Hitler and Stalin only got cozy the way the scorpion who wanted to cross the river got cozy with the frog, except both of them were scorpions. (Well, frogs are kinda murderous carnivores too, even to the point of using poison, but that's not the point of the folk story.) I was mainly poking psychoak because he hates it when I agree with a minor point and still scoff his larger argument. Besides, he and I are from the US, so we have no fucking idea what it is like to live on a continent where the old folks remember WWII as a local experience. Our WWII folks all got to come home to an intact nation that was only beginning to dismantle its traditions of liberty in the name of fighting the Cold War. The Europeans had to clean up an awful lot of shit, and there are still plenty of wounded spots both architecturally and socially speaking.

Mondays thru Wednesdays, I'm usually a difference feminist, but on Thursdays and Fridays I like to put time in as an equalitarian (with erratic pro-androgyny tendencies). I keep my weekends flexible.

So, if facism is "a political ideology that seeks to combine radical and authoritarian nationalism with a corporatist economic system" then isn't the USA partly a facist country? 

The corporatist economic part yes. Radical and authoritarian nationalism? Nationalism yes.  Radical? The potential is certainly there given the right circumstances. Authoritarian I guess no, as the OP sets out to discover why. But then the USA government projects fear onto its citizens (Today the terror alert is..... Yellow! Remain stressed, and know the war in Iraq will end the terror!). Nobody really seemed to question why Iraq after 9/11 (Iraq hated Osama and vice versa. Al qaeda wanted to liberate Kuwait from Iraq, except USA jumped in first), maybe nobody really cared. And so what was done was done. 

Now Iran is sandwiched between Iraq and Afghanistan, how fortuitous for threatening a cranky Iran and securing oil reserves in the region for the coming 20-30 years (as "peak oil" theory says will be much more important each passing day). Bad luck for the Iraqi people, how many thousands dead?

Authority, is it the right to tell others to do as you want or is it the ability to do what you want without outside interference because you have the authority to do so?

Interesting indeed.

Yes.

Nonsense, the lot of it.  Calling the USA nationalist is about as wrong as one can possibly be, it's a nation of immigrants, and it takes a crisis to bring states together even now.  The terror alerts are ignored, so the theory that the government is projecting fear only works for a few months after a major disaster.  It was protecting Saudi Arabia that Al-qaeda wanted to do, not liberating Kuwait.

The US is partly fascist because corporations have bought politicians.  The current president is one, most of the green movement, the oil backers to a lesser degree.  There are other minor roles, but GE takes the lionshare at the moment.  The other traits this country shares with fascism are irrelevant to the particular subject.  They're shared by all of the socialist ideas.  None of them are constitutional, and none of them have anything to do with a free market economy.  Corporations aren't bad, corporations running government are bad.

I knew you'd be brainless in every subject, but at least you got this part right.

The country has been running deficits since it started this idiotic mix of socialism and capitalism for a reason.  We can't afford all the horse shit we're paying for.  If not for technological progress, the crippling effect it's had on the country would have destroyed us in the seventies at the latest.

You mention a program you claim is "good" for the country.  The salmon runs have been almost entirely depleted in the northwest states, some rivers have lost their population entirely.  Overfishing on the east coast has all but ruined the industry there.  How's that government control working out, really?

The FDA doesn't protect us from bad drugs, or tainted food.  The various national security agencies don't protect us from terrorist attacks.  The FAA doesn't protect us from preventable plane crashes.  I could go on, but it's just so boring.

Lawsuits.  It's really about the only thing that consistently works.  What government runs, government generally fucks up just as bad as it would have been unmanaged, while costing money.

That's not to say it's impossible for government to do something right.  The Alaskan fishing industry is still going strong despite the best efforts of Japan, China, Washington and Oregon.  They're rather protective of it, probably over-protective.  It's simply unlikely that government will do something right and continue to do it right for any real length of time.

You also open the door for other actions.  If we can regulate fish, why not control the amount of farm land?  After all, that's habitat for animals being turned into something else.  We'll just control where you're allowed to live, how you're allowed to live.  In the end, everything you do has an impact on the environment, and regulating the fishing industry to protect fish has brought you all the way to totalitarianism, one step at a time.  We've run rather far down the path as it is.

