kraychik

It was not my definition of the collective, it was the definition of the collective from Nazi ideology. Various iterations of leftism (Nazism, communism, Islamism, socialism, the NDP) always exclude certain group from their vision of the collective. I am not responsible for the internal contradictions of various definitions of the collective from the left.

I never advocated for anarchy. I am not a libertarian. I am a conservative. You are very desperate to attack me, as you're now back to resorting to strawman arguments. Recognising the two primary dimensions of freedom (economic and social), and recognising the the circle of freedom we enjoy is tightened when government encroach on these freedoms doesn't translate to me being an anarchist or libertarian. I am neither of those things.

I never said that government spending as a share of GDP was the be-all and end-all of measuring economic freedom in a country, but it is a very important detail. I provided greater context which you were unaware of, as well, as you ignored deferred taxation as a consequence of government borrowing.

All of that oppression was done in the name of the best interests of the collective. The Jews were described as an evil and exploitative force on society, plotting a global takeover and subjugation of the non-Jews. The disabled were an economic liability to be cleansed lest they be permitted to send their flawed DNA to the next generation, and so forth. All of this was done in order to satisfy the interests of the collective as defined by the political masterminds. We see this to a lesser degree with contemporary leftists. Socialists such as yourself regularly call for intrusions into the economic and social freedoms of others to serve the "greater good" as you define it. I understand this reality makes you uncomfortable.

You're just revealing yourself to be incapable of addressing anything I've said. Your leftist mythologies are being broken by me everywhere I go on this board and it distresses you. It's fine, I'm used to having this effect on socialists and communists like yourself.

Well, you're making a pretty absurd comparson here if you're comparing Myanmar/Burma to Denmark or Sweden. There are factors that Myanmar/Burma deal with that are unique to it when comparing it to Denmark or Sweden. If you want to compare similar countries (geography, resources, population, cultural homogeneity, etc) with varying degrees of governmental intervention into the economy and then examine freedom and prosperity, we can do that. It is clear that have no intention to, or are incapable of, having a serious and honest discussion about this. I obviously overestimated the familiarity of some of this thread's participants with the term freedom as it is understood by conservatives. Not freedom to the fruits of the labours of others, of course, but the freedom from government coercion in the broadest sense possible. I shouldn't have to explain this.

What you don't understand is that socialism and fascism are essentially the same thing. The bigger the government, the smaller the individual. The more leftist the political establishment, the more of this corruption you're going to see (Obama bailing out GM, absolving GE of paying taxes, fraud through Solyndra, buying off unions to fuel his campaign, etc). Leftism is statism, and fascism and socialism belong to this family of anti-individual ideologies.

You don't think the Nazi government had regular meetings with manufacturing firms to keep them abreast of exactly what their military needs were? More basically, the entire manufacturing industry was dependent on government demand. At its core, this is leftism.

The common ideological thread that unifies the contemporary left to Nazism is the perception of the supremacy of the collective over the individual. To the contemporary right wing, this attitude is antithetical to our core beliefs. Without this attitude, such tyranny cannot come into existence. The very immunity that the West enjoys from tyranny is the contemporary right wing, where the left with happily play "follow the leader" and swallow all sorts of erosions of personal freedom (and responsibility) in order to accomplish the so-called "greater good". You also exposed your own leftism when you stated in clear English that government spending as a share of GDP has nothing to do with freedom. This tells us that you don't view economic freedom as a valid component of broader freedom. That was another great moment I can take credit for in getting a leftist to expose him or herself.

There is a huge relationship between freedom and government spending as a share of GDP. There are two broad categories of individual freedom, which doesn't need quotation marks placed around the term in a cynically leftist manner: the economic and social spheres. Bear in mind that government spending as a share of GDP is only part of the picture when it comes to determining government encroachment on the economic freedom of the individual. There is also borrowing without taxation, which essentially amounts to deferred taxation. So when the Nazis borrowed money (and when contemporary governments do it) without raising taxes, it's deferred taxation. If the Nazis didn't do this deference of taxation as a consequence of borrowing, government spending would've approached GDP, or exceeded it. I can't recall the specifics because it's been so long ago that I looked at this.

This a technical point, but not a practical one. Suppose an industry is privately owned, but regulated in such a manner (through licensing, oversight boards, etc) that the government directs its operations to a great degree, what's the difference this an socialism? in this situation the industry is still directed by the government, while the industry is still technically privately-owned. Consider a scenario where exorbitant tax rates placed on a business or industry, what is practical difference between that and socialism? In such a situation a government bleeds an industry, which is similar to the government directly owning the industry. You're focusing on technicalities and thinking outside the box and seeing that leftism can be implemented in many forms. This is another manifestation of centralisation of control, despite the mini-economic "empires" as DogOnPorch put it, that existed in Nazi Germany.

I don't understand your joke.

Sort of like how these folks respected America on 9/11, right?

As you can see, the misplaced condescension of the Canadian left is on full display when it engages in this anti-Americanism masquerading as moral posturing. It's hilarious, and it's one of those things I never get tired of, like burgers and pizza.

I hope the socialists like cybercoma and TheNewTeddy don't read this post of yours and Keepitsimple, god forbid either of them have a heart attack or stroke and place a further drain on Canada's healthcare system.

