>"Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks for consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders."
>"To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country. This is the origin of nationalism."
Yep, the birth of fascism, ie. Italian fascism, was a final act of the Italian national independence process which started in the first half of 19th century. The independence from Austrian empire and from Catholic Church - Mussolini in particular finalized the relationships with papal states/Vatican.
Interesting that Mussolini started as Socialist and split with them on very similar grounds as the "bolsheviks"/Lenin split from Socialists in Russia around the same time - push for more forceful action, for unchecked power (dictatorship) - the difference being that in Russia Lenin was pushing for dictatorship of the working class while Mussolini was for dictatorship of the national state. While one may say that whose ideologies are of different colors, structurally they are the same and thus produced similar results - totalitarian states.
As an example, just replace national dimension with the "aristocracy - capitalists - worker class/peasants" dimension in the 2 quotes above and you'll get the socialist/communist principle of the "class war" and that idea that just by being of "working class" makes people intrinsically good and thus gives them moral power and entitles them to [dictatorially] rule and decide the fate of others.
> the difference being that in Russia Lenin was pushing for dictatorship of the working class
Lenin was pushing for a dictatorship of the Bolshevik vanguard, notionally on behalf of the working class -- Leninist vanguardism features what might more accurately be called a dictatorship for the proletariat as opposed to the earlier Marxist dictatorship of the proletariat.
> push for more forceful action, for unchecked power
Is this something like Barack Obama carrying out drone strikes? Or Madeleine Albright approving the starving of 500,000 Iraqi children? Or Hilary Clinton getting a knife stuck up Gaddafi's rectum? Or the invasion of Iran on a pretext?
Or does it have to be something in dim and distant past which we can tut about as it was done by "those other ones"?
All of those are international actions. While the people in other countries impacted by these actions had no direct method to prevent the US government actions, the people making these choices do not have unchecked power.
All of these actions were subject to all the constitutional checks and balances of the US system. Obama's drone strikes is an election issue. Albright's actions were overseen directly and indirectly by Congress. Same with Clinton (or did you not notice the amount of time Congress spent on Benghazi). There's also been judicial review of many of these elements.
There is no real method of international check on power other than a threat of power in return. The UN, NATO, and international diplomacy tries to forge a method to ensure that war is less commonly used, but ultimately, as the invasion in Iraq showed, if the US wants to do something it can do it. Same with Russia choosing to take a chunk of the Ukraine.
None of the contemporary things you mention are examples of unchecked power. The fact that you can mention them in public without fear of being whisked away tonight by secret police illustrates this. Unchecked power does not permit criticism, or admit room for opposition.
That's just because today mentioning them in public doesn't have much (if any) effect.
Back in the day when there were powerful alternative fractions for the power (e.g. socialists, communists in Europe etc), mentioning such staff in public against the established powers brought support to them, and advanced their cause.
Now people know all about them and still elect e.g. Bush Jr. a second term, Obama 2 terms, now Trump etc. It's not like there's any credible threat to anything.
And when there's not, freedom of speech is free, because it's almost worthless.
TL;DR; Modern-day unchecked power can permit criticism just fine: when the waters due to media pollution are so muddle that the signal is lost in the noise, and/or when few people care about it anyway.
That's orthogonal to what I said, which is that freedom of speech can be easily permitted if speech doesn't really have any consequences, e.g. if there aren't actually any popular movements that speech could stir up.
That's so whether those movements are against some right wing regime or some left wing regime (or generally left/right government establishment).
That said, I do believe that socialism is better than liberalism.
At least the former is an actual form of government, with a legacy and original thinkers going back to centuries, and practiced e.g. in Sweden, Denmark, Switcherland, Canada etc. for half a century or so (and with policies adopted all over the world in some form or another).
The latter is just some abstract doctrines based on protestant ideas that time after time lead to bad results (corporatism, every man for himself, broken social contracts, etc.) where it's overly practiced. Even U.S. itself in fact has been much more socialist than liberal for the most part.
Except if you mean "really existing socialism" a la Eastern Bloc, which where mostly post-war "colonies" of USSR.
>The latter is just some abstract doctrines based on protestant ideas that time after time lead to bad results (corporatism, every man for himself, broken social contracts, etc.) where it's overly practiced. Even U.S. itself in fact has been much more socialist than liberal for the most part.
Boy, I have never heard the US described as more socialist than liberal. Normally it is taken as the model of a liberal country. Could you describe any nation in the world today that is mainly liberal, as you are using the term?
