thats a flawed way to look at it. if we define the modern conservative as generally small government, then fascism clearly is poorly defined as "more right wing" than conservatives. castro claims he is a worker's man of the people, but he clearly isint. he is a dictator, with basically total control, not so different that what we might call fascist. i may finish this later, i have to go play tennis.
the arch isnt bad. the continuum of fascism to communism is stupid. i should have thought of the arch, i like it. the arch points out what i always say, that the systems of government that really control the people are similar, be it an islamicofascist dicatorship, or a workers party communist state. republicans of today are certainly no closer to fascism than democrats are. fascism has nothing to do with anything. and anyway, its not like anyone today seems to care about being philosophically consistent. they oppose government programs, until the program helps them personally, or they oppose government manipulation of people, unless their religion supports it, or whatever. people pick and choose a mishmosh of philosophies, so they can not be definied by some principle on a continuum, or at least not just one continuum. domcrats want to be controlled by the government with taxes and environmental laws and that sort of BS, and republicans want stupid decency laws and farm subsidy and prayer in school. either way, they both want government to control us too much, but republicans definitely do not belong closer to the fascist end of the spectrum. the arch, with commies and fascists together, thats smart. as a kid i was told that vacuum was the only word with the letter u twice in a row, but clearly thats stupid. if you lived in a fascist state, then a communist one, my guess is you wouldnt see much difference. in either one, you are gonna be told what to do, and have no real freedom. the only real difference is that the communist leaders would give you some lies about the reason they were forcing you to do stuff. they would claim you were doing it for the people, the workers for everyone. the fascist would still also be forcing his will on you, but might give you slightly different reasons why. the leaders of a socialist or communist state are no different that fascist leaders, because the commies dont really want the communist utopia where the people provide for the people. what they want is power. communist leaders are not selfless workers for the collective, they are basically fascists by another name. thats just the nature of leaders. red, how is fidel castro (who in theory communist) the "polar extreme" opposite of a fascist dictator? he isnt and that is why your continnum is flawed. libertarianism is not centrist or moderate. libertarianism and ayn rand capitalism is the opposite of your incorrectly labelled extremes.
christ i make lots of errors and typos and leave words out and type some words twice. i'm stupid. its gotten to the point where if i type more than a paragraph i am an embarassment.
It's because he is a communist (leftist) dictator rather than a fascist (rightist) dictator. Perhaps the communism of Marx was not supposed to be an oligarchy, but in practice most communist states seem to be run by dictators. They are still left-wing, however. "Fascist" and "dictator" are not synonymous terms. A fascist strongman is a dictator, but a communist strongman is a dictator, too. Hitler and Mussolini were fascist dictators, Stalin was a communist dictator as is Kim Il Sung. Totalitarian systems can emerge from both the radical left and the radical right. Communism--An economic theory or system based on the ownership of all property by the community as a whole; the final stage of socialism as formulated by Marx, Engels, Lenin and others characterized by a classless and stateless society and the equal distribution of economic goods; achieved by revolutionary and dictatorial means. Fascism--A political system that emphasizes nationalism, militarism, and anti- communist and totalitarian rule. Individuals are allowed to retain ownership of capital goods but are subject to centralized control. Or to make it simple and absurd: Communism: You have two cows. The government takes them both and provides you with some milk and cheese. Fascism: You have two cows. You must sell the milk to the government and you must buy milk and cheese from the government. Democracy: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. You make more cows and more milk than you need and sell it, contributing a small portion of the profits to the government to keep the fascists and communist away from your cows and to fix the friggin' roads.
LSU Gradin99 should read this thread, very eye opening. He doesn't believe school teachers and college professors have an agenda. I don't think he believes anyone has an agenda other than a politician. The quote from Red that Martin quoted is especially eye opening.
thanks for the poli sci lesson, but i dont need it, i have had more than my share already, probably more than you even. you are giving me definitions i already know. my point is this: the tyranny of the collective communists is effectively not different than the tyranny of fascism. you are either free or you are not. the communist government can own the means of production, or the fascist could tell me my i own it while crushing me with his will, forcing me to do whatever. what you describe as communism: is a fictional concept. it cannot, nor will it ever, exist. the leaders will claim it exists, but it doesnt. when you are a leader of a communist state, you are essentially a fascist. all the talk in the world of fair economic distribution and all that is nonsense. the leaders are getting rich at the hands of the poor, by force. so again, the communism as you describe it is a useless term, because it is an impossible concept used by leaders to advance their own power ambitions to naive and foolish communist ideallists. so given that the communism as you describe is really a fictional ideal, it is marginally useful in our continuum. in practice, communism basically is fascism. the idea of "equal distribution of economic goods" is just pretense. so we may be able to say that the conservatives of today are more close to fascists/communists than liberals today on issues like gay marriage, but liberals are more like fascists/communists on issues like environmental protection, because they want more government intervention. so because it can be so issue-specific, your model (which i know isnt yours, but is pretty widely used) is not very useful. or at least that is my opinion and my opinions are fabulous.
This, apparently, is the point of the rambling discourse above. Well, you are wrong. Absurdly wrong in this case. And now you will rant at length to defend this comical thesis. But you will still be wrong. I repeat: fascism and communism are both totalitarian. On this everybody agrees. But they are politically distinct and on opposite ends of the political spectrum.
that was a powerful refutation of what i said, packed with reasoning showing how i was wrong. if you want to believe communism truly is a society without classes, where everyone owns everything, and the workers rule, be my guest. everybody works hard and does their part, right. there are no classes, and the leaders dont beat down the poor at all. in practice, there is no such thing as what you call communism. move to a communist state and you will not be in a worker's utopia. your leader with tell you what to do and you will do it. fascism. i still would like to know what makes castro not fascist. the fact that he says cuba is a worker's communist paradise where everyone is equal? now, your 6th grade history teacher might have taught you that marxism is equality for everyone. so what, a fictional impossible system is irrelevant. read this next sentence twice: communism, in practice is not communism as it is defined. it never has been, not can it ever be. communist leaders are basically fascists pretending they are communist so they can crush their people more.
