Politics Discussion Thread (Heated Arguing Warning)

[Bacchus]

Even though there was no such thing as a second-class Italian until Italy was taken over by Germany?

Oh but there was. Under fascism, all Italians oficially had to uphold and promote the ideology. It was pretended that all that stayed quiet on the issue did so. Everyone who actively held non-fascist political views was a second-class citizen, especially communists, anarchists and socialists. The discrimination doesn't have to be racial.

Also, Italy introduced racial discrimination in 1938 -- are you sure that it was 'taken over' by Germany by then?

Meanwhile, things like removal of the franchise, focus on a single leader, nationalism, emphasis on military virtues and the military itself, forcible suppression of any opposition, suppression of religion and speech, requirement that everything happen through the state, nothing outside the state...these are all tangential?

Some of these are tangential, some are not. Some have to be clarified through the prism of 'right' people and 'wrong' people -- good fascists and even apoliticals led a fairly comfortable and free life. Most importantly, most of your points apply for Louis XIV, for example, so they surely can't be the identifiers of fascism specifically, and they aren't. Some identify authoritarianism, some militarism, perfectly possible to have these without having fascism. The points I brought up are the really fascist-specific ones, and they encompass many of yours under 'restriction of rights'. Any universal restriction of rights is just authoritarianism, fascism requires an 'us and them' aspect. Having everything done through the state is also a true sign of fascism specifically, and I brought it up under 'corporatism'. Again, early-20th century America, especially in company towns, was much closer to this than you seem to think. All those killings of workers I linked above -- they were almost all done by some amalgam of corporate and state officials, frequently by people who were dual-serving.

The US is the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the traditions of common law and Lockean enlightenment that preceded and inspired those documents.

Ah, yes, that is the convenient point of view -- slavery wasn't American, and the South wasn't American. I by contrast look at America factually, for what it really is, not what it aspires to be. And the fact is that vast sections of American populace lived in conditions which had nothing to do with common law, Locke and the Bill of Rights. Until recently, those things were not even supposed to apply to all Americans, and they didn't. The Founders were quite clever in that they stated the rights, but not the range of bearers of those rights, so that every generation can interpret them as broadly or narrowly as they see fit.

What's truly American, just based on fact of what actually happened in America, and is still happening to some extent, is to have a whole range of legal systems, in which those at the top avail themselves of the things you list, and others live in a different legal reality altogether.

Today that's nicely illustrated by one legal reality -- that of when several dozen unrelated people get coralled into court for a mass guilty plea, without any meaningful interaction with a public defender -- and another, that of actual trial, with attorneys, evidence, juries, and all that. One gets shown on TV as 'ehat justice in America looks like', the other is what a huge chunk of population actually has to live through.

[T-hawk]

It's worth picking these components apart to describe what is actually happening in the US.  (I'm not sure who is claiming what is or isn't.)

One is a legal framework, which designates a group of second-class citizens and restricts their rights based on an ideology of a hierarchy of groups is the formal sign of fascism.

This is not happening.  There is no legislation enacted or proposed that designates or restricts any group of citizens.  It seems sure enough that such a thing would never become enacted against massive popular disfavor in the US or EU.

It is true that action against non-citizens is occurring in the US.  The travel ban from certain countries that correlate with both violence and Islam, and more enforcement of immigration rules such as DACA (which was a temporary amnesty never guaranteed to be permanent.)

Meanwhile, things like removal of the franchise, focus on a single leader, nationalism, emphasis on military virtues and the military itself, forcible suppression of any opposition, suppression of religion and speech, requirement that everything happen through the state, nothing outside the state...these are all tangential?

Removal of the franchise, forcible suppression of opposition or religion or speech, requirement that everything happen through the state -- none of this is happening or seriously proposed.  Nothing outside the state -- the Trump administration is reducing state power in many areas, like dropping the Obamacare individual mandate, cutting taxes, rolling back business regulations.

Focus on a single leader -- somewhat, but the checks and balances still exist; the cabinet and congressional leaders and Supreme Court are as prominent as ever.  And nobody seriously thinks Trump can or will make himself god-emperor-for-life or otherwise circumvent the rules of democracy.

Nationalism, emphasis on military and its virtues -- that is happening among Trump supporters, but is not universal.



So what do we actually have from all the above elements?  Some action against non-citizens, and some leader support and nationalistic sentiment.  I think it's a hard stretch to call that fascism.  It's patriotism.

[Bacchus]

@Mardoc I mean, how telling is this -- even you, a libertarian, take it as absolutely uncontroversial that people who don't share your fairly specific political viewpoint are automatically 'un-American'.

N.B. The Southern slavers were all for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (as it then stood). If anything they were the more rigorous defenders than those who tried to amend it.

@T-Hawk, to clarify, I'm not claiming US has a current fascism problem, and if it did, it wouldn't be because of Trump. I did say that circa 1933 US was pretty far down the fascism spectrum, enough that saying 'fascism never landed in the US' is preposterous. But none of that has to do with the hysteria in the media and on campuses, whether now, or then. Even today, the most really problematic things (top of the world for incarceration, really?) are not the ones that are being raised.

