Liberal Facism

[crystal123]

Is it just me? or are many of the comments
posted on this site bordering on Liberal Facism? Many comments on this site liberally call people racist or facist without knowing what the meaning of the word is. The comments are cruel and offensive. It appears to me that if you don't like the politics of a person or a party, some of you abuse that person verbally. The real facism lies in denying free speech, and stifling free speech through political correctness. Thought control through a liberal agenda is not a good idea!

I think you may have shot yourself in the foot with the "real fascism lies in ... stifling free speech through political correctness".

No. Real fascism is about stifling political contest in public life through a variety of means, though force is usually in the background to ensure it stays stifled.

If people are name-calling somewhere in this site, or refusing to engage in debate, perhaps because of limitations of informedness, debating ability, or just basic good-will, that's not very nice. And is sometimes indicative of a poor mindset to bring to a debate. But it's not, necessarily fascist.

Sorry, haven't seen the posts you refer to, so am only going on what is here.

You know, you can't clean up nasty, real fascists by calling liberals "fascists", and people who request others to conduct themselves in public life in line with the law of a democratic country "politically correct".

It doesn't wash, I'm afraid.

Sorry if you feel hard done by.

Democracy and free speech can be such a pain.

I know what you mean in that sometimes liberals can be surprisingly intolerant. Sometimes this is irritating - BUT basically I agree with Animula - real fascism is much much worse and trivialising it through accusing people who don't want you to say certain things of fascism just makes it sound like you don't appreciate how seriously horrible actual fascism was. (/is/could be again.)

liberal facism (sic) = massive internet cliche.

Why do right wing people think free speech is them saying whatever they want without reply?

I think its the same as anything. Some people are rude and intolerant. Some liberals are rude and intolerant. Some conservatives are rude and intolerant. Some breast/bottle feeders are rude and intolerant.

Its just people really isn't it? Lots of people who happen to fall into those categories are lovely.

Anyway; if I understand it correctly Liberals belive in freedom from not freedom to. So anyone denying others freedom of speech perhaps isn't as liberal as they'd like to think? Although how one would do that on an anonymous internet forum I'm not actually sure - can they actually stop you from having your say just through the words they type?

animula, you really do need to read 'Liberal Facism' by Jonah Goldberg, I believe he wrote a whole chapter on you!

Sooo....

You're posting on the Internet, where speech is probably freer than it has been at any time in human history.

Furthermore, you're on Mumsnet, one of the least censored, filtered or moderated sites around.

...who exactly do you think is denying you free speech?

If it's the case that you've posted something and a lot of people disagree with you, you might want to consider two options:
a) you need to argue your point better, or;
b) you are, in fact, wrong.

it's surprising how many people dismiss b) out of hand , so if you're unwilling or unable to go for a), and it upsets you to be disagreed with, maybe you should find a site where people do agree with you?

(and can I just mention that your last post just attempts to insult animula, without addressing any of her points. Want to re-read your OP and reflect on the irony?)

It's FASCISM not facism. Ffs.

Having said this I think George W Bush was correct on you are either with us or against us. When it all comes down to it, are you on the side of socialism or fascism?

Personally I think all these people who post on the net spouting cliches like liberal facism Zanu liebour sheeple etc are just modern fascists. Post-fascist if you like, or neo-fascist (open to misinterpretation) but still just the kind of people who backed up fascist regimes around the world until so recently.

They can't get away with wearing uniforms and rounding up whoever it is they want to round up these days. But if it came down to one or the other they would rather live in Franco's Spain than Zapatero's Spain...

sorry for the typing mistake, I believe many Liberals are VERY intolerant of anyones views, and and try to shut people up by name calling.

Coolfonz, by the way my father freed people in Belsen, it was the Belsen anniversary the other day, so please don't say that I am a facist, my father fought it for years and my family is mixed race. I take offence to that nonsense comment.

I'd describe myself as libertarian leaning - I also think I'm pretty tolerant of views that differ from mine, unless they involve hating or hurting anyone else. Does that make me a fascist then?

And yet you bandy the word around freely to describe other people

I think crystal123 has taken a bit of a pasting here. The book that she is referring to by Jonah Goldberg is given a favourable review by the Guardian's left-wing commentator, Nick Cohen www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/feb/08/goldberg-liberal-fascism-review

I don't think Crystal123 has been poorly treated in this thread. Her first post was about people being rude to those who disagreed with them and her second was her being rude to someone who disagreed with her.

I think Anastaisia summed it up with "I think its the same as anything. Some people are rude and intolerant. Some liberals are rude and intolerant. Some conservatives are rude and intolerant. Some breast/bottle feeders are rude and intolerant"

Claig, please don't feel that I have beeen poorly treated. The response to my thread was exactly as I had anticipated. Jonah Golbergs book talks about how some Liberals stifle free speech through terminology. If Nick Cohen from the Guardian gave this book a goood write up I know I'm making sense!

crystal I do want to read the JG book, and if anyone were to be labelled a liberal fascist, I guess I would be one of them. I wouldn't say that my dislike of certain kinds of language is very well thought through or logical, but there are at least some ideas behind it that I really don't think are fascist. I think that labels and language do matter, and labelling someone is a very early step on the road to dehumanising them. I think it is certainly possible to create an unwelcoming or brutalised environment for people purely using words. I also dislike bad manners, and see incorrect, illegal or rude language as the worst of manners. But, for sure, what makes me the guardian of others' language? - at least partly, it is the current political environment (well, current until 6 May I guess ) in that the government would see itself as a progressive force, and I jump on the coattails of that and try to be progressive in a rather clueless manner.

