The best known fascist in history is of course Adolf Hitler, who renamed his party Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Is that the best reply you can come up with?, actually it is you who are demonstrating a one dimensional thought process. As defined here in American political speak, the far end of the Left/Liberal spectrum is total Dictatorship, total Government Control. The Right extreme end is Anarchy, total individual responsibility to self. Not a circular spectrum, Anarchy total individual freedom is a anathema to Dictatorship, absolute Government Control, and it is the Liberals in this Country who see the Government as the Answer to every problem, but for the Government to have a answer for every problem, they have to control every aspect of the individual.
In academia, linear political spectrums aren't usually given recognition. As well, conservatives tend to favor greater government control over freedom than liberals. Just look at the patriot act. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Fascism position there makes no sense: how could it be higher then communism when it preferred (as the nazis did) private contractors over a fully government run economy? How can Liberals be placed below conservatives in personal freedoms when conservatives want to strip the right to put in my body what ever I want (drugs and marijuana) the right to control women's wombs (abortion) the right to equal treatment (gay marriage, immigration)? The truth is most ideologies don't actually fit neatly on 2D freedoms - government graph, but that each ideologies position on said graph varies depending on individual issues. At best you could reduce a political ideology to a set of core principles but people are so stupid that often when an issue presents it self they take a side based on emotional and illogical impulse before they even applying their political ideologies principles to that issue to decide on a stance for that issue, and then have to undertake mental gymnastics to match what they have decided on the issue with their political ideologies principles.
"Reasoned thought" : "how moronic your post was... what calibre of idiot RM is "thoroughly disassociate (SIC) yourself with (SIC) him" Impressive *scholarship" not to mention *science*. "Righties" not allowed in here. Groupthinkers only. Leftist groupthinkers.
Anyone else wondering why that line is a diagonal? It's an interesting trick - a pictorial or graphical begging of the central question. Remarkably effective, I think - borrows much of the effect of an actual analysis of something, a comparison with reasoning behind it, which would be too clearly absent if the line were horizontal or vertical. And we see once again that the usual suspects still haven't figured out the difference between political and economic power. Appointed to the Supreme Court, that juvenile confusion can lead to corporate campaign contributions being protected by the First Amendment. Adopted as the centerpiece of a rightwing ideology, it will slouch from the wings as fascism.
Applied Logic Did anyone notice how the graph uses simple political labels, and not behavior? By its logic, one could assert the United States is a tyranny, not because of its behavior, but because it is a republic, and the People's Republic of China is the biggest, and therefore defining, republic in the world. Therein we see the problems not only of idiot-simple illustrations, but inconvenience for conservatives about applied logic: I mean, think about it: It's the Christian liberals who tried to banish heavy metal and rap albums; it's the Christian liberals who have been trying to legislate against homosexuals for the last twenty years. And that's why most of these liberals, then, have voted for Republicans. One other note: And Dick Armey calles his organization FreedomWorks. What's your point?
I'm not sure how this graph was formed? I mean, from what sort of data? Is it possible to make a straight line like this? Sorry, but it seems made up. Take anarchy for example. OK it seems reasonable that you have less government and more personal freedom, until there's no food. Which makes one wonder if having food increases personal freedom? How about organizing the distribution of that food? Would that increase personal freedom? Anyway, you can see my problem with the graph. Second, most people on the LEFT think Obama is too far to the RIGHT. Which kind of goes to show you how thinking in L/R dichotomy is a great way for the News and Media Interests to screw with your head. No one is either left OR right. It doesn't exist and for the sake of our republic we shouldn't pretend it does.
I just rechecked a couple of my books on the tricks of visual deception, and I think that one is not mentioned - it's new to me. Not the bizarre placement of the points - the entire authoritarian/libertarian axis mapped left and right arbitrarily, but that's the standard US wingnut fantasy world, with the actual mapping being "good/bad", or "done/not done" - but the use of a diagonal line to create the illusion of a two factor comparison, four times as much information as would be actually present, if the points had been placed according to some kind of criteria. Note that it slopes down toward the "good" end - in most deceptions, the attempt would be to slope up, to show an increasing or rising trend of something good, but in this case the desired evocation is of a lessening of something. I'm kind of admiring of this thing.
Obama isn't nearly that far left. He's slightly left of center. In Europe he would be considered conservative. I know that's a hard fact to swallow for those that can only think in an extremely polarized manner. Liberals have a lot of problems with him now because he's not fighting hard enough for liberal ideals. He hasn't limited gun ownership, he's against gay marriage, he hasn't ended the war in Afghanistan, he hasn't prosecuted the wall street financiers that ruined our economy, he hasn't prosecuted Bush for torture. The most leftist thing he did, I think, is make the government part owners of GM, but even that wasn't a permanent thing. Hell, even Bush was in favor of using taxpayer money to bail out businesses. I only wish he was more socialist, there's nothing wrong with socialism as long as it's combined with democracy and freedom of the press. Germany does implement many socialist ideas, and they are already pulling out of the recession, people didn't get laid off so they kept spending. We need to realize that a corporation can oppress you as easily as a government, at least the government is accountable to the people at every election.
RenaissanceMan: Your graph falsely conflates two separate issues. Try here instead: www.politicalcompass.org Where are you on their chart, by the way? I'm in the bottom left quadrant. I'm betting you're in the top right, which means you favour more government control. Let me know.
Actually, it's interesting to look at RenaissanceMan's graph in more detail. While he has put everything on a line through the centre, notice that "Left" and "Right" actually occupy all the space above or below the diagonal line, according to the graph. That leaves people free to occupy, say, the lower right corner of the graph below the line, making them left libertarians. Others can occupy the upper left corner above the line, making them Right-wing fascists. Ooh, there's an idea. Right-wing fascism? We've never seen that in real life, have we?
RenaissanceMan is typical of the right wing movement in the US. He is the output of fox news, clear channel, limbaugh, beck, levin, et al that flood American airwaves all day every day. He and his lot are very scary. And they should put fear into the hearts of freedom loving people everywhere. They are in America today, but how long can it be before they wind up on your doorstep? The rest of the world should take notice.
Another mistake I noticed: Obama is centre-right, not far left. The guy that produced this graph was obviously an idiot.
It's the neo-conservative fundamentalist ideologue wing. But you're right this reminds me of what happened in Germany during the great depression.
