From: Jim choate <ravage@bga.com>
Date: Fri, 9 Sep 94 08:29:06 PDT
To: jamesd@netcom.com (James A. Donald)
Subject: Re: CONTROL FREAKS (nee, AIDs testing and privacy)
In-Reply-To: <199409090533.WAA04550@netcom3.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <199409091528.KAA28635@zoom.bga.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text


> 
> Fascism was a more sophisticated and coherent philosophy than
> you give it credit for.  Hitler mass marketed a vulgarized
> mass market version to the ignorant unwashed masses, but this
> was only after the political romantic philosophies came to have
> substantial support among the intellectuals, and this philosophical
> support was translated into political support by intellectuals 
> for the various volkish parties, one of which was the National
> German Socialist Workers party, which Hitler later joined
> and swiftly came to dominate.
>
I hate to burts your bubble but the masses of the Germany of the first
half of this century were no more unwashed or ignorant than today. The
Germany of that day was technologicaly sophisticated and education was
as wide spread as it is today. The vast majority of Germans could read
and do their cyphers (couldn't resist). The reason that Nazi success was
so great was because of two simple reasons. First they were so heavily
'victimized' by the peace treaty of WWI and secondly, because they saw
as a means to bypass this humiliation a return to the past, ie monarchy
and more ideal Germanic ideals. The Germans of that time thought they
were the best and the brightest and saw their predicimate as a humiliating
turn of events. These people got tires of everyone else blaiming them.

> There really is no similar contender on the scene today.
>
There is always a contender. 

> The fascists were able to take power only after the ideas that
> underly fascism had been growing in support and sophistication
> for three hundred years.  When put into practice this system 
> of ideas suffered a devastating setback, not only the particular
> form that we called fascism, but all forms.
>
In Italys case, the fascist were voted in. They did not 'take' the power
it was given to them.  A case can be made that Hindenburg in Germany gave
the power to Hitler (even though there was clearly a case  of threat 
imposed as a sweetner).

> While a military dictatorship is possible, a military dictatorship
> that is not armed with good volkish philosophy is unlikely to
> be capable of doing much harm, because military dictatorships
> are continually and gravely threatened by loss of internal cohesion
> and discipline.
>
Germany, Italy, and Japan did not start out as military dictatorships. Both
Germany and Italy were relative demecrocies which did not take into account
a lot of their 'reality'. The powers that be were more interested in making
a 'ideal' society but not realizing that folks outside of their borders were
not going to play along. This is the exact same reason that the USSR failed
today. Competition.

> A military takeover might well be a good thing.  The soldiers could
> in the short term impose discipline on a corrupt and lawless government,
> and in the long term would profoundly weaken that which they sought
> to strengthen.
>
Whose discipline? Exactly whose ideals and morality do we impose? A military
takeover is  NEVER a good thing. Implicit in its existance is the assumption
that people can't take care  of themselves. This particular dichotomy harks
back to the Enlightenment and the  Great Awakening. The real root of th e
problem is that we (as humans) have never devised a system which is Janus
faced in that  it recognizes that some people believe a strong central 
structure is good and those that disagree. To build a system which forces
either to compromise is wrong (either way you become what you hate the most).
What needs to be developed (and may be created as a fate acompli through
technology) is a system that lets 'control freaks' control and 'freedom
hounds' be free. In a certain way (though admittedly less than perfect)
the structure of  Internet is a good example. What you have is little
islands of freedom (ie each system) controlled very tightly by a commen
thread or standard of communication. Democracy in our country should work
the same way. There should be a very tightly controlled methodology for 
states to communicate and assist each other (ie Federal beurocracy) but
at the same time the individual states can do pretty much as they want
in their own borders.

> 
>  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> We have the right to defend ourselves and our
> property, because of the kind of animals that we              James A. Donald
> are.  True law derives from this right, not from
> the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.                jamesd@netcom.com
> 
> 
>