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Politics - Episode 9: The Lurking Fear

Rosbjerg

By Rosbjerg
in Way Off-Topic

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Ben No.3

Ben No.3

Posted
Posted (edited)

"I understand it's annoying that your favorite political spectrum hosted such barbarism"

 

I don't think there's any political ideology that didn't to be honest. Even anarchists managed to build labour camps in Catalonia, we are all aware of communist mass starvings and fascist holocaust, western wealth is build on colonialism and slavery, the major western/middle east religions all include passages about killing those who disagree... and every major revolution ended in bloodshed: the Americans had an uprising in Pensilvania which had to be crushed by the army in 1794 as well as a three year war against an group of several unites tribes, the French was one big bloody show and the Russian begun with civil war and ended in totalitarian dictatorship. Same goes for Chinese, Cuban and Vietnamese; with varying degrees of authoritarianism.

 

If you don't want to support an ideology that ended in bloodshed you won't have an ideology left to support. So, what to do?

 

I really like the following quote from Tolstoy's War and Peace

 

" 'The Revolution was a grand thing!' continued Monsieur Pierre, betraying by his desperate and provocative proposition his extreme youth.

'What? Revolution and regicide a grand thing?'

'I am not speaking of regicide, I am speaking about ideas.'

'Yes; ideas of robbery, murder, and regicide', again interjected an ironical voice.

'Those were extremes, no doubt, but they are not what is most important. What is important are the rights of man, emancipation from prejudice, and equality of citizenship.' "

Edited by Ben No.3

Everybody knows the deal is rotten

Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton

For your ribbons and bows

And everybody knows

Wrath of Dagon

Wrath of Dagon

Posted
Posted

 

The true nazis are the ones who call their political opponents nazis because they disagree with them.

 

Or communists, libtards and so on.

 

The "or" is unnecessary.

 

 

 

The true nazis are the ones who call their political opponents nazis because they disagree with them.

A true nazi is someone who:

-Genuinely believes Hitler was a good guy

-Denies that the holocaust happened

-But secretly wishes it did

 

Technically you're right. "Fascist" would be more appropriate. But I was responding to the particular quote that branded 65 million Americans as "nazis".

 

 

 

The true nazis are the ones who call their political opponents nazis because they disagree with them.

 

I understand it's annoying that your favorite political spectrum hosted such barbarism - and the word gets thrown around too much.

 

My favorite political spectrum? What the **** are you talking about?

 

"But this not pointed towards the average voter to the right, just like 'commie' and 'SJ warrior' should not be pointed towards anyone, simply because they are to the left of you."

Re-read Raithe's quote, it's clearly pointed at the average voter on the right.

But we are seeing a rise of nationalistic fueled racism, with some pretty scary undertones - calling people Nazi who advocates segregation, racial profiling, internment of political adversaries, curtailing basic liberties, censorship and hardcore spinning of news .. is not out of the line.

This is only happening in the fevered imagination of the left.

"Moral indignation is a standard strategy for endowing the idiot with dignity." Marshall McLuhan

Ben No.3

Ben No.3

Posted
Posted

"Technically you're right. "Fascist" would be more appropriate."

 

I'd disagree. The holocaust is a specifically German Nazi thing. Fascism is more diverse.

Everybody knows the deal is rotten

Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton

For your ribbons and bows

And everybody knows

Wrath of Dagon

Wrath of Dagon

Posted
Posted

"Technically you're right. "Fascist" would be more appropriate."

 

I'd disagree. The holocaust is a specifically German Nazi thing. Fascism is more diverse.

No, you're agreeing. I meant I should've said "fascist", but because I was responding to a specific quote I used the other word.

"Moral indignation is a standard strategy for endowing the idiot with dignity." Marshall McLuhan

Ben No.3

Ben No.3

Posted
Posted (edited)

 

"Technically you're right. "Fascist" would be more appropriate."

 

I'd disagree. The holocaust is a specifically German Nazi thing. Fascism is more diverse.

No, you're agreeing. I meant I should've said "fascist", but because I was responding to a specific quote I used the other word.
Sorry, my mistake.

 

"Fascist" makes your argument more interesting. But even then, I'd say it's more of an authoritarian thing in general, seeing how there are and were many non fascist countries who acted that way.

 

As for every right extremist being called a Nazi, that seems perhaps incorrect but an understandable mistake. What is not justifiable however and I agree with you on that is to call every far right or right leaning person a Nazi; and it is indeed something that is happening far to often. On both sides in thus far as left wingers often end up being communists in the sense of stalinists.

