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Last edited by ogvh5150 on Oct-09-2005 at 17:11

ogvh5150: Am I supposed to just agree because you posted a pic?
The lofty connection is a bit too subtle; why not support it with a little arguement? Perhaps a connection between which points reflect your views on the matter.
The playgroud, school yard arguement of posting a Bush pic everytime a Nazi symbol shows up doesn't explain anything IMHO.
Sorry, but I forgot to take my clairaudient pills this morning...

As for Canada, I can agree that we fit the bill much closer than any Bush arguement hands down.

The points that I could truly argue as being Canada:

6. Controlled Mass Media
The state-run CBC division of the Liberal Party...

quote:

The CBC as a Liberal breeding farm Is the CBC a farm? Is their main product Grade-A prime Canadian Liberal? This paragraph in a National Post article on the state-run CBC division of the Liberal Party caught my eye: quote: Mr. Rabinovitch’s high-stakes labour strategy suffered a major blow this week when public pressure brought federal Labour Minister Joe Fontana into the fray. Mr. Fontana urged the two sides to resume negotiations and, significantly, signalled that he supported the union stance: “We want long-term, permanent jobs for all our citizens," he said. In general terms, we all want long-term, permanent jobs. But: (1) He’s taking sides? Only in Canada! And oh, the fun of state-run socialist enterprises! (2) “We want long-term, permanent jobs for all our citizens”? Surely on this point he misspoke. Is he implying that regardless of the financial bottom line; regardless of the business ramifications; regardless of the measure of useful productivity; regardless of how the top (Liberal appointed) board and management at the state-run media want to run things… he as a Liberal Party politician and cabinet minister will tacitly dictate that the state must employ its citizens? That’s simply communist thinking! Mr. Fontana sounds very much like a communist to me. He and health minister Ujjal Dosanjh both sound very much like communists to me. That’s the point of the state-run media? That’s the point of all those Canadian government state-run enterprises which all compete against resourceful Canadian citizens? The CBC should be dismantled or sold, and a prohibition against government interference into free markets and private enterprise should be enshrined in our Constitution. You want “long-term, permanent jobs for all our citizens,” Mr. Fontana and all other liberal-left ideologically-driven fundamentalists? Get the government off our backs, out of our faces, and stop competing against your own citizens. What kind of a government would compete against its own citizens for their very livelihoods and that of their families?

>>Source<<

9. Corporate Power is Protected
Large corporations have always been in the pockets of the Liberals, as can be told by the huge party donations they give.
(I can't find the chart showing a breakdown of the political party contributions at the moment, but I know it exists...)

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
The Liberals are a good ole boys club when it comes to this...
Here's a real RECENT example:

quote:

Opposition cries Liberal cronyism Dingwall expense scandal provides fuel for critics Peter Evans Financial Post Saturday, October 01, 2005 MINT MESS David Dingwall resigned this week as president of the Royal Canadian Mint after a scandal involving his expense accounts. Opposition MPs were instantly up in arms, arguing it's the latest example of Liberal cronyism, but so far the Grits have been standing by their man. Despite taking in more than $250,000 in salary, the former Cabinet member managed to rack up almost $800,000 in expenses. In addition to high-end luxuries such as a $1,400 golf club membership and a $5,728 meal at a tony Ottawa restaurant, some relatively pedestrian items were also charged to taxpayers. For some reason, the Mint apparently picked up the tab for a $1.29 pack of breath-freshening chewing gun. No word yet on what kind, but here's hoping it was "mint" flavour.

>>Source<<

14. Fraudulent Elections
Unless you figure Canadian tax dollars should be used to buy votes...
You wouldn't pay money to a ref in sports, but in Canadian politics, that's legal...

___________________
"...End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path...one that we all must take.
The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all change to silver glass...and then you see it...
...white shores...and beyond...the far green country under a swift sunrise."

Last edited by Fir3start3r on Oct-09-2005 at 17:47

I believe the US administration has covered more than half of those points.

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It's scary if you ask me. Our founding fathers would be rolling over in their graves if they could see the beleaguered state of our Nation.

It's as though we've sold out to the greed of corporate excess.

