NikkolasKing posted:

Not American Conservatism. If I remember history right, Fascism supports government control over the economy. Absolute control over all businesses. Which fits because Fascism makes the State the center of absolutely every facet of life.

That runs against everything American Conservatism stands for ie. "get your filthy paws off my money " and "gently caress you, I got mine."

Epic High Five posted:

American Conservatism is all about big government strictly controlling every facet of peoples' lives. The only difference is our croneyism is called unregulated Capitalism and the country loves it.

There hasn't been a genuinely small government party in the US for...oh man, 2-3 generations?

NikkolasKing posted:

That's because small government is impossible now. But I don't see how removing regulations on companies and cutting taxes and letting corporations and rich people do as they please in any way leads to a fascist economy.

Crabtree posted:

Remember these are the people that will twist whatever current bathroom bill they can think of into the system and then whine that we should look into the Civil Rights act to bring back outright segregation. They absolutely are fascists but don't even have the understanding or courage to actually admit what they are, instead taking every opportunity to crow that their political opponents are the true Nazis because its called National Socialism and a few shitbags are being "silenced" on Facebook. Basically their dream of small government only extends as far as the likes of Trump because he totally deserves to not admit how much money he actually has to the IRS or use the system to his advantage at every opportunity, but everyone else not of that chosen elect can go gently caress themselves. Mass surveillance, militarized police, aggressive new national security measures and control of information is good so long as it doesn't inconvenience or go after their brand of crazy.

It may not show all the signs of fascism yet, but its very likely there and would be followed to the textbook example if complete political control was given to the new/alt right.

NikkolasKing posted:

That's because small government is impossible now. But I don't see how removing regulations on companies and cutting taxes and letting corporations and rich people do as they please in any way leads to a fascist economy.

NikkolasKing posted:

My understanding is that England simply has more diversity than we do. The Republican Party in America has purged all the liberals and moderates over the years and created one giant culture of extremism where every member has to tow the party line on pretty much everything. There seems to be more dissent and diversity in the UK so while you can get crazies, it isn't a party of crazies that celebrate being as crazy as possible.

quote:

The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’.

icantfindaname posted:

The German CDU are very moderate by American standards, to the point where they're basically identical in policy to 90s vintage American Democrats. The French UMP/Republicans, I suspect, are similar, though I don't know enough about French politics to really say more in detail. British conservatives are a little bit more moderate than American Republicans, but not by much. Eastern/Post Soviet Europe conservative parties have mostly become neo-fascists, as have Scandanavia's. I'm not really sure about Spain/Portugal/Italy/Greece, but my general impression is that their conservatives are about similar to Western Europe's

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

-- George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

That said, insofar as fascism was a coherent ideology, it generally involved idealizing dictatorial rule of a strongman over individual rights; a cult of personality and a cultish nationalism. So we can see fascist traits in Trumpism and 'Murica "flag porn" but the attempt to discern a coherent ideology or belief system in fascism is generally futile; it isn't a logical or reasoned ideology, it's an emotional one.

NikkolasKing posted:

True. Also it's a distinctly nationalistic ideology so naturally the state of the nation has profound influences on it and thus one nation's fascists might be vastly different from another's. Italian Fascism had none of the race science of the Nazis for example because all that Aryan crap came out of weird occult stuff that was popular in Germany around this time.

BarbarianElephant posted:

The Conservative party is not terribly diverse. It is a party of pro-business, anti-welfare and Tradition in general.

The reason that there are less crazies in the running for Prime Minister is that to become Prime Minister you must already be the leader of your party. Only the party members vote for leader, and being a party member involves membership dues. The Labour party reduced dues to a nominal fee for their last leadership contest and were peturbed to end up with a candidate really out of left field. I rather think the Conservatives won't want to do the same.

Jurgan posted:

I remember being ticked off when I read V for Vendetta. Moore portrayed a pretty good idea of a fascist Britain, except that he had them saying "heil" and other distinctly German mannerisms. No, a British fascist party would be very focused on being British and eschew any overt signifiers of other cultures, even if they were similar beneath the surface.

