157
US publisher of pro-fascist books revealed as military veteran | South Dakota
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
157 points (95.9% liked)
News
23014 readers
2 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
This is a very, very troubling stance. Imagine, for a moment, that some unnamed, but generally orange-hued person was president and the law of the land was that fascists and fascist sympathizers were not afforded any rights under the law. Holy hell.
Do you really hold this view, or are you just being dramatic?
I actually hold this view. Time and again fascists have infected societies the world over and because capitalism thrives on oppressing some people (usually minorities and immigrants), fascists have been happy to have capitalists simply point a finger to the soon to be opressed, and the military and police, themselves beneficiaries of capitalism, are incentivized to go along.
Oh, I see now. Capitalism.
Do you consider yourself an extremist?
I think the general society I live in today would consider my viewpoints extreme, but I would not label myself an extremist, no. I don't think most people think their own ideologies as being extreme.
Isn't society in general the best judge of what is or is not extreme, considering that, as you say, it's a relative description?
That depends on whether "best" is moral, which are often conflated as being the same thing. Antifascists were considered extremists in Nazi Germany and Italy by the general society, but for hopefully obvious reasons, you can see that Antifascism was a moral and logical response rooted in the survival of those they were persecuting.
I don't recall bringing up morality at all. My question still stands.
My apologies, my previous statement was an implication and was not explicit.
I think that any form of thought or activity that lies outside of the acceptable norms of a society can be painted as extremism by the majority with disastrous results, and thusly the results are so abhorrent to conclude that society is NOT the best judge of what is extremist or not because calling something extremism or someone extremist often connotates moral judgment on said actions or persons.
I would dispute that you can't disect moral judgent from the invocation of the term extremism.
Btw, if I were you, I would next point out that if my claim that society is not the best judgement of extremism, then ask then who or what is?
To which I would respond that we should throw out the term as it actually just refers to those who want changes to society that upset the paradigm under which it is founded.
My opinion is that a society that is based on inclusivity as its core value is probably better than the one we have right now. With the following caveats:
Said society would need to have an addendum that it need exclude those who would tout exclusivity and violently express the necessity of exclusivity in preferential treatment of one group over another. This society would have to fundamentally acknowledge that speech, left unchecked, can be violent even by inference.
I genuinely await your rebuttal.
What are your thoughts on capitalism in your utopian society? Are they allowed?
I'd like to take a brief reprieve here and field a question of my own, which is simply what are your thoughts on my arguments thus far?
As I said before I genuinely await your rebuttal. I don't just want to have the ball punted back to me.
Im happy to field your most recent question regarding the role of capitalism in my hypthetical "utopian" society, as you put it, but I am curious to hear what objections you might have given the ammo I've fed you thus far.
I think the fact that you believe a just society is one where a belief, no matter how vile, makes it acceptable to be raped, murdered, tortured, etc. makes you an extremist. You haven't given a second thought about how this would work in practice because if you had just saying something like that would bother you.
Thank you.
So in regards to the role of capitalism in my version of a better world, I'd say I'm no fan and wouldn't endorse unregulated capitalism, and if I were to endorse capitalism, it would have to be very severely regulated to the point where certain industries it would be more beneficial to have it run by the state.
As far as considering the moral costs and potential horrific repurcussions of stripping one particular group of their rights, I do see your point. My only real retort would be that the cost to ending fascism would require an immutable definition of exactly what fascism is, which I believe haa already happened, and then working towards eradicating it. Yes, by any means necessary, albeit hopefully without those extreme scenarios you describe. I personally don't think denying fascists rights would play out as you describe, but I'll be the first to admit I can't possibly know that for certain.
And, I'll add, my beliefs are not immutable. I'll not say it is anyone's burden to convince me otherwise, but I'd be happy to hear not only your criticisms but also your solutions. I will say that if you offer NO solutions to the problem of fascist infiltrations into Democratic institutions, then I don't value your criticisms much though.
There has to be SOME ideas put forward about how to solve this problem. I suppose ultimately I'm simply unwilling to accept even a small iota of fascism in the worldwide society, and desire to work towards eradicating it to as close to entirety as is possible. And I refuse to believe it isn't at all possible.