I want to freeze your in-law in carbonite and use him to repeatedly bludgeon the intellects of this crowd — VagabondSpectre

Sure. Send somebody round to collect him.

Hear hear! Let's stop labeling absolutely everything fascist, or at least somehow make it distinguishable from anything "anti-progressive" in appearance. — VagabondSpectre

A question: Was the USSR a fascist regime?

It is is usually not labeled as fascist. It was, in someways, successfully multicultural. That is, Muslims and Christians were both suppressed. "Russians" weren't called the master race, but a lot of Ukrainians were treated very, very badly. Joseph Stalin killed a lot of people for political purposes (millions). Stalin was authoritarian (as was the entire Communist bureaucracy). What the Soviets were not was conservative, religiously oriented (as Spain and Italy were), and focused on one ethnic group.

All true.

But then, there are some fascists or crypto-fascists around. I'd label one of my brothers-in-law as one: he's extremely conservative; is a fan of the southern confederacy; he's pro-military (former submariner), doesn't like blacks, gays, or leftists; is rigid in his thinking; and so on. For crypto-fascists, it's the combination of traits that adds up to crypto-fascism--not an explicit political philosophy. He isn't an unpleasant person (as long as you don't tangle with him on politics, religion, and the like).

There are white-supremacists (or other supremacists) who are explicit in the political philosophy who are, clearly, fascists. Fortunately, at this point, they aren't all that common. Given an economic and social collapse, I'd expect a lot more actual fascists to form and emerge.

In Mark's view, fighting against what he perceives to be the dangerous sexism and racism of the "alt-right" and his political opponents is as justifiable as preventing a second holocaust. — VagabondSpectre

Well, one of the methods of the academic liberals (AcLibs) is to exaggerate. Construing a racist joke as tantamount to lynching, or a sexist joke as rape, and so on are exaggerations. Another method of the AcLibs is to reduce the colorful, nuanced world into black-and white, not even employing half-tones of gray. Black and white is of course much simpler than 1000 shades of gray.

True enough, many AcLibs have an authoritarian streak, though I haven't seen any signs lately exhorting the people to obey Noam Chomsky. Being somewhat authoritarian doesn't make them fascists. It does make them democratic trip hazards.

A third method of AcLibs is to employ terms that can only have vague meaning (like "micro-aggression") and then treat them (when convenient) as if they were precise.

Fascism is therefore inherently opposed to free-speech (that is, any speech critical of the fascists) because it is the first line of defense against the implementation of it's political agenda, and so it becomes the first casualty at their hands. — VagabondSpectre

Hate-speech codes, safe spaces, trigger-word warnings, and all that are not highly compatible with "free speech". The politically correct AcLibs are maybe more interested in free speech than your typical fascists, but truth be told, people of all stripes dislike hearing too many dissenting opinions. Mostly we think we are obviously correct in our views, and other people who disagree with us are either stupid, crooked, or both.

I'd like to limit the use of the term fascism. Full disclosure: I like the all-purpose slur "fascist" or "crypto-fascist" as much as the next leftist. But as a matter of fact, "fascism" arose at a particular time and place, and has specific characteristics:

• An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization.
• Extreme right-wing, authoritarian, or intolerant political views and practice.
• The term "Fascism" was first used of the totalitarian right-wing nationalist regime of Mussolini in Italy (1922–43), and the regimes of the Nazis in Germany and Franco in Spain were also fascist. Fascism tends to include a belief in the supremacy of one national or ethnic group, a contempt for democracy, an insistence on obedience to a powerful leader, and a strong demagogic approach. — dictionary definition

The fascist symbol--a "fasces": the axe in the middle of the bundle of rods. There is nothing "fascist" about the fasces: It's old, and appears on the wall behind the Speaker of the House of Representatives and was on some American coins (at least). It goes back to Roman times. "Fascism" was invented in the 20th century, in Italy.



There are right wingers, authoritarians, nationalists, intolerant leaders, and so on who, as objectionable as they might be, are NOT fascists because they are in favor of democracy, are not slavishly obedient, don't believe in the inherent superiority of one ethnic group, and so on. This is to say, not everything objectionable is fascist, and fascists might not be all that objectionable, at least over dinner and drinks.

