Angel: Mr. Clemens, the political-correction Nazis have re-written Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer to expunge the offending n-word! Do you have a comment? Punk: Preferably but no necessarily printable.
@baslimthebegger:
I would think that Mr.Clemens would be willing to use a popular cliche to make a point, even if he disagreed with it.
And the printable part of his comment would be:
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. — Twain, Mark
The speech police attempt to control the people by controlling how we speak and think.
For once I agree with Oliphant but how is using a substitute for the word that everyone understands different from using the word itself? The word in question is just a form of the Latin for black.
Maybe Pat’s word choice (Political-correct Nazis) sounds Republican, but the idea that changing the literature of the past to suit the sensibilities of the present is warped is hardly Republican. I’ll bet a vast majority of Democrats would agree.
On the other hand, a conservative bible recently came out that does just that to scripture - expunging the liberal parts, as it were.
Et tu, Pat? Did these “PC Nazis” systematically kill 11 million people? Did they conduct horrific medical experiments on civilians and try to create a “master race”? No? THEN DON’T CALL THEM NATZIS!
As for the “N” word, it’s called talking to the children, discussing what it means, and the context in which it was written. My class read that book unaltered. Our teacher took great pains to discuss “that word” and the narrow context in which it was acceptable to use in class (in a direct quote of the book only). If we were to use it outside that context we would fail the class and receive serious detention time for racism.
charlie: They substituted the word “slave” for the N-word. Clemens knew exactly what he was doing. He was showing how racism turned fellow human beings into things, in part by assigning them another word.
There is a shock value for the word today that did not exist then, but frankly I think Clemens would like it even better as a consequence. He was deliberately taking a shot at society, after all – that was the whole point of the book! That’s why racists try to censor it - it makes them look bad.
As for your comment on writers’ words not being sacrosanct, there is a big difference between translating into another language entirely and censoring specific words that make people uncomfortable, which is what is being done here, in Twain’s own language (it’s not like it’s unreadable by modern readers!). The former is a special case that, when done well, tries to capture the intent of the writer rather than revising it. The latter is changing what the writer wrote and meant. I don’t accept it. And you may decide that is personal bias as a published author and the husband of an award-winning published author, but it also means I know whereof I speak personally.
I work in Detroit Mi. and actually there must not be anything wronge with using the so called N-word because I hear people saying it all the time so whats the problem because is’nt racist to allow one group of people to use the word and not the other group
This is nothing new; there have been attempts to censor Huckleberry Finn going on since the early sixties. The late Bill Mauldin once drew a fabulous cartoon about it – a gaggle of birds with scissors for heads, systematically turning a copy of Huck FInn into Swiss cheese.
Like the previous attempts to bowdlerize HF, I believe this one will come to naught as well.
As for you Charlie….yeah riiiiiight, it’s ‘those people’s’ OWN fault.
And by the way, Jesus DID condemn organized religion; His blast at the lawyers and Pharisees ( “You make your followers twice as fit for Hell as you are yourselves.” ) was not directed at any individual, but at the religious heirarchy of His day as a whole.
The “n” word with two Gs does NOT have a positive context, past or present, except in our misguided urban youth.
The word “niger,” meaning “Black” in several languages and also the nave of a river in Africa, is more likely the closest thing to a safe word. Niger with 2 Gs is and always has been a derogatory term for black people.
I do not agree with the censoring of this book. This is getting ridiculous. We have books removing bad words, we have Southern governments saying they didn’t go to war over slavery (they did, it was one of the primary declarations in their constitution), this is just getting stupid.
It’s as bad to “revise” Huck Finn as it would be to do the same for any novel that includes the vernacular of the times in its dialogue or descriptions. Imagine “Americanizing” Dickens’ works. One of the reasons these works survive is because of the colorful language of the times. Revisionist ANYTHING degrades the art.
Make the religious right learn Aramaic and Greek, neither Latin nor English will do! Original text only.
Sam Clemens documented his culture, and commented on it, in the recognizable language of his day. Brighter than many of his contemporaries, he led an “interesting” life and saw first hand much of what he wrote about.