 

Now, tbh, the only feasible solution I see is if we try to free ourselves from emotional attachment to politics. And perhaps also of we accept our own little knowledge on certain issues, and accordingly admit mistakes. And this is true for anyone.

 

Democracy is dying, less and less people vote every year in the entire western world. If we want to preserve it we'll have to act like we want to.

Edited by Ben No.3
  • Like 1

Everybody knows the deal is rotten

Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton

For your ribbons and bows

And everybody knows

Zoraptor

Zoraptor

Posted
Posted

 

I wouldn't put too much stock into that. Saddam was uncooperative to do anything about terror cells that he shrouded. Unlike Pakistan, we could do something about it. The real counter-weight to Iran in the region was always the Saudis anyways. We went in really to dispose of Al-Qaeda, and dispose of one of the axis of evil that H. W. and Clinton failed to ever follow through with. More than anything I think W. was trying to follow through on his father's legacy. It's a region that had long bleed refugees into the west with a long history of human rights violations; At some point you have to justifying taking things to the source. At least today it's a republic, even if it hasn't secularized.

 

 

(1) Iraq was secular* under Saddam, as baathism is a secular philosophy. Same as Syria is secular under Assad, and Libya was secular under Gaddafi.

(2) There was no Al Qaeda in Iraq prior to 2003, and no credible links between Saddam and Al Qaeda. That's as debunked as his active WMD programme in 2003.

(3) The Saudis were and are a joke, if a rather grim and unpleasant one. If it had been the Saudi/ Iran War instead of Iran/ Iraq War the IRGC would have been in Riyadh in months if not weeks even if they had to swim the Persian Gulf unless someone actively bailed KSA out. They have money, and use it to buy influence, and they have Mecca; that's the extent of their pluses.

 

Personally I don't have much doubt at all that GWB was more or less honest in his approach to Iraq and believed what he was saying the vast majority of the time, he was just wrong and sometimes handed incorrect information deliberately by others. The neocon wing (Cheney etc) and even Blair (who almost certainly didn't believe what he was saying but may now have convinced himself otherwise) are more morally responsible; Bush's main sin was naivete.

 

*pluralist, actually; even Kemalist Turkey wasn't really secular.

  • Like 1
Malcador

Malcador

Posted
Posted

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/346995-trump-resurrects-pigs-blood-myth-after-barcelona-attack

 

Well damn, why didn't anyone think of this before. Must be some people out there that really dig this badass scthick :lol:

Why has elegance found so little following? Elegance has the disadvantage that hard work is needed to achieve it and a good education to appreciate it. - Edsger Wybe Dijkstra

213374U

213374U

Posted
Posted

Must be some people out there that really dig this badass scthick :lol:

 

Out there? I'm pretty sure we've got some here.

  • Like 1

- When he is best, he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast.

injurai

injurai

Posted
Posted

 

 

I wouldn't put too much stock into that. Saddam was uncooperative to do anything about terror cells that he shrouded. Unlike Pakistan, we could do something about it. The real counter-weight to Iran in the region was always the Saudis anyways. We went in really to dispose of Al-Qaeda, and dispose of one of the axis of evil that H. W. and Clinton failed to ever follow through with. More than anything I think W. was trying to follow through on his father's legacy. It's a region that had long bleed refugees into the west with a long history of human rights violations; At some point you have to justifying taking things to the source. At least today it's a republic, even if it hasn't secularized.

 

 

(1) Iraq was secular* under Saddam, as baathism is a secular philosophy. Same as Syria is secular under Assad, and Libya was secular under Gaddafi.

(2) There was no Al Qaeda in Iraq prior to 2003, and no credible links between Saddam and Al Qaeda. That's as debunked as his active WMD programme in 2003.

(3) The Saudis were and are a joke, if a rather grim and unpleasant one. If it had been the Saudi/ Iran War instead of Iran/ Iraq War the IRGC would have been in Riyadh in months if not weeks even if they had to swim the Persian Gulf unless someone actively bailed KSA out. They have money, and use it to buy influence, and they have Mecca; that's the extent of their pluses.

 

Personally I don't have much doubt at all that GWB was more or less honest in his approach to Iraq and believed what he was saying the vast majority of the time, he was just wrong and sometimes handed incorrect information deliberately by others. The neocon wing (Cheney etc) and even Blair (who almost certainly didn't believe what he was saying but may now have convinced himself otherwise) are more morally responsible; Bush's main sin was naivete.

