Whatever.

I have my gut and talking points to guide me along.

WE'RE not going to let some stinking facts interfere with OUR opinions!

I'll know it's a fact if it comes from Rush!

Sean and BillO tell me everything I need to know!

Harrumph!

don't forget that pos

It is so irritating when the right calls Obama a communist and fascist. Of course when you ask them what that means, they have no idea.

Last edited Mon Mar 11, 2013, 10:02 PM - Edit history (1)

And they define "freedom" as a white shitkicker like themselves in charge.

that's the answer to your question "What does (insert boogeyman political/economic system here) mean"

It's Pavlovian. They hear the question as the dog heard the bell, and they respond as the dog did...without thought.

Communism is double-plus-ungood. Socialism is double-plus-ungood. Fascism is double-plus-ungood. Obama is double-plus-ungood. All are double-plus-ungood, therefore all are the same...there is no nuance.

in a right-wing kind of way. Of course the fact that Republican presidents have expanded government size and spending far more than Democrats escapes them.

there are no thought processes here, just automated responses.

I'm always impressed when posters like you do so.

There have been several occasions on which I've asked a teapartier to define socialism.

They've changed the subject to something else, told me not be such an elitist, and in one special case the response was "How many babies have you killed today?"

The most common response is something like "You just think you're so smart!" right before they stomp off.

And so it goes.

"Nah, I think I'm only smart enough to realize that there's a lot of shit that I don't know. I do, on the other hand, think that you're dumb enough to think that you've got it all figured out"

.. they say "get a job!" I laugh at them when they say that, especially after I say it with them.

regulation. If the state regulates, the state may as well own the means of production. This is the type of insanity they put forth.

... here in RedNeckLand have I been approached with a sincere question about economics. The poor soul had begun to get an inkling that her wingnut sources might be misleading her, so she told me - in private, of course - that she really did want to learn about economics and thought I might be able to help her get started.

"Have you ever heard of the Wall Street Journal?" she asked.

Having neither time nor inclination to start at the appropriate level for her, and figuring she wouldn't go far before turning on me anyway when I said something different from the wingnuts, I simply referred her to Paul Krugman. I said read all his books and material on the internet and LISTEN to him regardless of what your friends tell you, and I had to let it go at that. I've never seen nor heard from her since, but I tend to expect her foray flopped. But there was nothing more I could've done for her. She wanted a one or two paragraph answer.

I applaud it, too. Ignorant people who try to use big words they don't understand because it sounded good on the radio are people I want to slap until they can't hear the radio any more and are forced to read.

I think you've got it!

... I've always wondered what wingers meant by using "Islamofascists." I'm going to ask what one of those are the next time some idiot uses it in my presence.

but I may start calling myself one

gruntle (v.)
1938, in gruntled "pleased, satisfied," a back-formation from disgruntled. The original verb (early 15c.) meant "to utter a little or low grunt."

disgruntle (v.)
1680s, from dis- "entirely, very" + obsolete gruntle "to grumble" (Middle English gruntelen, early 15c.), frequentative of grunt (v.).

National Socialist Party. I heard a tape of a winger going on about this on Stephanie Miller today.

I mean, they had apples and everything!

And the USSR was a Republic.... so they were all republicans!

history fail

I don't think I need to link it, but it was making me chuckle at reading their reasoning for separating Nazism from Fascism.

I guess for them, then, any country out there that has, or had, "Democratic" in their country name is indeed a democracy, like say, North Korea!

Makes sense...... just like the "Iraqi Republican Guard" were Republicans.......

... because he knew it sounded better than fascist - which he more nearly resembled, combining nationalism and (un)holy zeal.

Not as well read as some of you, I am sure. But count me in on this one.

eom

The neocons have hijacked our entire culture with their "being a really stupid sociopath is cool" thing.

There seems to be this ever-so-tiny incremental shift going on, and it may be slowly gaining mass and momentum.

but in the last couple of years, I've noticed Gerber Foods advertising their "college fund/savings plan" for new parents. It does make me wonder how the conservatives react to seeing those ads...

