Liberal Fascism Update: Big Brother Needs Healthy Drones

[_Droopy]

The left/right dichotomy isn't some distinction cleaved in nature. It's a useful fiction that helps us categorize related political views. Fascism is a right-wing phenomenon by definition because it coheres statistically to other things that, by historical circumstance, are also thought of as right-wing.

Actually, as a matter of political ideology and psychology, it doesn't. What it coheres with is a much broader family of ideological concepts and sentiments all of which arose out of and matured as phenomena of the Left during the first few decades of the 20th century, including revolutionary socialism, National Socialism, and Fascism, all of which are phenomena of the Left and share much as to family resemblance. All of them are totalitarian and collectivist in nature, all worship the centralized, omnipotent state and the power it wields, all are overtly hostile to free market capitalism, and all stand in fervent opposition to their common enemy, classical liberalism.

It helps that the founders of fascism thought of themselves as right-wing.

Good luck with this. Mussolini himself described himself throughout his life as a proud and life-long socialist, and founded his own socialist movement, fascism, as a, as Richard Pipes has definitively argued, a heretical sect of socialism.

To reiterate, the definition of Fascism as "right wing" and as oppositional in nature to socialism was a creation Soviet propaganda and the ideological needs of its supporters and fellow travelers in the West during the all important Popular Front period of the 1930s, not a serious category within political science. From their perspective, it was both a useful ideological tool as well as a means of advancing Soviet foreign policy. Yes, it was and remains one of the prevailing historical/political fairy stories of the 20th century, but its long been exposed for what it is for anyone interested in educating themselves in the historical reality.

The real problem is that for you "left" and "right" are synonyms for "evil" and "good" and you can't handle the dissonance of something with an intense negative connotation being a right-wing phenomenon.

Uh, actually, that's the Left's traditional view, not mine, and ironically, the fascism/socialism dichotomy was created precisely to encourage that view among the many useful idiots and wide-eyed puppy dog followers of that ideology during the era of that philosophy's greatest penetration of American life and political culture. It remained, however, the key useful idiocy among later generations of useful idiots throughout the Cold War era, and on into the present.

But it like, say, McCarthyism, has that honor.

"McCarthyism," like the fascism/socialism cleft, is mostly leftist mythology overlaying a core grain of truth deployed as a tool of their own ideological struggle for legtimacy. McCarthy was not in any sense a fascist. He was an out of control senator who used his power improperly and unethically, but that's as far as you can go with it unless you have a deep ideological ax to grind (and we now know that McCarthy was overwhelmingly right about most of the people he accused, which does not, of course, excuse his behavior in slandering some who were clearly innocent).

What you are referring to above is an example of authoritarian government paternalism. That's why you call it fascist, but what you really seem to be honing in on is the authoritarianism. That comes in both left-wing and right-wing flavors.

We don't know whether this is the case until you define "right wing," which, I suspect, like for so many leftists themselves, simply means little more than "not left-wing." Anything not on the Left is, by definition, on the "right." But the common enemy of both the Left and the so-called "Right" is liberalism (in its authentic sense and represented in modern times by both contemporary conservatism as well as elements of libertarian thought, and probably best understood as a fusion of elements of both), which causes one to suspect that, again, "Right" and "Left" are just convenient labels for competing variations on the same core themes (nationalistic, ethnicity based socialism in contrast to internationalist, economics based socialism), which is, indeed, the case based upon the actual doctrines and policies actually followed by these various sects.

If that authoritarianism is attached to things like hyper-nationalism (like making a big deal out of wearing a flag pin), xenophobia, corporatist economics, militarism, etc. then you are looking at something that is fascist.

I may indeed. The problem, however, is that corporatist economics, while a different form of the thorough state control of an economy by the state - is still the thorough control of an economy by the state, and a major feature of all socialist ideologies and policy. Outright nationalization (expropritation of the means of production) is preferrred in doctrinaire socialist theory, but both nationalization in combination with de facto control of industry and capital through regulatory control and legislative fiat (think "green" technology here, as well as housing loan markets) has been used and is a feature of most "democratic" socialist systems (the more authoritarian among them being perspectives like Fabianism) and hence makes the real difference between fascism and socialism fuzzy. Xenophobia and hypernationalism have always been salient features of the doctrinaire socialist/communist world, and have been deployed with great effect by many socialist regimes in modern times, including the Soviet, Chinese, Vietnamese, and, more recently, Venezuelan versions of the ideology.

