Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to The point, which continously escapes people here...

The points which escape you...

...are too numerous to catalog, even while being right under your nose, as shown by your first couple of paragraphs, containing all the correct concepts but ordered in a completely confused way. Let me try to untangle it for you.

Based on your personal ideology you find all forms of Marxism equivalent to Nazism; like all Rightists you're incapable of discerning gradations and shades of gray. You're collapsing a vast spectrum of beliefs into your poverty-stricken binary intellectual world: All forms of Marxism, from soft (socialism) to hard (communism) are equivalent to hard fascism (Nazism).

That's a very partisan viewpoint. In the real world, nobody except RightWing extremists adheres to such a simple-minded worldview. In the real world, large numbers of people look favorably on the softer applications of Marxism, which manifest as mild socialism among developed nations, and stronger forms of Marxism in developing countries. There are no longer any pure hard Marxist countries, as even China is gradually softening and seems on course to end up with the mild socialism that's proven both popular and rather successful in the second half of the Twentieth Century.

Why this should be so is obvious to those who aren't blinded by partisan psychosis. As usual you're confusing economics with politics. Fascism as an economic system requires the state to conform to its needs to form an integrated command structure that is by its nature inimicable to democracy. In contrast Marxism, especially in its softer forms, is very compatible with democracy, and might in fact be viewed as hyperdemocracy or a postdemocratic anarchy in its stronger forms. What frightens Rightists so much about Marxism isn't that it's antidemocratic, it's that it's so democratic that it threatens to destroy antidemocratic privilege and power based on wealth. It's not exactly a secret that Rightists are uncomfortable with democracy (how many times have you argued for limiting the vote, Tom?), and long for the certainties of living in a Newtonian social universe. But as in the physical world, it was discovered centuries ago that human societies are relativistic and chaotic and exhibit quantum uncertainty and emergant behavior. Democratic socialism, like quantum physics, is a better fit to reality than Newtoniam mechanics and its RightWing analog in politics.

What the American Right is after is to institue a soft fascism in America, a government that is, if not merged with business, at least the servant of business. In parallel with that, and a necessary precondition for success, Rightists want to restrict democracy only to the "right" people, a desire that's already in evidence in the antidemocratic maneuvering of Republicans to take control of Congress away from the people and put it firmly under the thumb of the RNC.

I'm sure you've heard the phrase "permanent Republican majority". Please explain how a campaign to transform our democracy into a one-Party State is evidence of even the slightest respect for democracy. I'm calling you guys on your hypocrisy, on wrapping yourselves in the flag and giving lipservice to your love of democracy, while your real agenda is to destroy it.

And you characterize Marxism as "a philosophy that says all humans should be slaves of the State"? Check out the mote in thine own eye, Tom.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the point: In the real world, not the bizarro world of Rightists, Marxism and Nazism are not equivalent. You're simply trying to impose a dangerous intellectual inadequacy on our entire society. That's why your spurious challenge to defend a Nazi professor is meaningless; I wouldn't, because they're not the same thing at all.

As for your whine about your taxes going to fund California's university system, I thought it was hilarious. You sound like a peacenik bitching about his taxes going for war. So what? You live in a democracy, deal with it. And as you Rightists are so fond of saying, if you don't love California, leave it. Move to one of the Infrared states, where a majority shares your cramped and dark worldview and you can count on the State to impose your ideology on the schools...at least, within the current constraints of the Constitution, but you Rightists are working on that problem too, aren't you?

I'm not calling for the government to force these people out. I want to see the college convinced by individual actions and protests to do so.


Oh yes, so much better to call out a mob of brownshirts than to work within the constraints of law and democratic governance. You reveal sooo much even when you think you're being reasonable.

Log in or register to post.

The whole thread (74 posts)