Lamprey Cannon posted:

I can't really blame him for that. Given how many people read Watchmen and thought that Rorschach was the good guy/coolest dude ever, I see the value in Moore's decision to really underline and bold-face THESE PEOPLE ARE NAZIS. THEY ARE THE BAD GUYS. DO NOT BE LIKE THEM.

Lamprey Cannon posted:

I can't really blame him for that. Given how many people read Watchmen and thought that Rorschach was the good guy/coolest dude ever, I see the value in Moore's decision to really underline and bold-face THESE PEOPLE ARE NAZIS. THEY ARE THE BAD GUYS. DO NOT BE LIKE THEM.

NikkolasKing posted:

Not American Conservatism. If I remember history right, Fascism supports government control over the economy. Absolute control over all businesses. Which fits because Fascism makes the State the center of absolutely every facet of life.

That runs against everything American Conservatism stands for ie. "get your filthy paws off my money " and "gently caress you, I got mine."

Epic High Five posted:

I need a shirt that says "FIGHT CLUB WAS A FARCE LAMPOONING MODERN MASCULINITY" on the front and "THE WATCHMEN ARE ALL PROFOUNDLY DAMAGED PEOPLE WHO DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD" on the back or something

Bushiz posted:

beatlegs posted:

Uh, Michigan? Go there if you want to see what conservatives do when they have complete power over government and don't like the way voters have set things up.

NikkolasKing posted:

I was born and raised in Michigan. Lived in Southwest Detroit until I was about 10 then Westland, Redford and Livonia after that until I moved to Florida and now Texas.

I'm not sure what I missed 'cuz I don't now what you're talking about specifically? Detroit, Flint, everything? Is this a recent development? I haven't paid attention to Michigan politics in a while.

Lamprey Cannon posted:

Well, in Italy you had Silvio Berlusconi, whose list of scandals and controversies has its own entire Wikipedia page, and who is basically an Italian Donald Trump. And of course in Greece you have the dramatic rise of the Golden Dawn, who, uh, are

Lamprey Cannon posted:

I can't really blame him for that. Given how many people read Watchmen and thought that Rorschach was the good guy/coolest dude ever, I see the value in Moore's decision to really underline and bold-face THESE PEOPLE ARE NAZIS. THEY ARE THE BAD GUYS. DO NOT BE LIKE THEM.

Dapper_Swindler posted:

i thought it was "the world is hosed and all the "heroes" are damaged dickheads with a shitload of issues. then the squid made the world poo poo itself into compliance and peace, but it probably wont last because nothing ever does."

ToxicSlurpee posted:

The world of V for Vendetta is a pretty god awful one; the war that led to them taking over hosed up the world something fierce and they created stability from chaos. On one hand they created a powerful nation with a society that functions. On the other hand they're, you know, English Nazis.

ToxicSlurpee posted:

In the comic kind of the point was that there was a ton of ambiguity. V was the protagonist but it was debatable if he was the good guy just fighting the good fight or a dangerous, deranged vigilante who did little but cause problems. The government was pretty obviously totalitarian as hell but once again it wasn't all bad.

The movie was where "V is obviously the good guy" came from because the movie took a lot of the ambiguity away. Norsefire was more obviously Nazis but English in the movie version.

The world of V for Vendetta is a pretty god awful one; the war that led to them taking over hosed up the world something fierce and they created stability from chaos. On one hand they created a powerful nation with a society that functions. On the other hand they're, you know, English Nazis.

icantfindaname posted:

alan moore and v for vendetta are both bad and anyone who uses that stupid loving mask as a political symbol is most likely a reddit libertarian dipshit

NikkolasKing posted:

On the topic of misreading messages, does anyone know if Heinlein's Starship Troopers really is a love letter to fascism? My sci-fi nerd friends can't agree.


