Have the Left turned to Fascism?

[Argus]

Phillip Cross suggest the Marxist/leftist activists trying to silence all opinions but their own demonstrate all the hallmarks of the fascism they claim to be opposing.

It is fashionable among the radical left to demonize the growing number of elected conservative governments in the Western world as the rise of the extreme or alt-right. This is most pronounced in the anti-fascist (antifa) movement, particularly on university campuses. However, the anti-fascist movement has a sophomoric misunderstanding of fascism and its location on the political spectrum. More disturbing, this lack of understanding extends to its own social media and even physical tactics that mimic the mob psychology, street rage and bullying that are hallmarks of the fascism they denounce.

Fascism is best thought of as a nationalistic version of socialism, embodied in Hitler’s National Socialist party, which was shortened to the Nazis. Fascist governments like those of Hitler and Italy’s Benito Mussolini (and, to some degree, Spain’s Francisco Franco) in mid-20^th century Europe believed in totalitarian control of the economy and oppressive state curtailment of individual liberty. Those are the antitheses of conservative principles. Fascism subsumes all ideology to the goals of the state and the need for state surveillance. The extreme version of conservatism isn’t fascism, as the left wants us to think. It’s libertarianism.

https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/philip-cross-the-anti-fascist-left-were-the-real-fascists-all-along#comments-area

[eyeball]

40 minutes ago, Argus said:

Fascism subsumes all ideology to the goals of the state and the need for state surveillance. The extreme version of conservatism isn’t fascism, as the left wants us to think. It’s libertarianism.

 

The socialist version of libertarianism is  anarchy - the rational version of anarchy is surveillance of the state and total public awareness.

Something no government, politician  or lickspittle of any stripe can stomach.

I've never met a libertarian who liked the idea either. 

 

Edited May 31, 2019 by eyeball

[Dougie93]

It's certainly totalitarian in that the left has introduced thought crime into Canada now, and the standard for what is a thought crime is being expanded arbitrarily as we go,  but I wouldn't say the left is fascist, as generally fascism would involve glorification of the masculine, the military, war etc, which,  that's not the left, this phenomena is more like the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Maoist Communism.

The problem in Canada is the weak constitution, in that the caveat "reasonable" was inserted into your charter rights, and the government is free to alter what is "reasonable" based on whim and pandering to mobs of denouncing Maoists, thus what would,  in any actually free country by classically liberal standards,  be contained in the loonie college campuses, is actually being encoded into law with criminal penalties for wrong think.

I would argue that Canada is already a de facto tyranny, in that there really isn't any opposition to the fundamentally Liberal Party of Canada permanent governing bureaucracy, the so called "opposition" parties are really just props, no matter who you vote for, the deep state bureaucracy will ensure that they comply with the Liberal Party of Canada polity.

But tyranny simply means you can't change the government by any lawful means, but you can think whatever you want about it, so long as you don't try to overthrow the government, they will leave you alone.

Totalitarian comes about when the  entrenched regime feels threatened by dissent,  at which point they rescind the privilege of thinking what you want about it, and instead make it a crime to think the wrong thing about it, say the wrong thing about it, and so on.

So we have a fundamentally leftist government which can never really be voted out and which only represents about half the population, which means ever more discontent and instability, to combat that, the left is essentially making that discontented half of the population into supposed criminals, to try to intimidate half the country into submission.

I would submit that the driving force behind it is the unions, that is the entrenched interests which are threatened by any sort of conservative government, and there is clearly no limit as to how far they will go to protect their bloated centrally planned incompetent and corrupt dysfunctional bureaucracy.

The Canadian deep state, Unifor,  PSAC, OPSEU, etc, basically everybody except the military, as the military has no union, thus why the military is the only thing that ever gets cut.

The reason why Canada is so loonie leftist, is that these totalitarian leftist college academics make all the policies, it goes from the college professors to the NDP and then the Liberals adopt it and write into the law, and there is no first amendment here to constrain them.

Then it's all topped by the multi billion dollar CBC state propaganda arm, a leftist unionized deep state entrenched interest unto itself, which functions as the cheerleaders/apologists/censors on behalf of themselves and the rest of the unionized permanent leftist government.

So not fascist, Canada is more like Cuba, a kind of Soviet Union lite, an Iron Curtain which justifies itself by sowing hysteria about the Americans as being some kind of menace, inciting Canadians to rally around their quasi-communist masters in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Vancouver.

The fangs are not even out yet, the unionized entrenched interests are just laying the groundwork for when the fake opposition Conservatives get swept aside by an actual right wing populist revolt, that's when the hammer will come down and they will start charging people en masse and siccing the police unions on them,  G7 summit style martial law.

This is the opposite of fascism, if it was a fascist tyranny, the first thing to go would be the unions, they would be outlawed and persecuted. This is communism, where the unions are the ones doing the persecution.

Jerry Diaz of Unifor deciding who is an "approved" journalist and what is "fake news" is not Stalinist Russia from the 1930's, but it is pretty much like Cuba, where the un-elected party apparatchiks take control of the flow of information and ensure that it only flows from their ideological propaganda arms.

Edited June 1, 2019 by Dougie93

[Michael Hardner]

On 5/31/2019 at 6:39 PM, eyeball said:

The socialist version of libertarianism is  anarchy - the rational version of anarchy is surveillance of the state and total public awareness.

Something no government, politician  or lickspittle of any stripe can stomach.

I've never met a libertarian who liked the idea either. 

 

What people call 'libertarian' isn't libertarian any more than what people call 'left' is left.   We have a pile of centrists with some loudmouths who make extreme statements but have no traction... yet.

Here's something: you only have to surveille the state if you give them power in the first place.  Why not pass a law that says all CCTVs must be public information ?  Why do MPs get to have private bank accounts ?  Wouldn't forcing the PMs cash transactions to be viewable online be easier than your idea to put bodycams on the suits ?  

See, eyeball, I'm on your team... just more practical  

[eyeball]

3 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

What people call 'libertarian' isn't libertarian any more than what people call 'left' is left.   We have a pile of centrists with some loudmouths who make extreme statements but have no traction... yet.

Here's something: you only have to surveille the state if you give them power in the first place.  Why not pass a law that says all CCTVs must be public information ?  Why do MPs get to have private bank accounts ?  Wouldn't forcing the PMs cash transactions to be viewable online be easier than your idea to put bodycams on the suits ?  

See, eyeball, I'm on your team... just more practical  

I think outlawing in-camera lobbying alone should blunt the worst effects of corruption.

[ImBrock]

Meanwhile the right really pushes the fascist agenda here and abroad. Inciting acts of terror everywhere.

Edited June 8, 2019 by ImBrock

[J4L]

On 6/8/2019 at 12:37 PM, ImBrock said:

Meanwhile the right really pushes the fascist agenda here and abroad. Inciting acts of terror everywhere.

How is that different from the Left?