Today, “judgements” are made by those without experience, knowledge, or an interest in understanding any different from themselves- they are the true “bigots”.
The whole point of the N-word with two g’s in Huckleberry Finn is to illustrate the point that this character was the most tender and caring one of them all, even though society had given him the derogatory title. It was purposely paradoxical.
If the book was a racist diatribe, I suppose I would understand, but ultimately I believe in leaving things exactly as they were published in their day, because for the most part, works of art are important to us in the future not so merely for the lessons they teach, but for the slice of historical perspective that they offer.
Richard S., a more galling instance of “Americanizing” the Harry Potter books was changing the title of the first volume. The target audiences in the UK and the USA were the same, but for some reason they figured American kids would be more confused by the Philosopher’s Stone than British kids. “Sorcerer’s Stone” my foot. Is it any wonder our schoolchildren are falling behind the rest of the world in Alchemy scores?
Sounds like the real problem is how the book is being taught. Whether the n word has a different meaning now would be a moot point, if the book is taught in historical context. Reading the book with no idea about the time it was written does a disservice to both the author and the reader.
why don’t they print their expurgated version on Mr. Clemon’s printing press, you know, the one that didn’t work and cost him thousands and thousands of $
There is something that absolutely blows my mind about the american use of the N word; a black comedian saying “n/gga” is to a white person saying “n*gger” what Spaceballs is to Star Wars.
The use of the n word in rap culture is an example of reappropriation. My old handle “Corosive Frog”, was an attempt at it. The word “frog” was used as a racial slur against french canadians for centuries, along with “speak white” (that one was recuperaed, too. It became the title of a poem (by Michèle Lalonde, in 1970) and a short film by Pierre Falardeau and Julien Poulin.)
Many words used to insult homosexuals (like f@g, bleeep, sssy) and to insult women and feminists (like “btch”) have been recuperated, too.
I think it’s one of the most awesome things an oppressed group can do; It’s standing up and saying; “You used that word as weapon, I’m fed up and I’m not gonna let it hurt me anymore. I’ll take that stupid little word and use it so much it becomes absolutely meaningless. Or better yet; turn it into my political slogan!”
It’s so much better than bombing mailboxes!
Better yet; after emancipation, it may be tempting for the majority to forget that those groups were oppressed not so long ago but when you hear those words, you can’t pretend the past was all rosy; the hard truth comes right back into your face and that’s what hurts.
There’s something hypocritical about that taboo aboud the n word. You see, the popular culture is full of racial stereotypes; the welfare queen, mainstream rap culture directed at suburban white kids, movies…but “look, we are not racist at all and we’ve never been, we ban the N word from our language.”
Charlie555 said: “Clement could not have been using it in the way it is defined today - as a racial slur.”
Charlie, you are dead wrong! Twain knew very well and fully intended the shock value of using “nigger” in Huck Finn. (Why is everyone tippy-toeing around the use of the word “nigger”? It’s the central topic of Oliphant’s cartoon, and if the word is censored in our comments, the ‘toon should not have been published.) “Nigger” was a bastardization of Niger to Negro to “Nigra” to “nigger”, and it has always been used in a derogatory sense. Just because it was used by “genteel” whites didn’t make it any less of a slur. Think about the delicious irony of Jim’s comment about a steamboat boiler explosion: “Nobody was hurt. Two niggers killed, but nobody was hurt.”
And “nigger” in no way translates as “slave”. There were white slaves in Greece and Rome who were teachers and social companions. We slave away at work. But to call someone a “nigger” is to reduce him to a sub-human animal. Not the same at all!
To change the word so as to not have to face up to the consequences is indicative of American society’s refusal to take responsibility for their actions. The book shouldn’t be censored in any way and parents and teachers should use it to explain the deplorable situation from which it arose.
pdenman said, “cdward - the Nazis were actually extreme right wing.”
Nazis were National Socialists. That would be left wing.
