'All are equal, but some are more equal than others"Follow

This is why I asked you to define "reduction of government" (or the opposed "increase of government"). Cause we were talking about government programs that are designed to produce some socio-economic benefit for the people. You know, like increases in medicaid, or the adoption of universal health care, and any of a list of other things relevant to this topic. Those are things that increase the "scope" of goverment. The government was not in the business of providing that service before and now it is.

Adding the Department of Homeland Security (which is what I assume you are referring to) does not increase the scope of the federal government one bit. It already had every single power that department has. All the new department does is consolidate and coordinate operations between a multitude of other agencies and departments.

You do see the difference, right? One increases the "size" of the government (increases its power). The other simply modifies an existing set of powers within the government.


How about you get to defining what you mean here (like I asked you to do)? Cause until then you can claim anything is an "increase" in the government.

How do you function in society? I mean, beyond being a complete phony and all. Do you tell 50% of the people you meet that they are the greatest danger the world has ever seen?

Better than you, it seems.'Cause I don't really care? Seriously, you're so far off the mark here, it's not even worth the effort. How much work do you think I'm willing to put into receiving another five Gbaji paragraphs of "Conservatives are good and liberals are bad and here's why everything conservatives do is smart and everything liberals do is dumb and will lead to Hitler! HITLER!!"?

Hahahahahhahahahaha...

No, seriously, I think that hahahahahahahahaha !!!

Oh gbaji.

Then again, it seems that your definition of "liberal" is "People that pretend to be nice but then end up being the worst mass murderers in History."

In which case, yeah, those liberals suck.

I've seen many stupid gbaji posts, but surely this is one of the top five.



Edited, Jun 7th 2007 10:11am by RedPhoenixxx

I do think Gbaji has some valid points. Though, I would disagree that Hitler was a liberal, rather he pretended to be left leaning in order to get in power. An even clearer example is Mussolini, who was the founder of fascism, and was very leftist in his approach. He promoted many socialist ideas in his fascist manifesto, yet he still became a dictator.

To put it into perspective, as to why it is important what initial direction the leader was leaning before he established a dictatorship, I have an example. There are some people I know here in NYC, who if polled on various issues, would more closely match the conservative right than the left. However, these same people traditionally vote liberal and when asked why, they state it's because of the holocaust. They believe that the right is more likely to result in a dictatorship and could lead to persecution of the Jews again. Since there is significant evidence that many, not all, dictatorships have come from popular left leaning movements, these people are incorrect in that belief. This is why the initial political leanings of the party that resulted in the dictatorship are important. Some People view leftist as never having the potential to ursurpe freedom and create a dictatorship, while history has shown this to have happened often.

I am not espousing the assertion that leftist lead to dictatorships more than right; but rather that a leftist leader can result in a dictatorship just as often as one from the right. This means that a leftist leader needs to be held to the same scrutiny that one from the right is, when viewed as a potential threat to freedom. The fact that leftist leaders are often not held up to this same scrutiny is what creates a dangerous platform for an unscrupulous person to usurp the freedoms of a nation. It also makes false the common anti-conservative assertion that right leaning leaders are always a threat to our freedom.

The does not mean people who lean to the left should stop supporting the left. A lot of good has come out of liberal movements, though the liberal path on many issues has not worked out. But these ideals and liberal leaders need to be held to the same standards and scrutiny that you would focus on a conservative leader. Which brings us right back to Hugo Chavez who a year ago was loved by many left leaning Bush haters because he was so vocally anti Bush. Unitl now, when Hugo Chavez starts banning free speech, and they realize maybe Hugo Chavez is not the person they thought he was, but of course it's too late.




Edited, Jun 7th 2007 10:00am by fhrugby

Edited, Jun 7th 2007 10:02am by fhrugby

I think the point most of us find ridiculous is Gbaji's tortured logic jumps to go from "Hitler falsely espoused some socialist sympathies to gain initial popularity among the people" to "Socialist movements are the root of dictatorships".Agreed.Well, at least someone here has some smarts.

