Breaking 1-06-21: MAGA terrorist attack on Capitol

yeah, not really

https://www.amazon.com/Anarchy-State-Utopia-Robert-Nozick/dp/0465051006/ref=asc_df_0465051006/

 

yeah really....Libertarians are "ME FIRST" in practically every topic, it is all about the "ME" over the "WE"

DD

 

Especially at a right wing rally! Did you hear some of the stuff that was said that weekend by the speakers? Scary stuff.

 

no, not really. The primary group of (influential) academic libertarians ran a blog called "Bleeding Heart Libertarianism" for almost ten years before reformulating their efforts in other related ways.

you might check it out:

https://bleedingheartlibertarians.com

I have posted from that site before

 

several of them now write on this site:

https://prosociallibertarians.com/about/

 

Maybe but it's hard to tell at times. Articles posted ad nauseum with no opinion to go with it make it truly difficult to tell other than they're mostly all critical of the left.

 

The Jonathan Turley & Glenn Greenwald obsessions are the key takeaway if you want to understand Os. The guy obviously has an axe to grind with Democrats, and liberalism of the past 10 years. Many people from many walks have found common cause with MAGA land or just rode the FoxNews vehicle to prop up their stature. Os on a much smaller scale is propped up here by trolling liberals and gets him responses & clicks that feed his ego. I'm guilty of engaging him myself way too often.

I don't hate Os or anything though I just wish he'd cut the BS and engage in honest conversation. I'm not going to try and win him over to be a life long Dem or anything, but I am always curious about what it would take for him to grasp the nature of understanding the dangers of propagating the talking points of the right, and being a prop for them here just because he wants to troll the left.

 

Using this forum as an outlet to vent against leftist thinking would be understandable if that's what he finds himself being irritated by on a more regular basis, due to his particular social circle or work environment. And it sounds like he works or used to work in academia, and moreover in a humanities department.

 

must be a slow news day in the MAGA Jan 6 crisis community if the thread has turned into a referendum on my posting habits

 

Trump is terrible. That said -- I'm not recalling a murder taking place during the Capitol attack.

 

He is the definition of a troll the biggest troll on C.F., it illustrates perfectly that we see what we want and ignore everything else.

It's probably our greatest weakness as a species and why Trump became a thing.

 

@Sweet Lou 4 2?

I thought he was not a troll?

 

I would say there is no textbook definition of fascism and it is modernly used as a term without a formal definition to denigrate or discredit political opponents. Some of the key elements of fascism in the 1930s and 40s were constant warfare, state control of industry, federalized control of the education system, differential laws based on race and ethnicity, totalitarian dictatorship, and genocide. I think a definition of what you mean by fascism and how it applies to the GOP would be helpful in making your point.

I disagree wholeheartedly that I am a defender of a MAGA agenda. I think Trump was a clown candidate that largely won the nomination through media manipulation (look at how much time he was given in the primary debates compared to someone like Rand Paul). I think he did some good and some bad things while in office. For example, I would say his executive order banning bump stocks was a blatantly illegal action. I really disliked his direct payments to people who earn less than X dollars as a COVID response, as it was a major contributor to our current inflation. I do like that he nominated Supreme Court Justices that have more respect for the Constitution. Ultimately, he was largely a populist, where I am definitely not. I am a proponent of a small and weak federal government, Trump was all about a powerful federal government.

I think your last point is essentially the point I was making with @Rileydog. Whatever you think of the modern GOP, team MAGA, or the posters who support them, they are a far cry from the Nazis under Hitler who were killing millions of people.

 

I've thoroughly enjoyed reading like minded opinions about you just being a jackass, well just because you are. Keep on spamming the forum with your typical nonsense...I'm sure you take great pride in it.

 

Some of the characteristics I tend to associate with "fascism" which are missing from your list are: anti-immigration, general mistrust of foreigners, hyper nationalistic, anti-intellectual, highly conspiratorial, a tendency to foment mistrust in free press.

 

A short summary on all the terms.

Is it Fascism? Is it Socialism? (theatlantic.com)

And this is what’s happening. Too many Americans think they’re living under “socialism” and “fascism” and most of them have no clue what those words mean.

The term I wish more people would think about—and this is why I wrote a book about it—is illiberal democracy, because that’s where we’re headed. This is what happens when everything about liberal democracy—tolerance, trust, secular government, the rule of law, political equality—gets hollowed out and all people remember is the word democracy.

This is what we’re seeing now in Turkey, Hungary, Brazil, India, and many other places—including the United States. All that matters is elections, and all that matters is winning them in order to claim the right to untrammeled power. This isn't “fascism” or “socialism”—yet. It is people fighting to win elections—real elections—and then spending their time in power trying to extinguish the rights of others and head off future challenges from their political opponents.

The danger here is not that Donald Trump or Viktor Orbán or others are fascists. They’re not, and unlikely to be, since they lack the infrastructure, mass party, ideology, and absolute cult of personality that we saw in the 1930s. (Trump is far too stupid to be an effective fascist, but he definitely has a cult of personality. Still, the Trump Cult is small potatoes compared with what Hitler or Stalin or Mussolini built. Trump is more like a Mickey Mouse version of Juan Perón.)

No, the danger is that people like Trump and Orbán are like starter kits for tomorrow's aspiring dictators. They destroy all the guardrails of a democracy, which opens the door later for authoritarian rule and then, if enough things go wrong, perhaps a full-blown totalitarian regime.

 

Seems like we're now living in a benign (generous definition) plutocracy. The fourth rail is mostly corporatized despite the internet providing outlets for Murrow style journalism.

Centuries old Party Machines our history books taught us in public school are still ever present, in our faces, and not even scrutinized (the Bernie fiasco and Trump takeover was deemed "business as usual" by the sleepy public).

Altogether, I wouldnt be surprised an authoritarian takeover would last a generation as long as we can continue to spend like happy hogs, say/see destructive/seedy **** on the internet or social media, and make a little money that advances a dream of early retirement and Privileged Waitlists.

 

fighting poo-flinging monkeys one article link at a time!!

related:

https://jonathanturley.org/2022/07/...oduce-sweeping-changes-for-the-supreme-court/