Bluejayz you are not entirely correct. At some point in time the Latin root for black (niger) and Greek (negros) was used by the Spanish and Portuguese to describe the inhabitants of sub-Saharan Africa. As the English speaking people became acquainted with the term it became pronounced as “nigger” and later when spelling was standardized the dictionary writers of that age went back to the Latin and Greek to use “Negro” as the term of choice. However, in many areas the pronunciation remained the same and today would have been spelled “nigger.” The term hasn’t been negative or derogatory until relatively recently and that really depends on the context of the audience.
blackash, you are incorrect. The Nazis were right-wing. Every legitimate historian in the entire world says that. Just because the word “socialist” was in the name doesn’t make them left-wing. Hitler took over an existing name and made it a right-wing organization. He also attacked the left (socialists and Communists) right from the beginning. So calling him a leftist is simply absurd.
As for your interpretation of the negative value of the N-word, that is a recent interpretation. Just because they used it for the inhabitants of sub-Saharan Africa does not mean it wasn’t insulting, either. It just means they thought everyone there was inferior.
charlie, I did not say the meaning was different. I said it had greater shock value today, because people not only realize it is an insulting slur, but it is one that people should not say. I say again: there is no reason to change this word. There is no compelling reason to think it will be misunderstood. It may have greater emotional impact – but that’s what writers want.
And yes, it was a slur back then, that was my point, remember? That African-Americans were called “boy,” or “nigger” instead of being treated as human beings.
Sorry, but this liberal doesn’t censor books. Only the author has that right. In this case, since he has been dead lo these many years, the book should stand as is.
In the french-speaking world, there is a controversy like that about “Tintin in the Congo”. It was the first book of the Tintin series, writen in the late 1920s by a belgian author and set in the Congo, which was a Belgian colony, back then.
The book, although the Tintin series is a major work in 20th century french-language litterature and essentially founded a cartoon style, the frenco-belgian, is ridden with black stereotypes, colonialist imagery and other stuff that just doesn’t fit the idealistic character Tintin later became.
People want to censor that. Is it reallly out of fear of outraging a nation that, as to this day, endures much worse than a comic book and has other things to worry about or is it becasue we are ashamed of believing all that cr@p?
The “n” word must be left in the novel, but not everyone has had the profoundly uncomfortable experience I had in reading the inflammatory word aloud to a high school English class which included African-American students who had a hard time understanding Twain’s intent in putting the word in the mouths of not just the racists in the book, but in his hero, Huck’s, and that of the nobel Jim. It was hard, if not impossible, to convince them that Huck was an unwitting inheritor of racist attitudes and Jim was not simply an “Uncle Tom,” but an uneducated victim of society in the same sense that Huck was. I made the decision in reading the book aloud to supplant the “n word with the word “slave.” l have a hard time deciding if I was a coward or if I was justified in serving the dignity of those black kids who just didn’t understand.
Hey, Bluejayz: It was Huck who said nobody hurt, just a nigger killed, not Jim. Jim would never have said that.
And of course, while Huck likely never learned how dehumanizing the word was, he learned to love Jim and appreciate his humanity and nobility.
Nazi, Fascist, Marxist, Maoist, Socialist, Communist, Progressive………………….it’s all the same sick, fanatical belief in state control of individuals lives. All of these cults are ultimately statists that evolve into totalitarianism. And it’s all Left Wing.
Five hundred years ago if as an English speaker I went to West Africa and called a native of the area black how would that have been insulting or a slur?
“Nazi, Fascist, Marxist, Maoist, Socialist, Communist, Progressive………………….it’s all the same sick, fanatical belief in state control of individuals lives”
Really? I haven’t spoken to many nazis, fascists, Marxists, Maoists, or Communists, but the several Socialists and “progressives” I’ve discused were hardly fanatical, or sick. In fact, progressives aren’t all that keen on giving the state near-total control of individuals’ lives - it stresses some economic redistribution, but countries with much more “progressive” influences, like Sweden, have produced millionnaires as well.
Left-wing ideologies have their fair share of skeletons in the closet, but I think you are just engaging in feel-good political name-calling here by bunching all those political terms together an pinning them on the other side.
Great job getting me sidetracked, though.
Anyway, we sometimes do get a little hung up on the whole “race” issue.
Most people that can’t win the argument resort to ad hominem attacks.