___________________

quote:

"Learn, child, to catch a hint through whatever agency it may be given. 'Sermons may be preached through stones." - Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Letters from the Masters of Wisdom, first series, p. 74, letter 31

quote:

If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin. - Samuel Adams

Found this on the net about "Dr." Britt and his list.

quote:

'Dr' Lawrence Britt is allegedly a political scientist. The article in question was originally written in the Free Inquiry Magazine (Volume 23, Number 2: Oct/Nov 2003), however the article is attributed to a Laurence W Britt (note the absense of the title Dr there) who appears to be a novelist. Another article from Rochester's City Newspaper informs readers the Laurence Britt is a retired professional who used to work for Allied Chemical, Mobil, and Xerox Corp. His politics were clarified during his years studying business at Northwestern University in the early 1960s, although it does not specify if he gained a doctorate. "I had a course in Situational Analysis," says Britt. "You would analyze facts and come to a solution for businesses. I applied the same methodology to determine what political philosophy was most appropriate. After a lot of reading and research, I came down on the progressive side." Since retiring, Britt has written three novels, but it's that one short article from Free Inquiry Magazine that has gained him high visibility on the left. The article in the City Newspaper linked above also asks Britt to elaborate on the 14 points of fascism and makes an interesting read. From what I can ascertain, he is not actually a doctor, and not a political scientist either (at least not professionally). Interesting. I imagine the press somewhere along the line embellished the original story to make it more newsworthy by adding the Dr title and calling him a political scientist rather than a novelist; sounds more 'official' I guess... I'll edit out the 'Dr' from my original entry. Thanks for the reality check John. I also found this article titled "Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt" written in 1995.. which bears remarkable similarity to Britts article written 9 years later, having the same number of points (14) even.. hmm. Noteworthy: 15. A significant upsurge in the number of lists which enumerate the characteristics of fascism. Interesting quote I happened across along the way though: "Under the influence of politicians, masses of people tend to ascribe the responsibility of wars to those who wield power at any given time. In World War I it was the munitions industrialists; in World War II it was the psychopathic generals who were said to be guilty. This is passing the buck. The responsibility for wars falls solely upon the shoulders of these masses of people, for they have all the necessary means to avert war in their own hands. In part by their apathy, in part by their passivity, and in part actively, these same masses of people make possible the catastrophes under which they themselves suffer more than anyone else. To stress this guilt on the part of the masses of people, to hold them solely responsible, means to take them seriously. On the other hand, to commiserate the masses of people as victims, means to treat them as small, helpless children. The former is the attitude held by the genuine freedom-fighters; the latter is the attitude held by the power-thirsty politicians."... Reich, Wilhelm, "The Mass Psychology of Fascism". (Farrar, Straux & Giroux; New York; 1980).

A critique of Mr. Britt's original article.

quote:

This is a highly flawed article. It is not a very accurate picture of fascism and frankly was a ripoff from a much better article by Umberto Eco: Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html The Britt article started with what is happening in the U.S. and then crafted a description of fascism that only highlights those points that will support the thesis. This is a logical fallacy (the false notion that things that are similar in some aspects are identical in all aspects). See also these definitions/descriptions: http://www.publiceye.org/eyes/whatfasc.html http://www.publiceye.org/eyes/whatfasc.html Fascism is an especially virulent form of extreme right populism. Fascism glorifies national, racial, or cultural unity and collective rebirth while seeking to purge imagined enemies. It attacks both revolutionary movements and liberal pluralism in favor of militarized, totalitarian mass politics. Fascism first crystallized in Europe in response to the Bolshevik Revolution and the devastation of World War I, and then spread to other parts of the world. Between the two world wars, there were three forms of fascism: Italian economic corporatism; German racial nationalist Nazism; and clerical fascist movements such as the Romanian Iron Guard and the Croatian Ustashi. Since WWII, neofascists have reinterpreted fascist ideology and strategy in various ways to fit new circumstances. Roger Griffin, an influential scholar of generic fascism, argues that cism is best defined as a revolutionary form of nationalism, one that sets out to be a political, social and ethical revolution, welding the ‘people’ into a dynamic national community under new elites infused with heroic values. The core myth that inspires this project is that only a populist, trans-class movement of purifying, cathartic national rebirth (palingenesis) can stem the tide of decadence. There are other common components of fascism, including an exclusionary form of ethnonationalism that narrowly defines who the real people or Volk are; the idea of the primary importance of the homogenous whole (Integralism); and the diminution of the importance of the individual in a society ruled by leaders who metaphysically represent the will of the people (Organicism). These factors create a drive for totalitarian control in fascist movements and states. Totalitarian movements and governments insist on intruding into and controlling every aspect of a person's life-public or private-political, social, or cultural. Totalitarianism is a term that still has analytical value despite its frequent misuse to bash the Left. Most notorious was Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, 1981-1985, who promulgated a theory that communist governments were totalitarian and could never be reformed, but brutal right-wing dictatorships were merely authoritarian and thus could be reformed through alliances with the United States. While this misrepresented the work of Hannah Arendt in her definitive book The Origins of Totalitarianism, it also suffered from a certain lack of historical accuracy when communism collapsed in Europe. Chip Berlet, Political Research Associates Co-author, "Right-Wing Populism in America"

quote:

