Only Hitler-Enablers Call People Fascist

Writing in Slate, Ron Rosenbaum says something my literalist heart can mostly endorse:

The muddled Tea Party version of history is more than wrong and fraudulent. It's offensive. Calling Obama a tyrant, a communist, or a fascist is deeply offensive to all the real victims of tyranny, the real victims of communism and fascism. The tens of millions murdered.

That's why we shouldn't compare 21st century Americans to 1930s Germans…oh wait:

[I]gnorance of this sort isn't inconsequential. Historical fraudulence is like a disease, a contagious psychosis which can lead to mob hysteria and worse. Consider the role that fraudulent history played in Weimar Germany, where the "stab in the back" myth that the German Army had been cheated of victory in World War I by Jews and Socialists on the home front was used by the Nazis to justify their hatreds.

It's a historical lie, but it caught on, and Hitler rose to power on it, asking Germans to avenge the (nonexistent) stab in the back!

Link via The Corner. More on the logic of only-totalitarians-compare-people-to-totalitarians here.

Comments

[Pro Libertate]

Don't call me a Nazi, you Nazi!

[John]

That is just sorry. Even for Slate, that is sorry.

[Ken Shultz]

I'd have bet $10 you were going to point out that the anti-war movement never seemed to go anywhere without a placard comparing Dubya to Hitler.

I guess I'd have lost.

[This Dave]

It was conspicuous in its absence. Amazing how it's suddenly just beyond the pale to compare the president to Hitler. I mean, I'd never heard of someone doing such a thing!

At least Jonah Goldberg draws legitimate philosophical parallels. The Bush posters were more along the lines of "I no like, therefore, Hitler"

[Nick]

Hey, I'm just calling a spad....goddammit.

[Pro Libertate]

You means the Soci?t? Pour L'Aviation et ses D?riv?s?

[Pro Libertate]

You mean, I mean? Damned server screwed me up with its French hate.

[peachy]

Spad XIII for the win, baby.

[West Coaster]

But wouldn't the "s" be silent?

[Pro Libertate]

Which "s?"

[troy]

what is a spad? A cheap spade?

[Pro Libertate]

It's a plane.

[PapayaSF]

Thank heavens it's apparently OK with Ron that we can still call Obama a socialist!

[Pro Libertate]

We're all socialists, now, PapayaSF.

[Mike M.]

Did Rosenbaum have anything to say about the BusHitler crowd? If he did then good for him, but I'm guessing he was more than happy to ignore them.

[Slate Magazine]

But Bush really was Hitleresque!

[Mike G]

No, the article exists in the liberal media neverland where no one has ever called a politician Hitler till now.

[mick]

The Weimar liberals suffered from the failure of their own economic lies.

Of course the people are inflamed. 20% of them are unemployed and their costs of living are skyrocketing yet the liberal intellectual authorities just duckspeak at them about how they should feel better because the official statistics are better then obvious reality.

Perhaps Hitler was elected in a kind of cognitive hysteria, yet it is typical liberal denial to pretend that the vacuum he exploited was accidental.

[John]

I think inflating the currency and failing to deal withe Depression had a lot more to do with the Nazis taking over than lies about World War I. And let's see, which side is inflating the currency and not dealing with a severe recession?

[Pro Libertate]

The Nazis?

[Brandybuck]

They were forced to inflate their currency, as the allies demanded unrealistic reparations for the war. Hitler was one of the unintended consequences of the terms of surrender we demanded.

[John]

True. Of course it wasn't "we". It was Britain and France. If I am not mistaken, Wilson tried to get them to back off on the reparations.

[zoltan]

Thank them also for doing the unimaginable: carving up the Middle East to make it even worse than it was.

[Pro Libertate]

We should give the responsibility for "solving" the Middle East right back to France and the U.K.

[celtigirl]

I firmly believe the British should be barred from map making. The Middle East, Bangladesh/Pakistan/India... nice going Brits!

[Pro Libertate]

That's a good point. In fact, I think virtually all of the world's problems can be blamed on the British penchant for screwing up maps.

[BakedPenguin]

Don't forget Africa. Although the French share a lot of the blame for that.

[Pro Libertate]

I meant to mention that omission--good catch, BP!

[celtigirl]

To paraphrase, "if you can read a map, smack a Brit!"