VS, this is a very interesting topic, and I want to comment -- but I have places to go, people to see, and can't. I'll be back later today.

"I fell in love with my neighbors wife."

These things happen in the real world. Sometimes we act and sometimes we do not. The strange things that happen in life might be fun, upsetting, inconvenient, a lark, unthinkable, too stupid for words, the chance of a lifetime... all sorts of possibilities. One of the strange things that could happen has happened, and you have not acted on it. Almost certainly in this case, not acting is the better thing.

"Falling in love with the wrong person and not acting on it" doesn't mean that the whole thing will just disappear like the morning mists. Oh, no. We have all these emotions, ideas, fantasies, memories... and they haunt our waking hours. But this too happens in real life.

We just have to soldier on, doing what we think is right, or covering our losses when we do what we think is wrong. Deal with it as best you can.

transcendent |ˌtran(t)ˈsend(ə)nt|
adjective
beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience: the search for a transcendent level of knowledge.
• surpassing the ordinary; exceptional: the conductor was described as a “transcendent genius.”
• (of God) existing apart from and not subject to the limitations of the material universe. Often contrasted with immanent.
• (in scholastic philosophy) higher than or not included in any of Aristotle's ten categories.

Substance, Quantity,
Quality, Relation,
Place, Time, Position,
State (or 'habitus'),
Action, Affection or Passion

• (in Kantian philosophy) not realizable in experience.

The root of 'transcend' means "to climb across". It doesn't seem like mortals could reach the other side without climbing across. God, presumably, can transcend time and place without climbing across anything.

So, for us it would seem necessary that we perform--transcend. We transcend the limitations of our understanding of God by engaging in fervent prayer, fasting, and meditation--all actions. For us, we can't be here, then there, without actually moving from here to there.

Some people are "transcendentalists--a movement of spiritually keyed up Unitarians influenced by the Romantic Movement. Emerson, Fuller, and Thoreau come to mind as avatars of Transcendentalism.

Jesus TRANSCENDED death. Generally, people don't actually transcend much very often. Democrats had better TRANSCEND their current thinking, ways, and means. Trump TRANSCENDED the usual customs of the Republic Party. A yogi can TRANSCEND pain when walking on burning coals (supposedly).

Kant thought it was outside experience--which for us, I guess means we don't transcend and tell about it.

You don't even know for sure whether a divine being exists — Bitter Crank

True enough, I don't know for sure. Which is why I have come to the conclusion that talking about the divine is a waste of time. For believers worshipping, adoring, seeking some experience of the divine is eminently worth while. But talking about it is not. The object of our reasoning is unavailable for confirmation or denial.

I'm not trying to be unpleasant. I'm trying to suggest that you stick to what can be reasoned about, and keep your categories separate. Good and evil are opposites, and if the words are to mean anything in reasoned discourse, their usage has to be kept crisp and clean. Mucking about with "well, gee whiz, maybe evil is masquerading as good" and all that leaves you in a muddle.

Yes but I don't know whether this has a divine purpose or not. — TheMadFool

And I dare say that knowing whether evil had a divine purpose is way above your pay grade. You don't even know for sure whether a divine being exists.

Evil may serve a greater good - we don't know. — TheMadFool

This is just game playing. "Evil" has clear enough meanings, and so does good. Trying to confuse them is a waste of reasoning power.

No.

The so-called "problem of evil" is clear enough: Men and women are capable of behaving very, very badly AND they do. We do not like to think of our selves as so readily and thoroughly capable of evil, but we are. And we hate that.

I said earlier that we created god. We also created the devil. We off-loaded our goodness and badness onto god and the devil. It's a way of projecting our strengths and deficiencies on to external (nonexistent) beings.

WE are the problem of evil, and we are the problem of good, for that matter.

From an atheist POV, there is no "problem of evil". God, not existing, is not simultaneously all good and allowing evil to flourish. (There isn't any question that "evil" -- malevolent bad behavior -- exists. It exists, and in itself it is a big problem. Very good behavior exists too, and people are capable of being both very good and very bad.

