I always adjust my views based on empirical data. In other words, what can be observed. That is my only "dogma", if you insist. You guys, especially rsilvergun and drinkypoo, routinely entertain conspiracy theories. Why? Because you're driven purely by ideology. THAT is what dogma looks like.

Not at all. Not even close in fact. What I linked there is what's referred to as a living dictionary. I choose my words carefully. That is, it tracks the meaning of words in the way that they're most commonly used. If you don't like the dictionary, then go to wikipedia or any other source that isn't run by some looned out whackjob. The way that some random, poorly educated people on the internet choose their wording does not represent the vast majority of the literature out there. What you don't realize at all is that most people, even in the two major political parties in the US, don't actually want either socialism or fascism. The ones who do, e.g. AOC, Bernie Sanders, etc. are on the fringe. You know where their ideology can be traced to, by the way? FDR, who himself was a big fan of Benito Mussolini, even years after the March on Rome.

Do you know why the majority don't want these things? Because unlike you lot, especially rsilvergun, they KNOW that these ideas don't fucking work. We have 150 years of history showing just how much of a shitshow these ideas are. But you guys refuse to believe that. You put your own spin on shit. This is why you guys hate hearing people like this guy speak:

https://www.ted.com/talks/hans...

When people point out the FACT that things are going really well under democracy and capitalism, and PROVE it with data, it pisses you off. The fact that something as amoral as data does piss you off should tell you everything you need to know about your own ideology, and just how fucked up, and very fascist, it really is.

Interesting fantasy you have there. But....that's not what fascists actually do. First, they make a hard sell that the economy is crap and that your life sucks. Doesn't matter who you are, your life is just dogshit, you're poor, everything in your life experience is bad even if you think it isn't. You're being taken advantage of by (insert any one of jews, the rich, corporations, foreigners taking your jobs, etc.) You're a slave to capitalism even if you don't believe it, and only their leadership can offer a solution. Here are some quotes from a prominent American fascist in the 1930s:

Sound familiar? That's because today, you guys call that socialism, and all you ever talk about is how badly you want it. That is in fact not socialism, this is socialism:

https://www.merriam-webster.co...

The biggest distinction being that socialism advocates the complete takeover of the private sector by the government.

Source for the quotes:

https://www.econlib.org/simila...

No, that's fairly uncommon. Usually they rally around one particular figurehead. When that figurehead dies for whatever reason, then you tend to get infighting. Often I see people subscribe to the theory that if we take out e.g. a leader of a major terrorist organization, then another one will soon take his place. But that's not what happens -- when you take out the guy at the top (and ONLY at the very top) they tend to splinter, and only then does the infighting start. We saw this with Osama Bin Laden. And by the way, it's an apt comparison because Islamic terrorism is heavily inspired by Nazism.

Nevertheless, here sits drinkypootin pretending that I have anything to do with Trump when for decades I've been advocating against exactly what Trump is doing. Meanwhile, if this were Bernie in office doing the exact same shit, drinkypootin would be offering to suck his dick. This is exactly the kind of contrarian conspiracy theorist fascist asshole that he is.

You know what's crazy about all of that? I've consistently maintained the position that tariffs are a terrible idea, meanwhile people sitting in the same camp as that moron you're replying to, especially Bernie Sanders, have been demanding tariffs that entire time. I kept saying, for years, that putting up tariffs in the US wouldn't do anything to stop Australia from buying cheaper cars from China. And whatdya know? That's exactly what's happening right now.

What's even crazier about all of this is Bernie Sanders and drinkypoo go around calling other people fascist, yet look where their ideology comes from:

https://www.cato.org/commentar...

Unlike you, I don't deal in conspiracy theories or crack heroine. I only deal in what is observable and measurable. Hard data wins every single time.

https://www.ted.com/talks/hans...

Videos like that piss you off because you've got a narrative to sell, and the last thing a flimflammer like you needs is somebody going around proving that your product is nothing more than snake oil. You're not happy until you've convinced at least one other person that we're living in the worst period in all history. And then you want to prove that you're a rebel by pissing into the wind.

