Misappropriation of the word 'racist' used against Trump

[Revoltingest]

Conservatives, en masse, don't call liberals Fascists, SOME Conservatives may do that. Pray, do no paint with such a broad brush.
Also you are incorrect in "knowing" that Fascism is a right-wing ideology. It is neither right-wing nor left-wing and either side of the spectrum can be Fascist.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism

Saying fascism is "right" wing conflicts with RF terminology (right = economic liberty) embraced by many.
They call me a "right libertarian", but fascism is utterly at odds with libertarianism. "Right" also refers to
conservatives who also aren't fascist. (This is one reason I reject a "left" or "right" prefix to "libertarian".)
There's simply no need to call fascism anything other than "fascism".

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Saying fascism is "right" wing conflicts with RF terminology (right = economic liberty) embraced by many.
They call me a "right libertarian", but fascism is utterly at odds with libertarianism. "Right" also refers to
conservatives who also aren't fascist. (This is one reason I reject a "left" or "right" prefix to "libertarian".)
There's simply no need to call fascism anything other than "fascism".

Not this **** again.

There's authoritarian and libertarian ideologies from both the left-wing and right-wing. Far-left authoritarianism are ideologies like Stalinism, Maoism, the Khmer Rogue, Shining Path, Hoxhaism and other Anti-Revisionist Marxist-Leninist variants. Far-right authoritarianism would include things like absolute monarchy, theocracy - when those are in severely traditionalist forms - Italian Fascism, National Socialism, the Iron Guard, the Ustaše, Falangism, Argentina under Videla, Chile under Pinochet, Radical Traditionalism, etc.

 

[Revoltingest]

Not this **** again.

Geeze....too sensitive & hostile.
Note the difference...I'm addressing the multiple meanings of the term "right".
The word is useless as applied to a general description of fascism.
Fascism could be right or leftish (however those words are defined.
To say that it's one but not the other makes no sense.
Fascism is best called "fascism".

 

[Laika]

Saying fascism is "right" wing conflicts with RF terminology (right = economic liberty) embraced by many.
They call me a "right libertarian", but fascism is utterly at odds with libertarianism. "Right" also refers to
conservatives who also aren't fascist. (This is one reason I reject a "left" or "right" prefix to "libertarian".)
There's simply no need to call fascism anything other than "fascism".

Go through the history books and you'll find this is a Cold War invention. In the defence of "economic liberty" the U.S. Government actively supported "fascist" governments and right-wing military dictatorships.

The argument that anything to do with the state is automatically left-wing is an anarcho-capitalist fantasy where they attribute all "coercion" to the state and seek to privatise the police, prisons and military because they consider paying someone to shoot you as superior and somehow different to paying taxes to shoot you.

The difference is rhetorical, not practical. A private army is still an army built on coercion and aggression is not the monopoly of the left. the "people's" bullet will kill you just the same as the "consumers" bullet of choice.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Geeze....too sensitive & hostile.

I'm sick of people (dumb Americans, usually) screwing up categorizations of political ideologies to push an agenda. A lot of right-wing Americans love to ignorantly and arrogantly act like the right-wing could never be authoritarian or totalitarian and that such things are inherently leftist. I see right-wing idiots arguing all the time that Nazism is left-wing and other bs like that. It pisses me off. It's an incredible display of stupidity. It's just political rhetoric with no basis in reality.

Note the difference...I'm addressing the multiple meanings of the term "right".
The word is useless as applied to a general description of fascism.
Fascism could be right or leftish (however those words are defined.
To say that it's one but not the other makes no sense.
Fascism is best called "fascism".

No, Fascism (capital "F") is just far-right. There is no such thing as "far-left fascism". That's just stupid and misusing the term. Fascism is ultranationalist, militaristic, imperialist, patriarchical, macho, often racist, sexist, traditionalist, believes in harsh social stratification and wants to return the given nation back to a perceived state of heroic glory that is often mythologized. None of that is left-wing, except for possibly militarism and forms of imperialism, which is found in some far-left revolutionary movements.

