Comments on: I wonder if the Conservatives – Republicans – right wing can make bigger fools of themselves. And us.

By: Robert

Robert — Sat, 23 Jan 2016 21:05:47 +0000

“And all of them armed to the teeth.”

Karl Marx wrote:

The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope.

Karl never met the NRA and American arms merchants.

By: Robert

Robert — Sat, 23 Jan 2016 19:39:03 +0000

Yeah, I think we’re saying approximately the same thing: The one form of social organization we’re born knowing how to live in. We use formal institutions to flatten the natural hierarchies, which is why the primitive authoritarians want “limited government” to restore their, they presume, position above the herd.

By: Jody

Jody — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 20:07:55 +0000

By: ER

ER — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 20:05:36 +0000

No one here is a politician. And no one here is a businessman either. As far as I know none of us has any academic credentials in the social or behavioral sciences either not that that matters, since they all disagree with each other anyway. We’re just people with opinions.

By: ER

ER — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 19:14:59 +0000

Maybe, but you answered my question.

By: ER

ER — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 19:13:19 +0000

There is NO formal definition of fascism.

My working definition is one based on the innate and intrinsic superiority of the leaders to the led.

With the Nazis it was race.
With the Marxists it was the Laws of Economics and History.
With the Religious it was the favor of god.

With the domestic Right its the ownership of property, which naturally goes to those who are obviously more creative, more innovative, more courageous, harder-working, more ambitious…or whose ancestors were that way.

By: ER

ER — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 19:01:59 +0000

Ghetto drug lords
Organized Crime Syndicates
Motorcycle Gangs
the KKK
Skinheads
Right Wing Militias
Escaped convicts
Rogue Military and police units
Anyone who can organize a thug army

And all of them armed to the teeth.

And the pumps won’t work ‘cuz the vandals took the handles.

By: Jody

Jody — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 18:45:48 +0000

Go for it.
Let me say this. I do play by *the rules*

This is politics. The rules don’t apply to either side.

By: Robert

Robert — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 18:40:51 +0000

@TB #thisainttwitter #didyoujusthaveathought? #pleaseshareit

By: Robert

Robert — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 18:34:32 +0000

Local, yes, though when the hierarchy recreates in the Natural States, local warlords become governors and satraps, and the strongest becomes the One King Who Rules Them All.

But more important is your description of all this happening on the descending part of the trajectory; the Natural State is what rushes in to fill the vacuum when a nation falls apart. Somalia went straight to a network of warlords. In the case of Germany, one warlord took over in a single bite, then parceled out the spoils. But the Natural State can only occur when legitimate and usually democratic institutions stop working. At the end of it is always the last Strong Man standing.

We’ve seen how the advent of this “fascist” state is universally destructive, how it can only happen in the middle of an atmosphere of crisis and fear. Those pushing for the Natural State ram it through as fast as they can, ginning up fear and urgency, using emotion to turn off reason. That’s in stark contrast to the organic growth over centuries of the feudal systems of the past. They evolved, rather than being imposed.

So I guess in a way I’m using the term “Natural State” somewhat ironically, since it’s not so much an original state as it is the residue that’s left when the “unnatural” institutions of civil society are stripped away.

It’s what’s crawling under the rock of civilization.