[liberty_equality_solidarity]

What in the world are you getting at?
The Weimar republic inflation was the results of payments for 'starting' WWI (not to cover wild government spending). In terms of not dealing with the depression, thats a new one from the Libertarian crowd (I thought government made the depression worse by trying to 'deal with it').
Also, seems a little bit on the pro-Nazi side?

[John]

I am getting at this. The hyper inflation and the horrible economic times allowed the Nazis to get the support of a lot of people who should have known better on the basis that they were the only party who stood between Germany and starvation.

The point is that fucking up the economy and the currency is what set the table for the Nazi takeover not lying about World War I. And in that sense, Obama, by fucking up the economy and maybe the currency is doing a lot more to set the stage for a radical to take power than the Tea Parties.

[liberty_equality_solidarity]

Well sure there were real problems, the implication was the it because of mike's 'Weimar liberal''s (whatever that is suppose to mean) policies, which it wasn't. (also to poke fun at you as being pro-nazi, in keeping with the spirit of the article) .

But it might help to ask why the Nazi's? Why not royalist, republicans, or socialist?
I don't think the sort of fantasies the Nazi's offered are a small part of that.

[John]

Why the Nazis? First and foremost, they were the ones most willing to take decisive action. It is like in Hayak's Road to Serfdom when the populace stands up and says "We need a man who can make a plan work". the Nazis were the most violent, the most organized, and the ones with a plan.

[IceTrey]

But isn't interesting to note that Obama signed the health care bill on March 23. The same day that the German government passed the Enabling Act.

[Legate Damar]

I actually found this article tolerable until he went here:
I would like every Tea Partier who has denounced federal regulation to write a letter to the widows and children of the coalminers in West Virginia who died because of the failure of "federal regulation" of mine safety.

At this point, my logical-fallacy-o-meter straight-up exploded. And yet it got worse as it went on.

[Tony]

What's fallacious exactly? They champion deregulation, which in the mining industry leads to treating miners' lives as a line on a balance sheet. Or did Obama cause that too?

[Pro Libertate]

The part where the industry is heavily regulated might be what he's talking about.

[Tony]

But obviously the regulations either weren't strict enough or weren't enforced enough in this instance.

I bet they would've been if the miners had been union.

[Hazel Meade]

Or how about regulators aren't any better at predicting what *might* cause an accident than mine owners.

It's like the space program. Three layers of safety testing and quality assurance, multiplying the cost of each and every launch, and accidents still happen.

You cannot anticipate every eventuality. At some point, you pass the point of diminishing returns. Most causes of failure are identified only after a failure happens. The most efficient course is to wait until a failure occurs, then correct the source. Not attempt to regulate every possible source of failure, to the point that you make everything 10 times as expensive.

[Tony]

I don't think mine owners should be considered the best source for mine safety regulations. There might be a little conflict there. Ever occur to you that the whole point of regulation is to be concerned with human lives and safety over profit--because the owners have that part covered.

Question, in libertopia, will employers be allowed to take life insurance policies out on employees, to the extent that if too few people die in a month it's considered bad business? Because that actually happens.

[cynical]

Is life insurance some magical source of funds that springs up when people die? I could have sworn that there was a company on the other end that wanted people to live (and keep paying premiums) as long as possible.

Shit, I probably trust the life insurance company to stop that kind of stuff more than the government -- you can bribe the government to screw the people it's supposed to protect, but you can't really bribe the insurance company into screwing itself.

[Hazel Meade]

Shit, I probably trust the life insurance company to stop that kind of stuff more than the government -- you can bribe the government to screw the people it's supposed to protect, but you can't really bribe the insurance company into screwing itself.

Really good point. Insurance companies are everywhere more vigilant about people trying to scam them than the government is. Any hint that the company wasn't doing it's darndest to keep people alive and they'd be dragged into court for insurance fraud.

[Tony]

Okay, but it actually happens. Wal-Mart did it.

[Hazel Meade]

What actually happens? That they take out life insurance policies on their employees? or that they profit by making sure a few of them are killed off every year?

[Tony]

They have memos that complain that they're not meeting expectations on employee death rates.

[IceTrey]

As a libertarian I support an individuals right to work in an unsafe mine.

[Essence of Tony]

Because, y'know, only union workers are competent.

[Tony]

No, but they are organized and in a position to make demands.

[Drax the Destroyer]

"I bet they would've been if the miners had been union."