Originally posted by NeoPhono Found this on the net about "Dr." Britt and his list. A critique of Mr. Britt's original article.

quote:

Originally posted by Fir3start3r

The thing is, Fir3start3r, if you want to believe that the argument is just a Liberal vs Conservative one - well, I'll just say you could very well go to your grave trying to figure it out because that's not where the focus of the argument should be.

Here's a few snippets taken from Wikipedia:

quote:

In modern Western countries, the political spectrum usually is described along left-right lines. This traditional political spectrum is defined along an axis with conservatism, theocracy, and fascism ("the Right") on one end, and socialism, communism, ("the Left") on the other. National and cultural differences in the use of the terms left and right are common. In Europe (excluding Britain) liberalism is generally assigned to the center-right, and the European liberal parties are primarily free market liberals. In North America, liberal refers almost exclusively to new liberalism or social liberalism, and is generally assigned to the center-left (see Liberalism in America). However, the right in the United States, which self-identifies as 'conservative', is heavily influenced by classical European liberalism, especially the emphasis in classic British liberalism on the rights of the individual versus the state. Hostility toward the U.S. federal government, as a perceived threat to individual liberty, is found among both "liberals" and "conservatives". Similarly, in China, left and right have referred to different positions at different times, although the issues were often very different from those in Western nations.

quote:

Etymology The word "liberal" derives from the Latin "liber" ("free") and all liberals present themselves as friends of freedom. ... The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) indicates that the word liberal has long been in the English language with the meanings of "befitting free men, noble, generous" as in liberal arts; also with the meaning "free from restraint in speech or action", as in liberal with the purse, or liberal tongue, usually as a term of reproach but, beginning 1776–88 imbued with a more favorable sense by Edward Gibbon and others to mean "free from prejudice, tolerant." ... The first English language use to mean "tending in favor of freedom and democracy" according to the OED dates from about 1801 and comes from the French libéral, "originally applied in English by its opponents (often in Fr. form and with suggestions of foreign lawlessness)". They give early English language citation, "1801 Hel. M. WILLIAMS, Sk. Fr. Rep. I. xi. 113," presumably Helen Maria Williams, Sketches of the State of Manners and Opinions in the French Republic: "The extinction of every vestige of freedom, and of every liberal idea with which they are associated." The editors of the Spanish Constitution of 1812, drafted in that year in Cádiz, may have been the first to use the word liberal in a political sense as a noun. They named themselves the Liberales, to state that they opposed the absolutist power of the Spanish monarchy.

quote:

Usage of the word liberalism The word liberalism has several different, but generally related, political meanings. In its original political meaning, the term "liberal" refers to a political philosophy, founded on the principles of the Enlightenment and to a lesser extent the Idealist parts of the Romantic, that tries to circumscribe the limits of political power and to define and support individual rights. In the present, a variety of ideologies attempt to claim the mantle of 19th century liberalism, from American liberalism to libertarianism to social-liberalism. Liberals throughout the world understand liberalism as embracing a tradition rooted in the Enlightenment, the American War of Independence, the more moderate bourgeois elements of the French Revolution, and the European Revolutions of 1848, with philosophical roots going back to the Renaissance traditions of empiricism (Sir Francis Bacon), humanism (Erasmus), and pragmatism (Niccolò Machiavelli). The original Enlightenment thinkers, such as John Locke and Baron de Montesquieu, attempted to establish limits on existing political powers by asserting that there were natural rights and fundamental laws of governance that not even kings could overstep without becoming tyrants. This was combined with the idea that commercial freedom would best benefit the whole of the political order, an idea that would later be associated with the advocacy of capitalism, and which was drawn from the works of Adam Smith and David Ricardo. The next important piece of the triad of ideas of liberalism, was the idea of popular self-determination. Most liberals support a combination of these ideas, although many would ascribe more importance to one of them than to the other two.

quote:

Liberalism today Political positions A caveat is in order: as with any other political philosophy, an abstract explanation of liberalism refers to an ideal. In practice, politicians make pragmatic compromises (see centrism), have personal interests, and may pander to voters, so that the ideal is never a perfect description of any one individual's politics. Further, as with any other political philosophy, liberalism in any of its forms is defined somewhat differently by its proponents and its opponents. Those who adhere precisely to a well-defined set of principles are often those who are far removed from contention for political power. That said, the policies of liberal parties are always more or less based on the right to self determination of the individual, and the reciprocal responsibility of the state to protect and promote the individual citizens which make it up. In general, liberals favor constitutional government, representative democracy and the rule of law. Liberals at various times have embraced both constitutional monarchy and republican government. They are generally opposed to any but the milder forms of nationalism, and usually stand in contrast to conservatives by their broader tolerance and in more readily embracing multiculturalism. Furthermore, they generally favor human rights and civil liberties, especially freedom of speech and freedom of the press (while disagreeing on the degree to which people have the right of economic wellbeing). However, the liberal commitment to unrestricted individual liberty is not necessarily absolute: as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. said, "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre…," and liberal parties support restrictions on incitement to violence. In the penal system, liberals in most countries oppose capital punishment. Liberals believe in a free market and free trade, but they differ in the degree of limited government intervention in the economy which they advocate. In general, government responsibility for health, education and alleviating poverty fits into the policies of most liberal parties. But virtually all of them tend to believe in a far smaller role for the state than would be supported by most social democrats, let alone socialists or communists.

Anyway, I hope that one day you may better understand the endless circle in which you're arguing by trotting that old, worn, Liberal vs. Conservative line. It's just ignorant in light of the fact that world politics are rough-hewn from a never ending pallete of contiguous, but assorted hues. (It's far from being black and white, or Liberal vs Conservative.)

___________________

quote:

"Learn, child, to catch a hint through whatever agency it may be given. 'Sermons may be preached through stones." - Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Letters from the Masters of Wisdom, first series, p. 74, letter 31

quote:

Originally posted by Fir3start3r Am I supposed to just agree because you posted a pic? The lofty connection is a bit too subtle; why not support it with a little arguement? Perhaps a connection between which points reflect your views on the matter. The playgroud, school yard arguement of posting a Bush pic everytime a Nazi symbol shows up doesn't explain anything IMHO. Sorry, but I forgot to take my clairaudient pills this morning...

I replied with a small remark and then you edit your post with text.

I could have very well said the same of you but chose to leave you to your devices concerning your odd post of a picture.

What you can do is argue whether or not these points apply and stop defending Dubya. By defending him you're denying the points and leaves you in the position that you agree with the points stated. Unless you can prove otherwise you're pretty much telling me that it's okay to lock up people with no right to trial and to torture them.

With the tortures that have happened in Gitmo and Abu Gharib it only tells me that no information was gained from these abuses.

We have yet to find Osama or Saddams' WMDs.

@NeoPhono:

Instead of arguing for or against the points you choose to argue the validity of the authors' data. So by that reasoning:

Do you have some sort of political sciences degree? Are you a professor in a Ivy League school? Do you hold a high position in government? Are you in a think tank like the Council on Foreign Relations?

Since obviously you don't, then argue why you think these points do or don't apply.

If you do hold some sort of authoritative role then your knowledge is wasted on this pittance of a forum and should seek employment where your skills are needed.

Discern your data, don't just use right click, copy and paste.

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quote:

Originally posted by ogvh5150 @NeoPhono: Instead of arguing for or against the points you choose to argue the validity of the authors' data. So by that reasoning: Do you have some sort of political sciences degree? Are you a professor in a Ivy League school? Do you hold a high position in government? Are you in a think tank like the Council on Foreign Relations? Since obviously you don't, then argue why you think these points do or don't apply. If you do hold some sort of authoritative role then your knowledge is wasted on this pittance of a forum and should seek employment where your skills are needed. Discern your data, don't just use right click, copy and paste.

That's exactly why I didn't post my own thoughts on the matter, I went for a source that did have some objective validity.

I can post my thoughts on the issue all I want, but I wanted to find some sources from people that I felt did know what they were talking about.

I'll post my opinions, and the facts I know such as in medicine/biology, but I don't see other people getting upset when quotes are used from others, so I'm not sure why I'm in a different boat.

Yes, because:

1-4 & 6-14 apply.

EDIT: Although I don't think we're quite there yet, atleast when it comes to our domestic policies. It's certainly the direction we seem to be headed though.

___________________
"The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me." -Martin Niemöller

Last edited by shaolin_Z on Oct-10-2005 at 00:06