Comments by "Digital Nomad" (@digitalnomad9985) on "PragerU"
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@EdoardoB-xz1jp "Fascism and Socialism are two completely opposed ideologies."
They are two different flavors of socialism that vilify each other and pretend to constitute the political spectrum. Each tells the lie "If you're not one of us, you're one of them." All sane and decent folk are neither.
"The first uses a capitalist economic basis"
"Capitalism" is Marx's caricature of free market economics. Fascism is not free market economics.
"This is completely opposed to socialism in which the economic model is that of commonly owned means of production. There is no person making profits that is above the rest, or cutting costs by firing employees and leaving them to starve on the side of the road."
The whole economic system is run for the benefit and enrichment of the Nomenclatura. When you say "That's not real Communism", what you mean is it's not theoretical communism, a utopia that has never and can never exist.
"I think we should start with the basic definition of socialism."
The only practical definition (definition of a thing that has existed and can exist) of socialism is central control of the economy. "Common ownership" is invariably a window dressing for despotism. In fact, and historically in practice, despotism results, and the reason why IS AN INHERENT FLAW OF THE THEORY. You seek to replace the free market with an arbitrary distribution of stuff. To do this you need an arbiter. The arbiter does not BECOME, he IS by nature of his function, the dictator. In fact, this is recognized in the theory, "the dictatorship of the proletariat". You, first, remove all the protections, restraints, checks and balances of the civic society, (often accompanied by the removal of checks on the conscience from religion,) give absolute power (in a sense greater even than the kings and emperors of old) to a person or a group, already acclimated to a free hand in the use of force when they steal everybody's stuff. Then you wonder why so many get murdered by your just and equitable and scientific government, and why life in your utopia is so similar to slavery.
A common fallacy of utopian ideologues is that human nature is inherently good, and that the problems of the human condition are the result of some social construct, because we don't want to face the truth about ourselves. To the communist free markets; to the anarchist government; to the New Atheists religion, to primitivists agriculture or technology, to racists whites or blacks or Jews or whoever; is the root of all evil. The clear, harsh, intolerable, and absolutely vital and central essence of human nature is that WE ARE OUR PROBLEM, not any externality or construct. As the song says, "You can run from yourself, but you won't get far. 'Cause wherever you go --- There you are." This is the starting point of clarity in history, sociology, and psychiatry; every study which pertains to the nature of humanity. In fact, the same flawed, imperfect, selfish, stupid nature that infests the lord, or the "capitalist", infests the revolutionary. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The "capitalist" AS SUCH, can only hire or bribe. An unchecked authoritarian government can do that (with other people's money), plus arrest, torture, and kill you or your family. It is incoherent to fear the former and not fear the latter. No "angel" is available to bear this power benignly.
Socialism IS despotism, inherently, invariably, and unavoidably.
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You are compounding the error that got the south into the mess in the first place: not taking Lincoln at his word. The war, of course, placed the US in debt, and there was never any prospect of a gain. If there had been no secession how could Lincoln have implemented your nefarious plan? The reason for the secession was precisely that the southern squires feared, despite Lincoln's assurances to the contrary, that he would contrive to eliminate slavery: they said so repeatedly at the time. If that was NOT Lincoln's plan, as you insist, they miscalculated badly. If your theory is correct, they could have thwarted Lincoln by:
1. Doing nothing. Particularly not seceding.
2. Even failing that by not violating their agreement not to fire on Fort Sumter. Lincoln did not violate his end, his naval expedition was under orders to supply the fort only, and not to reinforce it unless it was attacked. Once again, they just ASSUMED he was lying.
The Confederate provisional government had already called for the mustering of a large Confederate army before Lincoln took office and any Northern preparations took place. Note that Lincoln did not rush to take the other seizures of Federal Forts as a pretext for war prior the Fort Sumter attack. The war was, to use Lincoln's phrase a southern "appeal from ballots to bullets". Having appealed to that penultimate court, they must abide the verdict. As it was their acts of war ultimately achieved only the regional equivalent of "suicide by cop".
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@EdoardoB-xz1jp
All Fascists and Nazis are Leftists. Mussolini was an editor of a leftist paper. Prior to the war Mussolini and FDR, the progressive (which at the time meant socialism plus eugenics plus Jim Crow laws) were exchanging political love letters praising one another and also in the American and Italian press.
Mussolini and his party developed Fascism because Marx's predicted proletarian uprising, long overdue by Communist prediction, never happened. Mussolini noted that despite ideology, people still fought for their country, so he added ardent nationalism to socialism. Unlike the Nazis, there was nothing acutely racial about Mussolini's nationalism (he was not anti-semitic, for example). When he took power he got a congratulatory telegram from Lenin for being a leftist leader who took control of Italy.