So... we'd be importing all of our coal from China then? How did unionizing work out for the Auto and Steel industries in this country? And why do care so much about the plight of the miners? Their livelihoods are dependent on an industry you certainly abhor. I know you'll respond by saying that you care about people and not a nature-destroying industry, but those people ARE that industry. Oh, I forgot, their skills will be reallocated with "green" jobs made possible by taxing their former employers into hell.

[Michael Ejercito]

What's fallacious exactly? They champion deregulation, which in the mining industry leads to treating miners' lives as a line on a balance sheet. Or did Obama cause that too?

And where was the deregulation in the mining industry?

[Drax the Destroyer]

"And where was the deregulation in the mining industry?"

Deregulation in this sense means that there was not,(and never will be) enough regulation. Its just like the Commerce/Non-Commerce logic that will shovel us into hobo tents. The absence of regulation obviously means something was deregulated (Probably by Bush, because EVERYTHING was his fault). Your sarcasm detectors should firing now.

[MJ]

Any large organization (private or government) that deals in inherently dangerous work treats it's employees lives as lines on a balance sheet in some sense.

What's your point?

[Mike G]

I think the head explosion comes from the sort of logic that says "You think the government owning failing automakers is a bad idea, therefore you must want to KILL miners in West Virginia!"

[R C Dean]

For people like Rosenbaum to all-of-a-sudden discover that defining deviance down has bad results, that words have meanings that shouldn't be abused for political gain, is pretty rich.

I've got $20 that Rosenbaum refers to illegal aliens as "undocumented workers" or some such PC neo-euphemism. Pot, meet kettle.

Where the fuck has he been for that last thirty years? Awfully convenient that he only discovers his principles when the worm has turned. Just how deep his principles run can be measured directly from his article, as Matt so ably shows.

[John]

The legacy media shot their wad on Obama. They invested every last bit of credibility they had getting him elected. If he fails, they fail. They know he is failing miserably and that the world may never be the same after November. That is why they are desperate.

[Brandybuck]

I have my fingers cross tight that both will relegated to the dustbin of history in 2012.

[John]

The legacy media shot their wad on Obama. They invested every last bit of credibility they had getting him elected. If he fails, they fail. They know he is failing miserably and that the world may never be the same after November. That is why they are desperate.

[Brandybuck]

I have my fingers cross tight that both will relegated to the dustbin of history in 2012.

[Mike M.]

You can both say that again.

[GOP]

Because we are the true champions of freedom! Keep up the good work, John.

Oh, a little less teeth please.

[Pro Libertate]

That's crap. The media, by and large, jumped into Obamania without the slightest regard to any kind of critical evaluation of him. It's not just about political bias, it's about keeping your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you. . . . I mean I'm. . .no, I can't. . .I'm a little man, I'm a little man, he's. . .he's a great man! I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas. . . .

[GOP]

without the slightest regard to any kind of critical evaluation of him

You're so right. It's a travesty that virtually nobody ever heard of Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, the fake birth certificate, Vince Foster (wait, that was the other guy). These are all totally legitimate concerns that the media paid absolutely no attention to!

We are eternal victims.

Now see if you can shove it back a little more... I want to feel epiglottis.

[Pro Libertate]

Uh, huh. Those torches were carried by CBS? Or was it The Washington Post? And, of course, it's not the wacky crap that I'm annoyed with the large media for blowing off.

[GOP]

I realize my morbid obesity on top of a small endowment make this a challenge, but could you please just add a little bit more bitching about the lamestream media, and tongue play?

[John]

Be gone troll,

[Pro Libertate]

Sure, no problem. The media has a fairly important role in our culture when it comes to covering politics and government actions. If it starts playing favorites too much, then that role is pretty much forsaken. Bad idea.

A big part of the problem with government coverage (as opposed to electoral coverage) is the question of access. The larger media outlets tend to avoid going after the government with ice picks in fear that they'll be limited in their access to government sources in the future. There are exceptions to this, of course, but those usually only happen during massive pile-ons. These days, a lot of critical news is broken on the web, not in a major media outlet.

[Tony]

Pro,

You'll get no argument out of me that the traditional media does a lousy job of reporting facts and making people more aware of reality. There's actually been studies about this, and guess whose viewers come away less informed about reality than they were before? (Not CNN)

[Pro Libertate]

Reason.tv?

[Michael Ejercito]

There's actually been studies about this, and guess whose viewers come away less informed about reality than they were before? (Not CNN)

CBS.

[Tony]

Wrong. As you well know, it's FOX News, and its viewers are idiots and made even more idiotic by watching it, and it's been proven.