That order is possibly the most alluring aspect of dictatorships. I know it all too well. I have an admitted weakness for, and fascination with, authoritarianism. There is a sense of...belonging and certainty and higher purpose in these kinds of regimes. You put all of your faith in something or someone else. You also find it in cults. I've never been in a cult thankfully but I have read accounts of people who have been and they almost lament how things got so much more complicated after they left. While they were in the cult, they had that "certainty" I mentioned earlier.

Sadly, just because something is attractive doesn't make it good and in this case, it's definitely not.

icantfindaname posted:

Heinlein was a fascist with a bunch of weird fetishes, yes

Pope Guilty posted:

No loving way.

icantfindaname posted:

alan moore and v for vendetta are both bad and anyone who uses that stupid loving mask as a political symbol is most likely a reddit libertarian dipshit

Epic High Five posted:

The number of people who misread Watchmen continues to amaze me.

That it likely kicked off a blind worship and consumption of super heroes on a global scale is probably something that gives him a good laugh now and then

I need a shirt that says "FIGHT CLUB WAS A FARCE LAMPOONING MODERN MASCULINITY" on the front and "THE WATCHMEN ARE ALL PROFOUNDLY DAMAGED PEOPLE WHO DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD" on the back or something

Never read V for Vendetta but I loved The Watchmen

Epic High Five posted:

Starship Troopers is odd. The 2nd half almost certainly is a love letter to absolute military control of all facets of governance, but with the fascist overtones removed with the helpful addition of, "but the absolute power has never been abused in any way by the military, funny that, oh well moving along" in there to make it clear that Heinlein really wanted the 2nd half of the book to be about how citizenship should be earned through service and blahblahblah, as though you could just handwave that part away. The 2nd half was Real Bad self-insert with passive characters and a wet noodle of an ending with the dad

Some of the more nasty stuff is glossed over a bit, like those who are unfit for service for any number of reasons but who still wanted a vote were forced to do stuff that almost certainly meant they died horribly, like mining uranium on the moon. I'm not sure the best word for what Heinlein was advocating - Militaristic Meritocracy?

Literally The Worst posted:

i mean moore's not horrendous, v is dogshit and the people who use the mask as a symbol should be guillotined

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

I went over this in the Book Barn thread just now that the guy crossposted in and I don't want to retype it all, but I think the key that unlocks Starship Troopers was that Heinlein was trying to reconcile his libertarian opposition to the draft with his love of the military and his belief that military service made you a Better Person.

So he cooked up the system in Starship Troopers as a way of being unabashedly pro-military while handwaving away the various problems you have when militaries run societies, and making service voluntary because draft is evil / free market etc.

The even shorter answer is that Heinlein wasn't fascist, he was libertarian. He was a Paulsie, not a Trumpista.

Pope Guilty posted:

No loving way.

icantfindaname posted:

Heinlein was a fascist with a bunch of weird fetishes, yes

Epic High Five posted:

This sums it up better. "Libertarian writes convoluted story of self-insert rambling monologues and systems that do not even work within the context of the novel" is a rich and fun genre

RareAcumen posted:

Is there ever a good reason to cut a school's funding? I don't actually have anything that prompted this- I'm not arguing with anyone- I just wanted to ask because I just started thinking about it out of the blue. It'd be better to make sure it's being managed and not abused or increase it right?

Aeka 2.0 posted:

One community full of white old people in SoCal finally figured out that if you put money into schools, their property values go up! So they voted in taxes or things that gave funding to the schools in the area, for the wrong reasons, but it happened.

Kilroy posted:

Yeah turns out that pure self-interest will lead a rational person to strengthen their society and economy over the long run, rather than looting it. Most so-called "rational self-interest" is actually "short-sighted greed" but you probably already knew that.

I'm hesitant to even say it's for the wrong reasons. I guess they probably stopped at "property values go up" without really considering why that would be the case, but still this is the system working the way it should, more or less.