Multiculturalism, let's not forget (essentially a form of intellectual national socialism that encourages - xenophobia, racial chauvinism, tribalism, and "cultural nationalism" (as in "black nationalism") is associated solely with the modern Left, and grew out of its presence in the foundations and academia. It is not a product of modern conservatism or libertarianism.

[_moksha]

The right-wing is clearly associated with multi-level and telemarketing. Even now in some Cheney-like dungeon laboratory at Bob Jones University, they are conducting reanimation experiments on both William F. Buckley and Mr. Ed. Let us pray that they do not attempt any gene splicing to create a horse capable of being lead to water but which refuses to drink no matter how much inveighing you do.

[_EAllusion]

Actually, as a matter of political ideology and psychology, it doesn't.

Well your unsupported assertion that belies the received wisdom taught as basic fact from the high school level on up is good enough for me. Elements that are described as fascist happen to statistically correlate with other elements that are found in the deep right of the political spectrum. Coupled with the tradition of calling it "right" and you have the basis for putting it on that part of the spectrum. Again, the 2-pole political spectrum is a useful fiction. People who obsequiously worship police officers and favor significant deference to them tend to be the same people who think English should the official US national language. Those people tend to be the same people who get upset if someone isn't wearing an American flag pin and tend to favor robust military spending to go along with an aggressive military. Since fascism itself is considered far right, having views that correlate with it throws you into that part of the spectrum.

Good luck with this.

I don't need luck. I need basic awareness of history.

e.g.

Fascism takes over from the ruins of Liberal Socialistic democratic doctrines those elements which still have a living value. It preserves those that can be called the established facts of history, it rejects all the rest, that is to say the idea of a doctrine which holds good for all times and all peoples. If it is admitted that the nineteenth century has been the century of Socialism, Liberalism and Democracy, it does not follow that the twentieth must also be the century of Liberalism, Socialism and Democracy. Political doctrines pass; peoples remain. It is to be expected that this century may be that of authority, a century of the "Right," a Fascist century.

- Benito Mussolini [Though really ghostwritten]

http://www.historyguide.org/europe/duce.html

"McCarthyism," like the fascism/socialism cleft, is mostly leftist mythology

Yeah, I know you mostly like what McCarthyism was about. Maybe it didn't have enough torture for you. It's the grand irony of this thread. Maybe you should just cut your losses and stridently claim that McCarthyism was a leftist thing.

I may indeed. The problem, however, is that corporatist economics, while a different form of the thorough state control of an economy by the state - is still the thorough control of an economy by the state, and a major feature of all socialist ideologies and policy.

Corporatist economics is found both on the right and the left ends of the political spectrum. You're just begging the question if you define it as a left-wing thing. Yes, it does refer to substantial state involvement in the economy, but that isn't a leftist thing by definition. Republicans agitating for oil subsidies aren't socialists by that fact alone. Fascism just happens to involve a right-wing example of state involvement in economic activity.

Multiculturalism, let's not forget (essentially a form of intellectual national socialism that encourages - xenophobia, racial chauvinism, tribalism, and "cultural nationalism" (as in "black nationalism") is associated solely with the modern Left, and grew out of its presence in the foundations and academia. It is not a product of modern conservatism or libertarianism.

Classy.

The people who spend their time railing against multiculturalism? Those are almost inevitably xenophobes. There are examples of xenophobia that exist in what otherwise are left-wing groups. Unions, for example, often have xenophobic tendencies because of job competition. But that doesn't mean xenophobia is somehow a left-wing thing. Vicious anti-immigrant fervor is almost exclusively a right-wing phenomenon in the US at the moment, so this should be self-evident. There's a state where people can be pulled over and demanded to produce papers if they are too Mexican looking, for goodness sake. I know your rhetorical technique is to take the most absurdly false things and aggressively assert them with peppered insults and condescension, but you're doing yourself no favors here. Xenophobia is obviously found on the right, and fascism happens to involve it.

