Repeating this 1000 times doesn’t make Levin a fascist. This speech, for the most part, is excellent.
When it engages in mass murder, it’s a mass murderer. All nation’s are mass murderers. But none of this makes water boarding torture; it’s just unpleasant interrogation. Real torture is something much different, much more violent, something people today are unfamiliar with.
Look, if you, like comrade Bloom, don’t know what fascism is, or are playing dumb, is not my problem. So, learn about fascism and then see if a guy like levin fits in or not. However, given your views on torture, I doubt you would be able to get the classification right…
You’re the one who’s redefining terminology here. Fascism is a form of socialism, where society is placed above the individual, where the individual is a mere component of a larger machine who needs to be directed into action. This philosophy manifests itself through severe regulation of trade, business, and central planning (a combination of all 3). Now, you could say that any group which supports a central bank is partially fascist, since they support centrally planning the monetary system. But when you obfuscate such terms, to fit your own agenda, you render the actual definition meaningless. You’re turning words like communist, fascist, and torture into talking points. Bloom is not a communist, he may be wrong, but he doesn’t support public ownership of the means of production.
I don’t support waterboarding, but I can’t see how it can be called torture. If that’s torture, then what would you call chaining someone to horses and having them run in opposite directions? Or piercing their skull with nails and beating them with paddles? Waterboarding simply doesn’t cause intense and unbearable pain.
One more thing, nationalism is not, in anyway, a defining characteristic of fascism. Then Lenin’s USSR, Yugoslavia, China, N. Korea, would all be examples of fascism.
Oh. And what agenda is that ?
Bloom supports ‘socialized’ production of security so he is a commie. However, if you take a look at a dictionary you might learn that members of the military call each other ‘comrades’ - and that’s why I was referring to him as ‘comrade’.
Now, with respect to third rate propagandist, comrade levin, googling doesn’t bring much information on the guy, except some articles on national review…Of course, of course, that doesn’t mean he’s just a typical neocon…
So here http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjUzOGY0ODA1YzBmNjFhOWE5NWU0OTY5NTZiOGNhOGQ=
levin whines about all that is bad about mccain for instance
“McCain-Reimportation of Drugs — a significant blow to pharmaceutical research and development, not to mention consumer safety (hey Rudy, pay attention, see link).”
What do you think levin is defending when he attacks drugs reimportation ? Might the fact that levin is licking the boots of big ‘american’ pharma suggests that he’s, uh, a bit fascist ?
Your terminology is too loose to be meaningful. Let me be clear, I don’t support Mark Levin, but he’s a voice against Obama, which makes him quite useful. You abstract too much, and as such, you’re unable to see a difference between Obama, Levin, and others. In your world, only Rothbardians aren’t Statists, fascists, and communists.
Quite useful for what ? You don’t understand that he’s not really different from obama ? Aren’t for instance obama, levin and churchill all warmongers ?
And you pay too much attention to irrelevant details.
In my world only libertarians are libertarians - and neocons are neocons. Too bad if you and others can’t tell the difference between the two…
So, what’s your take on levin and drugs reimportation…?
So you think it a sign of weakness to label simulated drowning as torture?
Exactly my point, thank you. If you can’t see how Mark Levin and Barack Obama are different, then you’re more dillusional than I thought. Mark Levin does not want to throw out contract law, he does not want to nationalize banks, private firms, and healthcare, he doesn’t want to limit Carbon emissions and regulate population growth, he doesn’t want to cap salaries. I could go on for days. Your emotion, and confusion prevent you from seeing the obvious. Which is why every time someone disagrees with you, you call them a fascist, communist, or statist.
What about Mises, Hayek and Bohm-Bawerk, are they libertarians? They worked for the government, and they believed in national defense.
I don’t know how true that is and I frankly don’t much care. It seems to me, though, that levin is against, uh, FREE TRADE. Did I get the fact that he’s against free trade in drugs right ? Would you be so kind as to address that ?
Which is what they are. Anyway, maybe it’s time for you to join the neocons and fight against evil obama ?
To varying degrees…I find Mises views on war especially disgusting. And Hayek was a moderate conservative, not so much a libertarian. I don’t know much about Bohm-Bawerk, but I doubt he was a radical…
Yep. Too bad for them. Mises even fought for the nazis…of course the austrians in WWI were not called nazis…yet.
We should all be doing this.
Oh God.
I think what’s happened here is that philosophy and politics and economics have been confused to the point where the terminology has become meaningless.
Juan, you’re using terms that you haven’t defined. You label ANY form of authoritarianism as some form of hyper-authoritarian political or philosophical ideology. And so the words have become jumbled.
There are worlds of degree between fascism and what you might call neo-conservativism. Until we can talk about this without getting inflammatory responses from you, I don’t think this conversation will make any sense.
