "social censorship" will play out. These "People" do not have end goals. Being politically incorrect is not a threat. If you are being arrested for not being politically incorrect. You are experiencing fascist censorship first hand.

 

I never said anything about "More than Muslims". It is not a competition. Scapegoating is scapegoating, no matter who is receiving it. You are not magically excluded from responsibility for your actions, just because you are attacking "The bad guys". Robin Hood was still a thief, and a fugitive. 

 

I love how the moment anyone questions censorship in private companies, all Leftists come beck and call to defend them. Saying it is their right to deny conservatives etc a platform. But the moment a private baking company doesn't want to serve gay customers. They suddenly lose their shit and scream about human rights. Do people not realize this is the same thing, in law? You cannot have both. 

[Yatogami]

21 minutes ago, ChillaKilla said:

@Laurann IKR? Like the left is TOTALLY the only ideology to use propaganda and scapegoating...

Did I say that? Nope. I already said both sides were guilty of things like Propaganda etc. 

 

[LizModel]

3 hours ago, Shieldmaiden WinterDragon said:

All media is propaganda, they do nothing but spread lies, or they share half the story changing it into something

so that they can create a very attractive headline.

[The Terrible Travis]

7 hours ago, スバル said:

AS for the bullet points, those are tools that those ideologies use to accomplish their goals. The Socialism I am referring to is the anti-capitalist type, who hopped on the "Social justice" train and into Law. They will employ similar methods, on the social level to obtain "total control" of the social environment. Allowing the demonization of opposing ideas, the destruction of Freedom of speech, and expression. Perfect example is Social Justice warriors, who do not actually want equality. But to silence those who don't support their views. No matter how much "propaganda", of equality and love and fairness they put out, to rally people to their cause ignorant of the end results. 

 

The Left in USA, has become extreme left. There is hardly a moderate Left anymore. Which is why I usually equate "The Left" with socialism and Marxism. Me? I am literally the most moderate person on this forum. If you find my views extreme. Then it is possible, you might be an extremist. (I am Centrist, smack dab in the middle of the political map)

 

I never said anything about "More than Muslims". It is not a competition. Scapegoating is scapegoating, no matter who is receiving it. You are not magically excluded from responsibility for your actions, just because you are attacking "The bad guys". Robin Hood was still a thief, and a fugitive. 

 

I love how the moment anyone questions censorship in private companies, all Leftists come beck and call to defend them. Saying it is their right to deny conservatives etc a platform. But the moment a private baking company doesn't want to serve gay customers. They suddenly lose their shit and scream about human rights. Do people not realize this is the same thing, in law? You cannot have both. 

So-called "social justice warriors" are not synonymous with socialists.

It makes no sense to say that "there is hardly a moderate left anymore" when what's supposed to be the left-wing party in the United States is to the right of the majority of American citizens. As for whether you're the most moderate member on the forum or not, it depends on one's definition of moderate. If one was to the define moderate as "in agreement with most Americans on the majority of policy positions", then I'd be the most moderate.

Yes, Robin Hood is a thief, but that alone doesn't make him a bad guy or a villain. If anything, he's a hero.

There's a fundamental difference between simply not allowing someone to have a platform and denying someone service on a discriminatory basis. 

[Rynn]

19 hours ago, スバル said:

The "7 stages" where not from his book "The 5 stages of Paxton", the excerpts were from somewhere else. Sorry if I caused some confusion there.

No no, that wasn't confusion. That was me correcting a mistake you made. You misquoted him.

 

19 hours ago, スバル said:

I also don't understand how you can say a guy, who talks about "Fascism" isn't talking about Fascism.

That's not what I said. Of course he's talking about fascism, but what you quoted out of his book wasn't a definition of fascism, and it wasn't 'stages of fascism', it was 'underlying reasons' or 'motivating passions' for fascism. What you quoted was what Paxton says could be the cause for fascism. Fascism is the result. These 'motivating passions' are the cause. They are not fascism itself.

 

19 hours ago, スバル said:

Just because there is no definition, doesn't mean we cannot observe how it works. 

There are tons of definitions. I quoted the one Paxton wrote in my first post. There are 19 other ways of defining it in that wikipedia article I linked to. I just don't think it's fair for you to start making up your own definition, especially since people who have spent their lives studying this still can't agree on a definition, so why would you only give your subjective ideas of what fascism is, and then present it as objective fact? You could at the very least include some other definitions of fascism in your original post, or you could tell us what definitions you based yours on, and why you picked those.

 

19 hours ago, スバル said:

Wikipedia isn't a reliable source.

Yeah neither is your brain. And I linked a whole freaking ebook man. You think a peer-reviewed book written by a guy that spent his entire life studying the definition and works of fascism is less of a reliable source than your interpretation of an accumulation of 'things', while you don't even bother to cite sources on which 'things' you accumulated and interpreted?

In case you missed it, this is his definition:

Spoiler

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

 

19 hours ago, スバル said:

The Socialism I am referring to is the anti-capitalist type, who hopped on the "Social justice" train and into Law.

Social justice and socialism are not inherently linked.

So called 'social justice warriors' are largely not anti-capitalist. They may think capitalism needs to be reined in some more by rules and regulations, but the overwhelming majority would never abolish capitalism in favor of a planned economy.

The only places that kind of radical anti-capitalist socialism was a thing was in communist places like China or Russia decades ago, and even they have abandoned that. It's just not a majorly influential political ideology anymore.

And can you be against social justice? Have you looked up a definition for it?