[_krose]

Facism is right wing by definition, Droopy. It's simply further to the right.

Please don't try to limit the name-calling options of the right. They need to be able to use every term with a negative connotation to describe the opposition.

It's not enough that Reagan was able to convince so many people that "liberal" is now an insult akin to "racist," and got many to use the awkward term "Democrat party" to indicate that they are not really democratic. They need to be able to describe our current president (who is governing to the right of Nixon and Eisenhower) and others as "fascist," "communist," "marxist," and "nazi" all at the same time.

I suspect it is the only thing that gives them true joy in life.

[_Droopy]

Actually, as a matter of political ideology and psychology, it doesn't.

Well your unsupported assertion that belies the received wisdom taught as basic fact from the high school level on up is good enough for me. Elements that are described as fascist happen to statistically correlate with other elements that are found in the deep right of the political spectrum.

The "deep Right?" What is that, specifically?

Coupled with the tradition of calling it "right" and you have the basis for putting it on that part of the spectrum.

So at base, your entire point is supported by nothing more than argumetum ad populum? Well, as I suspected...

Again, the 2-pole political spectrum is a useful fiction. People who obsequiously worship police officers and favor significant deference to them tend to be the same people who think English should the official US national language.

Pure nonsense, of course, as the class "people who worship police officers" would appear to be a very inconspicuous class (one you likely made up) and the desire to have English as the official language of government agencies, offices, and the public schools, is about as "fascist" as a desire to check IDs at polling places. All of this points back toward the long understood reality that "fascism" is a hodgepodge of concepts and ideas that one can throw at others as an attack word, without ever having to define it. It is of note, however (especially when you get out of the late 20th century and look at definitions by early 20th century fascists and students of statist ideology themselves, where you clearly see that virtually all the salient elements of fascism, in some form, emphasis, or application, are common to the Left as well), that at its core, fascism is simple a particular interpretation, or manifestation, of central themes and premises common to the entire Left, but alien to classic liberalism.

Those people tend to be the same people who get upset if someone isn't wearing an American flag pin and tend to favor robust military spending to go along with an aggressive military.

More apples and oranges nonsense, in this case, comparing what would, at best, be a tightly wound individual neurosis with a perfectly rational and traditional concern for national security. Really, really E, I can see through all of this, and its just the same old traditional leftist/secularist rhetorical jousting lacking, however, the kind of intellectual substance or educational depth to make any kind of case.

Since fascism itself is considered far right, having views that correlate with it throws you into that part of the spectrum.

A substantial and long standing historical analysis, dating from at the least the 1940s, has been in strong disagreement with this view, a view that, as pointed out, originated in Soviet propaganda during the period of the "Popular Front," and had specific goals, one of which, and which has been fantastically effective, was to pollute and corrupt intellectual discourse and understanding throughout the West by confusing and corrupting language. Our modern "political correctness" is the direct descendant of the war on language of the old Left of that era.

I don't need luck. I need basic awareness of history.

Which you patently don't have, as you are patently not well read enough to pontificate to me regarding what "fascism" is or is not, apparently having imbibed the received wisdom long ago, and having found that satisfying, ceased any process of critical thinking regarding it from that point onward.

e.g.
Fascism takes over from the ruins of Liberal Socialistic democratic doctrines those elements which still have a living value. It preserves those that can be called the established facts of history, it rejects all the rest, that is to say the idea of a doctrine which holds good for all times and all peoples. If it is admitted that the nineteenth century has been the century of Socialism, Liberalism and Democracy, it does not follow that the twentieth must also be the century of Liberalism, Socialism and Democracy. Political doctrines pass; peoples remain. It is to be expected that this century may be that of authority, a century of the "Right," a Fascist century.

- Benito Mussolini [Though really ghostwritten]

You're going to have to do a great, great deal better than this. There is a vast literature on the theory and practice of fascism, dating to the 20s, of which this tiny, narrow snippet is not going to make your case.