I don’t consider the use of Latin and Greek derivatives of the word “black” to be part of the debate on the classification of political and social systems but some of you keep wanting to make the case that it is.
Read “Mein Kampf”, “The Communist Manifesto” and “The Public and its Problems” and then tell me the authors aren’t students of the same school of thought.
As an Individualist Libertarian with strong traditional and conservative social beliefs I find the idea of the totalitarian state abhorrent. Would any of you seriously suggest that Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro or Robert Mugabe are anything but totalitarian? If you travel to the extreme left wing of the political spectrum you will find Totalitarianism.
twians use of the word “nigger”, in huck finn was intentional and it is a necessary part of the reading as it shows, internally how the mind and language and racism work.
you can find twains commentary on the sanitization BECAUSE the controversy existed back then, as well.
some of you might try reading the book. “slave” is ridiculous.
the changing of the word was done because some of the readers found it “injurous”.
awwwwwww. then those readers can’t possibly ever understand, accomodate or assimilate twains point in huck finn, and shouldn’t bother reading it in any version. sanitized it won’t work.
now as for the injurious part i say BULLS#?T
go into any new york city public school elementary, mid or high school, or i dare say any public school in america with a black population. Ride the subways before school or when school lets out.
you will hear about 1 out of every 10 words uttered by the schoolkids to be “nigger”.
i find it utterly offensive. Offensive that they use it. Offensive that if i use it in quotes, as a white man, i’ll be called a racist. What a double standard that is.
Just look at the comments to this thread, no one will even write it.
so these 6-18 year olds can use it as 10 percent of their vocabulary, but to read a great writers (on of the greatest in the english language) make a point with it, about the racisim of his time (and ours), is somehow ‘INJUROUS”.
if you believe that, i have a bridge to sell you.
and the use of “nazi” is appropriate here. The nazi’s burned books to eradicate opposing views and history. The emasculation of huck finn in this way may even be worse than burning it.
blackash’s postings are understandable, if you grant his fundamental premise: that the Left/Right divide is strictly along the line of more/less government control. As such, totalitarian systems must (by his definition) be Leftist.
Both Liberalism and Conservatism, at their extremes, have the potential to wield Total Power. Fascism weds the government to the Business Establishment. Theocracy weds the government to the Religious Establishment. I don’t know if there’s a term for this (other than “military dictatorships”), but many, MANY Totalitarian states wed the government to the Military Establishment. These are all inimical to Liberalism/Leftism, and are traditionally considered Right-Wing dictatorships. A real Communist or Socialist (that is, a MARXIST rather than Stalinist or Maoist) dictatorship, would be a “dictatorship of the proletariat”, which is sort of an oxymoron, since once power is centralized into a few hands, those in control are no longer proles.
The National Socialists were, in fact, Socialist in name only, but they were very much Nationalist (and look where Nationalist parties are traditionally placed on the Left/Right spectrum). They were supported by the Rightist interests in Germany, primarily to fight the Communists (who were, I grant, extreme Leftists).
By blackash’s formulation, the ultimate Conservatve/Rightist development would not merely be Libertarianism, but Anarchy, and that’s an absurdity.
Anarchy would be on the extreme right wing of the political spectrum and I don’t understand how that would be absurd. Many of the groups calling themselves anarchists are really marxists that are either not aware of the true definitions of the terms or are dishonest in the way they define themselves. Anarchy is almost as bad as Totalitarianism and I would hope nobody would suggest Libertarians are in favor of it.
After all was said and done the actions taken by the fascist governments of the past century regardless of their stated philosophical reasoning was little different from that taken by the self-proclaimed socialist governments. If you will read the founders of those systems you will find many started as socialists (like Mussolini) and then changed names or tactics to gain power. Their true beliefs never really changed. I would also suggest the Fascists controlled business and not the other way around.
The “right” and conservatism in general is focused on retaining the status quo, which means it conflicts completely with anarchy, blackash, which preserves nothing, and libertarianism in purest form. The overlap with the conservative GOP is in the sense of removal of government, but the conservative GOP wants to enable the power of corporations and the rich, which I think is not what libertarians intend. Some of the same methods but for quite different reasons.
