Any chart of the political spectrum that makes communists and fascists one and the same is suspect. Wikipedia describes it well. The Political Spectrum Here are some multi-variant political spectrum charts that make a little more sense. But it must be recognized that such a chart become increasingly unreliable as it tries to encompass more and more fringe elements.
I was not saying you are a nazi; just that extremist ideas generally do not make a lot of sense, and extemist ideas that are made acceptable to the masses are no less extreme. What you are saying is that politically, we can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Those nations that have been built on extremist ideas end up being problems. But to be fair to you, I do not believe limited government is an extremist idea. Actually, I agree with some of the things you have to say. Perhaps the problem is that you define extremism a little differently than I. I have always been in favor of limited government. That is not an extremist idea; it is a conservative idea. But I don't belief our Founding Fathers held to the position that "the government that governs least, governs best." I tend to believe they would have rephrased that to "the more local government is, the more effective it is." I think one of the big problems with liberal, democratic politicies today is that the liberal democrats have no faith in state or local governments to solve their own problems. They feel only the federal government can solve problems. It is a point of view I totally disagree with. The reason the democrats look to Washington D.C. as they do is because that is where their power base is located. I also agree with you that this focus on ethenol is a bad idea. The only thing it has accomplished is to push up the price of food. Hydrogen is the fuel of the future, and that is what we should be focusing on. But neither is this an extremist idea any more than offshore drilling, border security, social security reform or the curbing of government waste and abuse are extremist ideas. All these principles are pretty mainstream.
wiki also has-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facism "Some scholars and political commentators argue that fascism is a form of socialist dictatorship similar to that in the Soviet Union.[11]" note the "some" however. regardless, if this is a serious point for debate for historians, then it should be no less so for us. perhaps the fact that it is debated here means we know what we're talking about.
Noted. The leading sentence in the paragraph you cite reads: "Most scholars hold that fascism as a social movement employs elements from the political left" I think the key to these perceived differences lie in interpretation. martin thinks fascists and communists are the same thing. I maintain that history shows fascists to be anti-communist. Hitler and Stalin were the bitterest of enemies. To quote from your cited article:
so based on the third chart, red55, my opinion is that the main populous has been bouncing back and forth across mid-range rationalism while drifting slightly towards state worship, with disenfanchised teens and the state of vermont residing on the other side of the mid-piont. At least as far back as my political memory goes.
a lot less suspect that your simple left-right line. wikpedia is saying basically the same thing i have been saying, you could have just listened to me. "more sense"? the first 2 are the same as mine. they even use the same words i have been using. statist, totalitarian, the bottom left of the charts is where communism and fascism are hanging out together. the whole point is that the spectrum is defined in terms of who has the power, the individual or the state. of course. i dunno why i didnt just say that! it is a praphrase of a thomas jefferson quote. i think they would say both things. you are probably right about the ant-federalism bit. i have been out of college long enough to not remember which of the FFs argued what about federal vs state power. right. why doesnt this register until somebody besides me says it? i must be a no-credibility kook. they are enemies because they are rivals, not because they are opposites. they both want power, they both want the state to make every decision. they are just justifying their power to their people slightly differently. what i have been saying isnt some off the wall craziness. the poli sci community has thinking this way forever. i was taught this in college :lsup: , i didnt just make it up.
It's not my model. It's universal. Wikipedia notes, "the right-left spectrum is so common as to be taken for granted. Wikipedia is saying things we've both been saying. The point is that your views are in the minority, as usual. No, the whole point is that increasingly complex models that try to account for increasingly fractious political viewpoints become less useful in terms of characterizing normal politics. Actually, it's because I'm an sloppy copy-paster, that was a sentence fragment. My apologies. The entire sentence reads "Most scholars hold that fascism as a social movement employs elements from the political left, but many conclude that fascism eventually allies with the political right, especially after attaining state power" LINK This is what we call politics, Grasshoppa. Fascists and communists are both extreme, they are both authoritarian, and they both wear impressive uniforms, but they have quite different political beliefs. And we are talking politics here. I realize this. But the existence of alternative models doesn't preclude the obvious value of the traditional and time-tested models. The alternative models are also often skewed to emphasize the values of their creators. Ignoring the differences between communists and fascists, for example.