Let's take a look at what a well known western scholar, F.A. Hayek (unfortunately, an intellectual hack of no particular distinguishment or mental acuity) had to say:

The character of the danger is, if possible, even less understood here than it was in Germany. The supreme tragedy is still not seen that in Germany it was largely people of good will, who, by their socialist policies, prepared the way for the forces which stand for everything they detest. Few recognize that the rise of fascism and Nazism was not a reaction against the socialist trends of the preceding period but a necessary outcome of those tendencies. Yet it is significant that many of the leaders of these movements, from Mussolini down (and including Laval and Quisling) began as socialists and ended as fascists or Nazis. In the democracies at present, many who sincerely hate all of Nazism's manifestations are working for ideals whose realization would lead straight to the abhorred tyranny. Most of the people whose views influence developments are in some measure socialists. They believe that our economic life should be "consciously directed," that we should substitute "economic planning" for the competitive system. Yet is there a greater tragedy imaginable than that, in our endeavor consciously to shape our future in accordance with high ideals, we should in fact unwittingly produce the very opposite of what we have been striving for?

Or, here's what eminent Harvard Sovietologist and mental midget (and fascist, of course) Richard Pipes has to say:

Well, the notion that Communism and fascism are diametrically opposed is something that was fostered by the Communist party, by the Communist International. In the 1920s, basically the International defined fascism as any anti-communist movement.

Exactly as the virtually the entirety of the modern Left continues to do today, as this thread sadly testifies, but not with respect to neo-communism and traditional communist ideologies only, but with respect to the "progressive" political and social Left per se.

If you were anti-communist, it doesn’t matter what platform, you were automatically fascist. So that even the western democracies were called fascist. This is a meaningless term. I use the term Fascism concretely, to apply only to the Italian fascist party and the Nazi to the Nazi party. Later these two movements had a great deal in common. They were one-party states which gave the workers considerable input into the running of the state, that used socialist slogans without giving them really socialist rights. I mean, the same thing was true in the Soviet Union. They bannered about socialist slogans but they came nowhere near fulfilling socialist programs. And they felt a great deal of empathy for each other, all these fascists and communists, because they had a common enemy. The common enemy was liberal, democratic, capitalist state. They hated it, all of it, equally. And they had a great deal of admiration for each other. You know, Hitler, at the height of the war which his troops were waging with the Russians in 1942-1943, spoke freely to his associates about how after having triumphed over Stalin he will make Stalin his governor over Russia. And Mao Zedong, when he was criticized for killing so many of his associates during the Cultural Revolution is quoted as saying, “Look at Hitler. The more cruelty, the more revolutionist zeal.” They greatly admired each other and hated equally well the Roosevelt’s and the Churchill’s and the other democratic leaders in West.

And if this next statement is not understood, you may as well bow out of the historical discussion altogether:

Mussolini’s party was a right-wing party but only to some extent, just as the Nazi party. These were not conservative parties. They were radical, radical nationalist parties, which in the programs very much maintained the socialist ideals. For example, Mussolini’s corporate state workers participated in the decision making in the business enterprises. They had as much say in some respects, as did the owners of factories.

Mussolini did shift to the right gradually because I think he was afraid of the power of the communist and the socialists, and since he was a dictator and wanted dictatorial power he felt that one has to suppress these parties and they were suppressed.

But the devil is in the details:

Mussolini, contrary to prevailing opinion, was not born a fascist; Mussolini was an extreme left-wing socialist. He came from a socialist family, an anarchist family. He was an extreme socialist. And in the early 1900s was really a kind of counterpart of Lenin in the Italian socialist party. He chased out the reformers. He wanted a revolution. He wanted a tight party. Like Lenin, Mussolini lost faith in the working class. He thought the working class consisted of accommodators, appeasers and he wanted to bring revolution from above, a militant party. And when he chased out the reformist from the socialist part of Italy and became editor of the main organ of the Italian socialist party, Lenin congratulated him. Not by name but he wrote an article in which he praised what the Italian revolutionist had done.

