Republican beliefsFollow

List the facts, then list the conclusions.

It's prefectly feasible to get to Fascism without ever approaching Socialism. Franco and Hitler. Here, I'll use a structured argument to get you started.

1. Fact: Franco fas a fascist.

Information about Franco can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco

2. Fact: Hitler was a fasicst.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler

3. Fact: In both cases, Hitler and Franco, the countries where they came to power were Republics prior to becoming Fasicst States.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Republic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Civil_War

1. Conclusion: A nation can become Fasicst without ever progressing through Socialism via agressive Right Wing parties winning power either by democratic and legal means (Hitler) or by military force (Franco).

Fact: Socialism involves giving the government control over production and distribution of goods within a nation.


Aggreed.


Fact: Fascism involves total government control of a nation but goes farther then just control over industry. It espouses the idea that "the state" is the most important thing and that personal freedoms should be suborned to that state.


Close enough, agreed.


Fact: Every facsist has started out as a socialist.


Patently false. Both Hitler and Franco did not. Please present any evidence that either was a Socialist at any point in their rise to power.


Fact: Capitalism involves private control of industry and the means of production.


Agreed. There's the minor point that Capitolism is an economic system and not a form of governance, but go on.


Fact: No example of a fascist has arrisen out of capitalist thought.


Both Germany and Spain were Capitalist prior to becoming fasicst states. At the very least as Capitalist as the United states was at the same point history.


Theory: Fascism is most likely to result from a socialist state, or as part of a socialist movement within a state.


There's no logical basis to arrive at this theory. Thre's no indication that Socialism is more likely to lead to Fasicsm than religous Nationalism is, or than a police state is. Further, both Germany and Spain arrived at Fasicst stated through the machinations of feircly anti-Socialist leaders, Hitler and Franco.


Theory: Capitalism is less likely to result from a capitalist state, or as part of a capitalist movement within a state.


I don't know what word is supposed to replace Capitalism first in this sentance so I'll wait untill you fix it.


Prove my theory wrong.


Done.


Prove me wrong. Why is this so hard for you. You keep saying I'm wrong over and over, but you'vve provided no arguement to support your position other then continuing to state your position as though it's absolute fact.


I've proved you wrong multiple times, I've just done so again.



So far, you've been wrong on what the right and left mean. You've been wrong about what socialism is. You've been wrong about what communism is. You've been wrong about nearly every single thing. But you continue to insist that you must be right about facsism because, well... you just are!


Never has a better example of the psychological concept of "Projection" been presented on this forum. Kudos.


Madness!


Nah, just lack of education coupled with intelectual insecurity, I suspect.

Edited, Thu Jun 10 21:42:43 2004 by Smasharoo

Please provide some evidence of this.



So your saying that it's unlikely for a Dictatorship to be Fasicst? I'm not being difficult, I'm serious. You're arguing that we can become a dictatorship form the right, but only a non fasicst one?

Well. I'm done for the day here.


Look. It's really simple, and all of you reading along are free to decide for yourself.

Simple do a google search on "fascism" with whatever other keywords you want to use "governments", "history", and "leaders" work well.

Read up on the subject. Pay attention to the sheer number of times that the various leaders and influencial people involved with the development of fascism were socialists before becoming fascists. It's startling. Heck. It's somewhere very close to 100%.

Is fascism identical to socialism? Of course not. It's very different. But it is abundantly clear to anyone who does any research on the topic, that the people who lead fascist movements, and the people who subscribe to fascist beliefs, almost without fail have socialist backrounds. Fascism really is an offshot of socialist thought. I can't see how anyone can avoid coming to that conclusion given the facts.


But hey. Don't just listen to me. Go look it up yourself. It's all there for anyone to read...

I offer oppinions from people teaching Graduate level courses at Harvard.

I've got an idea for all the so called elite intelligentsia professors. GET A REAL JOB! And anyone that espouses rhetoric of modern socialists would rather have someone else give them their livlihood for free. I've got an idea read Adam smith or Rousseau and you might actually get a real education. But anything not Marx related must be shunned.

And by the way there were gulags in which stalin murdered millions which the bedwetting libs of the time could have allowed ike and patton to deal with properly immediately post ww2
You're cowardice disgusts me.

Varus

Sigh. And I've pulled out an indentical number of quotes saying the exact opposite Smash.

Basically, people who think that socialist policies are "good" insist that Fascism and Communism are really right-wing positions. They do that purely because they don't want their pet social agenda to be besmirched with connections to those two systems.

Everyone who doesn't have a socialist agenda, and who actually just looks at the patterns that lead to fascism in Germany and Italy insist that they are Left-wing positions.

Who's right Smash? You can argue either way, however it's unassailable that every nation that has moved into a fascism had strong socialist aspects prior to doing so. Also, every leader who lead those fascist movements *also* came from a socialist backround .


I've already accepted that Franco did not fit that pattern. However, Franco did not generate the conditions in spain that led to his rule. He just took advantage of an already existing revolution to take power. He was also no more fascist then Ho Chi Ming was Communist. He adopted the label so he could get support from Germanay. I said Franco's party was socialist, but that's somewhat of a misnomer. In the context of the day, probably not. In the context of our politics (free enterprise versus socialist policies), they were. You've got to remember that almost all political parties in Europe during the first half of the 20th century were socialist. In fact, even today, there is *no* example of a European nation that has the style of free market "moderated capitalism" that the US has. All European nations practice socialism to a degree greater then the US does. From our perspective, and in the context of American politics (which should be relevant if you're arguing about whether Dem or Rep policies are more likely to bring about facsism in the US), they are all "socialist" parties.



