A new kind of politics: Lefty Brownshirts target Republican donors

Apparently they're necessary for capitalism too.

I know when you're a die-hard free-marketeer that it's just common sense that all things evil MUST be connected to socialism.

Conversely, it seems to me that oppression and jingoism occur in every economic/social system, from monarchic hoarding to feudalism and on down.

On the thread topic:

It's a shame that there's not an organization doing this sort of thing to ALL corporate "donors", regardless of party affiliation (many large companies "donate" to BOTH parties). The bribery/donation scheme funding both parties is a direct threat to democracy. Sure, everyone gets one vote, but not everyone's wealthy enough to buy the time and the ear of a presidential candidate. It's getting to the point where the only people who are truly represented are those who can afford representation.

Now, to address both topics: Here's FDR in 1938

"Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people. The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any other controlling private power.

"The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living. Both lessons hit home. Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing."

From Time magazine 1938

 

Not at all. Capitalism is the financial system that most closely resembles human nature, and the outgrowth whenever everything else fails. Man, in his most free state, uses capitalism to interact with others and better himself. For example, when the first fur traders crossed the Rockies and first met Western Native Americans, they used the free market to interact. They didn't enslave each other and benefit from their labor (feudalism) or create alliances to take some things from those that had the most (socialism) or create alliances to share everything equally (communism). They traded what they had for what they needed. Sometimes, the trades would seem exploitative to outsiders (such as whiskey and beads for land), but they were based on differing value systems, the same basis that lets all countries benefit from trade. There was certainly no nationalism in these trades, and you could argue that all parties had fewer rights restricted than any in history.

There are certainly capitalist systems that restrict rights and promote nationalism. But it is not a necessary part of capitalism. You could argue that it's a necessary part of government, and that would be Paine's and Madison's argument, and I would probably agree with you. And then say that it is why we should so severely restrict government power.

 

Two problems - first, you are thinking in extremes with regards to socialism. Second, not the same as Nazism. I suppose restrictions you are talking about are wage and property, but with Nazism I was talking about life and death, racism, and aggressive nationalistic militarism.

Pretty much every industrialized nation is more overtly socialist than the US and you don't see the same things there that you do in Germany circa 1940.

basso - still a non-issue because you ignore the key fact that the Nazi's would have named their party anything to get themselves to power. They had nothing to do with any of the many branches of late 19th and early 20th century socialism. Further, once in control, their rhetoric was fully out of the extreme-right playbook.