Then came the war, World War I in 1914 and Mussolini was stunned to see how much stronger nationalism is than class antagonism, because it was always said among socialists that nationalism is not something that the workers share. According to Marx, the workers have no fatherland. They only know their class. It turned out that was not true at all. And the workers very happily went to massacre each other in World War I. Mussolini very quickly drew the conclusion from this and said all right, the class struggle is an important thing and it guides history, but it’s a class struggle not within nations but between nations. So, he sort of married, combined socialism and nationalism. He said there are “have” nations and “have-not” nations. Italy is a have-not nation. We have to defend our interests. And of course Hitler did the same, although Hitler never had the socialist background.

Von Mises:

Many people approve of the methods of Fascism, even though its economic program is altogether antiliberal and its policy completely interventionist, because it is far from practicing the senseless and unrestrained destructionism that has stamped the Communists as the archenemies of civilization. Still others, in full knowledge of the evil that Fascist economic policy brings with it, view Fascism, in comparison with Bolshevism and Sovietism, as at least the lesser evil. For the majority of its public and secret supporters and admirers, however, its appeal consists precisely in the violence of its methods.

Anyone who really wants a more balanced understanding of the sibling resemblance of Marxian socialism and Marxism-Leninism to National Socialism and Fascism, can do no better as an introduction than this lecture by Pepperdine economist George Reisman:

http://mises.org/daily/1937

I'll post it below in its entirety, as its a very important primer on the actual history involved as over against the standard, formatted mainstream media/academic/public school stories we all grew up with (and all of this other scholarship and critical thinking has always been available, just ignored).

Yeah, I know you mostly like what McCarthyism was about.

Yeah, you don't know what your talking about, either about the history of McCarthy or about what I think about him (which I've made crystal clear on this board many times before).

So, here's a CFR on how I "like" what "McCarthy" was about.

Maybe it didn't have enough torture for you. It's the grand irony of this thread. Maybe you should just cut your losses and stridently claim that McCarthyism was a leftist thing.

"Torture?"

McCarthy's behavior was his own, and had no ideological coherence save in his own mind, and spawned no movement or political school of thought called "McCarthyism." "McCarthyism" is, indeed, another scary fairy tale of the Left intended to delegitimize simply being a classical liberal of any kind, and of opposing the progressive Left. McCarthy's obnoxious and immoral behavior, with some of the people he accused and prosecuted, is another matter, and is not arguable.

Corporatist economics is found both on the right and the left ends of the political spectrum.

Indeed, as the present U.S. administration is showing with vigor (as well as, to a lesser extent past administrations and congresses since the 30s).

You're just begging the question if you define it as a left-wing thing.

I haven't. I've said that fascism, German National Socialism, and internationalist class socialism, are all sibling ideologies with very similar core assumptions and perceptions, which happily, is inarguable from a serious critical perspective. The problem is determining just what the "Right" or "fascist" really is, as it doesn't seem to mean much beyond "anti-Left."

Yes, it does refer to substantial state involvement in the economy, but that isn't a leftist thing by definition. Republicans agitating for oil subsidies aren't socialists by that fact alone.

Don't mix what members of an American political party do with an ideology. That's sloppy thinking. American Republicans who agitate for oil subsidies and Democrats who agitate for subsidies for "green" technology are both statists creating a system of crony capitalism and a body of rent seeking private investors and corporate CEOs, but this does not attach to them an ideology.

Obama is an ideologue pursuing an ideological vision. Another Democrat may be ideologically neutral (or disinterested) but may be simply buying votes. Obama is also buying votes (though welfare for the poor, the middle class, and the corporate/union world) but, at the same time, following an ideological vision. Bush was a statist and interventionist pursuing a non-ideological, Keynesian policy because Keynesianism is the default economic policy of preference as it justifies continual centralization and control of the economy in the state (the state "doing something"). Gore is both an ideological fanatic and a crony capitalist (and the balance between the two isn't at all clear).

Fascism just happens to involve a right-wing example of state involvement in economic activity.

In other words, Fascism looks like Socialism in many ways, but because Leftists decided, immediately after June 22, 1941, that Hitler and Mussolini were now national enemies, they became "right wing" and opposed to all that is "left wing."