People like Trump don't get into power by telling you that everything is ok. He's nothing more than a typical crisis politician. The only difference between you and him is which crisis you're trying to sell, and how successful he has been at it. Other than that, you are identical to him. You both severely overestimate your own ability, both of you are dumber than a rock. But he's in the Whitehouse, and you're spending your entire life underemployed.

Which "lot" would that be?

Fortunately he only wants to.

You and Donald, always stuck on campaign mode, and always stuck on stupid.

Nah, it'll continue regardless, just with these people filtered out. The ironic thing is that usually means atheists like me who actually understand how the whole thing works, leaving intact those who don't.

I personally turned off amber alerts, but fucking California flags all of silver, ebony and feather alerts as extreme threats to life and property, which is supposed to be "if you don't act now, good chance you're dead" not "a Native American is missing, please join us in a game of where's waldo even though you're nowhere nearby". I got sick of it happening every other week, so I literally turned all but national alerts off (even though grapheneos allows turning those off too) because national alerts are the only category that doesn't get abused by any government entities so some politician gets to claim they care about some vulnerable group, when it's obvious the only thing they care about the optics for being reelected, as they obviously don't mind abusing and misappropriating what's supposed to be for disaster alerts.

But if they ever do abuse national alerts, then you bet your ass I'm disabling that as well.

Legislating from the bench would favoring ideology over written law, which they didn't do here. And unlike you, I don't stick people into arbitrary classes and judge them entirely based on that, nor do I deal in your shitty third position politics. In my mind, the law applies to all equally. I only judge you based on your actions. Be they rich or poor, a slob is still a slob. And you're one big fat old slob.

It wasn't one or even two judges, it was a panel of three appellate court judges who made a unanimous ruling. I don't like it either, and I suspect at least one if not all of them also don't. But their job isn't to tell you whether they like it. As much as you may want it to be, this isn't Leninism. We have laws for a reason, and they're no good if judges can just ignore them.

He's slashdot's best comedian by far. It's as if somebody made chatgpt do a Colonel Klink impersonation while it authoritatively germansplains the wrong answer.

Of course they do. Just like that time I had to teach you what the word "socialism" actually means. You almost certainly don't know what fascism means either, which isn't surprising because it's even less well known these days than what socialism really means.

Oh, but they are. Very much so. Think back to when I was the first person to inform you what socialism actually is -- remember how you said your politicians call themselves socialist? About that -- so, as you now know, they're not actually socialist. In the 1930s, what you call (called?) socialism was better known as the "third position." You see, in the eyes of socialists and fascists alike, on one side you have socialism, on the other side you have capitalism, and right in the middle you have fascism. Just like socialists, fascists don't come in promising to rule you like a king. They come in promising to take care of you. They tell you that they're going to make all things, including businesses, work for the common man. The difference between the two lies only in how they intend to do this. Rather than go into the details myself, I'll let an actual socialist explain through a modern lens: (note that I don't agree with any of the conclusions here, but he does have his terms correct and he has done his homework, as you can see from the citations provided.)

https://www.hamptonthink.org/r...

Now keep in mind that fascism has both a government component and an economic component that are separable. Those politicians you're speaking of are almost certainly economic fascists, and perhaps you are as well, but I honestly don't recall seeing any of your positions on economics. rsilvergun certainly is, though, without question. Regardless, their ideology and economic thought processes largely originated from none other than Benito Mussolini. But more than likely, they're not even aware of that. Very few of them are, they just think of themselves as trying to do right by the common man in trying to bring a compromise between socialism and capitalism. Note also that the distinction between Fascism and Nazism is about as strong as the distinction between Leninism and Stalinism. Nazism is what brought race into the whole thing, where Mussolini's fascism didn't even make an issue of race.

