Definition of Fascism: totalitarian philosophy of government that glorifies the state and nation and assigns to the state control over every aspect of national life

Take a look around Magicwill. I'm not sure what nation you hail from, but here in the US we're getting it rammed down our throats in the form of health care, "security", and many other forms that infringe on our inalienable rights.

You can call totalitarianism many things. One happened to be Fascism. One happened to be Nazism. One happened to be Communism. One happens to be Capitalism. One happens to be Socialism.

I think that in the grander scale of things, what we all need to look at is less of the form of government, and more at the corruption of that government.  Government is itself corrupt. That's almost the rule.

@ Darvin. I agree. Hitler was a genius when it came to turning the economy around. But the idiot had to go and slaughter millions. Part of him turning the economy around had a lot to do with scorning the Jewish owned banks and international bankers...which we all know how that wound up turning out. :/

The reason that so many people dislike socialism, is that it breeds dependency upon the government. While I was struggling several years ago to keep myself fed and warm, I witnessed a very well dressed woman move a stack--a STACK--of $20's and $100's in her purse to get to her welfare card.

A lot of people--myself included--correlate socialism to that of the welfare state. You remember this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg98BvqUvCc

Aside from outright stupidity, that is what that type of governance creates. Look at what has been done with the schools in the United States. We spend more per capita than any other country on education, and what do we get for it? We spend 5.7% of our GDP which happens to be about 23% of the entire world's GDP at $14.2Trillion. That's over $800billion on education.

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:USA&tdim=true&tstart=-315619200000&tunit=Y&tlen=48

We spend about as much on Education as the entire Soverign Nation of Turkey has for its entire national budget. There are probably 50+ countries that have a combined income/budget of less than half of our entire budget for education. It still isn't enough for us to educate our children according to those who run the system. But look! Despite an entire country's budget worth of educational funding, we are beaten out by 23% of the world's students in math and science amongst other scores.

As an American, I have felt like I was gyped in my education. The system is politicized when it should not be. Its supposed to be a system for being taught the basics and moving on to the more complex issues in life. I lost practically an entire year because several members of the staff at my highschool disliked my "attitude." Didn't matter I suppose (and supposed) that I was the good kid who didn't have unprotected sex with half the cheerleading squad, smoked marijuana, drank and operated an automobile, or any assortment of other things that the 'popular buttkiss' kids could get away with. My attitude was that of individuality and not following the societal norm. Individuality has been getting stifled in the American schools, which is a huge proponent on why our country is starting towards a downward spiral. Read The Underground History of American Education. http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/

All of this ties right back in with politics for one simple reason: A stupid society is a society that can be controlled. Two or three generations ago, our society would never have allowed half of the things that have occured today to ever happen. Four and Five generations ago, some of these things would have been acts of war between individual United States and the Federal Government. Some of these things that are being rammed down our throats are things that would have meant outright sedition. But it doesn't matter any more. We're dumb. We're fat. We're lazy. We're happy. ..And did I mention we're dumb?

Pulling this back to Socialism... I am terrified of it. What little bit of freedom I have in my country in the grand scale of things is being threatened by what people who refuse to lift their own weight will do to me personally.

I work. I pay taxes despite the fact that I hate them. Despite those taxes I work harder so that I can have more money to make due. Other people? They sit and eat off of my labor. They sit on their fat lazy asses and eat doritos and watch Fox News, or CNN, or whatever propaganda network they're in to. That is the socialism I despise. The other part of it is what folks in Canada and Britain are experiencing with Socialized healthcare--which explains why so many people fly here from overseas to get surgery.

But Nazism and Socialism don't preach the same thing! Nazism didn't "branch" off socialism... it was just called "socialism" to appeal to nationalists and socialists.

The fact is if you're going to compare two groups by a single quality that they have in common, you are going to find relationships between every single group and Nazism, not just socialism. So Nazism and socialism are fond of government intervention... it is for completely different reasons and honestly socialism and nazism strongly, strongly diverge from there.