Got it.

The people who spend their time railing against multiculturalism? Those are almost inevitably xenophobes.

They're also fascists and Nazis, E. Don't limit yourself to just one of the traditional leftist shibboleths.

There are examples of xenophobia that exist in what otherwise are left-wing groups. Unions, for example, often have xenophobic tendencies because of job competition. But that doesn't mean xenophobia is somehow a left-wing thing.

Job competition creates xenophobia? Resentment would be enough.

Vicious anti-immigrant fervor is almost exclusively a right-wing phenomenon in the US at the moment,

As I don't know of any such existing "anti-immigrant fervor" among the broad political Right (another category you've made up, but that's fine, its kind of growing on me), but, as to anti-whatever fervor, have you ever heard of La Mecha, or La Raze (both having a strong presence on many U.S. university and college campuses)? The "Reconquista?"

Have you ever heard of The Baseline Essays, the theory of Ebonics, Afrocentrism (very popular in the academy), Bell Hooks, Ward Churchill, Manning Marabel, Jeremiah Wright, Edward Said, Noam Chomski, The New Black Panther Party for Self Defense, the ISM (International Solidarity Movement), Cultural studies etc.?

All excellent examples of either primary or derivative cases of an intellectual cultural, national, racial, and ethnic socialism (deeply grounded in both racialism and Marxian/cultural Marxist concepts and categories) known as multiculturalism. Multiculturalism, in its virulent anti-liberalism, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and tribal/identity collectivism, crosses numerous intellectual boundaries.

There's a state where people can be pulled over and demanded to produce papers if they are too Mexican looking, for goodness sake.

CFR (as if this would, by itself, have anything to do with fascism, even if true).

Xenophobia is obviously found on the right, and fascism happens to involve it.

You're probably right, humans being what they are, and whatever the "Right" really is, xenophobia is also a salient aspect of the Left. National Socialism, a major phenomena and outgrowth of the Left, was riddled with it, as is contemporary multicultural identity collectivism.

[_Droopy]

It's not enough that Reagan was able to convince so many people that "liberal" is now an insult akin to "racist," and got many to use the awkward term "Democrat party" to indicate that they are not really democratic.

Very, very nice try at pretending to invert the actual social/historical reality here, but, as always, not good enough. One of the really, really sick and pathetic anomalies of the 20th century, beyond the linking of fascism to free market capitalism and the idea the Nazism and socialism are oppositional ideologies, was the pilfering of the term "liberal' from its actual philosophical home and attaching it to the Left. There is nothing whatever "liberal," in the original sense of that term, about the Left, in any of its forms, and the "Democrat" party is called that, by many conservatives precisely because there is little left within it of a democratic character (unless you do not take into account the mass mob mentality it stakes so much of its fortunes on with regard to ethnic minorities, unions etc.)

They need to be able to describe our current president (who is governing to the right of Nixon and Eisenhower) and others as "fascist," "communist," "marxist," and "nazi" all at the same time.

Drink the MoveOn.org Kool-Aid, Krose. Drink it to the dregs as the America you despise crumbles all around you and the America you wish to live in - a vast day care center composed of whining, parasitic drones all clamoring for their share of milk at the swollen teat of the welfare state rises to replace a society of free, independent, personally responsible adults.

You may be right, Krose (Marx surely thought so). Perhaps leftism is really, in some salient sense, a democratic movement. Democracy, after all, is the last form of government any sane individual (unless they had the biggest sticks) would want to live in, and the Left has, indeed, always used democratic passions and mass consciousness to move its own statist, collectivist programs forward toward a police state form of governance.

Drink, Krose, Drink!

[_EAllusion]

So at base, your entire point is supported by nothing more than argumetum ad populum? Well, as I suspected...

The political terms "right" and "left" are determined by conventional use and the statistical correlation of some political beliefs with others. This is thought in high school government classes at the latest Droopy. "Right" or "left" aren't objective properties. Their naming conventions derived from where people sat during National Assembly meetings during the French revolution. What is "right" is what we traditionally have called right.