First, the idea that freedom of speech is completely suppressed whenever it has a chance to stir up a popular movement, that is simply nonsense. For instance, the UK Labour party was voted into power after WWII and nationalized much of the economy. You seem to be taking the Marxist position that real change is possible only through the violent overthrow of the government.
Secondly, you seem to be for social democracy, a political philosophy for which I have some positive feelings, and which I wish Americans knew more about. But I think you can be more effective in arguing for it if you avoid labelng it as "socialism." That is because the term has no standard meaning, and different groups have different meanings for it.
In fact, even self-identified socialists can't agree. Social democrats call themselves socialists, but orthodox marxists say it is not socialism, but a form of capitalism. And Soviet communists called themselves socialists, but many social democrats said it wasn't socialism because it wasn't democratic and was for the benefit of a small, powerful elite.
I think it is much better as a persuasion technique to stick with the term social democracy, because everyone agrees on it, and focus on describing how it works, what are its benefits, and so on.
But coldtea confirmed I was right that he is a socialist.
The reason I was able to correctly infer he is a socialist is he was following a familiar socialist-marxist position. This is that democracy in capitalist countries is a shame, everything that happens is decided in secret by the rich people, who control the media to trick the population to go along. According to this view, true freedom of speech and democracy are possible only under socialism.
Let me add that you seem to be taking the standard marxist position that fascism is capitalism taken to its logical conclusion, so every non-socialist country is fascist or on its way there.
I inferred it from what he said. But I re-read the comment, and he did say the US is more socialist than liberal (a very strange set of meanings for the two terms), so maybe I am wrong. Perhaps coldtea could say if I was right or wrong.
> None of the contemporary things you mention are examples of unchecked power.
That's easy to say, it's proven by putting a whole lot of war criminals at least on trial. By actually having done that.
> The fact that you can mention them in public without fear of being whisked away tonight by secret police illustrates this.
How so? This just illustrates that you can say this because nobody cares all that much, because it will not do anything. It doesn't put power in check, it's just someone saying something on HN. Power remains unchecked, and the hundreds of thousands or even millions of people who got murdered and the families they left behind continue to get no justice.
> The fact that you can mention them in public without fear of being whisked away tonight by secret police illustrates this.
This is plain wrong historically. The nazists, fascists and the stasi all used more manipulative and less blatant methods than dragging away every dissenter.
If that criticism manifests itself into a real threat perhaps we would see if power is unchecked. Recall Saddam Hussein, our best buddy in the Middle East until he decided to go rogue... and tried to off Papa Bush. An illegal war got rid of him.
PS: No WMDs? Yeah, well, that's what the News said. However, Rummsfeld has the receipts.
It's not unchecked. The Republican congress has had plenty of opportunities to stop it and has declined. The National Defense Authorization Act is passed every year. The 2001 AUMF that authorized the "war on terror" was passed bypartisanly without any sunset provision, nobody of either party has proposed repealing it.
> Lenin was pushing for dictatorship of the working class ... While one may say that whose ideologies are of different colors, structurally they are the same and thus produced similar results - totalitarian states.
Lenin was born into a "totalitarian" state - Czarist Russia. The czarist government murdered his brother, which probably was an impetus for him into anti-czarist politics.
Czarist Russia wasn't totalitarian in that it didn't try to become paternalistic Alpha and Omega for its citizens. It was a typical XIX century monarchial state.
On related note, Soviet Communists on a good day murdered more civilians than Czarist Russia did in a decade.
>"To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country. This is the origin of nationalism."
Yep, the birth of fascism, ie. Italian fascism, was a final act of the Italian national independence process which started in the first half of 19th century. The independence from Austrian empire and from Catholic Church - Mussolini in particular finalized the relationships with papal states/Vatican.
Interesting that Mussolini started as Socialist and split with them on very similar grounds as the "bolsheviks"/Lenin split from Socialists in Russia around the same time - push for more forceful action, for unchecked power (dictatorship) - the difference being that in Russia Lenin was pushing for dictatorship of the working class while Mussolini was for dictatorship of the national state. While one may say that whose ideologies are of different colors, structurally they are the same and thus produced similar results - totalitarian states.
As an example, just replace national dimension with the "aristocracy - capitalists - worker class/peasants" dimension in the 2 quotes above and you'll get the socialist/communist principle of the "class war" and that idea that just by being of "working class" makes people intrinsically good and thus gives them moral power and entitles them to [dictatorially] rule and decide the fate of others.