Idiots will think "Conspiracy theorist nutjob, the slippery slope argument is a joke!"  Cyclamate.  A once popular sweetener in the US.  It causes cancer.  Lab rats developed bladder cancer at a rate of .3% taking in the equivalent of you drinking 350 cans of soda a day.  That was cause for the FDA to take an excellent sugar substitute with minimal side effects, invaluable to diabetics, and ban it.  Saccharin, which does the same thing, is still legal.  There are countless everyday food substances that are vastly more dangerous, like by a thousand to one at normal intake levels, bacon for instance, tap water, bread, whole grain oats...  Various meats and cheeses are illegal imports because they aren't preserved to FDA standards.  Sausage in general is a far more powerful carcinogen than cyclamate, it should be banned entirely, along with frying, grilling, baking...  Really, boiling is the only thing you should ever do to food, and even then only just enough to kill the germs.  Any charring at all adds significant quantities of carcinogens into your diet.  Cooking itself is far more dangerous than cyclamate...

Government is dangerous, for any potential benefit you can point to, there are thousands of potential drawbacks, and the benefit wont be there forever.

You know, I know this supposed to be your "shocker point" where you point out the inherent injustice of the Marxist system, but this makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, if you're going to move to a commune, and they tell you, "we don't believe in personal property" and you say "nope, I'll sit here with my stacks of money" that doesn't make any fucking sense. Since the Nazis believed in personal property to call murdering Jews and stealing their things "textbook Marxism" is at best fucking stupid.

This is purely unhinged paranoid nonsense. First everything is socialist, now everything is fascist. Get a grip, man.

USA isn't nationalist because it's a nation of immigrants? Oh man... America is nationalist because it is a nation of immigrants. In addition to all of the immigrants that love this country to pieces, I've never heard so much nationalist rhetoric in my life, with all those people talking about "what this country was founded for" and "we're a nation of liberty" and even "this country is the best!". There are nationalists movements all over the country... what do you think this Tea Party Movement is all about? (Except you'd probably think they were socialists too) Even the left in this country is nationalist. If you don't think this nation is nationalistic, then you must've been living under a rock and avoiding public discourse.

So America is socialist and fascist, but it's not nationalist? I'm starting to understand that you only really see things how you want to see them.

I don't know what you expect out of capitalism then. In a world with no rules the guy with the most money is going to win, and then, guess what? He's going to build a new government in his own image. Oh yeah, and it's going to be efficient.

Rich people have been saying they need more money for millenia. And there have been thousands of rationalizations, the absolutely nonsensical trickle down theory being one of the more recent. Do you know how much a completely free market would rely on trickle down theory? Otherwise, money would slowly congregate to just a few institutions. If you don't believe me... what company in their right mind would go into net loss rather than a profit? Companies only ever spend money to get it back.

Redistribution of wealth is not an ideal. It's an absolute economic necessity. It took a long struggle to get the wealthy to even pay taxes and when they finally did pretty much everybody benefited. It wasn't the dispossessed peasants who were on the forefront of this "rich people paying taxes" thing. It was the nobles themselves.

And if you can't have redistribution of wealth, you have to have anti-trust laws. Which necessitates a government.

I feel like for the level of freedom you want you literally have to go into a jungle and live there. The fact is in a healthy society there are controls to stop individuals from becoming too powerful and from doing whatever they want to to whomever and in an unhealthy society there's a few powerful interests that dominate everyone else or there's complete anarchy. Really, that's the only line that matters. In that respect, who gives a shit about capitalism and socialism?

Fair enough. I'm the sort that disdains labels -- or uses them ironically -- while quoting trendy Frenchmen.

Well, if you're right, they'll be men in brown coats with red armbands. Say what you like about fascists, but they're quite good at political killings.

What a crock. Or maybe it's just a derailment into ill-fitting terminology. Let's try swapping "nationalist" for "jingoist" and/or "American exceptionalist." You of all people can't seriously be arguing that flag-waving, framer-naming, etc., aren't a major factor in both how we work our internal politics and how we are perceived abroad?

Or are you taking Rick Perry's talk about Texas seceding from the union seriously?

Wow. Maybe you could have read up on the manifesto, because you're fucking wrong.

Actually the manifesto said, and I quote: "Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels." Geez... you challenge me to fact check you and call me ignorant and it turns out you don't know your shit. What a suprise. But yeah, thanks for pointing it out so I can clear this up.

