What is fascism?
John T. Flynn explains the idea and the movement. Whether Fascism was capitalist or anticapitalist, labor or antilabor, no one could say until the leaders themselves decided upon a course of action. It was improvised as the movement went along. It is government system that accepts responsibility to make the economic system work at full energy, using the device of state-created purchasing power effected by means of government borrowing and spending, and which organizes the economic life of the people into industrial and professional groups to subject the system to control under the supervision of the state. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (9)
What is trucfemism:
©1993
TRUCFEMISM
Trucfemism (truk´fem-iz’m), n. [
This is a model for unraveling the confusion over the terms “conservative” and “liberal” when discussing politics in Russia and America:
(1) Left-wing politicians in Russia and America are either “conservative leftists” or “liberal leftists,” where the term “conservative” refers to leftists' desire to hold on to any particular degree of leftism, within the categorical class called emotional leftists, and where liberal leftists are ever-willing to shift further left of conservative leftists within left-wing politics: to be more motherly --- or emotionally controlling and intrusive, comforting and compassionate.
The relative position of any leftist faction, in the broad spectrum of left-wing politics, is identified by its position within the range between the extremes of left-wing conservatism and left-wing liberalism. And the broad category “left-wing” is identified by its relative position to right-wing politics: to be more fatherly --- or rationally instructive and detached, aloof and dispassionate.
(2) Right-wing politicians in Russia and America may be liberal or conservative within the categorical class called rational rightists, where conservative rightists try holding on to any particular degree of rightism, and where liberal rightists are ever willing to shift further left of conservative rightists within right-wing politics: to be more motherly --- or emotionally controlling and intrusive, comforting and compassionate.
[Note: While conservatives of either wing tend to hang on to a particular position; especially one which seems to be politically and socially efficacious. The liberals of either party are more dynamic and seek change in the status quo for good or bad---because change for them is emotion-driven. Liberals crave emotional stimulation. Changing political and social policy can provide emotional stimulation for them, like when their heartfelt sympathy for unwed mothers prompts them to legislate for more aid, which encourages even more illegitimacy and, then, triggers even more demands by liberals to increase funds for "fixing" the burgeoning social chaos that their “help” caused; a sinister circularity common to liberals’ social engineering where their "solutions" only exacerbate social ills, which in turn demand---in liberals' illogic---more of the wrong approach. And although liberals’ dynamism may sometimes be beneficial in coaxing conservatives to re-examine their views, to possibly adopt new and innovative policies, liberals' ideas are more often than not perfectly irrational and socially destructive].
Political “moderates” of the Left are conservative leftists, who are to the right of liberal leftists, and have either changed their views to embrace a degree of rightism or have held on to their views as society shifts politically to the Left. And moderates of the Right are really liberal rightists who are to the left of conserva-tive rightists, and either have changed their views to embrace a degree of leftism or have held on to them as society shifts politically to the Right.
One gets confused only when using the terms “conservative” and “liberal” without their identifiers “rightist” and “leftist.”
Brutality may be employed by either the Left or the Right, but the Left has cleverly avoided giving any name to their brand of violence while the term “fascism” is applied (or "Nazi" is misapplied) to violent right-wing governments. I’ve coined the term “trucfemism” to identify the awesome brutality of leftists like Lenin, Stalin, and Mao.
Left-wing trucfemism has caused great destruction of life and limb worldwide, and far worse than that of any right-wing fascism:
Trucfemism (truk´fem-iz’m), n. [
[Note: The above explanation of the dynamics of political affiliation is based on research in hemisphericity, discovered in neuroscience, where the left and right brains display distinct ways of relating to the world. I posit that the battle between the political left and right, and between women and men, is a battle between the left and right halves of the human brain. Read my essay, The Donahue Syndrome]
-Founders' America
Published: April 25, 2008 4:10 PM
Oops! The above essay is missing my definition of "trucfemism" at the top of the page, which definition I hope transfers here ((also, I had used italics in place of quotation marks in several places, which italics didn't transfer)):
Trucfemism (truk´fem-iz’m), n. [
Published: April 25, 2008 4:19 PM
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- my apologies -
What is trucfemism?:
I had coined the term in 1993 to counter leftists' use of "fascist."
I've removed certain dictionary symbols from the above essay's paragraph, so that you may read my definition:
Trucfemism, noun. 1. the doctrines, methods, or movement of Trucfemists. 2. a system of government characterized by bureaucratization, belligerent intrusion in citizens’ affairs, world domination by militarism and/or cultural destabilization, “fair” and equal redistribution of wealth and land, etc.: first instituted in Russia by Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) after the revolution of 1917. 3. trukfemists' behavior.
Use it.
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Published: April 25, 2008 4:29 PM
The question of "what is fascism" is near and dear to my heart. It is the question that kicked off my political education, and drove me ultimately toward libertarianism. Even more, it is what led me eventually to discover mises.org, but it took me a couple of decades to get there.
