holocaust museum shooting

TheBrutalTruth said:

minimal difference, both of them are professionals that believe they understand the functioning of the mind.

As far as your comment about socialism. Go and take its beliefs and compare them to a list of associated behaviors related to sociopathy, and then see if you can say that it is not a sociopathic ideology with a straight face.

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tinyTURTLE said:

socialism can be many things. a little democratic socialism can be and has been a good compliment to our representative republic. It is excercised when we pay our park employees to make sure nobody tags up Mt. Rushmore. Or when someone is paid through subsidies to grow inedible corn for ethanol production. Or when someone receives a government grant to go to college. Or when a search and rescue team is sent out to locate some lost person in the woods; be it a kid or an old person or whoever. I am not even gonna try to explain why socialism is not a sociopatic ideal to you... other than to say that it is born mainly of compassion and pride. And sometimes necessity.

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tinyTURTLE said:

TbT, you call it MY system. It isnt MY system... it's OUR system. You can revognise that and be apart of it, or you can refuse to recognize it and STILL be a part of it.
You sound like a man ranting that a round planet is not the proper kind of planet to live on; yet you yourself live on a round planet (though you make damned sure that we all understand that it isnt your fault that the planet is round, nor do you agree with it's roundness). There are zero examples of the philosophy you espouse (whatever it is) working in any nation on the planet. Should you be able to find one and it is credible, i will happily acknowledge that you may be right after all.

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tinyTURTLE said:

Old man yells at cloud.

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TheBrutalTruth said:

Compassion and pride can not be forced down peoples' throats, at that point it is nothing more than the inane tyrannical policies of people that seek power for its own sake.

Besides, you are ignoring the fact that every government service could either be provided by the community itself, or provided by private corporations. This is especially true of services such as fire control, which with the evolution of our 24/7 economy makes it increasingly likely that there will be people that can work whatever shift is required.

Police protection is often late, and to call it police protection ignores the abuses widespread in that system. Not only that but often private security is brought in by the firm, because the cops refuse to act with out a certain threshhold being reached (something that they turn around on when approaching victimless crimes.)

You also ignore the fact that all of your examples are examples of widespread corruption, and not of government providing good service. The government's job is not to dictate how citizens live their lives, but to ensure that they are able to live their lives free of coercion by their neighbors.

You are also ignoring the fact that the money spent by government is taken by force from the tax payers.

I could care less what people due amongst themselves, I can even understand helping others. I can not understand forcing people to help others, and then failing to understand why the object to it because they no longer have enough to take care of themselves.

Socialism is an ideology that destroys the human spirit of free-will, independence and true self-respect. It is more noble and virtuous when a person can say they chose to help other's because they wanted to, then because they were forced to by government, or by people that are not above using force and fraud to make them do it.

Your system is flawed, because it ignores free will, and has no true pride. To truly be a sacrifice, it must be voluntary. If it is not voluntary then it is not a sacrifice.

Charity must be voluntary, otherwise it is theft.

What people do, or do not do for their community's of their own free will should be up to them. Not to the person that is asking for help, because at that point they have ceased to ask and are using force to steal it.

Socialism enshrines theft, and destroys a person's ability to take care of themselves. Explain to me how you can possibly believe that any one will desire to help any one else when they are incapable of helping themselves?

I can not see it. Unless I am free to take care of myself, then I am not in a position to help any one else. Your system destroys independence, and with a negligence that can only be called criminal ignores humanity's right to live their own lives free of coercion.

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tinyTURTLE said:

still waiting for an example, TbT.

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ViRedd said:

Fascism

by Sheldon Richman
About the Author



[An updated version of this article can be found at Fascism in the 2nd edition.]

The best example of a fascist economy is the regime of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Holding that liberalism (by which he meant freedom and free markets) had "reached the end of its historical function," Mussolini wrote: "To Fascism the world is not this material world, as it appears on the surface, where Man is an individual separated from all others and left to himself.... Fascism affirms the State as the true reality of the individual."

This collectivism is captured in the word fascism, which comes from the Latin fasces, meaning a bundle of rods with an axe in it. In economics, fascism was seen as a third way between laissez-faire capitalism and communism. Fascist thought acknowledged the roles of private property and the profit motive as legitimate incentives for productivity—provided that they did not conflict with the interests of the state.

Fascism in Italy grew out of two other movements: syndicalism and nationalism. The syndicalists believed that economic life should be governed by groups representing the workers in various industries and crafts. The nationalists, angered by Italy's treatment after World War I, combined the idea of class struggle with that of national struggle. Italy was a proletarian nation, they said, and to win a greater share of the world's wealth, all of Italy's classes must unite. Mussolini was a syndicalist who turned nationalist during World War I.

From 1922 to 1925, Mussolini's regime pursued a laissez-faire economic policy under the liberal finance minister Alberto De Stefani. De Stefani reduced taxes, regulations, and trade restrictions and allowed businesses to compete with one another. But his opposition to protectionism and business subsidies alienated some industrial leaders, and De Stefani was eventually forced to resign. After Mussolini consolidated his dictatorship in 1925, Italy entered a new phase. Mussolini, like many leaders at this time, believed that economies did not operate constructively without supervision by the government. Foreshadowing events in Nazi Germany, and to some extent in New Deal America, Mussolini began a program of massive deficit spending, public works, and eventually, militarism.