Libertarians are quite close to anarchists, in my view, but deny it because fundamentally I think they naively believe that society will self-correct without anything but individuals taking action. History does not support this view. (Or see Somalia, for instance, practically a pure libertarian state in recent days.)
Where your view of fascists versus socialists doesn’t quite work is that you are mistaking totalitarianism for either. Norway and Sweden are heavily socialist but are entirely nontotalitarian. Fascism is explicitly about ONE individual controlling the government and the people absolutely, which conflicts with socialism, which is supposed to be of the people, by the people, and for the people (recognize that?), and uses the government as the main tool of the people. Quite different. (Incidentally, if you read Lincoln’s speeches on labor and the wealthy, you will think Karl Marx was one of his advisors.) Also your point that someone may start as a socialist and become something different once in power is not a criticism of socialism but of that person. You can say the same of George W. Bush, who claimed to be a compassionate conservative but showed himself otherwise when in office.
“After all was said and done the actions taken by the fascist governments of the past century regardless of their stated philosophical reasoning was little different from that taken by the self-proclaimed socialist governments. ”
The converse of that is that the actions taken by communist governments of the past century regardless of their stated philosophical reasoning were little different from those taken by the self-proclaimed fascist governments.
(I substituted “communist” for “socialist” to differentiate Stalinist Russia from, say, Sweden. The word “socialism” has a meaning, and is not merely a synonym for “bad.”)
The consolidation of power and social control into an entrenched and self-perpetuating system has nothing to do with the traditional, historical, and generally-accepted division between the Left and the Right, between Liberals and Conservatives. Power is its own philosophical justification, and needs no ideology.
The difference between a Leftist Totalitarian State and a Rightist Totalitarian State is in “Who holds the power?” not “How much power is wielded?” (in both cases, the power is absolute).
You may not agree with the accepted definitions of “Liberal/Conservative” or “Left/Right”, and its true that both are relative and somewhat arbitrary. But you can’t unilaterally dictate that they mean what YOU want them to mean, if you want to communicate with others in a meaningful and productive way.
(By the way, the 1960’s radicals shouting “Smash the State!” would be intensely surprised to hear themselves described as “Conservatives”.)
We are getting a long way from the cartoon and what most of us would consider censorship of Mark Twain.
Motivemagus, you set up so many straw dogs it’s difficult to know where to begin. Life is too short to respond to all of the points you make I disagree with.
As a Conservative/Libertarian Right Winger I am not in favor (and I don’t think most of the people voting as I do would be in favor) of maintaining the status quo. We also don’t want to abolish all government and we don’t want to trade governance by the people for governance by unions and corporations. Yes, libertarians are closer to anarchists than to totalitarians, but then socialists are closer to totalitarians than to anarchists. We don’t deny the point.
Not all socialist or fascist governments are totalitarian but many are authoritarian and the ones that are neither tend to be heavy handed concerning economic freedom and have burdensome taxation. Not all socialist governments are truly democratic and not all fascist governments are dictatorial. It’s six of one and a half dozen of the other. Abraham Lincoln isn’t my idea of a great President. And finally George Bush was a Moderate Republican, just like his father.
Fritzoid, you and I probably could agree on many of the things being discussed here but we can’t agree on what the “accepted definitions of “Liberal/Conservative” or “Left/Right” are. That doesn’t automatically mean your view is correct.
As a Right Winger I am opposed to government censorship or coerced private or group censorship. Conservatives and Libertarians are Right Wing and Nazis and Fascists are not.
“but we can’t agree on what the “accepted definitions of “Liberal/Conservative” or “Left/Right” are. That doesn’t automatically mean your view is correct.”
I’m correct in that my view reflects the general and accepted definitions. If YOU don’t accept them, that means they are not universally accepted, but they are generally accepted, and have been used more or less consistently as such for centuries. Look it up. From the Wikipedia article on “Left-right politics”:
“Traditionally, the Left includes progressives, social liberals, social democrats, socialists, communists and anarchists. The Right includes conservatives, reactionaries, capitalists, monarchists, nationalists and fascists.”
