The story goes that a famous (and famously waggish) liberal Russian emigre is finally invited to return to the country of his birth in the 1930s to see what the regime he’s supported in principal for the past decade has wrought. At the tour’s end, he’s asked what impressions he will be taking back to Europe with him, to which he responds: “I’ve seen a lot of broken eggs, Comrade, but I must ask you: where are all these omelettes I’ve been hearing so much about?”
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This thread:
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Moreover, when discussing this with family, it is their sincere belief ‘oh you need to PUNISH someone for doing well and give it to the lazy motherfucker that isn’t strong enough to not be lazy and useless? THIS IS INCINTIVE RITE?!’
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The video I was looking for but couldn’t find:
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It’s maddening. “Our government is failing and doesn’t work and if elected I intend to prove it.”
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Look, you’re after your own straw man. Not only did I not mention Mussolini, but I didn’t even say it was a fact. I said “Saying the trains ran on time under the Nazi’s is not promoting fascism”. My point was that if you don’t try and understand what’s attractive to some people about racism, Fascism, Conservatism or whatever, how can you combat it? Yet people said even discussing positive aspects is promoting them, which I feel is anti-intellectual BS, equivalent to saying studying the history of war is inherently pro-war. So many high horses around here it’s easy to get trampled.
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I can see why that would be worrisome for a dog that spends so much time barking up the wrong tree.
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feelings and intellect are pretty different things, perhaps untangle that bit of language before asking other people to unpack their inherent contradictions? My two cents.
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The only people who’ve made that false claim in earnest since 1945 have been promoting fascism, or at least trying to excuse it.
That’s a reasonable point, but claiming something that never happened (i.e. making the trains run on time) is one of the things that made fascism attractive to people is not. There are plenty of other easily understood examples available about what made fascism attractive to certain people that make it unnecessary to resort to a long-discredited one. By doing the latter you derailed (as it were) your own valid point.
ETA: I posted this excerpt from a recent interview with Guillermo del Toro elsewhere, but it’s appropriate to your point:
“What interests me about fascism is that it is a black hole of free will,” he has said. “It is a system which isn’t necessarily unique, but it absolves brutality, it absolves the lack of morals and it absolves people of their own decisions. When they tell you ‘you can kill these people because they are Jews, reds or homosexuals, or whatever!’ In this world you can permit a brutal action on the base of collective advice; that is what scares me.”
He understands the appeal of fascism: “One of the dangers of fascism and one of the dangers of true evil in our world—which I believe exists—is that it’s very attractive. That it is incredibly attractive in a way that most people negate. Most people make their villains ugly and nasty and I think, no, fascism has a whole concept of design, and a whole concept of uniforms and set design that made it attractive to the weak-willed”
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Perhaps it was poorly chosen, but I did not research it as it was not the point I was trying to make, I did NOT claim it happened, I used it as an example statement. Focusing on that rather than the point I was making seems deliberately combative and obfuscative.
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Careful, trampling danger ahead!
[quote=“gellfex, post:166, topic:97230, full:true”]
Perhaps it was poorly chosen, but I did not research it as it was not the point I was trying to make, I did NOT claim it happened, I used it as an example statement.[/quote]
No “perhaps” about it. It was very poorly chosen. Your very good point deserved better support than an unresearched example that’s already been widely debunked. We all make mistakes that do ourselves disservices like this, and it’s not a terrible thing to admit it and get back to the main discussion.
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The opinions of someone who has declared their mind closed to new information holds no interest to me.
Then maybe stop barking at that someone’s hooves?
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no interest.
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Canadian here. Apart from tiny-dicked white evangelical men, nobody hates multiculturalism. It nay seem like there is a base for hate, but that is only because of the rigged first past the post parliamentary election system.
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I know many nonevangelicals and non men that also are against multiculturalism. They still tend to be white though…
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