Mussolini's fascism took another step at this time with the advent of the Corporative State, a supposedly pragmatic arrangement under which economic decisions were made by councils composed of workers and employers who represented trades and industries. By this device the presumed economic rivalry between employers and employees was to be resolved, preventing the class struggle from undermining the national struggle. In the Corporative State, for example, strikes would be illegal and labor disputes would be mediated by a state agency.

Theoretically, the fascist economy was to be guided by a complex network of employer, worker, and jointly run organizations representing crafts and industries at the local, provincial, and national levels. At the summit of this network was the National Council of Corporations. But although syndicalism and corporativism had a place in fascist ideology and were critical to building a consensus in support of the regime, the council did little to steer the economy. The real decisions were made by state agencies such as the Institute for Industrial Reconstruction (Istituto per la Ricosstruzione Industriale, or IRI), mediating among interest groups.

Beginning in 1929, in preparation for achieving the "glories" of war, the Italian government used protectionist measures to turn the economy toward autarchy, or economic self-sufficiency. The autarchic policies were intensified in the following years because of both the depression and the economic sanctions that other countries imposed on Italy after it invaded Ethiopia. Mussolini decreed that government bureaus must buy only Italian products, and he increased tariffs on all imports in 1931. The sanctions following the invasion of Ethiopia spurred Italy in 1935 to increase tariffs again, stiffen import quotas, and toughen its embargo on industrial goods.

Mussolini also eliminated the ability of business to make independent decisions: the government controlled all prices and wages, and firms in any industry could be forced into a cartel when the majority voted for it. The well-connected heads of big business had a hand in making policy, but most smaller businessmen were effectively turned into state employees contending with corrupt bureaucracies. They acquiesced, hoping that the restrictions would be temporary. Land being fundamental to the nation, the fascist state regimented agriculture even more fully, dictating crops, breaking up farms, and threatening expropriation to enforce its commands.

Banking also came under extraordinary control. As Italy's industrial and banking system sank under the weight of depression and regulation, and as unemployment rose, the government set up public works programs and took control over decisions about building and expanding factories. The government created the Istituto Mobiliare in 1931 to control credit, and the IRI later acquired all shares held by banks in industrial, agricultural, and real estate enterprises.

The image of a strong leader taking direct charge of an economy during hard times fascinated observers abroad. Italy was one of the places that Franklin Roosevelt looked to for ideas in 1933. Roosevelt's National Recovery Act (NRA) attempted to cartelize the American economy just as Mussolini had cartelized Italy's. Under the NRA Roosevelt established industry-wide boards with the power to set and enforce prices, wages, and other terms of employment, production, and distribution for all companies in an industry. Through the Agricultural Adjustment Act the government exercised similar control over farmers. Interestingly, Mussolini viewed Roosevelt's New Deal as "boldly... interventionist in the field of economics." Hitler's nazism also shared many features with Italian fascism, including the syndicalist front. Nazism, too, featured complete government control of industry, agriculture, finance, and investment.

As World War II approached, the signs of fascism's failure in Italy were palpable: per capita private consumption had dropped to below 1929 levels, and Italian industrial production between 1929 and 1939 had increased by only 15 percent, lower than the rates for other Western European countries. Labor productivity was low and production costs were uncompetitive. The fault lay in the shift of economic decision-making from entrepreneurs to government bureaucrats, and in the allocation of resources by decree rather than by free markets. Mussolini designed his system to cater to the needs of the state, not of consumers. In the end, it served neither.


About the Author

Sheldon Richman is the editor of Ideas on Liberty and is a senior fellow with the Future of Freedom Foundation. He is a lecturer and author of articles on the New Deal era, American foreign policy, and international trade.

Further Reading

Basch, Ernst. The Fascist: His State and His Mind. 1937.
Flynn, John T. As We Go Marching. 1944. Reprint. 1973.
Laqueur, Walter, ed. Fascism: A Reader's Guide. 1978.
Mussolini, Benito. Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions. 1935. Reprint. 1968.
Pitigliani, Fauto. The Italian Corporative State. 1934.

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TheBrutalTruth said:

This coming from some one that has yet to answer any charges made against his ideology. Makes me think you don't even understand the ideology you are supporting.

And when are you actually going to go and compare the core tenants of Socialism against the list of Sociopathic behaviors? Oh, wait, that would require that you actually understand Socialism, something that I am under the impression that you don't. If you did, then you would be able to engage in debate instead of side-stepping like a politician or a lawyer. Not even an intelligent politician or lawyer, just your average run-of-the-mill, screw-over-the-public politician.

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MediMary said:

"Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalised, and the state will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism"
Karl Marx

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jfgordon1 said:

enough said.

f#%k the bailouts

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tinyTURTLE said:

OK. a sociopath is an individual that suffers from a personality dissorder (ie. YOU), socialism is an economic philosophy. There are more than just one kind of socialism. And i don't think that we should have a purely socialist system. if you can call %0.12 (twelve hundredths of a percent) a socialist takeover, i pity you. If you are too stupid to go on the internet and figure out for yourself the differences between the two, then any explanation would be lost on you. Even the simple one you see in the above sentence. I honestly tried to come up with an example of a country that lives up to your so called philosophy, but the only ones i could come up with are on the virge of being non-countries. Like Somalia. Go ahead and go there, you won't be missed.

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