But back to China -- not only are they economically fascist -- they're definitely even more all around fascist than any other country at the moment. Their government has a very concentrated, top-heavy power structure. Technically it's a democracy in that the elections probably are fair in the way the votes are counted, but what they have is a democratic-republic with zero in the way of free speech, free expression, etc. Sure, you can vote for the other guy, but if he ever says something that the people currently in power don't like, they can remove that piece from the board. (This is a huge reason, by the way, why I say free speech of critical importance to a democracy, and why I oppose any and all curbs on free speech, including any kind of political justification, like for example, banning hate speech.) Regardless, it has very strong elements of corporatism (not to be confused with corporations in the business sense -- the terms are unrelated) a very deeply nested political hierarchy, and a ruler at the top with nearly absolute power.

Another critical element of economic fascism is the way the state can literally take executive control of large corporations. They can appoint themselves to the boards of directors and insert members of their party into key executive positions at will. They'll also pool government funds directly into these corporations to advance the interests of the state. Note the distinction of taking the business over outright and establishing it as a monopoly, also called nationalizing, which is what socialism ultimately stipulates.

No matter how you slice it, China IS in fact fascist in all but name. They call themselves communist, but that doesn't really mean anything.

This honestly smells of both-sides'ism, and in a really bad way at that.

Trust me, I'm way ahead of you here. You're the kind of guy who literally manufactures disinformation, why on earth would you call yourself anything even remotely resembling a pragmatist?

Sweet summer child... I think by far the biggest difference between you and me, is I actually read history. You see this sentence you said here? It applied equally well to Nazi Germany circa 1930s.

https://www.encounterbooks.com...

Same with animal welfare and probably a lot of other things.

You know why I'm opposed to socialism and you're not? Because 150 years of history says it doesn't work. You know why I'm opposed to fascism? Because 80 years of history shows that democracy and capitalism do a hell of a better job at lifting all boats, with the very nice side benefit of not leaving you totally miserable in the process.

You mean, you actually WANT to engage in an ideological arms race with them? Holy fucking shit...

No, they're not. I don't know about where you live, but this country is not broken. It's not perfect, but it's certainly not broken. We're currently living in what is the most prosperous age in history. Almost every country is, in fact. It's insane how much people like you deny what this guy says:

https://www.ted.com/talks/hans...

And it's all based on objective, empirical, fact. But people like you are having none of it. You've got a narrative to sell, which is why everything you're saying is nothing more than what people like you are trying to sell them. Politicians don't get votes and pundits don't get attention by telling everybody that "everything is ok but we can make it a little better." They get votes by telling you that everything has gone to shit, your life sucks even if you don't think it does, and only they can fix it. After Hitler's jail sentence ended after his failed Bier Hall Putsch, he came back to an economy that was beginning to recover from the great depression (the US would have as well had it not been for some very poor, in fact very Trump-like economic and foreign policies.) Nobody really cared for him anymore until he successfully sold the narrative that the jews were fucking them over in ways they weren't aware of.

For you, just replace 'jews' with 'the rich' and there really isn't much of a difference. Though come to think of it, I don't think even that is accurate. You claim Israel is actively committing genocide, despite there being no evidence of that. In fact, the best thing you could do to "free palestine" if that's what you actually wanted to do, would be to eliminate Hamas and its benefactors, namely Hezbolla and Iran. The best "evidence" (and I use the term loosely) you could even hope to provide is some kind of clandestine jewish conspiracy that they're keeping secret, just like every other group or individual who has decided to scapegoat jews. You yourself have literally manufactured disinformation against Israel, and YOU KNOW IT.

But you know what strangely doesn't bother you? China is actively genociding its Uighur population. There's a crapload of evidence to support that as well. So why is it that you never talk about that? With you, it's always "push the jews into the sea before they commit genocide!" You know what gay people in Palestine do? They apply for (and receive) asylum in Israel, otherwise if they remain in Palestine they're almost certainly going to end up tortured and publicly executed some day, and it won't even be Hamas that does it. But I'm sure you enjoy being in the "Chickens for KFC" club regardless.

No, we're really not. The only way that might happen is if people like you succeed where Stalin and Mussolini failed.

Somewhere between 1 and 3.

Those are the kinds of moments where the population finds out if their nation is truly democratic or not. Any government that decides that turning off the ability to communicate is not doing so for the benefit of its people.