Hitler may have hated the socialists, but he hated capialists even more. After all those were the people he put in the concentration camps. When he's talking about socialists, he's talking about a particular set of socialist policies that he disagreed with. He's not at any time advocating free market policies, nor is he abandoning the basic tenants of socialism (Government control over industry and the distribution of wealth). How can you *not* call his policies socialist?


Your problem is you are haphazardly applying modern US terms to situations in Europe a century ago that don't match. You are looking at who various leaders were against and applying the two party lens of American politics to that position. If they are against the socialists, then they must be for the "right" as we view it in the US. That was absolutely not true in their political systems. But you can't see that becuase you are used to everything being laid out as two sides with one being to the left and one being to the right. In fact, virtually all the political arguments in Europe at that time were different socialist parties disagreeing about how to distribute wealth, and to what degree the government should control things. The concept of a free market was (and still is) largely foreign. It was simply assumed that that model couldn't work.


I'm serious here. I don't know where you learned your European history, but it's horribly flawed. A casual look at the people who argued various positions at the time, and their backrounds, and what exactly they argued for and against should cause any rational thinking person to come to the same conclusions I have. Only someone with an agenda to re-write history would argue otherwise...

This would presumably be the history department that hasn't been able to fill a vacancy for 30 years running becuase they can't find a professor willing to follow along with the BS that the current heads of that department insist on teaching to students?

This would be the same history department that has become so stuck in the 19th century that no modern history professor wants anything to do with it?

It's amusing because my roomate specifically mentioned the Harvard history department as "the worst" place to even think about getting a job at. Not because it's tough or demanding, but because it's so stuck in the mud and backwards that you'll end up teaching garbage that was debunked 50 years ago as though they are "new developments" in the field.


That's the same Harvard, right?

Lol. I think your roomates problem is probably that Harvard doesn't revise history every five years to fit into whtever the current cultural mythos belives.

If you want to argue that the oppinion of the European History faculty at Harvard acrries less wight than your own, by all means, sally forth. The expression "giving them enough rope" leaps to mind.

Yet, you are not an elitist... Got it.

Um... I did Smash. We had a long talk about this the first day this part of the thread started.

She argued that Franco did not really qualify as a Fascist. He meets none of the criteria. He did not have a hatred/disdain for organized religion (He was strongly pro-Catholisism). He did not create and use a symbology and mythology to exalt the state over the individual. He had no particular views on state control of private industry at all. The only support for him being fascist is that he called himself fascist.


She also agreed completely that Hitler was a socialist. Again, one needs to look only at Hitler's agenda to see this is true. Every single point that he held was socialist in nature. He simply took an additional step an added strong nationalism and elevation of the state as the guiding incentive that should push the German people to "greatness".

Show me where Hitler advocated free enterprise Smash? Where's his "hand off" capitalistic approach? If socialism is defined as a government that controls the industry and distribution of wealth in a nation, and Hitler's policies involved controling industry and the distribution of wealth, then de-facto Hitler was a socialist.

How can you even argue this? Look at the definition of socialism. Look at the bullet points of Hitlers **** party. They are virtually identicle. The only distinction is that Hitler adds strong nationalism to a socialist core and ends up with fascism.

The facts are right there Smash. You can find a hundred quotes that say "Hitler was not a socialist", but when we can look up the definition of socialism and then comare them to the methodology of the **** party and see that they are virtually identical, we're kinda stuck with the conclusion that if Hitler was not a socialist in name, he certainly had strong socialist ideas.


Certainly, the ideology that leads to fascism can consistently be shown to derive from socialism, in exactly the same way we can say that the ideology that leads to communism is also derived from socialism. It does not matter how authoritarian the result is, I'm arguing about how one gets to fascism. Clearly, every real example we have of fascism is a process that starts with socialism.


We also talked at length about socialism in Europe in the early 20th century. She's the one who pointed out to me that Europe was completely enamored with the ideas of socialism, and that virtually all political debate revolved upon how best to implement various flavors of socialism. Only in the US do we debate the issue with socialism on one side and capitalism on the other. In Europe, for the last century, the debate has been over the details of how socialism should be applied.


But hey. I'm sure your vaguely remembered first year history class, which probably never covered the question: "Was Hitler socialist", is more valid then my converstations on this particular subject, with a history professor, *two days ago*. You're right. My source just sucks...

Your source could be the easter bunny. No can confirm if it even exists. So, in short, yes. Yes source just sucks. I don't ussually see you be so self aware. Just to recap, your History Professor roomate agrees with all of the positions you hole which are completely contrary to what ninety percent of the people teaching the same subject accept as unarguable fact.

I'm shocked. Shocked I say. Oh and she'd never take a taching job at Harvard because the faculty is so weak.

Edited, Fri Jun 11 22:31:06 2004 by Smasharoo

Lots of things. We disagree over whether regionalism is better or worse then nationalism. We disagree on many issues when it comes to US middle east policy. She's quite a proponent for European thought processes and methodologies where I think that those processes have gotten us into most of the messes we've been in for the last century.

And those are just the historical and poli-sci topics (and I'm sure I'm missing tons). We've had debates on everything from drug legalization to traffic laws and enforement.