Why is extremism to the left a vice in America and extremism to the right

a virtue and not to be questioned? Was it the Communists were monsters and the Nazis paragons of virtue, justice, and liberty? :grr:

Many see extremism to the right as further "enhancing" the status-quo. No need for change.


Extremism to the left, requires change; something which many people fear worse than ... damn near anything.

My .02.

YMMV

edit: typo

Quite frankly, calling the right a bunch of Nazis does not help our cause.

Name calling never won an election, ideas do.

people just eventually top listening and we're howling to the moon.

present the extremes of both ends of the spectrum. Each of us can draw our own conclusions as to how far out on the spectrum today's neo-fascists are. ;)

because in my humble opinion, we aren't there yet. What scares the bejeezus out of me is that we might GET there.

And this is where I have to trust like crazy in "the system." For example, the Patriot Act went down... the NYT revealed the spying incident and people are riled about it, and in my state of FL in my county, they just fired Diebold!

I also comfort myself by thinkiing that Hitler was more than just your regular fascist. He was filled with anger and emasculation by WWI, as was the rest of the country. That is an element we do not have here. We have seen a tad of it with 911. But it seems to me that it is a very vital element for the acceptance countrywide of fascism.

at least one that came into power or could do it today. The US system is very different from all other democracies, maybe Australia is the nearest in mentality (except for the British influence, parliamentary system etc...). Basically COLON land.

The US is based on an idea of strong, armed, free men trading wich eachother. Religion and charity replace social security systems. Violence is not democratically delegated to the State only. Government shall be minimal and not create reliance systems.

the model is basically different from all other western democracies. Since the right accepts the model and pushes for its universality, the left which criticizes it is demonized.

remember that Democrats or "liberals" by European standards are considered as "centrists" or "center-right" but absolutely not " left".

Folks like the Wobblies, AFL, Emma Goldman, etc. were part of the Socialist workers movement. I think what happened was that between WWI and the founding of the USSR, all of the wind was taken out of the American Socialist movement's sails.

by violence, mafia, bribes. It never seized power through elections like the Social-Democrats in Sweden, the FRont Populaire in France and Labour in the UK. The communist parties survived the war and were strong in Italy, the social-democrats took power in Germany etc...

because 200 was a coup

because most Murkans are a cross between a parrot and a sheep

and because the fascists own the media and control their message

I think it is the media. Limpballs and Co are always talking about what liberalism to the extreme would be like (and I agree that I don't want "balls to the wall liberalism") but no one ever talks about the kind of nightmarish hell "balls to the wall conservatism" would be like (much worse than extreme liberalism IMO) Of course if you talked about that, no one would believe you because it would be such a new concept. Start out small and let people know the cause/effect of privatized Social Security, flat tax and so on and so on.

Fifty years ago, left and communism meant the same thing. Democrats were always careful not to refer to themselves as left leaning.