Same thing in the Soviet Union, you know. Leftism leads to this sort of consequence. The greater the government power, the greater the corruption, and the greater the oppression of ordinary folks. Socialism is part of the same family. It's all leftism. I use terms like leftism and statism interchangeably.

Romneycare isn't national. Not by a long shot.

It doesn't, and therein lies the primary distinguishing factor between Nazism and communism. I think I've already said it several times in this thread, but I'll say it again: Nazism has an inherent racist component that is directly connected to its form of racial-nationalism, whereas communism's ideology in its purest sense is international in its focus and "post-racial" (although in practise it was quite racist). Both still had expansionist ambitions. Also, don't forget that racism still existed in the Soviet Union, although it wasn't officially codified on paper in some ways.

In other words, you have nothing meaningful to contribute, as per usual.

Hooters is a classic example. There was a great episode of King of the Hill where one of Hank's neighbours, Dale, gets a job at Hooters after threatening to file a gender-discrimination lawsuit against them. It totally exposed the absurdity of the left.

I never said that all unjustifiable discrimination was gone. What I said was that there's no way to erase it with with mastermind legislation that essentially punishes law-abiding citizens via overtly racist and unjustifiably discriminatory polices such as quotas for gender, religion, ethnicity, or disability. Leftists like yourself arrogantly think you can "perfect human nature" (to steal a fantastic quote from someone I spoke with awhile ago about this subject) through ever more intricate legislation. There is still plenty of discrimination against men. Consider certain lucrative professions such as nursing and teaching. Or consider child custody cases being overwhelmingly decided in favour of the mother. I don't support legislation to impose quotas to deal with this, however. And homosexuals do have equal rights. Homosexuals also have equal access to marriage in America, just as heterosexuals do. Marriage laws in the United States do not prevent people from being married on the basis of sexual orientation. What you're doing, and I sincerely thank you for this, is exposing the contempt that you (and the broader left) have for regular society in Canada and the United States. You think that we're such a bunch of sexists (well, men anyways) and racists (well, white men anyways) and haters of homosexuals that we need benevolent correction from the enlightened few that you believe yourself to be a part of. My experience in Canada and America tells me the opposite. We are societies primarily composed of good and decent people who are not hung up on irrational prejudices. We don't dislike people simply because of their gender. We don't dislike people simply because of their sexual orientation. We don't dislike people simply because of their race. Yes, there are bigots out there, but they are the tiniest of minorities. Leftist like you chase these imagined obstacles that you place in front of your preferred groups in order to portray them as helpless victims that only you can save. You need a victim in order to present yourself as a saviour. You're like Don Quixote fighting the windmills, as you chase these phantom social epidemics that don't really exist. It's hilarious to watch you engage in the grandiosity. Again, thank you for exposing the racism and bigotry of the left, and the contempt you feel towards ordinary society that needs the management of benevolent leftists like yourself to save us from ourselves. I would hire the Arab because I hate white people.

Assuming that Harper was sincere when he said this and not simply pandering, who cares? I'd rather have a straightforward PM that tells us what's on his (or her) mind rather than a PM that needs to be investigated for preferential behaviour. It's not hard to see the political favouritism for various PMs and Premiers towards various cities. Consider Dalton McGuinty's favouritism to Toronto in terms of disproportionate tax funds being funnelled there for local projects. Leftists like Topaz prefer a dishonest politician who exudes the impression of impartiality, rather than candidness about a preference that every single human being must have. Who doesn't have a favourite city? Harper lived there for awhile, I'm sure he has his reasons for stating it's his favourite city in Canada and in the world. Good for him.

Context matters. While government spending as a share of GDP skyrocketed for a brief period of a few years during WWII in the USA, it quickly dropped back down to previous levels of around 15%. The same is not true for Nazi Germany, which admittedly had a relatively short reign of control. Also, government spending as a share of GDP in Nazi Germany was substantially higher than in the USA. I've already addressed all of attempts to draw parallels between Nazi Germany and the contemporary right, anyways.

If I remember correctly, the Canadian Supreme Court also determined that Khadr's rights were violated because some Canadian official passed information along to the Americans that was supposed to be confidential. In other words, the Canadian official broke some rule, or "violated some right" of Khadr's by passing along information gleaned from an interview. As I said earlier, Khadr was certainly not tortured by any stretch of the imagination. The documentation revealed that Khadr was subjected to sleep deprivation for a short time (something like a week or two), where he was not permitted to sleep for more than four continuous hours and was regularly moved to different cells. This was done for interrogation purposes, to make it easier for information to be gleaned from him during interviews. This hardly amounts to anything approaching torture.

Do you realise that discussions have a flow to them? They move in different directions, this is natural. That's how these things work, in a conversation, discussion forum, or internet chat room. Ironically, you are the one who initially derailed the thread onto this tangent. I don't begrudge you for doing so, though, because it gave me an opportunity to elaborate on an important point about Nazism being a leftist ideology. I anticipated virtually all of the challenges that were thrown my way, and responded to them accordingly. It was entertaining for me to break through this false narrative of Nazism being a "far-right" ideology. Nobody is forcing you to read through the posts of this thread. If it is really so uncomfortable for you to have your leftist mythologies shattered, then you're welcome to ignore me or even press the little red 'x' in the top right corner of your browser window if this exchange is too much for you bear.