[Tony's Editor]

Wrong. As you well know, it's FOX News, and its viewers are idiots and made even more idiotic by watching it, and it's been provenevidence is present suggesting that FOX News offers the least informative news of all major stations.

[Hazel Meade]

Wrong. As you well know, it's FOX News, and its viewers are idiots and made even more idiotic by watching it, and it's been proven.

Listen to yourself occasionally, will you?
And maybe tune into FOX once or twice a week to get an objective perspective.

[Tony]

You're not listening to me. FOX News viewers come away knowing less about reality than they knew before, which is not the case of other news outfits.

You've got to be kidding me Hazel. I don't actually care that FOX is a blatantly pro-Republican outfit, I just care that they advertise themselves as fair and balanced.

As Jon Stewart put it, FOX is a huge overreaction to a perceived bias in other news sources, i.e., the lupus of news.

[Ken Shultz]

"It's offensive. Calling Obama a tyrant, a communist, or a fascist is deeply offensive to all the real victims of tyranny, the real victims of communism and fascism. The tens of millions murdered."

I don't know why it's so hard for people to get this...

Things don't have to be alike in every way in order to be useful for descriptive purposes. And the ways in which Barak Obama is like the communists and like the Nazis is very descriptive.

The communists were all about sacrificing individual rights (especially property) for the common good--and using government force to compel those sacrifices. The Nazis were all about sacrificing individual rights (mostly civil) for the common good--and using government force to compel those sacrifices.

Barak Obama is all about using the government to force individuals to make sacrifices for the common good--he wants to do it with global warming, he's doing it with the auto-industry, he's doing it with healthcare, ...

He'll do it everywhere we let him. Using the government to compel individual sacrifice for the common good is Barak Obama's defining characteristic. And if he doesn't like being compared to the Communists and the Nazis that way, then he needs to stop acting like the Communists and the Nazis...

Believe me, when the Tea Party people carry signs comparing Obama to Hitler or Stalin, they're not criticizing him for the people he's murdered...

Everyone already knows that Barak Obama hasn't murdered anybody.

But the things that made the Communists and the Nazis so awful wasn't just all the people they murdered--it was that they both made a virtue of using the government to enforce personal sacrifice for the sake of the common good...

And in that way, Barak Obama is like the Communists. Barak Obama is like the Nazis.

Deal with it.

[Ohhsweetconcord]

So, by your logic, anyone who doesn't believe that the right to property is absolute is a Communist Nazi super hybrid? That's just brilliant. I believe in taxes. I think they're a pretty good thing. I don't like a lot of taxes, but I much prefer I county with them than without them. So, I guess I support taking from the individual to give to the community. I guess I'm LIKE a Communist Nazi then.

Communist Nazis also believed in public education! OH DEAR THE LOCAL SCHOOL BOARD ARE COMMUNIST NAZIS!

[Ken Shultz]

If you read what I wrote, and it's really not that confusing, I'm saying that a President who wants to use the government to make personal sacrifices compulsory for the common good is like the Communists and like the Nazis in that they also wanted to use the government to make personal scarifies compulsory for the common good.

Really. They really are a like in that way. And when you see people marching around calling Obama a fascist or a communist, that's what they're talking about. ...and everybody already knows that.

There's nothing new here.

If anything, trying to silence critics of the Obama Administration by using the murder of tens of millions of individual victims of the communists and the fascists?

That's kinda icky.

"Communist Nazis also believed in public education! OH DEAR THE LOCAL SCHOOL BOARD ARE COMMUNIST NAZIS!"

Public education wasn't the communists' and nazis' defining characteristic.

All the tens of millions of people who were murdered in the death camps and the gulags, that was simply the result of the communists' and fascists' defining characteristic taken to its logical extreme.

Using the state to compel individual sacrifice for the sake of the common good was their defining characteristic.

It's the Obama Administration's defining characteristic too.

You want to tell me the Obama Administration doesn't want to go to those extremes, and I'll agree with you. But don't tell me that and then turn around and say that "fascist" and "communist" aren't usefully descriptive.

[Tony]

Public education wasn't the communists' and nazis' defining characteristic.

No, that would be fascism and genocide.

But don't tell me that and then turn around and say that "fascist" and "communist" aren't usefully descriptive.

They aren't, and you know it. The terms obscure more than they reveal, appealing to emotion more than facts, which is the essence of the entire GOP/teabag playbook.