But, to be fair, you probably didn't understand the difference between "emigrant" and "immigrant", being the opposite of one another and all. I know you have difficulty with that concept. Still, it makes your whole "texbook marxism" theory even more absurd.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm

"Trickle down" theory is better described as "trickle up" theory. While companies spend money in the short term, they'll get profit in the long term. This is a benign process in general. Long term, however, consumers will always make a net loss while companies get a net profit.

It's an extremely simple process. Money goes to wealthy people because they have the resources to make more money. Poor people get poorer because they don't. It's not as if it's the fault of wealthy people... they're just doing exactly what they're expected to do.

If you haven't looked outside of the window, you'll notice that America has an increasing wealth gap between the poorest 20% and wealthiest 20%. This isn't a suprise in a free market, even though it's not healthy. To argue trickle down theory is basically to argue that everyone can be wealthy, which is nuts.

Fact is, the only reason we're a well educated country now is that the government paid for college educations of all our soldiers after WWII.

Trickle down theory is basically debunked except in politics as a rationalization for heavy-handed supply-side policies.

You could have fooled me, with your supposition of the government being evil and all.

I suppose the military is evil, being "government controlled" and all. And our police force. And the fire department. The marine corp is so inefficient these days. Blackwater could do all the fighting much better. *end sarcasm*

As a response to an earlier comment... why would the police ever enforce laws against bribery and coersion if they are a part of the "evil government"? You don't make any sense.

Either government is evil and completely unreliable.... or it's not. Make a choice. Hint: One of the choices is sane.

The constitution? You mean that socialist document that says that one of the purposes of government is to "promote the general welfare"? Yeah, I agree.

What GW said.

How does people ranting about the framers intent being lost make them nationalist?  If anything it should be the reverse, they're unhappy with the course of the nation, not blindly following it.  Texas shouldn't need to secede for rank displeasure to discount nationalism as a driving force behind the activity of the population.

Noted, that is a rather stupid mistake isn't it?  You win, I'll leave the immigrant property siezure off the list of similarities between fascism and marxism.  I guess I get to add emigrant property though, they did steal that too.  Not exactly a win for marxism, but whatever.  Speed reading does have it's drawbacks.

[quote]"Trickle down" theory is better described as "trickle up" theory. While companies spend money in the short term, they'll get profit in the long term. This is a benign process in general. Long term, however, consumers will always make a net loss while companies get a net profit.[quote]

Wealth is a fixed amount, the more one person has, the less another has.  This is pie theory.  Pie is not economics, it's generally a fruit filled dessert.

Wealth is created when you improve resources.  I can farm, cook, work wood and metal, I have architectural knowledge complex enough to build my own lodging and such.  With a few minutes time, I can find diagrams on building simple engines and distilling fuel alchohol.  It's technically possible, with my varied skillset, to build my own home and modern transportation, live entirely at a subsistance level while still staying modern.  I have the tools and the land required to do it.  I don't have the time.  I can't build a house anywhere near as fast as a team of construction workers purchasing materials from a supply depot can.  I can't build a car anywhere near as fast, or good, as Ford can.  I can't grow my own food with as little work as the agricultural industry does with all of the high volume equipment they use to make it easier.

I can cook better than any storebought crap, and probably most restaurants.  I'll accept that I'm shorting myself if I eat something I haven't prepared myself.  I gain from my purchases, I do not lose.  If I did lose, a subsistance life would grant me superior free time for the same level of improvement.

[quote]It's an extremely simple process. Money goes to wealthy people because they have the resources to make more money. Poor people get poorer because they don't. It's not as if it's the fault of wealthy people... they're just doing exactly what they're expected to do.[quote]

This isn't economics.  It's propaganda.  Income mobility has been proven, there are plenty of previously rich people on the poor list this year.  Some of them lost hundreds of millions to find themselves middle class or worse.  Wealthy people that continue gaining wealth do so because they provide a product others want to pay them for.  Shortcut gamblers in the stock market aside.