 

[Revoltingest]

Go through the history books and you'll find this is a Cold War invention. In the defence of "economic liberty" the U.S. Government actively supported "fascist" governments and right-wing military dictatorships.

I don't defend Americastanian foreign adventurism.
But this doesn't determine terminology.

The argument that anything to do with the state is automatically left-wing is an anarcho-capitalist fantasy where they attribute all "coercion" to the state and seek to privatise the police, prisons and military because they consider paying someone to shoot you as superior and somehow different to paying taxes to shoot you.
The difference is rhetorical, not practical. A private army is still an army built on coercion and aggression is not the monopoly of the left. the "people's" bullet will kill you just the same as the "consumers" bullet of choice.

I don't understand how this relates to definitions of "right" & "left".

 

[Laika]

I don't defend Americastanian foreign adventurism.
But this doesn't determine terminology.

I don't understand how this relates to definitions of "right" & "left".

The fact is the origin of the terminology is to use is propaganda to promote a false equivalency between communism and fascism and nazism as "totalitarian" whilst the actions of the United States are exonerated because liberty is treated as intrinsically good and therefore all abuses in its defence as justifiable. This is roughly the same thinking behind MCCarthyism in that it is necessary to find Communists and root them out to defend "economic liberty".

The right should be screaming because this definition which says economic liberty is the precondition of political liberty originates from Marxist defectors, mainly Trotskyists such as James Burnham who say Communism is bureaucratic and then dress it up as "statist" and you have the average libertarian view. In the process of course, private property takes precedence over all other rights as the economic basis and therefore justifies any and all abuses in its defence. It matters because it shuts down the scope of political acceptable opinion and rejects anything as "socialist" or "cultural Marxist".

This sort of thinking is at least McCarthyist if not openly fascist. Saying fascism isn't right wing on this basis is sheer doublethink because it places libertarianism as de facto allies of authoritarianism when it serves economic interests. It makes libertarians practically the allies of fascism.

 

[Revoltingest]

I'm sick of people (dumb Americans, usually) screwing up categorizations of political ideologies to push an agenda.
A lot of right-wing Americans love to ignorantly and arrogantly act like the right-wing could never be authoritarian or totalitarian and that such things are inherently leftist. I see right-wing idiots arguing all the time that Nazism is left-wing and other bs like that. It pisses me off. It's an incredible display of stupidity. It's just political rhetoric with no basis in reality.

Before you call others "stupid", are you so certain that your definitions are the only correct ones?
Even you use "right" to mean different things....things which I find moral opposites, ie, economic liberty vs oppression.

No, Fascism (capital "F") is just far-right. There is no such thing as "far-left fascism". That's just stupid and misusing the term. Fascism is ultranationalist, militaristic, imperialist, patriarchical, macho, often racist, sexist, traditionalist, believes in harsh social stratification and wants to return the given nation back to a perceived state of heroic glory that is often mythologized. None of that is left-wing, except for possibly militarism and forms of imperialism, which is found in some far-left revolutionary movements.

Given the ambiguity, your certainty, & hostility to other views is unwarranted.
This insistence on calling all fascism "right wing" serves no purpose, & worse yet is misleading.

 

[Laika]

Before you call others "stupid", are you so certain that your definitions are the only correct ones?
Even you use "right" to mean different things....things which I find moral opposites, ie, economic liberty vs oppression.

Given the ambiguity, your certainty, & hostility to other views is unwarranted.
This insistence on calling all fascism "right wing" serves no purpose, & worse yet is misleading.

It's serves the purpose of accurately describing fascism as defending the social inequalities which are the result of private property. There willingness to use violence to achieve this end means the moral opposition is baseless.

Do you really think Communists play nicely because you prefer non-violence or non-aggression? The only consistent and practical anti-communist view is one that responds to communist violence with violence- I.e. Fascism. Libertarianism can dress it up as responding to aggression, but if you want to overthrow a communist state- it will require another state and therefore violence. If there is a difference- it will be on the type of state but not on the use of violence.