[Ken Shultz]

The fact is that using the government to make personal sacrifice mandatory is Barak Obama's defining characteristic.

You see it in the bailouts.
You see it in his solutions to global warming.
You even see it in his financial consumer protection agency even...

It's the guiding principle of everything he proposes...

And you know what else? It's the central reason why Tea Party people of all shapes and sizes oppose him. They don't want to make personal sacrifices for Barak Obama's vision.

"They aren't, and you know it."

Just because you don't want people to focus on what you don't think they'll like doesn't mean it isn't descriptive. And just because you don't like what people are saying doesn't mean they aren't saying it...

And they sure as heck aren't blaming Obama for the holocaust--so what do you think they're saying?

[Tony]

The fact is that using the government to make personal sacrifice mandatory is Barak Obama's defining characteristic.

No, this is the defining characteristic of a civilized society. You act like non-anarchy is some radical new concept. What you really mean is that uber rich people will have to sacrifice a few pennies to make a solvent, functioning society, and you will have none of that, even if it means resorting to ridiculous and hyperbolic name calling.

And they sure as heck aren't blaming Obama for the holocaust--so what do you think they're saying?

They're saying whatever Glenn Beck tells them to say. Calling the president a communist nazi is not constituent of thoughtful political criticism.

[Ken Shultz]

There's always a question of balance. Tea Party people, if recent surveys are to be believed, think the taxes they're paying are fairer than I do, and they like Social Security and Medicare...

That's not my cup of tea.

But if you don't see that even they think Barak Obama went way over the line of what's fair, first with his $350 billion expansion of the bailouts and then with ObamaCare, then you're not paying attention.

In other words, they seem to be okay with making some sacrifices, but they think he's gone over the line...

Like a fascist. Like a communist.

[Tony]

You seem to be under the impression, supplied enthusiastically to you by Republican spinmeisters, that the "bailout" happened under Obama. So if we allow for historical accuracy, Bush indeed was just like Hitler too.

On healthcare I'm in the camp that says the bill didn't go nearly far enough, so I guess from my perspective that should make Obama a radical anarchist.

[Ken Shultz]

Actually, I've been around here long enough to have been accused of being a latte swilling liberal for railing against the Bush Administration too...

You may be surprised to find that a lot of people don't like the Obama Administration because of what the Obama Administration has done...

And one of the things it did is something you don't seem to be aware of! It was one of the first things Barak Obama did when he got into office. God, I love the interwebs...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/.....refer=home

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....58292.html

...It nevar forgets!

[CJ]

Sure feels like it's the rich people sacrificing pennies when at the age of 30 I'll be stuck with a choice of tossing cash at health insurance companies or paying fines, helping fund such low-paying jobs as doctors and politicians on my low-level employee income.

[Drax the Destroyer]

Not to metion paying for end of life entitlements we will never see because we can't afford to have enough children to pay for OUR entitlements when we "need" them. Thank god for suicide.

[PapayaSF]

appealing to emotion more than facts

Thanks heavens the left never does that!

[Hazel Meade]

Interestingly, it was the Nazis that banned home schooling in Germany, and it still is!

Lots of people hjave observed that our cookie-cutter public school system was designed to produce obedient factory-worker citizens. Which is facist, or communist, depending on how you look at it. Clocks, whistles, schedules, rows of desks, authority figure in front....

And ..., it's still illegal in many place even to choose *which* public school to send your kids to. Much less, get a voucher to send them to a private school.

Id say the people calling public education leninist have a point.

[Ken Shultz]

What, are the facts to Tony like a bucket of water to the wicked witch?

The first thing your rotten president did when he got into office was squander $350 billion worth of our future earnings to bail out Wall Street investors, and you don't have anything to say about that?

Not even a "McCain would have been worse"?

If the rest of you will excuse me, I guess I should go do some galumphing.

[Tony]

Okay, the law colloquially referred to as the "bailout" was the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (Bush's no-strings cash dump).

TARP, Obama's bill, is described here.

Originally expected to cost the U.S. Government $356 billion, the most recent estimates of the cost, as of April 12, 2010, is down to $89 billion, which is 42% less than the taxpayers' cost of the Savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s.[1] The cost of that crisis amounted to 3.2% of GDP during the Reagan/Bush era, while the GDP percentage of the current crisis' cost is estimated at less than 1%.[2] While it was once feared the government would be holding companies like GM, AIG and Citigroup for several years, those companies are preparing to buy back the Treasury's stake and emerge from TARP within a year.