 

*pluralist, actually; even Kemalist Turkey wasn't really secular.

 

 

Secularism is all for naught when you live in an non-democratic society. Assad is part of a dynastic dictatorship propped up by Russia. If what I know about Gaddafi holds true though, what happened in Libya was some bull**** subversion by the DOD.

 

I checked on (2) and you're right, I thought that was part of the original justification. (It may have been, even though they were absent.)

 

No doubt W was naive.

smjjames

smjjames

Posted
Posted

Libya was also compounded by the fact that none of the combatants in the West went in to actually stabilize things. Obama tried to not make George W Bush's mistake by simply not putting boots on the ground and just ended up leaving a vacuum. As much of a multifaceted problem Iraq is, if Bush had pulled troops out right after felling saddam rather than stick around and help set up a government, Iraq could have been worse off.

 

We could have made Europe do it, but we're really the only one (well, okay, China could, as they have the numbers) with the resources to actually pull off a long term occupation.

Zoraptor

Zoraptor

Posted
Posted

Libya is Europe's fault, all the big movers were European (Sarkozy trying to Wag The Dog away his single figure approval ratings, and the UK primarily) and Obama probably would have liked to stay out altogether but couldn't let his allies fail. What happened after was stupid and predictable, but neither the US's fault or problem. Of course outside of Libya itself it's mostly Italy- that wasn't keen at all- bearing the brunt of the problems now, not France or the UK.

 

Few people really care about what happens afterwards anyway, not like there's a deficit of people wanting to repeat the same mistakes again as if there would suddenly be a different result.

 

 

Secularism is all for naught when you live in an non-democratic society.

 

 

Not really, 'secular' even with the quotes is better than fundamentalist whatever the system. In, say, Saudi Arabia you could be arrested for all the same things as in Syria- supporting reform, not liking the leadership etc etc- as well as practicing the wrong religion or being the wrong sect. You're also far more likely to evolve as a society if you're secular as you don't have to reform both the governmental system and the 'moral' system as well.

Ben No.3

Ben No.3

Posted
Posted

Lots of good points about Charlottesville and related here: http://thedeclination.com/moral-courage-and-moral-arbitrage/

"If a politician or celebrity stands up and denounces Marxism as a hateful, murderous ideology that is at least as evil as Nazism, he is often shot down."

Besides Marxism being more of a form of analysis rather than an ideology, is this actually true in the US?

 

Furthermore, I like how the article mentions Marx' popularity amongst intellectuals but fails to acknowledge any actual reasons for this. Though I suppose that would include giving Marx credit.

 

As for the Che shirt being compared to a Hitler shirt: If people are idealised, we idealise them not because of who they were, but what they stood for. For example, you don't have Washington on your bank notes because he owned slaves, he's there due to his crucial role in the US' early history.

Similarly, Che stands not for the person Ernesto Guevara, but for third world socialist revolution, and considering the state of the third world, it is easy to see why he remains a popular symbol. His main archivement was his role in the Cuban revolution, and as I said that is what he represents now.

Hitler's main archivement on the other hand was starting an unnecessary war that cost millions of lives and the holocaust.

 

Now did the Third Reich heighten living standards for Germans in the first few years? Yes, but that's not what the Nazi movement and Hitler stand for.

Did Che torture the living hell out of people. Yes, but again, not what he stands for.

 

This is not to say that we should forget the history surrounding these figures. But we should accept symbols as symbols.

Everybody knows the deal is rotten

Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton

For your ribbons and bows

And everybody knows

Raithe

Raithe

Posted
Posted

Hm, and now we're getting a rush of mixed reports of Bannon being out.

Has he gone? Has he been fired? Did he quit? Has he collapsed into a pile of necrotic tissue? No-one seems to know for certain and they're all a-flutter.

"Cuius testiculos habeas, habeas cardia et cerebellum."

smjjames

smjjames

Posted
Posted

Hm, and now we're getting a rush of mixed reports of Bannon being out.

Has he gone? Has he been fired? Did he quit? Has he collapsed into a pile of necrotic tissue? No-one seems to know for certain and they're all a-flutter.

 

Some are saying that Trump wanted him out and Bannon and his allies are saying that he resigned, so, it's more like each side trying to spin it favorably.

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