(Already posted by wilderness)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hv1_yMQtS0
Is that guy for real ?? Hey Esuric & Bloom, care to comment ?
Bloom, I suggest you stop pretending that you know what you are talking about. I’d say your grasp of both ‘philosophy’ and ‘politics’ is shaky at best. You could be a pretty good neocon like levin and his hysterical screaming on the phone if you practiced, but as far as promoting freedom goes, you are not doing much. Of course, I doubt you are as interested in promoting freedom as in advancing amerikkkan nationalism (and maybe jewish nationalism as well).
Yes, You and Bloom should join the neocons. I pass.
I mean I agree with him about RP’s foreign policy. I think it’s unrealistic too. He doesn’t even support Israel. Basically, that’s the only thing I disagree with RP on. That being said, he was accosting and it was over the top. But that’s how Levin is sometimes.
He’s right though, there’s a lot of antisemitism within the Pro-Palestine people and the anti-war people who happen to agree with RP and while I’m absolutely positive RP is not antisemitic, I do think that he takes the same side that a lot of antisemites do and it can be disturbing.
RP on domestic policy is gold though, love him for standing up for limited and restrained government, I would vote for him for President, I just totally disagree with him on his stance on Israel. I just think that his foreign policy ideas are…naive to put it simply.
Was the war done in an illegitimate way? Maybe. But I think it was right.
Yeah, he’s an arrogant prick, and a statist, like I said.. But he’s far better (and when I say better, I mean less dangerous) than Obama and the progressives…
Okay, then sit around and keep quite while Obama sets caps on how many children we have, invades Pakistan, nationalizes everything, dictates our pay, and has homeland security keep tabs on domestic threats–you know, us.
You’ve done nothing to display a better knowledge of political systems than I have. You’ve merely thrown names without backing them up with substance.
If we want to debate political standpoints, we need criteria. Which you’ve not provided. Is Levin a neo-con? Yes. I think he is. But so am I to some degree. I just didn’t like Bush’s fiscal policy and his tendency to intervene in markets. People often don’t talk about this, but when Bush came into office, there was a recession following the Nasdaq crash and he and Greenspan worked together to lower interest rates which eventually led to the housing bubble. So Bush was just as Keynesian as Obama is. I agreed with Bush’s foreign policy though. You don’t negotiate with tyrants. Support Israel.
I don’t know about that. Socialism adds to the power of the government by consolidation through legislation. Then somebody like Nixon or Bush gets into office and they wield military might. An aggressive, ‘save the world through might v. right’ persona in D.C. and violence is seen as a good thing. Both sides play off each other and it is NEVER a fight against each other. They have for decades - decades - racheting upon each other, building upon the back of what the previous President started. Reagan started the whole czar thing and now look at Obama and how many he has, each president added more and more. Obama consolidates and tears down the free market, but then somebody like Nixon and Bush will use it for wars beyond ones dreams. The right is always angry it seems. Their anger is different. It’s why they are labeled by the left as crazy militia people. It has been this way. Obama hides his warring because he’s on the peace-nick leftist side. Bush-likes can be very open about warring as the right thinks it’s patriotic to police the world cause everybody hates america and wants to take it’s freedom. it’s all propaganda and defending one side or another in the government paradigm is to fall right back into THE LIES - as if they are helping somehow. They are only dragging along the personalities and emotions of certain people that are attuned to the message either side plays. But they both are dangerous and will be always dangerous in differing ways.
How does one really make the argument that war is better than welfare? That violence is better than compassion for the needy? I mean Bush destroyed the free market to save the free market. It’s all lies.
I wouldn’t say people on the right are always angry. They tend to be fearful. Fearful of having someone come and destroy their way of life and/or take their stuff.
The left worries about this less. They seem to worry more about how the world isn’t perfect and how the poor get stepped on and whatnot.
I can relate better to the right because I worry about someone coming and taking my stuff ALL THE TIME. But I don’t feel the same concern for the poor because I’ve known a lot of them and I’ve noticed that poverty is a culture as much as it is an economic status. It’s a way of being. A lifestyle. Most of them don’t see that when I point it out though. Not to say I’m filthy rich, I’m not. But I know that when I have money I don’t go out and buy status symbols and waste it on concert tickets and drugs and booze. I just don’t live like that.
Some people prefer defense spending to welfare spending. But I suppose, in their own way, they’re two sides of the same coin. To me though, welfare spending doesn’t alleviate poverty, it subsidizes it. You just get more of it. Not less. Defense spending can lead to more war. So there are always risks on both sides.
Left or right is a matter of personal preference and identity as much as anything else.
But I agree with Esuric, the progressives’ naivete is what makes them more dangerous than any right wing military nut because the progressives don’t see themselves as nuts. They see themselves as saviors.
A gem of a statement.