Savings and loan crisis

Speaking of John McCain.

[Tony's Editor in Cheif]

Oh, so you mean the financial crisis wasn't the End of Capitalism and the Beginning of Our Glorious New Socialist Future?

[generic Brand]

This has more to do with the companies receiving TARP funds having paid them back, probably because A) many didn't want them in the first place, but were told by the government they needed them; and 2) They still have a sliver of common sense left and unlike the people in government can see that the the populist uprising against the bailouts and out of control spending is bad for business. Better to give back the public funds and look [slightly] better in the public eye, and just get by with under the table tax breaks, figuratively speaking.

[Tony]

By this reasoning almost every politician in every country is like a communist and a nazi. Just because they don't agree with your fringe anarcho-bullshit. Every society involves personal sacrifice for the common good. Like when you have to stop at a red light. Wait a minute... red, commies...

[Ken Shultz]

"Every society involves personal sacrifice for the common good. Like when you have to stop at a red light."

I've lived in countries where there aren't really any cops around to ticket people for running red lights. It's an interesting point that people willingly make sacrifices just for the benefit of society all the time...

But forcing the taxpayers to cough up $350 billion in future earnings, just to bail out Wall Street investors and assume the burden of the UAW? That isn't like willingly obeying a traffic signal at all, is it?

Hiring thousands of new IRS agents to enforce mandatory insurance purchases? Is that like willingly obeying a traffic signal?

I don't think so.

[Tony]

You're right, it's much more like murdering six million Jews.

[Ken Shultz]

So you're conceding that it's a question of degree?

Thank you.

I would have added that the intermediate goals were a big difference too, but I guess that would have required you to admit they were otherwise similar.

[Tony]

It would be a question of degree perhaps if Obama had murdered only 3 million Jews.

I sincerely doubt anyone calling Obama a Nazi communist have a deep and nuanced understanding of the politics of 1930s Germany.

[Pro Libertate]

I have a fairly good understanding of that period, and I will say one thing: People trying to acquire or wield unlimited power in the name of populism are almost never trustworthy. This crap has been going on a long time and has destroyed some fairly nice republics, beginning with the Roman variety.

Whether the current jokers will take us there or some later iteration of the theme is just a detail.

[Tony]

Who is trying to "acquire or wield unlimited power"? I mean, except Dick Cheney. I get it, hyperbole begets hyperbole. We gonna start talking about reality any time soon?

[Pro Libertate]

Let's be honest: Neither major party is terribly interested in the concept of limited government.

[Tony]

Of course... but only one party claims to be and is lying. Neither I nor the Dems are interested in limited government so it doesn't bother me.

[Pro Libertate]

Um. okay. Good luck with that.

[Hazel Meade]

Man, you really feel that rimming the state's ass is "standing up for the little guy" don't you?

You would think that with your face burried so deep in those butt cheeks, you might think "hmm ... this guy isn't so little", but, no....

[Ken Shultz]

"Neither I nor the Dems are interested in limited government so it doesn't bother me."

I think it's true that neither of the major parties, as presently constituted, stands for limited government, but I also think one of them is led by someone who's tried to make a virtue of destroying limited government, and isn't that a big difference?

Really, I'm not willing to suffer a tyrant, just 'cause the last one was tyrannical too.

[Tony]

I'm saying being utter hypocrites, using your "small government" rhetoric merely as an Orwellian distraction from their big government looting, is worse than being for big, good government and being honest about it.

[Sean W. Malone]

Hahahaha... Tony, you are source of never-ending amusement/embarrassment.

Brava.

[The Libertarian Guy]

Republicans and Democrats, deep down, would LOVE to wield unlimited power. With very few exceptions, these people view the public as nothing but a herd of children/source of tax income/voters to be bought off with bribes and favors.

Don't tell us you actually TRUST any of them...

[Tony]

I trust some of them. I'd trust more if they weren't so dependent on corporate money for elections. With public funding we might get leaders who care about leading rather than pleasing their donors, but you'd never go for that. In fact, you deliberately want government to be dysfunctional because it means you can pat yourself on the back for being right. But you're not for government doing anything to reform itself either.

[Drax the Destroyer]

"But you're not for government doing anything to reform itself either."