That was one long survey to sit still for.

What was it that you wanted me to notice about Elizabeth Warren's items in the survey? It didn't seem all that remarkable. And 16% had not heard of Elizabeth Warren, but only 4% had not heard of William Howard Taft? What kind of group were they surveying?

I mean, really -- Taft, Hoover, Coolidge, and Wilson? Who, these days, has any opinions about these three -- except people who are hard-core American political history aficionados?

Of course it is hubris for believers to presume to understand the mind of god, but it really isn't all that much of a problem.

Let me come at this from an atheist point of view.

God didn't exist and it was necessary to invent him. God was conceived to be beyond our understanding. Perfect, all knowing, all powerful, ever present everywhere, just, loving and/or angry. We conceived of god as very different than us. We are imperfect, we know a little bit, we have a little power, we're very much stuck within time and space, and we are collectively an emotional mess.

We are only "made in the likeness of God" but we like to think of ourselves (sometimes) as "little less than a god".

The inscrutable god is our creation. We created god without a mind that could be known. We could, of course, revise our creation--but after a few thousand years of claiming otherwise, revising god's mind would devalue the franchise.

Believers, of course, don't think this way. Their god's mind is unknowable, but seems to be somewhat discernible with sustained effort. Believers can spot other believers gaming this mystery, especially when they don't agree:

The ambitious pastor testified before the congregation, "God is unknowable, but after long prayer, I have discerned that god definitely wants us to spend our money on a new church building. We could have helped many poor people with $3,000,000, but God wants us to do this. God knows what we really need."

Lock him up!

Who do you think will stand against Trump — Cavacava

I think it is too early to worry about that, because...

1) The mid-term elections are less than 2 years away, and the democrats need to worry about those. This is state level work, mostly, but the next 5 congressional elections will determine more about the future than the next presidential election (or it won't).

2) There are no obvious candidates today. Everybody you listed you thought was too old, too polarizing, or too liberal. I don't think Elizabeth Warren is too polarizing, and Michele Obama should definitely never run. (I'm opposed to multiples of Bushes, Clintons, and Obamas running for president.)

3) ONE person will rise to the top on the basis of their money, their personal charm, their dominance of the party, their ability to organize their multi-million-person constituency, and even a few good ideas, if they happen to have any, which they may not. It will probably be clear by 01-1-2019 who that person is--for both parties.

That said, there are certain things the party and the prospective candidate should and should not be:

They should not be focused on any of the issues belonging "the culture wars"; racial or gender equity in the professions--all the usual stuff Democrats talk about. They can afford to not put this stuff front and center. Instead they should be focused on the economic reality which 50% to 60% (give or take a decile) live with: Stagnant wages, a declining standard of living, insecurity in employment, no likelihood of a remotely satisfactory retirement from work, declining ability to obtain adequate health care, increasing debt, and so on. These economic and work-life issues supersede race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and such, as well as transgender bathrooms, gay marriage, the glass ceiling in the executive suites, welcoming and celebrating immigrants, and so on.

Focus on the economy that the vast majority of people live and die in, not the economy of the upper middle class, lower upper class, and the rich--on up to the handful of persons who control 50% of the world's wealth.

As a Clinton once said, "It's the economy, stupid."

You can get it used for cheap from Amazon. I think you'd really enjoy it. — Mongrel

I got it for cheap (hard bound) from AbeBooks.com . AbeBooks is an ordering service for used book stores all over. Thanks for the recommendation. I saw a PBS American history program devoted to Long, but that was many years ago.

On the Democratic and Republican Leadership
The High Popalorum Speech

"The Democratic Party and the Republican Party were just like the old patent medicine drummer that used to come around our country. He had two bottles of medicine. He'd play a banjo and he'd sell two bottles of medicine.
One of those bottles of medicine was called High Popalorum and another one of those bottles of medicine was called Low Popahirum.
Finally somebody around there said is there any difference in these bottles of medicines? 'Oh,' he said, 'considerable. They're both good but they're different,' he said.
'That High Popalorum is made from the bark off the tree that we take from the top down. And that Low Popahirum is made from the bark that we take from the root up.'
And the only difference that I have found between the Democratic leadership and the Republican leadership was that one of 'em was skinning you from the ankle up and the other from the ear down — when I got to Congress."

