Anytime anyone on a forum starts spouting fascist bullshit, you aren't allowed to call him on it without someone crying "Godwin!". This is a ridiculous meme that has completely infiltrated most, if not all, of the internet. It allows fascist ideas to be promulgated everywhere, and if anyone tries to compare what is being said or done to historical fascist activities that are exact mimics of the current crap being spouted, they are immediately dismissed out of hand.
If I was a nazi, I'd LOVE this. Hell, I'd be calling "Godwin!" all the time. It desensitizes people to what is actually being said, so they allow the same fascist crap to be repeated ad nauseum on sites that should damn well know better (RPGNet Tangency is really big on this, for example). Of course, the nazi wannabes say, "I'm not a fascist! No way! I'm a socialist! We're the good guys!". And then he continues with the same fascist rhetoric that's been in use since the 1920's.
Another prime example is the recent fight on some OSR blogs where someone claims to represent all of rpg gamers, and saying games like Lamentations of the Flame Princess should not be allowed to be published because they are morally bad, thanks to some pretty nasty art scenes in the books. It's the same kind of puritanical crap that has caused so many of our freedoms to be removed on a daily basis. Don't allow this kind of rhetoric to stand unchallenged!
People, you need to wake up and confront fascism in all it's forms, and not run away afraid just because of the word Godwin.
edit:
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power” - Benito Mussolini
11 comments:
Ain't it funny how some people misinterpret? "Godwin's Law" is just a simple observation. Give people on the internet enough time and heated debate, and someone's gonna mention Hitler/Nazis with regard to the other side's view-point.
That's all.
Not a prescription, just an observation.
Now, people seem to think they can 'call you out' on it. What, is Godwin gonna track you down, come to your house, and beat you up while you eat your burrito?
It's pretty silly, and I agree with you. Call a spade a spade, and don't let the assholes get away with their fascist crap.
It's the weekend, a great time to get outside and enjoy the beautiful weather, take in the fresh air, and so on.
@Paladin-He just keeps going man. I asked him yesterday to apologize and to cool this thing out.
So what has he done now? Remember his not posting bit? Well go look for yourself...he's at it again. Now we live in a box. I believe he has become seriously unbalanced.
I still can't get behind the misuse of the term "fascist." Nobody is wearing armbands and holding torchlight rallies. We need to find terms for, and arguments against, low-level intolerance that don't overstate the case.
Fascism is a radical, authoritarian nationalist political ideology.
Fascists advocate the creation of a totalitarian single-party state that seeks the mass mobilization of a nation through indoctrination, physical education, and family policy including eugenics.
Fascists seek to purge forces, ideas, and systems deemed to be the cause of decadence and degeneration...
Hmmm, sounds about right to me...
Check out the link on Planet Algol, to an article written by Zak and compare it to Greg's last post.
Yup, this has done went all Rod Serling...guess there is only one card left to play...
THE ACE OF SPADES!
THE ACE OF SPADES!
Roger,
The fascists aren't stupid. They dropped all the regalia because it failed. Now they cloak themselves with "nice" names and pretend to be your friend, all the while sharpening their daggers.
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power” - Benito Mussolini
If you don't see that happening right now in the US, you're not paying attention.
"Yup, this has done went all Rod Serling...guess there is only one card left to play...
THE ACE OF SPADES!
THE ACE OF SPADES!"
That is,"The only card I need!" after all.
What you say says more about yourself than the subject you're talking about.
Adolf Hitler wasn't a "facist", no one in the Third Reich belonged to any "facist" party. "Nazi" means National Socialist. The Facists were Italians.
Lest you think I'm some anarcho-capitalist trying to blame Hitler on the Democrats, I'm not. I'm trying make a point.
NO ONE brought up under Communism will ever call the Third Reich "socialist", because, in Marxism, the word "socialist" has a very specific meaning.
For the same reason, someone raised in the USSR won't call Cuba "communist", they'll call it "socialist".
Most of us who who grew up in the West may not know the finer points of Marxist ideology, but the fact that "facist" is being thrown around like an epithet at a Communist Party USA meeting in the 1950's is a sure sign that the followers of Karl Marx have had quite an influence indeed.
We all know the orthodox Marxists of the USSR who were primarily concerned about economics, class, "the means of production" and so on, but there was another group of Marxists who have had far more influence in the West since WWII.
Often referred to as "Cultural Marxists", they were a group of Marxists who translated Marxism from economic terms into social terms. Among their notable accomplishments was the blending of Marxism with Freudianism, the development of "critical theory", and creating "the right-wing authoritarian personality" as a pseudo-mental disorder to explain why people don't embrace Marxism.
It is these "Frankfurt School" ideologues who have managed to DEFINE the paramaters of reality - right & wrong, good & evil - that so many in the contemporary West live within, present company ESPECIALLY.
Look into the "Frankfurt School", you might like to know where your ENTIRE world view comes from.
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