The desire to have the English be the official US language is an example of a type of hard-right leaning nationalism centered around enforcing a unified English-speaking cultural identity for the country. It's not fascist all by its lonesome; it's a kind of trait that coheres with other kinds of traits that can collectively add up to that part of the spectrum, which is on the right. I picked a bunch of examples associated with fairly right-wing politics in the US to make my point. Fascism is more extreme than that, so what I was referring to is more teetering in that area than fascism proper. That was my point. I shouldn't have to explain it beyond what I already did.

You're going to have to do a great, great deal better than this.

I said that it helps that the founders of fascism called themselves right-wing. You said, in response, "Good luck with this. Mussolini himself described himself throughout his life as a proud and life-long socialist, and founded his own socialist movement, fascism, as a, as Richard Pipes has definitively argued, a heretical sect of socialism."

So I quoted a manifesto on Fascism with a portion where Mussolini contrasted his views against socialism and the left and called fascism of the right. Your response? Well it comes in two parts. Part one is saying whatevs despite me blowing your assertion out of the water. Part two is to quote a bunch of things that don't contradict my assertion that founders of fascism described themselves on the right.

"Torture?"

Yeah, we know you don't call torture you like torture. We've established that in other threads.

The problem is determining just what the "Right" or "fascist" really is, as it doesn't seem to mean much beyond "anti-Left."

Right is anti-left in the 2-pole spectrum. There's only two poles. By definition. I'm considered on the "right" due to being a libertarian even though I have next to nothing in common with you who is also on the right. Such is the limitations of reducing the political spectrum into right and left. It's why libertarians tend to favor the quadrant model.

Yes, it does refer to substantial state involvement in the economy, but that isn't a leftist thing by definition. Republicans agitating for oil subsidies aren't socialists by that fact alone.

Don't mix what members of an American political party do with an ideology.

Conservatives agitating for oil subsidies aren't socialists by that fact alone.

[_Droopy]

The political terms "right" and "left" are determined by conventional use and the statistical correlation of some political beliefs with others.

No, they're determined by the ideas within them and their resemblance to or distance from the ideas of other ideologies, in the which one can see either taxonomic resemblance (and hence, intellectual pedigree) or clear differentiation. In the case of Fascism, Nazism, and revolutionary socialism, we have much more than that, because we have a well recorded history, not only of their ideas, but of their behavior and policies.

This is thought in high school government classes at the latest Droopy. "Right" or "left" aren't objective properties. Their naming conventions derived from where people sat during National Assembly meetings during the French revolution. What is "right" is what we traditionally have called right.

And conservatives didn't create the dichotomy, the Left did. Fascism, Socialism, and National Socialism coalesce on the Left because of a strong family resemblance at the core, despite modifications and emphasis on the periphery. Classical liberalism is then on the "Right" as the nemesis and primary alternative to that general class of worldviews.

The desire to have the English be the official US language is an example of a type of hard-right leaning nationalism centered around enforcing a unified English-speaking cultural identity for the country.

Its nothing of the kind, and this kind of slovenly thinking and disingenuous posturing is of the very classic type that has always made the Left exactly what it is and one reason why its lost all its own arguments throughout history.

It has none.

The desire for English as the official language of government and government business has nothing whatsoever to do with "nationalism" and everything to so with an attempt to prevent the serious balkanization and tribalization of separatist, ethnic enclaves within the Untied States that resist assimilation, cannot speak the common language, do not feel loyalty to the United States as their home nation, and who can tend to become hostile to American values and core political/social assumptions the longer they remain unable and unwilling to assimilate and transcend their prior national identities.

Multiculturalism does not work. It has not worked anywhere on this planet, at any time in history. Its end is social disintegration and civil breakdown.

It's not fascist all by its lonesome; it's a kind of trait that coheres with other kinds of traits that can collectively add up to that part of the spectrum, which is on the right.

And the Chinafication of Tibet, you would call what? The "Russification" of ethnic minorities and Soviet territories in Eurasia you would call what? What would you call Hugo Chavez' virulent ethnic chauvinism toward North Americans? How would you classify the overt racism of Malcom X, H Rap Brown, Ron Karenga, Jeremiah Wright, Jesse Jackson, Leonard Jefferies, or Bell Hooks?