Socialism has had enough bad history without me trying to whitewash it. I can't hide the amount of blood that's been spilt in the name of socialism. But adding Hitler to that is unfair and more importantly untrue. Nazism being associated with socialism is mostly built off really vague associations.

That'd be all well and good if socialism only helped people who really needed help. Unfortunently, people are the problem as people abuse an imperfect system.

Not sure about it... for now, the socialism in US is enough soft... just need to care that it remain the "state at service of people" and don't become the "people at service of the state"...

Communism is Socialism run amock.

Agree... like in everything, extreme are not really good

I cannot deny that some of the countries in Europe have made it work

To my knowledge, all European country who was communist in the past have turn to the more soft version called socialism... same country like russia, ukraine or China have somehow put some capitalism in... socialism cannot work without money, trade, etc...

--but I will point out that a huge part of that reason is because they have a mutual defense treaty with the United States. So they don't have to spend that sort of money on a large military deterrent--thus they can spend it on social programs.

Being a ex-military, i can say that Us have only spend money when it was beneficial for them... don't know the situation now but in the past, it have happen that US don't pay his share of the NATO expense... that when NATO take a decision, if it don't please the US, they go their own way...

In fact, money spend on social programs in Europa are coming from the HUGE tax that we pay... now, i pay only 35% of tax due to my lower income but in the past, i have reach the 52.5% who is the maximum... and this is only the direct tax from state... city tax are between 5 and 10%... add what we call BTW ( TVA ) on all product sell ( around 21% here )...

Socialism gets us "wonderful programs" like Social Security. Which was a "nice idea" at first. Except that people have been getting money out of it that have never paid in.

It is because it is new in US... here, everybody who enjoy it have pay for it... or will pay for it... almost free education here will be repay once you work... when you work, you pay for health care, for pension but you will enjoy it later when you become older... in fact, it is not really different that private health insurance... only difference if that state don't need to return some big amount of interest to some share holders... in theory, the state system is better... i say in theorie because corruption take his share too...
 
All of that aside. My real opinion is that the military needs to "accidentally" drop a kinetic strike with a 1000 kg tungsten rod from orbit onto the Congress, SCOTUS, the White House, and all of the major lobbyist firms, and let the country hold a full re-election.

Will change nothing... problem is how work the elections... in US, it is a big multimedia show... there with the more money make the best show... Let say that tomorrow, there is again some election, that you wish to become President because you are a good guy and you can help any citizen Joe... What are your chance if you don't have any money...

Here campaign are boring... party receive money from state for the campaign... party are not allowed to spend more money that these allowed... No wild affiche everywhere... panel are installed for the election periode and each party have a equal surface... so, no holywood show, just a boring program that nobody believe... but any people have the same chance to reach the top... and business cannot lobby any candidat...

The USA hasn't had an actually good president since the Coup de etat when Kennedy was assassinated.

Will not really comment about it... same if you have a good president today, US citizen wish fast result... something almost impossible... first, you have the federal administration who is very slow to move, second you have some heavy international pressure and finaly some lobby who push their own agenda... A president is only a man and his power are somehow limited... try to push to hard and too fast, and you are killed like Kennedy... Kennedy was maybe a good president but what good thing can you make when you are dead ? Believe me, politic is really a dirty world and these who have the really power are these that we never see in the news !!!

from what I could gather, US is just a very, very individualistic society. basically 'you are what you make of yourself'. if you are not successful, then you are not trying hard enough, that is how I understood their mind set. now, that has positive effects. an incredible freedom in which to prosper and create ideas, businesses, etc. but if you happen to have no particular talent or abilities, you are in trouble. no one will help you, because it's not their job to do so. ok. that's a bit over the top to characterise it, but I think I made my point.

Oh, Please!

Everyone has a talent or two, and everyone has abilities.

Thing is, some are simply too lazy to develop and use them. And the more socialistic a society is, the more the lazy ones are pandered to.