Zillions of years ago, when I was in grade school, I was presented with a crib sheet on different forms of government. "Democracy" was rule by the people, "Communism" was collective ownership, etc.
The definition for "fascism" was, "derives its name from the Latin word meaning 'bundle of sticks'." And that was all the explanation I was ever given all the way through college.
Look, I must have been about ten years old, and these were highly simplified expanations, but even I could tell there was some terribly deficient by this answer. So I challenged Ms. Whatzerface. She got all red-faced and refused to explain further than to say that fascism was "mob rule".
Well, it's a better definition than Dubya ever gave, anyway.
"Like rule by mafia, Ms. Wah-wah?"
No, rule by the majority, she replied.
"But Ms. Prune-face, how is that different from democracy?"
I was always at the top of Ms. Barely-Contained-Rage's List o' Excrement, and this question did absolutely nothing to endear me to her. She refused to answer, just pretending not to have heard.
I'm actually grateful to her for this piece of instruction. It was eye-opening, and has stuck with me through the decades. Was she being malicious in withholding a real answer, or was she just clueless? I believe she simply didn't know what she was talking about. Imagine, being too ignorant to explain a fifth grade topic to fifth graders, when teaching fifth graders is supposedly your job.
Long after fifth grade, after I got out of college, I decided I was fed up with not knowing what "fascism" meant. After all, everybody throws this word around -- presumably because they had a competent social studies teacher in primary school. So I decided to buckle down with the help of google and find out.
Eventually I was led to Ayn Rand. Maybe "it usually begins with Ayn Rand", but for me, she was just a stepping stone from Ms. Two-Face's classroom and the fascism question. Ayn Rand's writings sent me all over the place, but in particular to three people: Victor Hugo, Maria Montessori, and one guy I'd never heard of, von Mises.
I quickly found mises.org. This was about mid-2002. One of the articles on the front page was on fascism.
It was like coming home. From the clear explanation of fascism, I found so very many answers to questions I'd always had, like, "How can Bob Dole promise to cut taxes and raise spending?" Nobody could ever tell me. I found the answers here. Why was that fifth grade teacher not too terribly unrepresentative of her species? Found that one out too. I am truly grateful that this site exists.
But back on topic. Here's a quick rule of thumb for totalitarianism: if your government redefines the term "fascism" to suit its own policies, it's totalitarian.
And another: If you can't discern the difference between "majority rule" and "mob rule", then is there one?
If a system of government builds in checks and balances to provide protection for minorities, why can't these be simply voted away? Or brushed aside by the very power infrastructure that was put in place to protect these minorities?
So, wherever you might be now, thanks for not answering the "what is fascism" question, Ms. Grundy. If only you had satisfied a bored ten year-old's curiousity all those years ago, you wouldn't have made a life-long libertarian out of me. Aren't you proud?
Published: April 25, 2008 5:36 PM
Nice
Published: April 25, 2008 10:41 PM
Does this sound like today?
Video (.mpg, .avi, etc.) The New Vampire Economy: Banks and the Socialization of Investment (video)
Jeffrey M. Herbener
Recorded 10/07/2005 [31:44] You may download the file from the following location: http://mises.org/multimedia/video/ss05/ss05-Herbener.wmv
Published: April 26, 2008 7:59 AM
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"Truculent" means "savage, cruel."
That's why I've joined "truc" and "femist" here,
in order to create a word with which to attack
socialists/communists :
Please add "trucfemist" to your vocabulary, to
defend against the mis-use of "fascist," which
latter term socialists/communists use to tag
anyone to the right of them, as being Hitlerites:
Use my term:
Trucfemism, noun. 1. the doctrines, methods, or movement of Trucfemists. 2. a system of government characterized by bureaucratization, belligerent intrusion in citizens’ affairs, world domination by militarism and/or cultural destabilization, “fair” and equal redistribution of wealth and land, etc.: first instituted in Russia by Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) after the revolution of 1917. 3. trukfemists' behavior.
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Published: April 26, 2008 9:17 AM
"If a system of government builds in checks and balances to provide protection for minorities, why can't these be simply voted away? Or brushed aside by the very power infrastructure that was put in place to protect these minorities?"
All rights can be voted away in a democracy. It is one of the weaknesses of a democracy dubbed "The Tyranny of the Majority".
But there has yet to be a better system developed for making decisions in groups than democracy. The equal voice of each person has so far won out to any notions of elitist systems such as monarchy, plutocracy or theocracy for example.
Anarchy is not a method of making decisions in groups because where more than one individual comes together anarchy does not help them to make joint decisions.
Published: April 29, 2008 8:15 AM
The confusion about the concepts of Socialism, Comunism, Fascism, Liberalism, etc, etc continues.
In order to understand what Fascism is WE must read "The Revolution Betrayed" by Leon Trotsky.
First it is mandatory to understand the concept of "Statism"
I am sorry for Mr. John T. Flynn, but this article is a rather shallow and superficial treatment of Fascism as a historic phenomenum
Published: April 29, 2008 10:29 AM