Quote of the day—Eric Raymond

If your candidate fascist is ideologically pro-free-market, false match. Even if he merely displays an affection for large scale corporate capitalism, that ain’t fascist. For the very direct reason that big corporations are a power center, or collection of power centers, competing with the unitary state. Fascists never tolerate that well.

Something else fascists never tolerate well is unregistered civilian firearms, or registered ones in the hands of anyone not signed up in one of the leader’s thug militias. A fascist looks at these and sees a civilian insurrection waiting to happen, and generally has a pretty keen sense of how quickly said civilian insurrection can end up with him hung up dead in the town square someplace like Giulino di Mezzegra.

Eric Raymond
Spotting the wild Fascist
April 30, 2019
[Via email from Chris M.—Joe]

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6 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Eric Raymond

  1. “…has a pretty keen sense of how quickly said civilian insurrection can end up with him hung up dead in the town square someplace like Giulino di Mezzegra.”

    After all that’s how he got in power in the first place.

    • The Fascist is generally more simpatico with the directors of the corporations since they can be easily suborned with the promise of profits and orderliness. While Mussolini and Hitler outlawed trade unions, it was not for greater competition but to bring the trade unions into the control of the state.
      Mussolini’s slogan “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state” means that you may yet own the land or business or house, or whatever, but what you do with it is decided by the state.

      • Yup. As I put it over there;
        Another key feature of fascism is that it partners (by hook or by crook) with captains of industry rather than than officially seizing industries for state ownership. It’s purely a matter of appearances of course. While communism outright asserts state ownership of the means of production, fascism maintains some of the trappings of private ownership while controlling things anyway.

        By this measure, all of what were once the Western nations are becoming increasingly fascist.

        I point out also that you have perfectly described the papal system.

        • Of course large private capital owners are keep to maximize profits, so working hand-in-iron-glove with the state is in their better interests, as they want a defacto monopoly that the state can tacitly grant… like Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc. Having the ,appearance of competition, without the messy actuality of surprise winners and losers because of merit rather than political connections or kompromat maximizes profits and power for those in position.

          I used to think we had a fee system, with pockets of corruption. Now I think it’s more the reverse. Cue Q-Anon discussion.

  2. We could add another indicator for our immediate time;
    Fascists are the ones most often pointing a finger at others and calling them “fascists”.
    To be more specific;
    Fascists are the ones calling themselves anti fascists.

    In American leftist-agitator parlance (fascist parlance), a “fascist” is anything they don’t like. If the cook at an upscale restaurant mistook your order and served you something else, or if he added too much salt, etc., that makes him a “fascist”. If McDonald’s runs out of chicken nuggets, it means they’re “fascist”. If your neighbor flies an American flag, and you’ve been trained at university to hate the American flag, now it is thus proven that your neighbor is a “fascist”, etc., etc., etc., etc. They use the term because it has for so long been assumed that a fascist is someone who can be hated and persecuted without guilt. It’s the same reason that a Nazi will call other people “nazis”. It’s a free ticket to hate, and of course an authoritarian is always looking for free, or cheap, tickets to hate.

    That leads to another indicator for fascism or any among the wide spectrum of authoritarians; they’re always pointing to some other class or demographic as a target of hate, specifically for the purpose of empowering the state (ostensibly against that class or demographic, but mainly for empowering the state or state leader). By this measure, all Democrats and Republicans are fascists. The specific targets for the hate will change with the political seasons and necessities, but the process always remains.

    This concept is demonstrated throughout all authoritarian thinking in what we’ll call “The Fantasy of the Common Threat”, which has been openly admitted, in many forms, by many authoritarians. It’s that always dreamed of, always desired, powerful and readily definable enemy that poses such an immediate threat that all of Humanity will forget even its most intense disagreements and unite against that Common Threat. You’ll find this theme throughout science fiction and movies, and sprinkled here and there throughout political rhetoric.

    Such fantasies occur only in the authoritarian mind. The fantasy of “Coming Together” in “Unity” may even appear to be a righteous one, until you realize that it’s a fantasy of coming together under the banner of the fantasizing, would-be dictator.

    Fascists will ALWAYS be asserting some Common Threat, real or imagined, attempting to use it to the advantage of state power. Global Cooling Global Warming Climate Change Climate Chaos being one obvious example, but there are hundreds of them besides.

    The Fantasy of the Common Threat is not exclusive to fascists, as it applies to all authoritarians, but you don’t have a proper fascist without it.

  3. That was perfect Joe. I always laugh when I hear Antifa call someone like me a fascist. because the end state of what they propose is fascism. or some sort of commie bullshit system.
    “The 2A is like sunlight to a vampire.” Too funny!

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