Lines like this belong on SNL.

Millions of jobs are gone and will never come back because stupid companies and stupid unions have done stupid things.  Businesses die, it's a fact of life. When you make a car cost twice as much to make as it needs to because you're fucking stupid, you go out of business.  The sucking sound you hear when listening to the manufacturing base of this country will stop as soon as we stop paying a trained monkey six figures to push a button that doesn't need to exist in the first place.

The disappearing middle class is mythical bullshit.  The third quintile is better off and does half the work the second did thirty years ago.  When poor people are working two jobs and still can't afford a car, then you've got something to talk about.

Free trade has absolutely dick to do with the destruction of the dollar.  That is what happens when you have a trillion dollar deficit and you print money to pay for it.  The intrinsic value of money is just shy of zero, the more you print, the smaller the percentage of wealth each unit represents.  The eroding dollar is simple arithmatic, stop government spending from surpassing tax income and the problem ends.  The other two are at least propaganda spewed by union whores, this one came out of nowhere.

You know, the one thing I think is really harmful is how people believe that the free market is some sort of semi-ecological, self-correcting system that would work perfectly well if it was left well alone. To a certain extent this is absolutely true... but it's more like an ecosystem amorphous blobs eating each other and growing huge with each other blob they eat.

The economy is an institution... just like the government. It works because we all agree that it works... a consensus (oh noes! collectivization!) If the recent crash proved absolutely anything, it's that even the industry leaders are influenced enough by culture and faith in the free market to make some pretty awful decisions.

It's not that I don't blame the government. I completely blame the government. It was their job to put the reins on the market and to slow down all the enormous amounts of speculation. I can't blame the corporations, these companies do exactly what we'd expect them to do: make a profit. Because our economy rewards short-term speculation, we got exactly that.

Summary: the economy is made of humans, therefore not a perfect system. And like every other system, it should have some oversight.

This is the worst thing to happen. Ever.

Indeed, though I don't think destroying the system altogether is quite necissary yet. In modern society, there is three main groups that have the power. Businesses, Government, and Taxpayers/Voters. In all cases, each benefits the most if they can play the other two against each other. Currently, Government and Business seem to be working together quite a lot (at taxpayer expense), but it has hardly a new thing in American history. In time this will reverse in one way or the other, the real factor is how much damage is done in the mean time.

Also, I find it interesting how often the U.S. and corrupt has come up. I won't say it is not true, but I don't think it's a whole lot worse than it has been before, and it sure is a lot less than many other countries. The main difference is the amount of money we're talking about, which has increased exponentially.

Indeed, though really it's n

Since we brought up education....

My view is this, How many people will it take to invent the next superweapon? (Think bigger than nuclear) Since this is all theoretical I'll say 10,000 (This includes previous scientific discoveries that lead up to it after teh invention of the atom bomb blah blah blah) anyway those 10,000 people represent less than 1% of the population, but they will create an invention that will affect the lives of BILLIONS of people (could be good or bad), but in America instead of trying to find and educate the people who are either smart enough, or willing to put in enough effort to create those inventions or simply use our current knowledge effectively, we spend money catering to people too stupid or too lazy to learn these things. Now I don't have facts or anything just my personal experience in an American school, but all I've seen is people take their education and what it offers for granted instead focusing on "ZOMG DID YOU HEAR ABOUT X HOOKING UP WITH Y!!!!!!!!!!". For example, where I live they were considering cutting the majority of funding to advanced students to better help disabled students when it was already split 50/50, and according to the bell curve that will be the same split in the # of people considered bright... I don't mean to appear as though I have something against disabled students ,but i think that this idea that everyone in America should receive equal results from the education system, no matter what they do, is wrong. Equal opportunity != Equal results.

Hmm I think this thread has officially been derailed.

What you won't is that new world order crap which is just as corrupt. There is no perfect government system and their never will be.

There's only one "perfect" government. That's a government that doesn't exist.