Since when does shrinking the size/scope/cost of government not count as reform? Ending foreign entanglements? Ending aid to other nations hostile and stupid, rich dumbass bankers, and short-sighted greedy dumbfuck unions? Ending the War on Drugs? That is all about the government "reforming" itself. SINCE WHEN DOES ANY OF THAT NOT COUNT AS REFORM? JESUS FUCKIN^&*%&%&^%#^^%$#(*&%(%*&%*&%$#^%#%$#

[Tony]

Some reform definitely consists of cutting certain programs and spending. Depends on what you're talking about. But most here want to cut everything arbitrarily including market regulations.

[Colin]

I bet he has no problem with Alan Grayson calling Palin a fascist.

Hyperbole is only wrong when the other guys do it.

[Naomi Wolf]

The difference is, when those tea party slobs call people Nazis, they're doing it in a reckless and historically incorrect fashion. When people like Ron and I call people Nazis, we do so correctly and responsibly.

[Hazel Meade]

I'm officially going to give up calling people facists. The communists were worse.

From now on, everyone I disagree with is a Leninist or a Maoist.

[Pro Libertate]

Don't forget Stalinists!

[JB]

Just call 'em commies.

And tell every hipster retard that wearing a hammer & sickle is worse than wearing a swastika. They really hate when you do that.

[R C Dean]

Tony sez:

The fact is that using the government to make personal sacrifice mandatory is . . . the defining characteristic of a civilized society.

If being forced to make personal sacrifices for the good of society defines civilized society, then I guess North Korea is the most civilized country on earth.

[Tony]

R C Dean sez:

"Every functioning country on earth is equal--and equally evil. Only my vague conception of anarcho-idiocy is right and true--even if no society, democratic or otherwise, has ever wanted it. Nuance is for bitches."

[Tails]

Sonic sez:

Luckily I'm fast enough to run away from these problems... the coke helps too. Er, rings! I meant rings!

[Hazel Meade]

Calling Obama a tyrant, a communist, or a fascist is deeply offensive to all the real victims of tyranny, the real victims of communism and fascism.

Someone actually mourns the "real" victims of communism?

If so, please directly me to the memorial communism museum in DC. Perhaps Great Purge memorial statue? The Cultural Revolution memorial center?

[DoDoGuRu]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V.....m_Memorial

It's recent, but it exists.

[DoDoGuRu]

God Dammit.

Victims of Communism Memorial

[Stevo Darkly]

Only a Nazi would call Ken Schultz a fringe anarchist who engages in hyperbolic name-calling!

[Pro Libertate]

Stevo,

We had a Dune-legal profession mashup the other day. I missed most of it.

Don't tell anyone, but I think the Sanford and Son-Dune one was funnier.

[Stevo Darkly]

From now one, if I disagree with someone who advocates either militarism or communalism, I'm calling him a Lycurgusist.

[Pro Libertate]

Fair enough. He started all this crap. If it weren't for Sparta, Plato probably would've promoted limited government, and we'd be living in Libertopia.

[Stevo Darkly]

Pro Lib: Sanford and Son/Dune? I think I vaguely remember that. Or do I? I can't find it via Google.

[Pro Libertate]

You should. Here's a tangentially related Urkobold comment:

Stevo Darkly said...

Different TV show, but I believe it existed in the same universe as Sanford and Son

We're movin' on up
To Arrakis
Because the Emperor said to
That's what the fact is
Movin' on up
To Arrakis
But whoever controls the spice
Controls planets!

Rain don't fall in the desert
And Bene Gesserit can kill
But both are gonna train Paul Maud'Dib
To defy the Emperor's will
Now he's the leader of the Fremen
'Cause he's the Kwisatz Haderach
Fight the Harks and the Emp
With his mutant sister baby
There ain't nothing wrong with that!

We're movin' on up
To Arrakis
Because the Emperor said to
That's what the fact is
Movin' on up
To Arrakis
But whoever controls the spice
Controls pla-a-a-anets

That came from this post. I can't find the Hit & Run comments that inspired it, though. Damned Intertubials.

[Stevo Darkly]

Wow, I'd forgotten about that. Thank you. Good times, good times.

[Pro Libertate]

Okay, here are the Hit & Run comments. Starts somewhere in the middle. I could swear there was another thread like that, but nothing's coming up.

[Stevo Darkly]

Ah, more good times.

"The Lamonting of their women." Heh.

[Paul]

Bushitler!

[Pro Libertate]

Is that like Bushido?