Everyone that works is wealthy.  Most of the people that don't are wealthy.  Why must you compare a poor person in this country to a rich person in this country?  Why not compare them to a rich person in a country where people have a subsistance lifestyle?  Hell, just comparing our poor with France would be enough.  We have people on welfare with new cars in this country.  How can you call someone poor when they have adequate food, shelter, transportation, and a high level of completely optional property and free time?  I was supposedly poor as a kid, qualified for food stamps and whatnot, not that we bothered to apply.  Fifty years earlier I'd have been filthy stinking rich, the envy of the neighborhood.

The expansion has less to do with how much money rich people make, and more to do with how they aren't being taxed at 70% in the first place.  People have been screaming about the expanding gulf since the 80's, oddly enough when they dropped the tax rate.  That's also about the same time the middle class stopped working three jobs to support a family, but I guess we're going to go back to that pretty soon.

We're a well educated country?  As of 2004, less than 25% of veterans over 25 have a bachelors or higher.  Even at peak numbers, only 49% of college admissions were veterans, that was 1947.  Only 7.8 million WW2 veterans persued any sort of education.  They're running larger percentages than the general population, but they're nowhere near a majority of college educations, and never have been.  The GI bill has helped a little, but it's hardly the cause for higher education.  What passes for higher education anyway.

As opposed to Keynesian economics, which was debunked in 1920, yet still got to give us a Great Depression and stagflation in the 70's?  Kennedy cut taxes, revenue went up.  Reagan cut taxes, revenue went up.  Bush cut taxes, revenue went up.  The only problem is the assholes in congress perpetually spend more money than they bring in, outpacing economic expansion with government bloat.  Supply side tax cuts have never failed to increase revenue.  Even as a percentage of gdp, each round has put the country further above the average.

Option C, necessary evil, although it is completely unreliable, your sanity aside.  It's the most dangerous force in the country and must be very carefully monitored and controlled or it will destroy you.  How many military take-overs have there been in the last century?  How many democratic republics have become dictatorships after a gradual expansion of power?

How many haven't?  There's a reason the United States, a baby of a country with a scant 234 years and a full scale civil war to show for, is the longest running in existence.  They don't last very long, Athens made it a whopping 280 years as a democracy, if you discount the interruptions.  Switzerland is the only place where democracy is actually lasting, and they make the US with it's republic look like an oligarchy.  They're far more similar to what we started as, and they've managed to maintain it for the most part.

Countries destroy themselves vastly more often than outside forces do, your own government is your biggest threat.

Nice, contextual argument there...  I tell you what, you tell me what Marx says, I'll tell you what the Constitution says, deal?

The general welfare did not refer to the welfare program.  They're rolling over in their graves every time some neanderthal politician uses that to justify the latest state program.  The general statements in the preamble are expressly named under the expressed powers given to the federal government, those being the only powers given to the federal government.  Redefining a document doesn't change the original meaning, it just makes you wrong.

"With respect to the two words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."

“Having not yet succeeded in hitting on an opportunity, I send you a part of it in a newspaper, which broaches a new Constitutional doctrine of vast consequence, and demanding the serious attention of the public. I consider it myself as subverting the fundamental and characteristic principle of the Government; as contrary to the true and fair, as well as the received construction, and as bidding defiance to the sense in which the Constitution is known to have been proposed, advocated, and adopted. If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions. It is to be remarked that the phrase out of which this doctrine is elaborated is copied from the old Articles of Confederation, where it was always understood as nothing more than a general caption to the specified powers."

--James Madison

Cant get much more authoritative than the author.  He also wrote the original works it was based on in the Federalist Papers.

Yeah, I am.  Yes, it does.  Sport fishing doesn't happen if there aren't any fish because the commercial fishermen caught them all.  All commercial fish have a "material value in connection with sport or recreation in the marine and/or fresh waters of the United States."  Alaska Fish and Game regulates commercial fishing in Alaskan waters.  Alaska Fish and game is funded by the SFR Act.  The SFR Act funds the management of the commercial fishing industry.  Any commercial fishing done in state waters is under direct management of the state fishing regulatory bodies, and they're all funded by the SFR Act.  Government not doing the job you pay it to do is the norm.

Out of curiosity, why, when calling me a moron, do you also call me sir?  It seems... pointless?

[quote]You say that the government has been running deficits since it started a mixed economy. Well, it has always run a mixed economy and the USA has always had a deficit since its inception. What is your point? What is your proposal?[quote]

As you cede my point, you can stop arguing with yourself now.

