US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1447

On May 11 2019 01:48 IgnE wrote:


Maybe when I have more time I’ll circle back to monarchies, but to put perhaps a finer point on it, is xenophobia fascist?

Has anyone else noticed that travel has become a status symbol among educated millennials in a way that owning your own house might have been 20 years ago?

On May 11 2019 02:38 Acrofales wrote:

Not sure about his supporters, but I don't think Trump believes in elections. At least not any election in which he loses. Any in which he wins must be fair. Any in which he loses must be rigged.

On May 11 2019 04:38 IgnE wrote:
Well words mean things P6. If you care about the substance don’t lazily resort to elastic labels.

On May 11 2019 03:17 Nebuchad wrote:


Again, I'd like to see the argument. I've been starting to do this research and so far the main difference that I can see between the two system is the ultranationalism part, which I've mentioned in my post to IgnE. If there's a glaring difference that I'm missing I would very much like to be educated. This wiki page doesn't really do that tho.

On May 11 2019 04:49 Sr18 wrote:


Well, the way I understand it, monarchy is a type of governance while fascism is a set of political ideals. One is about how power is distributed, the other about what it should be used for. They can coincide, but have little to do with eachother. They don't exist on the same scale, so comparing them seems pointless.

On May 11 2019 05:17 Nebuchad wrote:


You can still make comparisons. For example, you can say that monarchy as a type of governance is very difficult to conciliate with socialism as a set of political ideals. If a lot of the ideas supporting monarchy are the same as the ideas supporting fascism, then it stands to reason that the two will be closely related.

On May 11 2019 05:36 Plansix wrote:

I have to object to this framing. This uses a logical construction that could be used to prove that religious beliefs and the science of biology are closing related because they are both printed in books. As Farva pointed earlier, both political ideologies arose due to the circumstances of their time period and cannot be simply plucked out of them and compared like two piece of fruit. At best it is an interesting thought experiment, but that is about it.

On May 11 2019 05:50 Nebuchad wrote:


I have to object to this objection :p. Most (all?) political ideologies contain informations on how society should be organized, and not all systems of organization are suitable for all ideologies. It's quite different from something as neutral as being written in a book.

And I mean... of course you should consider context. When we had a bunch of monarchies, the concept of nations was different from the concept of nations we had in 1930, for example, so as a result fascists used different methods to form the group "us" that should rule over others. We can recognize that and still draw parallels, as you did before. I appear to be drawing more parallels than most.

On May 11 2019 06:18 Plansix wrote:

As you stated, there is no single concept on monarchy, not was the political ideology created in a set period of time. To trace back the origins of monarchy one has to delve into anthropology, as the roots go back to a period when we do not have a clear understand of recorded history. The records of the first kings and queens of any region did not survive for us to study. Monarchy also predates the technology to pass product written documentation(aka, the printing press), so tracing its political evolution across Europe is challenging, inaccurate and based on incomplete information. It is also hard to tell what political systems came before monarchy, because again, we lack complete information.

Fascism is a political ideology that arose in the late 19th and early 20th century that we can easily trace to a group of specific people. The vast majority of the records surrounding that time period have survived and we have a clear understanding of how the political theory progressed across Europe and beyond. We also have a clear understand of the social and economical influences that allowed fascism to become so dominate in specific countries, will be repelled by others.

For all of these reasons, I have a real problem with these comparisons. People adopted monarchy as a government in the absence of anything else. From all our understanding, it was an effort to create stability and protection from outside human forces. Fascism roots may be in reframing the concept of a king so it would be accepted a democratic society, but that is where the comparison ends.

On May 11 2019 07:21 Nebuchad wrote:


Can't I do stuff like...

"Fascism wants a rigid societal order"
"Monarchy has a rigid societal order"

"Fascism wants the group that is on top to be on top because that's how things are, not because of merit"
"Monarchy has rule based on destiny"

"Fascism wants authoritarianism to maintain hierarchies"
"Monarchy has authoritarianism"

"Fascism wants to remove democracy"
"Monarchy isn't democracy"

I understand that this sort of stuff ignores context, sure. But keep in mind that context can also shed light on a lot of the differences between monarchy and fascism. Feudalism and capitalism require a different upkeep, and are not equally effective at achieving things. One of the contexts has had more humanist influence, so it's easier to oppress The Other than the peasant. There is more individualism and less collectivism, so we put in more nationalism. Society is more diverse, so race is a better system of oppression than religion (especially since whiteness has been invented in the meantime).

On May 11 2019 08:16 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
There were many crusades. Many different people had many different motives, but for certain a prime motive was religious reasons. The Christian states of the medieval period barely needed a reason to go to invade each other for land, power and money in their incessant warfare, nevermind the heathens. There wasn't any real reason to wrap it up in propaganda. We will never know as will simply cannot read the minds of those involved, but the first crusade involved "the peoples crusade" which could not have been motivated by the reason of land, power and money, and makes for a rather hilarious read.