[BakedPenguin]

It would be a lot easier not to be hyperbolic about Obama if he wasn't 100 times worse than Pol Pot.

[Pol Pot]

Hey, now! If you don't wear glasses, you have nothing to worry about from me. But that Obama! Just try to escape his reach. We old commies might have killed you and broke your back under forced labor conditions, but at least we knew our limits. We didn't demand that you loved us.

[BakedPenguin]

Seriously, though - can anyone think of any area, any part of life, where Obama would not believe the government should interfere? Perhaps abortion, that's the only one I can think of.

[Ivan]

You have to get into double negatives. He doesn't believe that the government has the right to interfere with the government's interference in ___________ (fill in the blank).

[PapayaSF]

Obama seems pretty cool with letting unions spend money as they wish and not publicly report it.

[Flyover Country]

Obama will make taxpayers pay for abortions. The government will not interfere with anyone's choice except for taxpayer's choice not to pay for other people's choices.

[MJ]

If it were politically feasible I quite expect Obama's druthers would be to have the government pay for abortions whenever possible.

[Ken Shultz]

...can anyone think of any area, any part of life, where Obama would not believe the government should interfere?"

I don't know about Obama, but reading that post the other day with the Progressive/environmentalist advocating China style restrictions on how many children you can have?

I was a little taken aback by that.

I compared it to religious devotion, they seem to think that the more you sacrifice, the more devout you are, and although I don't think Obama would sign on to that for political reasons, I think it's illustrative...

No, I don't think there's anything the Progressives wouldn't sacrifice or apologize for if they thought it was in the best interests of society generally. That's why we must shame them publicly.

That's why they hate being exposed and called names.

[JB]

Government is a religion to Leftists.

I tend to find the Leftist atheists to be the most rabid religionists.

[The Libertarian Guy]

BP, add homosexuality and drug use to the sparse list of things Obama would believe in less government interference. Nothing wrong with that, but he goes off the cliff with things he DOES want said interference to, er, interfere in.

[Ken Shultz]

By the way, on the same note? Given Rosenbaum's take?

Jerry Seinfeld calling anybody a "soup nazi" is absolutely unconscionable.

And I swear, if I google "Ron Rosenbaum" and "wage slave", I better not see any...

Uh oh.

Doesn't he have any compassion? To compare people who worked for a living to the very real horror that was slavery in this country...

That's disgusting.

[MJ]

What? You were expecting a sense of self-awareness and shame from someone of Rosenbaum's ilk?

[Mike G]

Just go look at his page at Pajamas Media, which he has apparently quit/been fired from. All he's written for the last two months has been pieces comparing Tea Partiers to, no joke, the industrialists like von Papen who backed Hitler. It's really a shame, because his book Explaining Hitler is a terrific book, and the man who wrote it would, you'd think, have scathing words for the man who'd call tax protesters little Eichmans.

[alan]

I call dibs on Chad's tears after the November elections. Not that the Republicans are anything but shitfuckers who'll fuck the shit out of us, I'm still going to be all schadenfreudey about it until my butt hole starts hurting.

[Drax the Destroyer]

"...until my butt hole starts hurting."

So 15 minutes after the election then?

[Gary W. Blome]

Even Hitler, Stalin, and Mao started somewhere. Obama is clearly showing potential. Keep an eye on the next few years. What's with the Democrat call for National Guard deployment in Chicago? Coincidence? I think not.

[Hazel Meade]

We'll know when they start calling out the riot cops to protect us from those violent right-wing facist tea-bagger protests.

[Chris Matthews]

It gives me a different kind of tingly feeling when I refer to the right as "Nazis".

[ronlon]

Obama is a fascist and solialist. Read history people! He is doing the same thing that Hitler did in the late 30's. Face up to it. Obama voters are the most uneducated voting block in history. Obama is ruining the economy and this country. Obama is not doing anything about the oil spill because the gulf states have republican govenors. People need to get off the couch, read literature, and read history. Get educated!

[Truth]

Funny how the very people that call Obama Hitler want to shove liberals to the gas chambers themselves. But of course, this is a "libertarian" website - i.e. right-wing Republicans who won't call themselves that.

"Obama is a fascist and solialist."
He's also black, Democrat, human, has two fingers...I can go on all day mentioning random attributes. Or I can grow up and not call liberals Nazis while buying the Cyclone-B to "unleash on them one day" - wasn't it Glenn Beck who said "expose and exterminate liberals"?