On Oct 26, 7:41 pm, Alex Freed  wrote:
> mdj wrote:
>
> > With all due respect, it's been pointed out to you by two people that
> > one of the examples you gave, Hitler, was a fascist.
>
> I know that tradition puts Nazis/Fascists at the "ultra-right".
> My only argument is that their *economic* agenda is very close to
> that of the far-left. We can compare the state controlled
> semi-capitalism under Hitler with what Chavez does these days, but
> probably not in this forum :)

Heh. We can compare apples and oranges too on the basis they're both
fruit, but there's a reason it's a catch-phrase of false
comparisons :-)

Of course, the Nazi's were operating a war economy, as were the allied
forces who fought against them. If we go down that line, we'd have to
compare it to Eisenhower's military-industrial complex and the Iron
Triangle, but I think you see my point ?

> > You'll find that often the labels that political parties use are a
> > part of their propaganda and bear only superficial resemblance to
> > their behaviour. See Hitler, Hussein. You might want to consider the
> > term "Libertarian Socialist"
>
> I have never heard this term. In my book Libertarian and Socialist are
> the opposites in most ways. Please give a reference. I accept there are
> lots of things I don't know.

Your best bet would be to read some of the works of Noam Chomsky.

> I have also asked for an example of a libertarian dictator. So far I
> didn't get one.

You did. Look into Saddam Hussein & the Ba'ath Party.

> > I think you'll find that the
> > totalitarianism tends along the "National" axis, and
that the tying of
> > the "left" to totalitarianism is nothing more than
obsolete cold-war
> > propaganda.
>
> OK. Let's leave Hitler and Mussolini alone. All the other dictators on
> my list are clearly ultra-left.

Sorry. My original disagreement was with the correlation of left and
totalitarianism, precisely because there has been right-wing
totalitarianism.

>  >Personally, I use the
>
> > terms 'left-wing' and 'right-wing' to mean respectively "looking after
> > the interests of the working class" and "looking after
the interests
> > of the establishment/aristocracy/investment class" or alternatively,
> > conservative. This is what they've meant since they were first used in
> > the French Revolution.
>
> Thanks for educating me a bit. I didn't know the terms go back to the
> French revolution. I thought that was the British parliament originally.

Actually, the House of Commons operates slightly differently: the
opposition sits on the left, the incumbent government on the right,
but the terms mean the same thing throughout the west.

> > In the Australian parliament just like in
> > France, the left/progressive party sit on the left, and the
> > conservative/right sit on the right. How does it work in the US?
>
> Not too well :)
>
> Tradition puts the Democrats at the "left" and the Republicans at the
> "right" but apparently  the working class/establishment interests only
> apply to the economic issues. It's a package deal. Along with (IMHO)
> more reasonable economic policy you get the idiotic "war on drugs",
> ultra conservative Supreme Court, etc. if Republicans are in power.
> Now this particular administration is the worst of both worlds: socially
> ultra conservative but without any reasonable economic policy.

Much the same as here. The difference would be that here it's the
"left" party that act conservatively, since they're trying to maintain
the social infrastructure they built during the 60s and 70s and the
"right" try to tear them down which makes the label
"conservative"
something of a misnomer ;-)

> BTW I guess the "investment class" covers most of the population now
> that the pension plans, etc. all invest heavily.

By "investment class", I mean those with sufficient capital that they
can maintain a decent standard of living without the need of social
security or labour.

IMHO, the real threat of totalitarianism comes from authoritarianism,
and the post-enlightenment form of it is nationalism. This is
something *all* the aforementioned dictators have in common, and it's
something that I believe we in the "free world" flirt a little too
closely to at times.

FWIW, I'd consider myself a Libertarian, but more in terms of
Enlightenment values rather than its current colloquial definition
which seems to me a perversion of what John Stuart Mill meant by the
"tyranny of the majority". In addition to free speech and the right of
reply, the solution to that remains now what it always has, and is
captured beautifully in one of my favourite public inscriptions:

"The Commonwealth requires the education of the people as the
safeguard of order and liberty"

Matt
--- SBBSecho 2.12-Win32