Still, I am glad to see them, even if I'm not a parent

In other words a false dilemma. That's what the basis of the Tea Party argument against Obama's and the Dem Party's economics is all about. Comes out of Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, in a trickle-down way of course, since most of these people wouldn't know the Austro-Hungarian Empire from their morning Danish.
Book was an interesting read, but there is that minor nagging detail that Hayek wound up as an apologist for Pinochet. Also, Mises, of whom he was a disciple, demonstrated a marked ignorance of even the basics of how the foreign exchange market works even as he advocated tirelessly for a gold standard. But that's another thread I suppose...

How'd you like a boot up yer backside?

Proofreading?!? Be still my beating heart!

unlike some morans.

We should be concerned with Marxist Muslins instead.



K&R # 50!

Would we have allowed Nazi Germany to host the Olympics?

Will the rest of the world allow Nazi America to host the Olympics? Especially if Nazi America wants some NASCAR racing as an Olympic event.

Those two look like husband a wife. This gives me ideas.... a History Festival, just for History's sake. History books for sale, period costumes and reenactments, foods from the past cooked on a hearth and barbecue pits, a history book author's panel indoors adjacent to the Festival, and yes, discussions on the definitions of those words that wingers do not understand. Could be sponsored by local historical and genealogical societies as a membership drive! Thanks ashling... great picture!

Would I be amiss in presuming this has to to with conservatives?

When actual Socialist, etc., organizations have been asked about it, it's their turn to get upset.

Welcome to DU, SamReynolds!

They are attacking PUBLIC GOODS. Don't bother with trying to be rational and correcting them--attack back by defending public goods.

Ignorance of history leads to so many terrible things. I remember in 2004 Ann Coulter on Larry King saying that Kerry was an "appeaser" and made the ridiculous statement that people on the left who were opposed to the Iraq war were akin to people who opposed involvement in WWII prior to Pearl Harbor. Larry King allowed this oral flatulence to float without even questioning how you could possibly equate a dictator who did not posses control of his own country, was unable to fly a plane in his own air space and oversaw an economy that had been fatally crippled by international sanctions with a dictator who by this time had conquered France, Poland, Holland, Belgium had absorbed Checkoslovakia, Austria and Romania and was bombing the crap out of England with a state of the art Air Force and planning the largest land military invasion that has ever been conducted in the history of humanity.
Also, twelve dudes with box cutter knives hijacking commercial flights and flying them into buildings because you have an incompetent commander in chief who cannot put the head of the CIA and FBI in the same room despite repeated warnings of an imminent threat is NOT equatable with an attack on your primary naval base for the entire pacific ocean with three aircraft carriers, 700 dive bombers and submarines all equipped with the latest military technology, but hey why not use the analogy anyway?

Yeah, that includes black guys like Alan West/Uncle Tom ... "oh they wish they were in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten". Obama is a N .... uh he's a Communist, Socialist, Fascist ! ... what else can we call him publicly and get away with it ? = teabag fringe dweller bigots !

See the film Django and study the character portrayed superbly by Samuel L. Jackson to understand the Alan West's of the world, self-loathing at it's ugly best !

Oh well, check out this table comparing Communism to Socialism:

http://www.diffen.com/difference/Communism_vs_Socialism?

I understand the point they were trying to make but it ignores some basic realities.

"History" is not a scientific pursuit devoid of agenda or spin.

History is written by the winners, or as General Petraeus says speaking of Afghanistan, "Its not what happened on the ground that matters, it's what people think happened that matters"

Corporatism, fascism, communism, representative democracy and socialism while having specific definitions are also like a rainbow which while made up of specific colors, have edges defining them, that are visually indistinguishable. History and politics are not black and white, they are a nasty shade of gray.

Some very good comments here! Kicking

I had that talk a few times. Obama is not a socialist. My wife is. You probably are, though you don't know it. But Obama is mostly not.

Rec