The moral opposition between libertarianism and "statism" has no practical reality because Liberty depends on the law and the use of force to exist and prevent violations. Fascists are useful to the ruling class in defending economic liberty from political liberty.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Before you call others "stupid", are you so certain that your definitions are the only correct ones?
Even you use "right" to mean different things....things which I find moral opposites, ie, economic liberty vs oppression.

It's the scholarly categorization of it, not the insipid rhetorical categorization. It doesn't matter if you find it offensive or not. I'm far-left, but I'm opposed to Marxist-Leninism and I find the abuses carried out in its name disgusting. They would've killed me, too. But the fact still stands that they and I are both leftists, just different types. You can hate Fascism all you want, but both American capitalist Libertarianism and Fascism are right-wing, just different types. That's why there has to be an authoritarian/libertarian axis introduced into the categorization for it to make sense. That's why the Political Compass test is really quite good and fairly accurate. It places me in the far-left of the libertarian axis and you in the far-right of the libertarian axis, which is accurate. So just as the Marxist-Leninist and I are both far-left, you and I are both libertarians, just of a different sort.

Given the ambiguity, your certainty, & hostility to other views is unwarranted.
This insistence on calling all fascism "right wing" serves no purpose, & worse yet is misleading.

No, Fascism isn't ambiguous, and there's nothing misleading about calling it right-wing, because it simply is right-wing. I know you want to portray "your side" in the best possible light, but I'm talking about reality, not wishful thinking. I was a Fascist and also a National Socialist (yes, I was a neo-Nazi for a while, though I would've bristled at the label) and I've done my reading on it. I know about the ideology both from being an adherent of it in the past and reading scholarly works on it.

Here's a Fascist forum for you, go there and tell them they're left-wing: http://ironmarch.org/

Have fun. XD

 

[Revoltingest]

The fact is the origin of the terminology is to use is propaganda to promote a false equivalency between communism and fascism and nazism as "totalitarian" whilst the actions of the United States are exonerated because liberty is treated as intrinsically good and therefore all abuses in its defence as justifiable. This is roughly the same thinking behind MCCarthyism in that it is necessary to find Communists and root them out to defend "economic liberty".

It goes farther back than that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left–right_politics#History_of_the_terms
Nonetheless, the terms "left" & "right" mean what they mean as we use them today, their multiple definitions notwithstanding.
Note that here on RF, I observe those who identify as socialist (by posting in that forum) identify as "left".
And fascism has been very much alive in socialist regimes.

The right should be screaming because this definition which says economic liberty is the precondition of political liberty originates from Marxist defectors, mainly Trotskyists such as James Burnham who say Communism is bureaucratic and then dress it up as "statist" and you have the average libertarian view. In the process of course, private property takes precedence over all other rights as the economic basis and therefore justifies any and all abuses in its defence.

This is simply untrue.
The "average libertarian view" doesn't justify "all abuses" in defense of private property.
Moreover, you still aren't addressing this problem of "right" meaning both economic liberty & fascism as is being claimed by some.

It matters because it shuts down the scope of political acceptable opinion and rejects anything as "socialist" or "cultural Marxist".
This sort of thinking is at least McCarthyist if not openly fascist. Saying fascism isn't right wing on this basis is sheer doublethink because it places libertarianism as de facto allies of authoritarianism when it serves economic interests. It makes libertarians practically the allies of fascism.

If anything, to say fascism is only right wing appears to be an attempt to sanitize left leaning fascists, eg, N Korea, the old PRC.
It doesn't shut down any discussion to simply recognize fascism for what is, ie, extreme control of the populace.

I know my commie friends loathe dictionary definitions, but they truly do reflect common usage.
Looking at.....
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism
We see.....