As I pointed out though (and still agreeing with you), most of the major influences in Hitler's rise weren't distinctly Left or Right but rather relied on nationalism and a claim to restore Germany to glory after a crushing defeat and harsh punative measures placed upon it by France and Britian. Even as he claimed socialist sympathies, he was outspoken against communism, trade unions and individual worker's rights as a blockade to German economic recovery. It's not as though he sold himself as a Marxist and then yelled "Gotcha!" a year later. But, in the face of the current situation and the weak Weimar government, I think the points and trivia of Hitler's socio-ecomic theory came in a distant second to the simple promise of re-establishing national dignity.

Exactly. He wasn't voted in for his economic theories. it is a well-known fact that charismatic leaders appeal to instinct, not reason. Hitler's charm was to give the german people a sense of worth, hope, and direction after the humiliation of WWI and the conditions imposed upon Germany by the West.

Trying to somehow link that to "liberalism" is, well, gbajiesque.

*Sigh*

I am curious though --- exactly what does the Kool-Aid taste like?

You'd be wise to do the same.

He fought the communists (who most sane people would say are the actual "extreme-left"). Not argued with, fought against them and had them executed. He railed against equality among people at the expense of the Aryans (regardless of the socio-economic status of said Aryan). He disbanded the unions. He advocated privatizing the banking system (and did so). He railed against allowing workers to quit their jobs at will. He encouraged private businesses to band together to form monopolies.

All regular Left-leaning ideas, right? And, as I said, these weren't suprises; this is what he was claiming from the start.

You never answered my question about the Kool-Aid, though.

Edit: Oh, and your assertation that Hitler fought against the "conservative" Weimar Republic is fucking laughable. The Weimar Republic was largely liberal although the economic circumstances of Germany at the time, influences by communist groups who felt that the Weimar represented a trheat to total Marxist control of Germany, and the unwillingness of the Republic to buck against France & Britain stiffled most of its attempts at worker protections and reforms.

Edited, Jun 7th 2007 9:40pm by Jophiel

So did most socialists of the day Joph. Communists were seen as a splinter group who broke off of the larger socialist movements and became a "socialism in one country". Specific to the day and time, the fear was that the communist parties were just extensions of the soviet government (and in large part they were since most of them advocated taking control of their respective nations and joining the soviet union).

The SPD and the KPD fought against eachother constantly (with the ****'s in the middle). Are you using that to argue that they weren't socialist and communist either? In fact, a good part of why the ***** prevailed is because those two groups hated eachother even more then they hated the *****.

Don't mistake the attacks on their political parties as disagreements with the broader positions. The reason those two were the first parties outlawed wasn't because they were the farthest politically from the *****, but because they were the closest. You ban them, and the people who might have joined them join your party instead. It's not rocket science Joph.



Sure. In later years. That aspect was hidden behind an attack on the wealthy. There existed in Germany already a belief that the Jews controlled all the banks and businesses. He simply used that belief, fueled by the leftist idea of opposing the wealthy and created a convenient scapegoat for the people. He *used* Liberal ideology to pursue his agenda Joph. More to the point, he used arguments that resonated with what we would label as leftist/socialist ideology.

You're also assuming that liberal ideology is about equality. That's one of the myths that's been created over time (by Liberals! Go figure...). When you have overt affirmative action programs in your country that treat people different based on their skin color, you are *not* promoting an ideal of equality. When you have a set of activist leaders who blatantly act in accordance with the skin colors of the people involved, you aren't promoting an ideal of equality. Does that come from the conservative or liberal "side" of our political spectrum Joph? Hmmm?

The liberal position is not and never has been about equality Joph. That's where you are dead wrong. The liberal (more correctly social liberalist or socialist) position has *always* been about creating the perception of persecution among groups of people and using that sense of persecution to gain power by scapegoating and attacking those who are labeled as being "in power" or "wealthy".

This is no different if the movement involves convincing latinos to join labor unions and "fight the man", or if it involves convincing white germans that they're being oppressed and ripped off by wealthy jews. It's the same damn thing.




You're still missing the point Joph. I'm not talking about what he did once he had full control of the country. I'd wager any dictator will take those same steps once he's got the power (just as Chavez is doing right now). What matters is how he came to power. The process between being the leader of a relatively minor political party and being absolute ruler of Germany. And he most certainly played on the unions and the workers desire for better jobs, better pay, guaranteed work, etc to gain that power.



