- 28 Feb 2013 16:13
#14183453
Fascists, communists, and revolutionaries of all stripes all unashamedly support the violent suppression of dissenting opinions. Such things are necessary to retain power when the existing social order is violently overthrown. This is why when you mention either, people think of jackboots, secret police, and death squads, even if it is the case that a kinder, gentler fascism may not need to resort to such brutal methods to maintain control of the masses.
Liberal democratic capitalists have done such things, but such actions are at least nominally unacceptable in systems which are based on individual rights and freedom of association. Even when the system is responsible for such things as famine and death, people are (or at least they should be) free to express dissent without being suppressed. This worldview only endorses violence when such violence is aimed at overthrowing an illegitimate (non-democratic) authority, or in the defense of property.
Fascists will break your fingers and cheer all the while; when liberals do it there will be a lot of hand-wringing about it, and despite the fact that broken fingers are broken fingers people feel better about endorsing a system that nominally condemns such things.
This is highly questionable logic.
Liberal democratic capitalists have done such things, but such actions are at least nominally unacceptable in systems which are based on individual rights and freedom of association. Even when the system is responsible for such things as famine and death, people are (or at least they should be) free to express dissent without being suppressed. This worldview only endorses violence when such violence is aimed at overthrowing an illegitimate (non-democratic) authority, or in the defense of property.
Fascists will break your fingers and cheer all the while; when liberals do it there will be a lot of hand-wringing about it, and despite the fact that broken fingers are broken fingers people feel better about endorsing a system that nominally condemns such things.
Pants-of-dog wrote:Neither you nor Rei nor Fasces have ever lived in authoritarian nations,. You folks are the only ones supporting it, therefore no one who has ever lived in one is supporting it.
This is highly questionable logic.
Dave, Potemkin, Ombrageux: the three pillars of Western civilization. - Donald