• : a way of organizing a society in which a government ruled by a dictator controls the lives of the people and in which people are not allowed to disagree with the government
  : very harsh control or authority

You could argue that the definition you use is superior, or that dictionaries are wrong, but there are these other (than yours) definitions in use nonetheless.
Thus, there is great ambiguity in the the terms, "left" & "right".[/QUOTE]

 

[Revoltingest]

It's the scholarly categorization of it, not the insipid rhetorical categorization. It doesn't matter if you find it offensive or not. I'm far-left, but I'm opposed to Marxist-Leninism and I find the abuses carried out in its name disgusting. They would've killed me, too. But the fact still stands that they and I are both leftists, just different types. You can hate Fascism all you want, but both American capitalist Libertarianism and Fascism are right-wing, just different types. That's why there has to be an authoritarian/libertarian axis introduced into the categorization for it to make sense. That's why the Political Compass test is really quite good and fairly accurate. It places me in the far-left of the libertarian axis and you in the far-right of the libertarian axis, which is accurate. So just as the Marxist-Leninist and I are both far-left, you and I are both libertarians, just of a different sort.

....Fascism isn't ambiguous.....

That's what I've been saying.
The issue is your claim that it's always right wing.

So you're the scholarly one & I'm the insipid one?
Geeze, you're awfully impressed with yourself.

......and there's nothing misleading about calling it right-wing, because it simply is right-wing. I know you want to portray "your side" in the best possible light, but I'm talking about reality, not wishful thinking. I was a Fascist and also a National Socialist (yes, I was a neo-Nazi for a while, though I would've bristled at the label) and I've done my reading on it. I know about the ideology both from being an adherent of it in the past and reading scholarly works on it.

Here's a Fascist forum for you, go there and tell them they're left-wing: http://ironmarch.org/

Have fun. XD

I don't plant to visit that forum.
It doesn't call to me.
You'll have to live with a great many people (educated ones) seeing socialist regimes as fascist.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

That's what I've been saying.
The issue is your claim that it's always right wing.

Because it is. Now why do you think it isn't? Actually, what exactly do you think Fascism is in the first place? I don't think you ever said.

I don't plant to visit that forum.
It doesn't call to me.
You'll have to live with a great many people (educated ones) seeing socialist regimes as fascist.

Who? Fellow libertarians pushing Cold War propaganda?

 

[Revoltingest]

Because it is. Now why do you think it isn't? Actually, what exactly do you think Fascism is in the first place? I don't think you ever said.

I posted the Mirriam Webster definition.
I find it cromulent.
I also stated what I think fascism is.
You missed both?

Who? Fellow libertarians pushing Cold War propaganda?

That's absurd.
I remember the Cold War.
You make too many reckless accusations.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I posted the Mirriam Webster definition.
I find it cromulent.
I also stated what I think fascism is.
You missed both?

Dictionaries are for looking up the general usages of words, of which there's usually several, not for learning about the ideology the word is a label for. So dictionaries are worthless here.

Yes, I must've missed you giving your personal definition of Fascism. Care to give it again, please?

That's absurd.
I remember the Cold War.
You make too many reckless accusations.

As @Laika pointed out, the (absurd) assertion that authoritarian and totalitarian ideologies are inherently left-wing is a bit of (sadly) successful propaganda left over from the Cold War.

 

[Laika]

It goes farther back than that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left–right_politics#History_of_the_terms
Nonetheless, the terms "left" & "right" mean what they mean as we use them today, their multiple definitions notwithstanding.
Note that here on RF, I observe those who identify as socialist (by posting in that forum) identify as "left".
And fascism has been very much alive in socialist regimes.

This is simply untrue.
The "average libertarian view" doesn't justify "all abuses" in defense of private property.
Moreover, you still aren't addressing this problem of "right" meaning both economic liberty & fascism as is being claimed by some.

If anything, to say fascism is only right wing appears to be an attempt to sanitize left leaning fascists, eg, N Korea, the old PRC.
It doesn't shut down any discussion to simply recognize fascism for what is, ie, extreme control of the populace.