Hitler made no bones about being a leftist:
#1. “I have learned a great deal from Marxism” … “as I do not hesitate to admit”
#2. [My task is to] “convert the German volk (people) to socialism without simply killing off the old individualists”
#3. “If we are socialists, then we must definitely be anti-semites – and the opposite, in that case, is Materialism and Mammonism, which we seek to oppose.” “How, as a socialist, can you not be an anti-semite?”
#4. We must “find and travel the road from individualism to socialism without revolution”.
#5. “Why need we trouble to socialize banks and factories? We socialize human beings.”
#6. “We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions” 1927
#7. “What Marxism, Leninism and Stalinism failed to accomplish we shall be in a position to achieve.”
Select planks from the Nazi party platform:
7. We demand that the State make it its duty to provide opportunities of employment first of all for its own Citizens. If it is not possible to maintain the entire population of the State, then foreign nationals (non-Citizens) are to be expelled from the Reich.
9. All German Citizens must have equal rights and duties.
10. It must be the first duty of every Citizen to carry out intellectual or physical work. Individual activity must not be harmful to the public interest and must be pursued within the framework of the community and for the general good.
We therefore demand:
11. The abolition of all income obtained without labor or effort.
Breaking the Servitude of Interest.
12. In view of the tremendous sacrifices in property and blood demanded of the nation by every war, personal gain from the war must be termed a crime against the nation. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
13. We demand the nationalization of all enterprises (already) converted into corporations (trusts).
14. We demand profit-sharing in large enterprises.
15. We demand the large-scale development of old-age pension schemes.
16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle class; the immediate communalization of the large department stores, which are to be leased at low rates to small tradesmen. We demand the most careful consideration for the owners of small businesses in orders placed by national, state, or community authorities.
17. We demand land reform in accordance with our national needs and a law for expropriation without compensation of land for public purposes. Abolition of ground rent and prevention of all speculation in land.
18. We demand ruthless battle against those who harm the common good by their activities. Persons committing base crimes against the People, usurers, profiteers, etc., are to be punished by death without regard to religion or race.
20. In order to make higher education – and thereby entry into leading positions – available to every able and industrious German, the State must provide a thorough restructuring of our entire public educational system. The courses of study at all educational institutions are to be adjusted to meet the requirements of practical life. Understanding of the concept of the State must be achieved through the schools (teaching of civics) at the earliest age at which it can be grasped. We demand the education at the public expense of specially gifted children of poor parents, without regard to the latters’ position or occupation.
21. The State must raise the level of national health by means of mother-and-child care, the banning of juvenile labor, achievements of physical fitness through legislation for compulsory gymnastics and sports, and maximum support for all organizations providing physical training for young people.
25. To carry out all the above we demand: the creation of a strong central authority in the Reich. Unquestioned authority by the political central Parliament over the entire Reich and over its organizations in general. The establishment of trade and professional organizations to enforce the Reich basic laws in the individual states.
/ end citation
The early (pre-Holocaust) laws relegating Jews to second-class citizens were copied wholesale from the "Progressive" Jim Crow laws of the American South.
Stalin not only entered into a non-aggression pact with Hitler, he joined him in the conquest of Poland and gave him material and propaganda support until Hitler betrayed him with Operation Barbarossa. Stalin considered the liberal west the greater threat ideologically.
At the time, everybody considered Fascism and Nazism to be part of the left. After the war, when the Nazis had made eugenics unfashionable, the left exerted its propaganda power to attribute Fascism and Nazism to the right. The notion that Fascism is not leftist is historical revisionism.
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+Tycho Caine
" Until a court case happens in which YouTube is categorized as a 'public commons'"
Until they are sued, no court case will happen at all. This is the sort of case that can establish this sort of precedent.
"Lol they own YT"
Legalities aside for the moment, what would any decent person find amusing about this situation? Leftists are always complaining about authoritarian corporate power, here it is on display and they are silent, or supporting the bad guys. Here is what separates the leftists from the liberals. “This is not a left/right issue. It is a free speech issue, which is why prominent liberals, such as Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, are supporting our lawsuit,” (Prager )
concerning the "private property" dodge, quoting from the complaint:
http://www.bgrfirm.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/PRAGER_U-_v_GOOGLE-YOUTUBE_complaint_10-23-2017_FILED.pdf
Defendants believe that they have unfettered, unbridled,
and unrestricted power to censor speech or discriminate
against public speakers at their whim for any reason,
including their animus toward and political viewpoints of
their public users and providers of video content,
because Defendants are for profit organizations rather
than governmental entities. Google/YouTube, you are
wrong.
As the California Supreme Court has stated: “[t]he idea
that private property can constitute a public forum for
free speech if it is open to the public in a manner similar
to that of public streets and sidewalks” has long been
he law in California. Fashion Valley Mall, LLC v. N.L.R.B.