Expressing your view is not running the government.  Corrupt politicians that do favors for companies because they put out some advertisements in favor of them are criminals.  For you to say corporations spending money on advertisements is wrong, you must apply that standard to other things.  A politician is no less corrupt for doing an individual favors in return for campaign money, so no money should be allowed.  A state where only rich people can get elected?

If I have a billion dollars, I can run for president.  I can blow a couple hundred million and make a go of it.  Ignore that I'm a complete jackass and would call you all a bunch of fucking retards on national television and end my political career before it began, pretend I'm normal.  If I don't, I'm pretty much fucked, good luck getting through party machinery just to win a local election.  If I don't want to run for president, I can't give my money to someone intelligent that does.  These limitations on financing have done nothing but cement power in the two primary political bodies, they're the only non-billionaires that can run.

Campaign finance laws criminalize completely normal behavior in place of prosecuting the illegal activity that is already illegal to begin with.  Most of congress should be in jail, so should most of our presidents.  Making this or that form of contribution illegal hasn't even put a dent in it.  Until this population of idiots stops electing crooks, it's not going to change.  If we ever do, who can contribute is irrelevant.  Exxon can walk up to Joe Shmoe and say hey dude, we'll give you a billion dollars to buy your presidency, and Joe Shmoe will say fuck you, I'm calling the police.

Wonderful post, but there's absolutely no rational reason to make a sugar substitute illegal for doing less than sugar itself does.  It's status as a carcinogen isn't even real.  It doesn't cause bladder stones in people even at such high levels like it does rats.  it's why Saccharin is still legal in this country.  The reverse is true in most countries.  Saccharin is illegal for no reason and Cyclamate is legal.  They did it because they were morons.

Edit, gah!  Too long...

So if you were originally talking about spending while under a budget deficit, then you are still wrong going by your original statement.

This country has always had a mixed economy. It has fluxed throughout history, but it has always been mixed. Yet, even though that is true, we haven't always had a budget deficit. Do you care to adjust your original statement? In fact, it wasn't until about the 1980s that spending really got out of control. Where does the 1970s come into play that you talk about our "destruction"? Federal spending was actually under control from the 1950s through the 1970s. That is why I was originally thinking you were talking about national debt and not just spending while under a budget deficit. Either way, you statement lacks any sort of actual facts.

I think the rule is if a thread goes more than 3 pages then people can legally talk about anything AS LONG AS THEY ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT IT.

How is this for passionate....

So I just got off of the phone with Charlie Swanton. He is the director of the Sport Fish Division in Alaska. I asked him how the funds from the Sport Fish Restoration program are used. More specifically I asked him if the funds can be used toward any type of regulation or enforcement. He said that the funds have specific limitations on how they are used and that they can NOT be used for any type of enforcement or regulatory purposes. However, he did say that they receive funding from other sources and they those funds have no particular limitations on them and those are used for regulations and such. So that is why you see mention of regulations and such in their 2006 Overview, but you took it out of context and misinterpreted it (as you often do). Obviously they do regulate (I never said they didn't). What I did say was that the SFR funds couldn't be used for such!

He was actually very nice and talked more than he needed to (I'm sure he's busy). lol. I just called up the phone number (it is listed right on their website) and the secretary there passed me through with no problem. I figured, why deal with Psychoak when all he is going to do is continue to post non-sense when I can just call up the director of the program and find out for myself?

...so how about that. I was right and you were wrong...who woulda thunk?! Yes, I enjoy fishing a lot, so don't mess with my fishing!  

I knew you were going to come in and say something along the lines of "government is corrupt and don't be fooled, the funds are being used toward regulation." You're an idiot. The SFR Act specifically states (all amendments included) what its uses are for. Just because it doesn't state that the funds can't go toward automobile highway improvement doesn't mean they can go toward automobile highway improvement. The same goes for fishing regulation. If you want to believe that the funds are being used inappropriately, go ahead. But you can even view on their website where the funds went to for every fiscal year. No where in there do any SFR funds go toward regulation.

http://faims.fws.gov/reports/rwservlet?faimskeys&report=fwrg0040_p&P_GP_in=SPORT%20FISH%20RESTORATION

Keep being an idiot. What was that about you being able to say you were wrong?