I know my commie friends loathe dictionary definitions, but they truly do reflect common usage.
Looking at.....
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism
We see.....

• : a way of organizing a society in which a government ruled by a dictator controls the lives of the people and in which people are not allowed to disagree with the government
  : very harsh control or authority

You could argue that the definition you use is superior, or that dictionaries are wrong, but there are these other (than yours) definitions in use nonetheless.
Thus, there is great ambiguity in the the terms, "left" & "right".

[/QUOTE]

Don't try and pass this off as being "soft on communism". If anything using "fascism" to describe communism grossly under-estimated the powers of the system of government. Fascists and nazis by defending private property through the systematic use of violence had stronger civil societies as a basis for opposition and resistance than Communists whose revolutionary objectives including eliminating civil society and all independent organisations and incorporating them into the state.

Libertarians use the term fascist much like the "new left" to refer to any kind of authoritarianism whilst utterly failing to take into account ideological differences between Communists and Nazis. Instead they simply project their own conceptions of "human nature" onto both, portraying them as nothing but power hungry lunatics whose entire ideology is a hoax to manipulate people with utopian promises because they are corrupt. In the process they totally misunderstand the ideological content and behaviour of either group.

If you care to read the link you provided on the political spectrum it shows the origins of the political spectrum date back to the seating in the National Assembly: the monarchists as defenders of social inequality on the far right and the jacobins as proponents of social equality on the left. I.e it does not support your position either of the right in terms of liberty or that the ambiguity exists anywhere outside of the United States.

the ambiguity is MANUFACTURED to serve the interests of large and powerful corporations who want to portray corporations as people who have human rights and nationalisation and taxation as "theft". By portraying all government intervention as an attack on individual liberty, it helps consolidate the power of large corporations in society and as a destructive force against the freedoms of workers, consumers and small businesses.

 

[Revoltingest]

Dictionaries are for looking up the general usages of words, of which there's usually several, not for learning about the ideology the word is a label for. So dictionaries are worthless here.

You don't get to redefine words to suit objections to claimed etymology.

Yes, I must've missed you giving your personal definition of Fascism. Care to give it again, please?

See post #131, wherein I describe "fascism" & also post the Mirrian Webster definition.

As @Laika pointed out, the (absurd) assertion that authoritarian and totalitarian ideologies are inherently left-wing is a bit of (sadly) successful propaganda left over from the Cold War.

I didn't & don't claim that the underlined are inherently left-wing.
What I said was that they could be left or right.
Gotta pay attention in order to wield the word, "absurd".

 

[Revoltingest]

Don't try and pass this off as being "soft on communism".

I'm not even addressing consumerism.
It's irrelevant to defining "left" & "right" in a political or economic context.

If anything using "fascism" to describe communism grossly under-estimated the powers of the system of government. Fascists and nazis by defending private property through the systematic use of violence had stronger civil societies as a basis for opposition and resistance than Communists whose revolutionary objectives including eliminating civil society and all independent organisations and incorporating them into the state.

I don't understand this.
But I say both Nazis & communists were fascists.

Libertarians use the term fascist much like the "new left" to refer to any kind of authoritarianism whilst utterly failing to take into account ideological differences between Communists and Nazis.

I haven't heard us use the term "new left".

Instead they simply project their own conceptions of "human nature" onto both, portraying them as nothing but power hungry lunatics whose entire ideology is a hoax to manipulate people with utopian promises because they are corrupt. In the process they totally misunderstand the ideological content and behaviour of either group.

It seems you're criticizing libertarian views of human nature (with a broad & erroneous brush), but this doesn't relate to defining words.

If you care to read the link you provided on the political spectrum it shows the origins of the political spectrum date back to the seating in the National Assembly: the monarchists as defenders of social inequality on the far right and the jacobins as proponents of social equality on the left. I.e it does not support your position either of the right in terms of liberty or that the ambiguity exists anywhere outside of the United States.