(2007) 42 Cal.4th 850, 858. The United States Supreme
Court also recognized more than a half century ago that
the right to free speech guaranteed by the First
Amendment to the United States Constitution can apply
even on privately owned property.
/end quote
Folks, the venue (California courts and/or California juries) may well militate against their winning (due to the bias of California courts and juries), but they wouldn't have brought the suit if they didn't have a case. It is not as simple as you're trying to make it. And as for taking sides, do you want to keep your free speech?
Martin Niemöller
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
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+The_Blazer
"for some people "school choice" is a codeword for 'I want to be able to
send my children to a jesus camp where they are indoctrinated with
creation science and religious fundamentalism'."
Religious parochial schools outperform public schools academically. Graduates of parochial schools score higher on SATs and do better in college. They will know more about evolution than public school grads. If you were against indoctrination you would not be a supporter of the public school monopoly. One of the problems of the public schools is that they spend more time on indoctrination than real academics. You are not against indoctrination, you just want to choose what gets indoctrinated rather than the parents.
+warbird333
"His Majesty, voucher don't pay the full cost of tuition, so some people
still won't be able to choose a private/charter school assuming that
there is one nearby."
"If vouchers did pay full tuition then the program MIGHT work presume
that private/charter school are available everywhere that people have a
problem with their public school."
If vouchers won't enable people to access private schools, they won't make any difference at all, so why do you oppose them? In fact, if the voucher program is general enough that a school can recruit a large enough student body to achieve some economy of scale, they can educate students for half of what is being spent on our public schools, and do it better. How do I know it can be done? It HAS been done. Before public sector unions and the federal Department of Education, the public schools used to do it. Build it and they will come.
"Public school are available to everyone, no one can be
denied/discriminated against by any religious principle a
private/charter school might impose."
This or that private school might insist on teaching their beliefs, I have never heard of one that tried to insist the students believe them. Also not all such schools are of the same religion, or even religious at all. There is nothing to prevent persons of any philosophical or political persuasion from starting their own school. "Let a thousand flowers bloom" and let the market sort them out.
"Why should the government encourage a move to private/charter school
will never provide for everyone when a more obvious option is right
under our noses."[sic]
Because that option is failing, right under our noses. The specific and general failure of our public schools, despite funding levels many times that of earlier years when they were working is palpable and undeniable.
"Make Public schools better!"
Let me guess. By increasing the funding .... again. By doubling down on the same things that created the mess we are in. The only thing we can hope will make public schools better is competition.
"Private school exist so that so that rich people can segregate their
kids from the poor"
There no doubt are such institutions, they have nothing to do with vouchers, vouchers can't afford them. If they are exclusive, poor folks will be excluded, and they are no threat to your hegemony.
"and indoctrinate them with their parents' beliefs."
You are conflating exclusive prep schools and parochial schools, they are not the same thing. You want to indoctrinate their kids with YOUR beliefs. It is not clear to me that you have an overriding claim.
"they force beliefs one them that school were never meant force on children."
meant by whom?
"If parents want their kids to learn about the Bible then they should
teach it themselves in addition to Sunday school, Bible study and church
mass both on Sunday and any other day their church meets."
The parents should be in control of the curriculum, not you. If you could do a better job, you should have.
"the school should be teaching Math, Science, History, and Literature that teaches you think for yourself."
And that is precisely what private schools are doing that public schools are not, verifiably and undeniably.
"This woman was lucky to get into this school specifically. Plenty of
other private schools that would not have helped her prosper as she did
here."
Lucky? How do you rule out the possibility that she or her guardian chose well? And she could hardly have done worse than the public system was doing to her.
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+Jovan Emeric
"Ending slavery, every creation of every republican government, the end of monopolies, the improvement of working conditions, the end of child labour, stopping the Nazis, the list goes on."
No, ending slavery, the creation of the US, stopping the Nazis, were originally were the forms in their time of what we would call today conservative/libertarian thought. The leftist Progressives, like Woodrow Wilson, were advocates of socialism, Jim Crow laws, and the eugenics movement which was a openly cited precursor to the eugenics policies of the 3rd Reich. US progressives were the intellectual heirs, and in most cases the descendants, of the 19th century Democrats who fought to preserve slavery.
Before the war, FDR and Mussolini were openly admiring all over each other, recognizing their common goal of implementing leftist ideas and expanding the scope and power of government. Hitler had a lot of nice things to say about FDR before the war, and based his early antisemitic discriminatory laws expressly on the US Democrat/progressive/leftist Jim Crow laws. Fascism and Nazism were understood universally at the time to be LEFTIST political movements. Lenin congratulated Mussolini when Mussolini took power in Italy. The notion that fascism is a movement of the right is a propaganda triumph of damage control after the Nazis "gave eugenics a bad name".
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