I'm certainly extremely shocked whenever I hear certain words. That may make me sound like a Victorian maiden, and I suppose politically I am - I loathe ugliness and hate. But as a liberal fascist, what did I do when my boss used the word 'nigger' in a meeting? - I resigned. Not exactly brutal repression on my part IMO.

Nick Cohen isn't left wing. At all.

The liberal FASCISM (not facism for God's sake, you can't spell, it's not atyping error, two different things) is a nasty extreme right wing concept that tries to make out liberalism, especially in a US context is a bad thing. It's a sick idea, part of this wave of neo-conservative extremism. Just name calling in the same way the same people say islamic fascism to try and hide the fact it is people like them - the US right - that actually supported and financed fascism around the world. And still do.

I don't care whether your father went to Belsen or anywhere else. Pretty sick to play that card, and the race card as well, as if race makes any difference to politics. I never called you a fascist, I called you part of the post-fascist US/European right. Which you are.

Would you rather live in Pinochet's Chile or Chavez's Venezuela?

Is it liberal fascists or fascist liberals that are stalking the internet? Now that's an oxymoron my English lit teacher would have been proud of.

Choosy you are right with the labels. The word "Slave" is a perfect example.

Is it me or does the op's argument not just eat itself?

Coolfonz. You miss the point, what I am saying is that you don't have to be stomping around in jackboots to suppress people you can do it through terminology. You are a classic example of this, you say it was not a typing error when I used the word fascist, how do you know?
Are you so intellectually superior? Perhaps you went to a great girls public school and are so much more educated than the rest of us plebs! Understand facts, fascism properly understood in NOT a phenomenon of the right, it has always been a phenomenon of the left, an inconvenient truth to you, facism and communism (probably you have communist leanings) are one of the same. You think your intellectual but unfortunately for you, your just a thick snob, the sort of person who denigrates people like my father who fought for this country so that you could have free speech.

'When it all comes down to it, are you on the side of socialism or fascism?'

This is a very dangerous and false argument. It lead to the desperate situation of Europe in the thirties.

There is a middle ground and it is a respectable and workable one.

The issue of free speech must be addressed and that is why I started this thread. Free speech was curtailed in Europe in the 1930's and is now happening in Britain.

"your just a thick snob"

x 100. Classic.

No fascism, which you spelled incorrectly many times, is a right wing phenomenon, communism supposedly a left wing one. It's why Belsen and the rest of the camps were full of socialists, trade unionists, anarchists and so on as well as the majority Jewish victims of your right wing comrades in Europe in the 1930's.

Me I see Soviet communism after Lenin as a right wing phenomenon, state capitalism. Where the wheels of capital were simply transferred to another bunch of thugs. If you want to see that in modern terms look at China, state capitalism at its finest.

I believe in democracy which is why I am an anarchist.

Oh and I would have loved to go to a girl's school, but sadly, being a fella, I went to one full of blokes.

Coolfonz. So there we have it! You are just a lonely anti-christ, oh sorry anarchist, when are you going to bring down the government? as so many of your socialist workers mates want to do. Your the real threat to democracy and not other people who want free speech. I say free spelling and free speech for all!

Much depends on how you define "fascist" and "liberal", "right wing" and "left wing".

Simply choosing two objects - fascism and liberalism - and saying "oh, they have points in common, the are therefor the same" will not do. Eg. they are both human political phenomena, forms of political organisation exhibited in bipedal societies, therefore they are the same. Well, er, yes, but there are extremely important differences.

1. That nazism, for eg, drew some of its political forms from the (wealth of) utopic politics swimming around the early twentieth century, and that socialism, and even liberalism (at its more utopic end,) did too, is a. a well-remarked point b. pretty obvious - how weird if the actors involved had somehow managed to drink, scrupulously from separate cultural pools.

to point to these similar cultural origins, of some of the features, and to note ensuing points of coherence is not enough to ignore the substantial, significant points of incoherence.

for me, the absolute point of incoherence, the utter difference, lies in the way these systems deal with political conflict.

1. To say that liberalism instantiates its borders, and acts to suppress difference is not a new point. Lots and lots of lefties take issue with Rorty's classic account of liberalism. Can't remember its name, sorry, but he sets up the idea of liberalism as a circular group, of people, discussing things. That's liberal politics.

Lefties, such as my good self, have often pointed out that it sets up a circle of exclusion, with the discussion of those excluded from the "circle of debate" simply (mis-)heard as irrational, shouting, aggressive, violent, noise.

That doesn't, however, mean it is fascist.

Becasue, for me, the crucial difference lies in how the fascist states dealt with that noise and dissent. For heaven's sake, the chief characterstic of fascist states was /is violence. Not symbolic violence, actual, utter violence.

And yes, I know there are other significant differences, one party rule, centralised economy and authority. But the violence thing is so big, and so stomach-turning, I am actually really p off that you can attempt to compare name-calling on a by talkboard to it.

Coolfonz - I'm astonished - I thought you were someone I "knew" under a different name! Welcome to mn.