Spoiler

Social justice: The fair and proper administration of laws conforming to the natural law that all persons, irrespective of ethnic origin, gender, possessions, race, religion, etc., are to be treated equally and without prejudice. 

 

19 hours ago, スバル said:

They will employ similar methods, on the social level to obtain "total control" of the social environment. Allowing the demonization of opposing ideas, the destruction of Freedom of speech, and expression. Perfect example is Social Justice warriors, who do not actually want equality. But to silence those who don't support their views. No matter how much "propaganda", of equality and love and fairness they put out, to rally people to their cause ignorant of the end results. 

Sources please? Have you talked to people you call 'social justice warriors' (which isn't a thing people self-identify with, so I don't think it's a coherent group you can study) and asked them what they 'actually want'? How would 'social justice warriors' destroy the freedom of speech if they're not in power in the government? You do realize that freedom of speech only means that the government shouldn't stand in your way when you are expressing things, right? It doesn't have anything to do with social media or with a 'social environment'. 

People are fully within their right to say things like "I'd rather you didn't say that women belong in the kitchen." That's not censorship. That's simply somebody asking you not to be a dick. It's not like the government is going to come for you if you do say something stupid like that. The people you call 'social justice warriors' don't have that kind of power, and I highly doubt the majority of them would want to throw people in prison for being a dick. Maybe a couple of fringe voices will call for that (I personally haven't seen it, but you seem to think they'd do that), but you should ignore those. Don't give them attention. Giving them attention is a way of giving them power.

 

19 hours ago, スバル said:

Marxism, and its related ideology Socialism are ideologies. Since I was not specifically defining everything as a "political structure" and more focused on the methods.

A couple of ideologies were based on Marxism, but Karl Marx himself was just trying to describe history. He thought history was naturally progressing towards a communist 'utopia' in which everyone was equal, but he didn't think mankind should intervene or try to speed things up. He didn't see a communist society as an ultimate goal, he saw it as an inevitable outcome of how history was developing. He didn't have any methods, because he wasn't trying to reach a goal.

Socialism and Marxism are only loosely related though, and some kinds of socialism are more closely related to Marxism (for example anti-capitalist 50's Chinese socialism) than others (for example present day European parliamentary parties' socialism, which is mainly focused on redistributing wealth, social security and Keynesian fiscal policies intended to actively lessen the blow of financial crises.).

 

19 hours ago, スバル said:

I realized you were new.

I'm not though. I've been around Aven for three years now. Just because I didn't comment doesn't mean I didn't read. I only comment when I think I know what I'm talking about. I can recommend that.

 

19 hours ago, スバル said:

The Left in USA, has become extreme left. There is hardly a moderate Left anymore.

That's not true. In fact US politics has always been extremely right if you compare it to western European countries. Bernie Sanders would be considered moderate left if he was in my country. This is an image of the political spectrum as it was a couple of years ago in the Netherlands:

Spoiler

It says left, right, progressive and conservative, I'm sure you know which is which.

Clinton would be around where VVD is now. Trump would be where PVV is. Bernie Sanders would be where PvdA is. Parties that are way to the left of Sanders are normal in the rest of the world, it's just that the US's political system is incredibly limiting. There can only be two political stances. 

 

19 hours ago, スバル said:

Which is why I usually equate "The Left" with socialism and Marxism.

That's hardly a good reason. Maybe you should try to first define what you mean with 'the Left', as it's an arbitrary concept. What is the left to the left from? The center is arbitrary too. It differs from country to country, from era to era. Being 'centre' is only a thing within your culture. You would be considered rightist in my culture. Most Americans would be.

 

19 hours ago, スバル said:

If you find my views extreme. Then it is possible, you might be an extremist. (I am Centrist, smack dab in the middle of the political map)

I never said I found your views to be extreme, and I didn't tell you any of my political views, so it would be strange for you to conclude that I'm an extremist based on literally nothing.

And being centrist, or moderate, isn't an objective thing. The 'political map' differs from culture to culture. What would be considered centrist depends entirely on mainstream opinion in that culture. There is no such thing as a single political map.

 

19 hours ago, スバル said:

Political correctness leads to censorship. You cannot honestly say it doesn't. IT is literally a logical slippery slope that results in censorship

You are literally using a fallacy as evidence for your claims. The fallacy is literally called 'the slippery slope fallacy' 

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/slippery-slope.html

That's just.... 

 

19 hours ago, スバル said:

I never said anything about "More than Muslims". It is not a competition. Scapegoating is scapegoating, no matter who is receiving it. You are not magically excluded from responsibility for your actions, just because you are attacking "The bad guys".

Yeah no, I know, I was saying that because you mentioned 'all white people are racist' (which I agree people shouldn't say) and 'punch a nazi' (which I agree people shouldn't do) and you didn't mention the most obvious example of scapegoating in western societies today. I thought that was weird. And biased.

 

19 hours ago, スバル said:

I love how the moment anyone questions censorship in private companies, all Leftists come beck and call to defend them. Saying it is their right to deny conservatives etc a platform. But the moment a private baking company doesn't want to serve gay customers. They suddenly lose their shit and scream about human rights. Do people not realize this is the same thing, in law?

Yeah, that's hypocritical, but can we at least agree that it's very different to deny someone service because of something they are than to deny someone service because of something they do or say?

[Antihero.]

I recently stumbled across this and thought it was well made and funny. It also fits the discussion to at least some degree so I’ll just leave it here.