Do you think any of the other candidates in the 2016 campaign fit the description of 'demagogue'? — Wayfarer

I don't know. Sanders? No. Most of the Republican candidates? No, probably not. Cruz?

I'm not very familiar with Long. How did he "take over" the Louisiana Legislature? "Dictators" do a lot more than just attack people who disagree with them. Like, they dissolve (or shoot) the legislature. Did Long do that? They declare martial law and use the armed forces to execute their will. Did Long do that? They arrest and imprison their opponents without a real trial. Did Long do that? They ally themselves with the appropriately conservative clergy (Franco) or they just get rid of the uncooperative collared bunch (Hitler).

So, he fired relatives of people who disagreed with him. Were they political appointees serving at the "pleasure" of the executive? Or were they civil service?

Stalin is on par with Hitler, Mao, et al. Are you really grouping Huey The Kingfisher Long with that crowd? He was, after all, the governor of a hick state which was about as backwards as any in the south.

He was a populist who (correctly) thought that Roosevelt didn't intend to distribute much wealth. Should he have been something else? Populism has a bad name, of late.

What should cause more concern than a hothead screaming about the courts is a court that able to divine every contemporary moral principle from an 18th century document and impose that morality on a supposedly democratic body. — Hanover

What should cause more concern is a particular hothead appointing members to the court to divine contemporary moral principle from an 18th century document in the way preferred by said hotheaded devil and his running dog lackeys (or managers).

A fascinating case of it was Huey Long, the American Stalin. — Mongrel

What is Stalinesque about this?

Huey Pierce Long, Jr. (August 30, 1893 – September 10, 1935), was ... a Democrat, he was an outspoken populist who denounced the wealthy and the banks and called for a "Share Our Wealth" program. As the political leader of the state, he commanded wide networks of supporters and was willing to take forceful action.

Long is best known for his Share Our Wealth plan, which he established in 1934 under the motto "Every Man a King". It proposed new wealth redistribution measures in the form of a net asset tax on corporations and individuals to curb the poverty and homelessness endemic nationwide during the Great Depression. To stimulate the economy, Long advocated federal spending on public works, schools and colleges, and old age pensions. He was an ardent critic of the policies of the Federal Reserve System.

He was very forceful, doing a full-court press on behalf of his policies. Bear in mind, though, that he had the "oil trust" (like Standard Oil") as a principle opponent, and they didn't play nice either.

Recall that 'protecting security' and 'ensuring national stability' is generally the first step that autocracies take in suspending constitutional protections. — Wayfarer

Trump has distinct tendencies toward demagoguery either as a matter of style or substance, or both. But... He didn't arrived at an 'unprepared' White House, however.

Executive power has been growing for decades at the expense of the legislative branch. The US has spent trillions of dollars and lost maybe 60-70,000 soldiers and killed millions of people, since 1960 on wars for which their was no congressional authorization (save financing). The executive branch has behaved either imperiously, deviously, or both under Johnson (Gulf of Tonkin incident) through Bush (Iraq's WMDs), to Trump.

The Via Demagogia was built before Trump decided to run for President. Had Hillary Clinton won, she also would have used the expansive presidential powers available to her. Would she have used them demagogically? Her style and substance do not seem to be so constituted.

Lets all hold hands — Wosret

Just hold hands? Nothing more? It might be the last thing we ever do. If it's The End, let's get naked and see what happens.

What do you mean, "There's no such thing as progress"? We have more ways than ever before to create messes that blow up in our faces. Once upon a time, it was nothing more complicated than finding a better way of fixing a stone axe to a stick before somebody grabbed the invention and sank the axe in the skull of the inventor. Had she not gotten greedy and grabby, she might also have had a blade attached to a handle. Murderess Cro-Magnon bitch.

