Charlie Kirk shot at an event in Utah

[FlyersFan]

I'm tired of people making points by links and quotes, rather than putting things in their own words. It happens very often here.

It happens every time here because most people want to see actual information that comes in links and quotes rather than just people giving an opinion without anything to back it up with.

[putnam6]

[Ignorant]

It happens every time here because most people want to see actual information that comes in links and quotes rather than just people giving an opinion without anything to back it up with.

Pretty much every point imaginable has been made by someone on the internet. If we're here just to repeat other people's points, what is the value of this website? I am here for opinions. Your opinions. If you can post them in your own words, that would be great.

[UltraBudgie]

[Image: https://denyignorance.com/uploader/image...48-005.jpg]

[Image: https://denyignorance.com/uploader/image...17-613.jpg]

"And just like that, everyone was a snowflake."

"What happened next Grandpa?"

[Ignorant]

I mean if you want to get in to actual fascistic parallels you could mention that the the US dollar is squeezed to provide a minimal sustainable domestic framework while maximizing economic investment and direct funding of the Department of War. That's sort of fascistic, right?

America's financial exploitation of other parts of the world to fund its military (a simplified characterization, but it serves us well enough) can be described as ultranationalism which is one aspect of fascism, sure. But I think that's a bit of a stretch and would much rather just call it imperialism.

[Ignorant]

You poor thing.  You don't get how it works.   The fascist leadership is at the top, and then their brainwashed followers do the leg work and are part of the fascist machine.    Everyone, all the lay people, get in on it.   Read up on fascist WWII Germany and see how it was done.   Teachers.  "Journalists" (propagandists).  Doctors.  Lawyers.  Judges.   Shop workers.  Everyone carries the banner and is part of the machine.

Inadvertently supporting a fascist regime doesn't make you a fascist, just a useful idiot. There were many useful idiots in Germany in the thirties, somewhat understandably.

I fail to see what fascist regime the NYT and female (specifically female, apparently) grade school teachers are supporting.

[UltraBudgie]

America's financial exploitation of other parts of the world to fund its military (a simplified characterization, but it serves us well enough) can be described as ultranationalism which is one aspect of fascism, sure.

I think it's more faddish to refer to that aspect as economic colonialism, but sure. It's the British model, where ostensibly non-government corporate industry is the vanguard of economic exploitation, but both the "free market" and the government are in fact the same as the "hidden hand" controlling both is the same. The US military machine supports a framework in which global resource exploitation can occur, in favour of US interests. Or so they say. But you know the kind of things they say. In a way, it's the opposite of fascism, which has as its characteristic overt governmental control over the productive economy.

Which is more what I was pointing out about the US: the military industrial complex is a command economy, the implementation ostensibly led by privatized interests, but those interests are a revolving-door of governmental entanglement. And the domestic economy is beholden to support military industry, to the point where "defense" spending is essentially non-discretionary. That's overtly fascistic.

[Ignorant]

I think it's more faddish to refer to that aspect as economic colonialism, but sure. It's the British model, where ostensibly non-government corporate industry is the vanguard of economic exploitation, but both the "free market" and the government are in fact the same as the "hidden hand" controlling both is the same. The US military machine supports a framework in which global resource exploitation can occur, in favour of US interests. Or so they say. But you know the kind of things they say. In a way, it's the opposite of fascism, which has as its characteristic overt governmental control over the productive economy.

Which is more what I was pointing out about the US: the military industrial complex is a command economy, the implementation ostensibly led by privatized interests, but those interests are a revolving-door of governmental entanglement. And the domestic economy is beholden to support military industry, to the point where "defense" spending is essentially non-discretionary. That's overtly fascistic.

I think the part that's non-discretionary is running a budget deficit. Why? Because the US is an import economy and dollars are leaving the country. They find their way to foreign central banks, who then face a choice: Buy up American assets, or loan the dollars back to the US government. The US doesn't want American assets to fall into foreign hands, so it has through diplomacy engineered a status quo where foreign central banks loan this money back to the US government. Since, to support this, its government has to borrow a bunch of dollars, it has to run a budget deficit.

By spending it on the military the US has found a way to inject dollars back into the domestic economy while also using its military to project soft power all over the world. There are undoubtedly better ways to spend a trillion dollars domestically (to be fair, it's hard to quantify the value the US is getting out of its military power). But as you suggested, the MIC is itself a powerful entity. It grew into an insatiable beast during the cold war, and afterwards there hasn't been the political will to change the status quo and reassign the budget to things that could more effectively improve US standards of living.

Economic colonialism or financial imperialism are reasonable ways to describe US foreign policy. I hesitate to call it fascism because fascism to me requires a dictatorial government and forced oppression of opposition. While there is still democracy and freedom of the press, ailing though they may be, the US can't be called fascist. We can say that some of its policies are similar to what a fascist government would be doing, but ultimately there is little value in that and it just confuses people.

What's the hidden hand you speak of? It seems to me that the US is acting as you would expect a global economic hegemon to act. Selfishly.

[Bush Master]

[Bush Master]

That is factually untrue.

Statistically, more people are killed by those who lean Right.

That's so vague as to have zero meaning.

Not a shock, considering.