Oh please, like i'm afraid to admit i'm more left leaning or something. Don't forget that the extremist right wingers are downright scary individuals. The extremist left wingers know the name of the purple Teletubby and enjoy blazing up.
Well, it ain't my one-axis spectrum, it's used widely because it is useful to illustrate certain points and is easily understood by the masses. Yes, a two-axis model shows more nuance and detail, and a 3-D model could show even more (perhaps the third axis would reflect ones intensity of belief). All models have value. I'm not sure I really agree with the definitions of this particular two axis model. Do you actually know any "statists"? I don't really want to reopeen an old debate, but you are just dead wrong about fascism existing on the left. Fascism is an extreme right-wing dictatorship. Communism is an extreme left-wing dicatorship. In the two-axis model above, red spots in the extreme left and right corners show commmunist and fascist positions. You are confusing fascism with authoritarian dictatorship, which can exist on either left or right.
How about nearly all neo-conservatives? Isn't why we had to add the 'neo'? Because they have deviated from the right-wing ideal of wanting smaller, less centralized government? National ID cards, Patriot Act, socially restrictive laws, etc...their view of the governments role has expanded tremendously, far surpassing that of their founding pillars.
i am not confusing anything, and you simply do not know what you are talking about. didnt say that. i said the model is flawed. fascism is no closer to the current "right" or "left" communism as it is described in theory does not exist and never will. there is no such thing as power of the worker and the collective. what you call a "left wing dictatorship" is in practice not different than fascism. communism is basically a lie told by leaders to justify fascism. they are using the word statist to describe what i am telling you, there is no such thing as left and right wing authoritarianism. they are the same. government control is government control. freedom is freedom.
while i agree with that analysis, and think conservatives have strayed from their small government roots, i think the one place where that is acceptable is issues like security, and the patriot act is great. the one flaw with libertarianism is the way it deals with national security.
Survey says, wrong answer. How about a clear thinker, unshackled by other people's opinions and mistruths, able to pull back and look at the bigger picture on every issue and search through the facts. A centrist isn't a Canadian or Swede (sorry for the stereotypes) who is a fence sitter on every idea, notion or policy. A centrist is different than a moderate in that a centrist tends to be left leaning on some social and economic issues and right leaning on others. The closest thing to a clear thinker that walks the earth. . . But it's ok, salty, how would you have known? :hihi:
A typical martin non-answer with nothing to back it up. Zzzzzzzzz. An opinion of one. History, the dictionary, and those better informed think otherwise. Let me give you one glaring example: Hitler vs Stalin. Fascist vs Commmunist. Both authoritarians but on radically opposite sides of the political spectrum. 26 million russians and 10 million germans died in that war and you actually think they were "one and the same" politically. Sheesh! Doublespeak. Got some examples? Or anybody in the world that agrees with you? Really, tell us how the Soviet Union never existed and the Cold War never happened. Ever hear of a place called Red China? Or Cuba? I can hear you already. You will start quoting Marx and the Communist Manifesto and insist that a TRUE communist state never existed. Well, who gives a rat's ass. The Soviet Union and their ilk are communist enough to qualify as radical left for anybody with a brain. Conversely, Hitler and Mussolini were equally facist enough to qualify as radical right.
i am not sure why similar terrible dictators would not fight each other. do you think stalin really cared abou the workers? was stalin working for the collective? i am not sure why you will not accept that in practice, communism isnt really the workers utopia. thats what stalin might tell you so he could justify the system and stay in power as a dictator. go to cuba, ask a person if the workers really rule. ask him if he feels like he and the rest of the little guys really own things. i know some old cuban guys, they dont seem very pleased with the rights they should have had as workers when they lived in cuba under fidel. thats weird, considering the communist party is the party of the workers right? apparently not you, you pretend as if communism is what it claims, which it clearly isnt, never has been, and never will be. "radical left" meaning what? as opposed to what right? do you really believe that the people collectively own and control the means of production in a communist state? of course they dont! the heavy handed dictator tells everyone what to do. pay attention now. your single axis political spectrum has no one attribute that differs over the length of the spectrum. for it to work, supposedly your spectrum shows fascist controlling government on the right, progressing where the people have more power across towards the left to communism, where the people as a "commune" have all the power. but that is impossible and false. people have power only as individuals. thats the flaw. communism is never power of the people, it is the opposite. yes, they are called political theorists. they have doctorates and they teach at universities and teach people like me. what you need to understand is that totalitarianism is totalitarianism. whether your leaders are crushing you into their so-called workers communist state, or some nationalist 3rd reich or whatever, its the same thing, you dont get to do what you want and your leaders crush you.
I gotta agree w/ Martin, here. Even Hitler tried to pass off Naziism as "National Socialism"...it's the actual name of the Nazi Party. Stalin, I believe, started out w/ the ideals of socialism/communism in mind...then, as his personal power grew, he abandoned those ideals in favor of a more fascistic style rule. Remember that a key aspect of Fascism is the formation of a cult of personality around a powerful central dictator. Stalin was a lot more like Hitler than the historians care to admit, even though it seems pretty obvious.
Duhhhh, why thank you. My point is that all fascists are totalitarian, but not all totalitarians are fascists--some totalitarians are communists. Its a simple concept. Understanding Fascism "It is clear that liberals are every bit as prone to confusing fascism with totalitarianism as are conservatives. The difference, perhaps, is that the latter often do so deliberately, as a way of obscuring the genuine fascism that sits at their elbows. As "fascism" has been bandied about freely, it has come loosely to represent the broader concept of totalitarianism, which of course encompasses communism as well. Right-wing propagandists like Limbaugh clearly hope to leap into that breach of popular understanding to exploit his claim that those on the left, like Dick Gephardt or "feminazis," are "fascists." It's also clear as he denounces antiwar liberals as "anti-American" that he is depicting them as enemy sympathizers with the forces of "Islamofascism." Most Americans have a perfectly clear idea of the basic tenets of communism (though in many cases it is fairly distorted), largely because it is an ideology based on a body of texts and revolving around specific ideas. In contrast, hardly anyone can explain what it is that makes fascism, mainly because all we really know about it is the regimes that arose under its banner. There are no extant texts, only a litany of dictatorships and atrocities. When we think of fascism, we think of Hitler and perhaps Mussolini, without even understanding what forces they rode to power. At the same time, it's important that Americans of all stripes -- liberal or conservative -- have clear view of what fascism is, because it is not an extinct political force, and it is above all else innately anti-democratic and anti-American in spirit. This essay is in some regards a plea, particularly to those on the left who have used the term willy nilly to score shrill partisan political points, to cease abusing the word "fascism," learn what it means, and apply it only when it's appropriate. (I have absolutely no hopes of persuading those on the right, particularly since they are a large part of the problem.)" -- Davis Neiwart