These days, we have piles of pretty plutonium just waiting to be pinched and packed into either a nice clean complicated Paris-leveling bomb or a simple dirty NYC-metro-area-contaminating contraption. Either way, bad news all round. They recently discovered a can of Spam at the bottom of the Mariana Trench -- 10 km into the deep. We slobs dump trash everywhere.

unjust, punitive, unsafe, inhuman — unenlightened

The Quartetto Perfecta.

If capital punishment leads to more murder, and youth in asia leads to more suicides, what calamity will bitcoin lead to?

They need to mimic what the Republicans did, which started with gerrymandering their way to optimal Congressional districts. The Dems need to legally challenge the lopsided nature of many of these districts. — Cavacava

Right, well that fixing district boundaries only happens every 10 years, so it's a long-term strategy--and one the Democrats have not paid enough attention to. You have to be IN POWER when the census reports are available for redistricting. Then you can do things like slice off pieces of your opponents electorate and put them with your own overwhelming majority. The Republicans can also challenge boundaries in courts, and sometimes the courts end up drawing the boundaries.

The Republican's ability to marshal their members is, to my mind, their key to winning. — Cavacava

This IS important. The earlier Daley Democratic organization in Chicago ["Vote early and vote often"] was very good at delivering votes. This is done at the bottom, precinct level. A lot of places have no precinct level organization capable of doing any such thing.

Seizing and selling all the offender's earthly possessions doesn't cover it? Well, that's the part where you "enforce compensation" by shipping them to a labour camp where they toil indefinitely until it's all been paid for. It would probably feel like a punishment, but that's just happenstance and something which vengefully-minded people would be free to secretly take solace in. — zookeeper

You worm! You stole the Revolutionary Re-Education Plans for the wealthiest 5%. Some of them won't be shipped off to labor camps. They will become maids and grooms to the obnoxious riff raff we will house in their former estates. "The first will be last, and the last will be first."

The Dems need to move past their failures, not wallow in them. — Cavacava

Absolutely. But... can the leadership at the national level do that? It is as important for the Democrats (or any other party) to be active and vital at the state level too -- that's critical for staying in power. Ultimately, the states are where the political talent comes from (or first, in legislature districts, then congressional districts).

The only way to deal with Trump is to keep him (personally) and his policies in court continually over the next 4 years. — Cavacava

Court or jail, which ever comes first.

The Dems didn't lose the election, they won the popular vote by a margin wider than most historical presidential elections. — Cavacava

The electoral college has been in the Constitution since the getgo, and if you lose there, you lose the election, period. Whatever problems the electoral college solved, it creates the anomaly of popular vote winners who are not elected.

There are pieces of the Constitution which should be removed and parts that are missing, but the worst thing we could do (just guessing) is have a constitutional convention and rewrite it. Who knows what sort of horror show we would end up with.

Have you heard of George Soros? The top donors to the Democrats at the election were:

University of California $1,945,782 — tom

I'm surprised about your first item -- not that they supported a Democrat, but that they made a nearly 2 million dollar donation to anyone. I wouldn't think it would be in their charter to make political contributions to anyone.

The top 1% on Wall Street and wherever else they hang out financially support both political parties. Why is that? Because the two political parties are not highly dissimilar and the 1% has influence over whoever is in office.

The Democrats may regulate more than Republicans, but neither political party has the slightest interest in changing, challenging, or corralling the oligarchy.

the good old days, when everyone owned a home, had a job, a dog, and a clothesline. — Wayfarer

Clotheslines... natural, ecological, inexpensive, organic, hygienic, convenient, energy efficient, laborious...

The Past - the good old days — Wayfarer

But, as William Faulkner said, ""The past is never dead. ... Actually, it's not even past." We think, "Oh, that was back in the 1950s, or the 1920s, or the 11th century. It's passed and past. It's gone, we don't live there, we don't go there to visit.

But, not true.

And as Otto Bettmann described the past -- compare today's auto exhaust to the 100,000 horses in 1900 New York that dropped 1.3 billion pounds of solid manure a year on the streets and dressed it with 88 million gallons of urine, while all the wagon and cart wheels turned it to a rich brown slurry. In the winter, of course, it froze, and in the spring... it thawed.

this crazy clinton bi*** — Hamtatro

So, why do you find Hillary Clinton so detestable?

Excellent! A sticky red star goes on your chart.

Oh, I don't think there is any doubt that Republicans are every bit as good at contempt as democrats, maybe even more so.

There are strongly conservative Catholic legislature districts in Minnesota, for instance, that are solidly Republican because they address the intensely pro-family concerns of conservative Catholics far better than Democrats do. I would NOT suggest that progressives try to form up around this kind of conservative agenda. We should not, can not. Not because we are anti-family, but we just don't share most of the other planks in the conservative Catholic agenda.

Conservatives have natural constituencies too, and their core members aren't the obvious place to begin re-building progressive parties.

I believe it was Aquinas who thought masturbation was basically as bad as rape. Or that homosexuality was extremely immoral. Hence why I had previously said metaphysical systems, especially those espousing thorough essentialism, are oppressive. — darthbarracuda

Well, back in the scholastic days -- and before -- how many writers thought masturbation was an appropriate and healthful activity, and that exclusive homosexuality was normal for 3% of the population? Not too many, just guessing.§ Certainly there were enthusiastic medieval masturbators and homosexuals, but they hadn't formed up consciousness raising programs or a liberation movement yet.

§ Right, I've read Boswell. "Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (1980) argues that the Roman Catholic Church had not condemned gay people throughout its history, but rather, at least until the twelfth century, had alternately evinced no special concern about homosexuality or actually celebrated love between men." I'm not the only one who finds that a bit difficult to believe, but maybe it was the scholastics who caused all the trouble.

As a personal code, your view is admirable that all punishment is senseless, or that it is both immoral and ineffective to rely on being unpleasant to one person to deter another, or to persuade by bullying and threats. Karl Menninger (a psychiatrist) argued that the way we (the U.S.) manages prisons is itself a crime. (That was in 1968; prisons have gotten worse.)

It is difficult to conceive scaling up this approach in very large economically, socially, and culturally diverse societies, let alone actually achieving the up-scaling.

One of the most promising interventions I have heard of is a Harlem children project in which program workers intervened in the lives of poor black children, sometimes before they were born, by training mothers to talk and read to their babies -- greatly increasing the volume of positive language the children heard from birth (if possible) or at least in the language-formation years before kindergarten. At the same time the mothers were encouraged to decrease the amount of negative and command language they expressed.

The program was founded on the principle that initial language deficits (formed before age 5 or 6) become permanent deficits, and that the consequent poor school performance led to social marginalization from which it was very difficult for an individual to escape. The Harlem program goes on, but is underfunded, of course.

"Youth diversion programs" are more common later attempts to syphon off potential prison inmates before they offend seriously enough to end up in prison. Again, very underfunded. Restorative justice programs involve community efforts to avoid "punishments" by trying to reconnect the early minor offender with his community. All these programs are small and voluntary.

But when you take the best possible positive view of police and the courts, dealing not with dozens, hundred, or thousands of cases -- but millions, and many of the crimes quite serious, it is difficult to see how your approach can be scaled up. The problem isn't just the badness of many of the offenders. It's the size of the institutions (city/county/state governments, various police forces, courts, prosecution and defense offices and staff, not to mention the probation, prison, and parole systems.

It is particularly difficult to scale up your admirable approach when the economic and social structure of large portions of society are crumbling. People don't just feel "disempowered" and marginalized; they are disempowered and marginalized--often by design.

all punishment is senseless — unenlightened

You take an extreme non-interventionist position. — Bitter Crank

Don't you just hate it when folks attribute the wrong 'ism to you. — unenlightened

I beg your pardon. I must have been hallucinating. "all punishment is senseless" is a totally interventionist statement suitable for law and order types.

I don't know who will execute the kindness and caring program for felons -- you don't like psychologists and their kind, so I guess it will be up to some other group of mechanics.