[Mardoc]

(I'm not sure who is claiming what is or isn't.)

...

Removal of the franchise, forcible suppression of opposition or religion or speech, requirement that everything happen through the state -- none of this is happening or seriously proposed.  Nothing outside the state -- the Trump administration is reducing state power in many areas, like dropping the Obamacare individual mandate, cutting taxes, rolling back business regulations.

I'm claiming that Bacchus' definition of fascism is flawed, because he doesn't consider these elements to be fascism, but rather the presence of corporations with influence over the government and categories of people.  

I don't see how those, particularly the categories and the loss of rights due to not supporting the regime, are unique to Fascism.  His own critique applies - it was just called treason or sedition or lese majeste or similar.  Heck, Louis XIV literally had multiple categories of people defined by having different rights - nobles and serfs and clerics and cityfolk and a whole bunch of others.

Most importantly, most of your points apply for Louis XIV, for example, so they surely can't be the identifiers of fascism specifically, and they aren't.

I don't think there is any one item that's unique to fascism - it's the total package that creates the ideology.  It's there in the combination of treating the nation as the important thing with individuals valued only for their contributions to the nation, the military organization and flavor, the totalitarianism, the emphasis on a single leader - but it's true that these features show up in other ideologies too.

@Mardoc I mean, how telling is this -- even you, a libertarian, take it as absolutely uncontroversial that people who don't share your fairly specific political viewpoint are automatically 'un-American'.

It's better than trying to define Americanism by race, ancestry, or similar.

[Bacchus]

the presence of corporations with influence over the government and categories of people.

Ah, I see. That's not what corporatism means. To take a definition that corporatists themselves used: "a system of social organization that has at its base the grouping of men according to the community of their natural interests and social functions, and as true and proper organs of the state they direct and coordinate labor and capital in matters of common interest".

The 'corporation' in corporatism refers not to companies, but to structuring the entire society as a single body.

Louis XIV fails on my two definitions because the ancien regime privileges were the opposite of a system, there weren't even such large groups as nobility or peasants, each Duke would have a separate set of privileges, as would each village visavis it's particular feudal lord. Not only that, these duties and privileges were largely customary, rather than legal in the sense familiar to us. Now, if a traditionalist monarchy got bureacratic, rational and systematic about its classification, if it developed, as it would have to, a systematic ideology and hierachy of groups to boot, if the rules became mandated administratively and open to change in line with the evolving ideooogy, as opposed to ancient customs -- that indeed would start looking a lot like fascism. Indeed, the closest things to fascism we had before fascism were exactly the modernizing absolutist states, e.g. German Second Reich (which hits most of your criteria, Mardoc, save totalitarianism).

As for Americanism, it's defined by geography Americanism is things people living in US do, and veneration of Constitution is certainly one of them. Police brutality is another, and no less American. Crazy churches -- can hardly get more American than that, unless you take greedy bankers.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

If being told to "shut the fuck up" makes you freak out over your free speech being violated it's clear that you can't take any criticism when you post something idiotic.

[T-hawk]

Giving a reasoned argument is not a "freak out".

I'll accept your inability to do anything but fling insults and strawmen as a concession.

[ipecac]

Perhaps you could share your formal criteria?

Sure. One is a legal framework, which designates a group of second-class citizens and restricts their rights based on an ideology of a hierarchy of groups is the formal sign of fascism.

Why should this be a formal sign of fascism in particular? Lots of societies had different classes, and naturally many had ideologies to justify whatever arrangement of society existed.

[ipecac]

bureacratic, rational and systematic about its classification, if it developed, as it would have to, a systematic ideology and hierachy of groups to boot, if the rules became mandated administratively and open to change in line with the evolving ideooogy, as opposed to ancient customs -- that indeed would start looking a lot like fascism.

Like the USSR?

[Huinesoron]

This is not happening.  There is no legislation enacted or proposed that designates or restricts any group of citizens.  It seems sure enough that such a thing would never become enacted against massive popular disfavor in the US or EU.

Is the whole voter registration fiasco in the US still predominantly targetting/affecting non-white American citizens? The fact that they don't outright refer to it as a legislative effort to disenfranchise a chunk of the population on racial (and economic) grounds doesn't mean it isn't; it just means they're being fractionally more subtle.

hS

PS: And how about the denaturalisation push? It's ostensibly targetting only people who gained citizenship illegally, but in practice no task force is going to only hit the guilty; that makes it a de facto tool for threatening (and indeed attacking - if you're dragged away from your job by the immigration taskforce, which is the kind of thing ICE are already infamous for, do you really think you'll keep the job if you're pronounced innocent?) immigrants as a whole, legal or otherwise. How long before the first 'we're reviewing everyone who attended the protest'-type scenario? ~hS