I picked a bunch of examples associated with fairly right-wing politics in the US to make my point.

Except, in the context in which you described them, they're all flaming straw men.

Fascism is more extreme than that, so what I was referring to is more teetering in that area than fascism proper. That was my point. I shouldn't have to explain it beyond what I already did.

No Delusion, those conservative concerns have no relation to "fascism' at all.

I said that it helps that the founders of fascism called themselves right-wing.

But you've already claimed the neither "right wing" or "left wing" have any objective meaning. so down goes your own ship here. Didn't you read the quotations I posted? "Right wing" was a creation of the communists, as it has and is presently used. Its a fossil of the early 20th century. After studying the early Left in detail, one eventually comes to suspect that the term "right wing" is simply short hand for "unorthodox leftism" or "heretical socialism."

They publicly anesthetize each other, just as the ancient medieval Christian sects used to do, and excommunicate each other's popes, but they're fundamentally all in the same family and share a similar origin.

So I quoted a manifesto on Fascism with a portion where Mussolini contrasted his views against socialism and the left and called fascism of the right. Your response?

You don't understand my response and you have no intention of understanding it. My response, then, is that which Mussulini wold his socialist comrades in Milan upon his explusion from the Italian communist party:

"You cannot get rid of me because I am and always will be a socialist. You hate me because you still love me."

Well it comes in two parts. Part one is saying whatevs despite me blowing your assertion out of the water. Part two is to quote a bunch of things that don't contradict my assertion that founders of fascism described themselves on the right.

What all of my quotes demonstrate clearly enough is that the concept of "right and left" as we understand it was primarily a construct of the Comintern and has come down to us at this point in history in that form as it became the easily digested and self serving received wisdom of much of the western and American intelligentsia, who never really wanted to believe otherwise.

Yeah, we know you don't call torture you like torture.

No, I just don't like to abuse and corrupt language for ideological purposes. I'm sorry you don't feel the same way.

Right is anti-left in the 2-pole spectrum. There's only two poles. By definition.

Which is precisely why the two pole spectrum is faulty and intellectually deceiving, and should have long ago been abandoned (but wont' soon be, as it serves too many political interests and doing so would tread upon too man sensitive toes) The appropriate manner to schematize the various ideologies that exist is not a line running from pole to pole, but a family tree.

I'm considered on the "right" due to being a libertarian even though I have next to nothing in common with you who is also on the right.

You're a "strong" libertarian of the kind that has made a totem out of "freedom" and attempted a fusion with classical liberalism and aggressive secular humanism. That project represents what could be called the "dark side' of the Enlightenment, and fortunately was not the primary impetus or philosophical template for the American Founding.

Such is the limitations of reducing the political spectrum into right and left. It's why libertarians tend to favor the quadrant model.

Then, since you don't want to "reduce" the political spectrum in this way, I'm sure you'll be amenable to my family tree idea, which would show ideological resemblances in a much more realistic and nuanced way, and will discard your two pole conception.

[_EAllusion]

Then, since you don't want to "reduce" the political spectrum in this way, I'm sure you'll be amenable to my family tree idea, which would show ideological resemblances in a much more realistic and nuanced way, and will discard your two pole conception.

For someone who talks about right and left (leftists) / conservative and liberal like its some kind of political tourettes, this is a bizarre post from you. So I guess I'll have to draw your attention to the fact that this conversation is about whether fascism should be considered to be on the right-wing part of the two-pole political spectrum. That's what it's about. More complicated political taxonomies tend to look at multiple dimensions. The quadrant model just adds one extra dimension. Going with the evolved history of ideologies runs into the problem of ideologies evolving into and away from one another or being mixed and matched by historical circumstance in such a way that the categories become unhelpful. Right evolves into left and back again all the time. Classic liberalism was originally of the left, but we don't call it's modern cousins leftwing for good reason.

[_Buffalo]

Droopy is a great example of what happens when someone skips PolySci and gets all his political information from places like Free Republic and Stormfront.