It appears that you're arguing that a particular historical usage of words is the only cromulent usage, & that all modern usage is wrong.
Language just doesn't work that way.
Many words have changed from their original meaning.
Were you to use historical definitions, you'd confuse people, eg, using "clue" to mean a ball of yarn.

the ambiguity is MANUFACTURED to serve the interests of large and powerful corporations who want to portray corporations as people who have human rights and nationalisation and taxation as "theft". By portraying all government intervention as an attack on individual liberty, it helps consolidate the power of large corporations in society and as a destructive force against the freedoms of workers, consumers and small businesses.

Language conspiracy theories aside, the words are used as people use them, no matter
how wrong you find common usage, either etymologically, politically or otherwise.

 

[Laika]

I'm not even addressing consumerism.
It's irrelevant to defining "left" & "right" in a political or economic context.

I don't understand this.
But I say both Nazis & communists were fascists.

I haven't heard us use the term "new left".

It seems you're criticizing libertarian views of human nature (with a broad & erroneous brush), but this doesn't relate to defining words.

It appears that you're arguing that a particular historical usage of words is the only cromulent usage, & that all modern usage is wrong.
Language just doesn't work that way.
Many words have changed from their original meaning.
Were you to use historical definitions, you'd confuse people, eg, using "clue" to mean a ball of yarn.

Language conspiracy theories aside, the words are used as people use them, no matter
how wrong you find common usage, either etymologically, politically or otherwise.

@Revoltingest , you have the ex-neo-nazi and the pseudo-commie telling you are wrong on areas where we both have a level of knowledge greater than your own because we believed and lived with this stuff.

If you like we could ask Nietzsche for his expertise on Nazism and you'll have pretty much all the authorities on the respective subjects in the forum telling you, that you are wrong.

You can shout "ambiguity" and "common usage" all you want. Language does evolve, but not in isolation. The roots of this evolution in language are for propaganda purposes and do not reflect historical evidence. Historically, the libertarian views has utterly failed to understand the nature of the groups it is opposed to and you can see that in miscalculations in U.S. Foreign policy where the failure to understand these groups in their own terms has backfired throughout the Cold War. Nowadays Islamic fundamentalists get called fascists or totalitarians and the same stereotype is rolled out to interpret any action against them as for "freedom, democracy and human rights" even if it misses the complexities of the situation entirely.

The definitions matter because of the practical consequences as ideological understandings of how these groups behave. At bottom, the way you are using "fascism" against either the far right or the far left does not reflect how these groups behave, the way in which the respective ideologies politicise their behaviour in different ways and how they understand themselves. The assumptions behind the usage of fascism in this way are inadequate which is why projecting "human nature" and thinking that totalitarian systems are simply self-interested and corrupt dictatorships lying to the people and perpetrating a fraud is a staggering Mis-calculation.

(The new left cries "fascist" reflecting libertarian usage of the term as a generic slur and not as a catagorisation).

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

You don't get to redefine words to suit objections to claimed etymology.

No one is "redefining" words. I'm going by the actual ideology, not some quick dictionary search. You really think a dictionary tells you all you need to know about a political ideology?!

See post #131, wherein I describe "fascism" & also post the Mirrian Webster definition.

That's the overly broad colloquial usage of the term, not a description of the actual ideology. You do know that Fascism is a full-fledged ideology, right? It has its own worldview, veritable mythology, view of history and the human person, theories of how society should be organized, identifies problems of society and prescribes solutions, etc.

I mean, even Google gives this definition:

fas·cism
ˈfaSHˌizəm/
noun
noun: fascism; noun: Fascism; plural noun: Fascisms
an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization.
synonyms: authoritarianism, totalitarianism, dictatorship, despotism, autocracy; More
Nazism, rightism;
nationalism, xenophobia, racism, anti-Semitism;
jingoism, isolationism;
neofascism, neo-Nazism
"a film depicting the rise of fascism in the 1930s"
(in general use) extreme right-wing, authoritarian, or intolerant views or practice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism