Posted on 09/29/2014 8:16:53 PM PDT by jespasinthru
My 30 second summary is that fascism is a progressive form of socialism. The Bolshevik plan was expropriation of the business classes, which naturally produced bitter resistance and therefore required the severe repression, often the extermination, of the relevant individuals. As a result, the Bolsheviks murdered most of the people who knew how to actually manage complex organizations, with predictable results.
The fascists were smarter, and chose to operate through cooptation. They bribed the captains of industry to play ball, the trains ran on time, and they milked enough of a surplus to buy lower class support with social benefits. This is the social democratic strategy still today, though the label "fascism" has gone out of fashion.
bump
Heavy Hitters: Top All-Time Donors, 1989-2014
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php
“2 American Fedn of State, County & Municipal Employees $60,949,129 [Democrat] 81% [Republican] 1%”
They discuss politics with Republicans while giving our money to Democrats.
They're good at manufacturing trouble and scarcity, though. Their political activities are anti-competition and anti-production, but they do believe that overpopulation is a problem.
About "70 million" people are receiving good incomes but are also steeped in debt and can't borrow more for big ticket items.
That's not a very conservative way of living. What of the other 30 million? Most are probably retirees, but how many of the small remainder have used government to regulate against new, small, potential competition?
America’s Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the/print
The Fragmenting of the New Class Elites, or, Downward Mobility
http://volokh.com/2011/10/31/the-fragmenting-of-the-new-class-elites-or-downward-mobility/
Environmentalism and the Leisure Class
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2835601/posts
The New Upper Class and the Real Reason We Dislike Them
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2843575/posts
Are you a member of the political class?
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/08/are_you_a_member_of_the_politi.html
Downton’s Class System — and Ours: We have a ruling class that despises the free market and does all in its power to restrict its scope.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3024119/posts
They've effectively outlawed most honest, productive work and have temporarily replaced it with a slowly collapsing alternative of recirculating debt.
What Cooked The World’s Economy?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2209313/posts
And...
Here’s the link for the evidence in the information from the “Bank for International Settlements,” as mentioned in the full version of the excerpted article linked above.
http://www.bis.org/publ/otc_hy0805.pdf
...and a quote from it.
“The over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market showed relatively steady growth in the second half of 2007, amid the turmoil in global financial markets. Notional amounts of all categories of OTC contracts rose by 15% to $596 trillion at the end of December (Table 1), following a 24% increase in the first half of the year.1”
China’s imploding US ally (AIG)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2084468/posts
AIG: Inquiring Minds Want To Know
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2192489/posts
(China)
Fed won’t say who helped by AIG rescue
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2200398/posts
Top U.S., European Banks Got $50 Billion in AIG Aid
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2201213/posts
China appeals to Washington to safeguard assets
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2205693/posts
U.S. Federal Reserve to buy up to US$300B long-term Treasury bonds
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2209403/posts
They're guilty, and they know it. That shows in their hysterical political speech. Their latest adult poster children:
White couple sues, says sperm bank gave vials from black donor
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3209586/posts
it is socialism. they run everything via regulations, but business is their “front”, their fall guy that gets blame if and when stuff goes south.
bkmk
He called it legal plunder, and socialism.
“Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame and danger that their acts would otherwise involve… But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to the other persons to whom it doesn’t belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish that law without delay - No legal plunder; this is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony and logic.”“Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole — with their common aim of legal plunder — constitute socialism.”
But why is Social Security even needed in the first place? Moreover, if it is needed, why hasn't the Constitution been amended to explicitly allow it? (Or, if it is implicitly allowed, then please show the line of reasoning describing from whence its authority comes.)
until we conservatives get past this notion that it is somehow anti-Christian to practice birth control,
Arguably, use of birth control displays a lack of faith in God — in your particular argument, that He cannot provide.
until we become clear thinking enough to distinguish between birth control and abortion, we will continue to see our liberties and our lifestyles ebb.
Who has trouble distinguishing between birth control and abortion? Using birth control is expressing a lack of faith (or perhaps self control), while abortion is murder.
My understanding of fascism is that individuals and companies are allowed to own capital (businesses, resources), but government regulates and may even control how that capital is used. And the owners are on the hook for any “infractions” of the maze of regulations the government uses to control the capital.
Crony capitalism is indeed the incestuous relationship between _favored_ businesses and government.
I think, basically, we live in a rudimentary fascist state (thanks to the mass of regulation we have in place versus earlier times) and that favored businesses, businessmen, and politicians mutually benefit from their “crony capitalist” ties at the expense of the taxpayers and small businesses.
Government + Big Business + Big Labor = What we have today
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