Yes. They were surprises Joph. Read up on the SA. They were his strong right arm all through the years that the **** party gained power. They were hard core socialists. So hard core that he had to eliminate them once he gained power because they were insisting that he actually do all the things he promised to do during his rise to power.

That could not possibly be the case if he'd never pandered to a socialist agenda in the first place. And they were certainly "surprised"...

The misuse and abuse of an idea doesn't make that idea bad.

Promising one thing, then getting into power and saying: "you misunderstood the details, I really meant this here completely different idea all along... and as I was elected, I have a mandate to do exactly what I please to do right now"....well, that doesn't make the original idea wrong either.

It only makes a government that lied to get into power, Something that is done by all sides of politics.

The thing that protects against tyrants and tyranny is democracy: regular elections in which information from all sides is widely distributed; the careful sepparation of powers between the military, the government and the judiciary; and government, military and judical processes that are as open to public scrutiny as possible.

Both liberal policies and conservative policies can be applied and thrive under democtratic processes, and leave the democtratic processes intact, and protect the freedom's and rights of citizens. Both liberal and conservative policies and ideas can be used to cloak an erosion of freedom, rights, justice and information.

Democracy is well established in the West as the status quo type of government, that is isnt' working perfectly, but is a lot better than the alternatives we've come up with so far.

Gbaji seems to think that giving the government more things to run, and a bigger budget with which to run them, is automatically putting more power into the governmet's hands, and makes it easier for a government to turn into a tyranny.

I maintain that the size and responsibilities of government is independant of the quality of checks and balances held over the government.

For example, we could have a government that was very very low taxing, and provided very few services, that did not regulate poisons or pollutants, that did not run any public transport, schools or hospitals, that did not provide a pension to the elderly or disabled, or a living allowance for people looking for work.

....and which also gave itself the right to detain citizens without speedy trials, refused to let the public scrutinise any of it's documents and budgets (not just the documents relating to security), permitted media monopolies, controlled the information released to the media, spent public money on it's own party political advertising while not giving the same budget to opposition parties, repressed information from opposition parties, and didn't maintain a well funded, completely independantly run Electoral Office to control the voting process, with a stringent process of scrutineering by volunteers.

We can also have a government with the opposite qualities: High taxing, high public services, regulating pollutants, running public transport, schools and hospitals, providing pensions and looking for work allowances...

Whilst freely providing it's own documents and budgets to the public, maintaining diversity and access in the media, equal funding to all political parties, not stepping in the way of the opposition talking to the media. Not interfering in the Electoral Office, and accepting recounts and the presence of volunteer scrutineers from any interested source throughout the processing of ballots.

All private citizens who are detained are officially arrested, and given their legal rights. Any person detained by the military is treated either as a Civilian or a Prisoner of War. All prisoners of war are treated according to the Geneva Convention, and grievances against the prisoners of war are taken up with their governments, who are responsible for them.




Terrorists are either citizens or soldiers. We already had processes to deal with either. If a terrorist is not a soldier representing a government, then we had plenty of tough laws to go to trial with, and lock them up forever with. Premeditated Murder, Conspiricy to commit Murder, etc. (Don't know the American equivalents. Murder 1?).

This hideous legal fiction of "Unlawful Enemy Combatants" is a complete and utter travesty, and has put Bush, Blair and Howard into the same category as Hitler, Stalin and Mao, even if the former's atrocities don't add up in numbers as much as the latter leaders' atrocities do.

A society isn't measured on how well it treats it's most deserving people, it's in how well it treats it's *least* deserving people, and on the very careful preservation of justice.


If you took the worst serial child abductor, rapist and murderer, and treated him in the same way as our government has treated the Prisoners of War and Suspected Criminals in Guantanamo Bay and other places, I would be outraged and appalled, because the jailors and officials, (and the government and anyone who really knows and understands what has gone on there, and still supports the government on this,) has become as sick, twisted and evil as the evil, raping, murdering ******* that was caught.

No matter how wrong, selfish, twisted and sunk into evil that I think a terrorist is, holding him without trial, and torturing him, can never ever be justified. The person who harms him, follows him into his dark path.


Edited, Jun 10th 2007 3:29am by Aripyanfar

I do wonder about his sanity sometimes, especially when he connects liberal with dictatorship.

How can you have a liberal dictator?

"I am now in total control of this country!!! do whatever you want."