Look up the words “Liberal” and “Conservative” in any authoritative (not to say authoritarian) dictionary.
Words have meanings.
“Liberal” and “Conservative” are both the most moderate positions Left and Right (respectively) of the Center. Perhaps there’s a difference between “Left/Right-Wing” and “Extreme Left/Right” that we’re using differently (as you consider yourself “Right Wing” I’d consider myself “Left Wing”, but probably neither of us would be comfortable with the label “Extremist”), but just because there are attitudes and positions which are associated with the Right with which you do not agree, you can’t simply say that those positions are Leftist rather than Rightist.
As a Libertarian, what do you feel about consumer protection laws? Workplace safety laws? Equal rights legislation? Environmental protection regulations? Is Libertarianism “Do as thou wilt; That is the whole of the law” (the Satanist’s Creed) or “An it harm none, do as ye will” (the Wiccan Creed)? The difference is small, but vital. Do the powerful have a right to exploit the powerless? Does your right to swing your fist extend beyond where my nose begins?
Do you understand that the ACLU, that bugbear of the Conservatives, is fundamentally Libertarian in mission and function?
Be careful with what you find in Wikipedia. A great bit of good information can be found there along with a lot of worthless garbage.
Regardless of what Wikipedia has in one article (others say differently) the idea that anarchists are left wing and fascists are right wing is incorrect.
Mussolini started out as a socialist, was forced out of the Italian Socialist Party due to his support of Italy’s war effort, and started his own party which was based on National Socialism rather than International Socialism. His governance was basically no different from what the socialists advocated for Italy. The family feud amongst the various branches of Italian Socialism was bitter and many of the Communist and Marxist varieties of the left hated Mussolini, but it didn’t change what he was.
Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei is the German term for the National Socialist German Workers Party. The Nazi’s called themselves socialists for which I’m willing to take their word. Or would you suggest they really didn’t mean it?
Words do have meanings but when one word can mean anything it actually means nothing. Misuse of a word can make the masses believe a definition that is incorrect, but when most of humanity thought the world was flat did that make it so?
The road to hell is paved with good intentions and many laws are passed with those good intentions. We have too many laws, too many regulations and too many government bureaucrats.
One final thought, the ACLU was founded by Communists, Socialists and Pacifists. I wouldn’t call them Libertarians in philosophy or policy.
the terms liberal and conservative have lost their meaning by the butchery of politics today. as have other terms like activist judge and strict constructionist.
the terms have been usurped. by small minded groups.
I am a social liberal and fiscal conservative. In the no-so distant past this would have made me a conservative. a true conservative would find it abhorrant that the government would do anything to control or legislate morality in the bedroom, promotion of religion by government, but the neo-cons have no consiounce when it comes to that. Social, a true conservative would sound like a libertarian.
but in the modern day, a neo-conservative wants the government to enforce his ideas socially while removing government from any corporate regulation.
the neo-conservative is really very liberal (in the true sense of the word) when he wants to elevate the rights and power of the corporation to EXCEED the rights and power of the individual, while claiming the mantel of “strict constructionist”.
this is the road to facism, be it on the left or on the right. The consititution says “we the people”, the is the legitimate social contract that the experiment called the USA is founded on.
it doesn’t say “we the multi-national corporations”, yet this is what is in control. It is not legitimate, it is not our social contract, and could be well on the road to fascism, be it left, right or center.
The American Civil Liberties Union’s sole purpose for existence is to strike down laws which impinge on the Civil Liberties which are guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. They do not advocate for further laws, they seek to strike them down: for instance, laws outlawing membership in unpopular political parties, such as Communists (it is not illegal to be a Communist in America), laws compelling Pacifists to serve in combat (it is not illegal to insist on Conscientious Objector status), obscenity laws, blasphemy laws, imposition of religious ritual into state-sponsored activities (under the First Amendment, Christianity has no more privileged status than Islam or atheism). Regardless of who founded it, the ACLU is Libertarian. Again, the Liberals/Leftists have no monopoly on trying to impose intrusive laws.
Historically, most efforts in this country to legislate against/ban unpopular ideas, works of art, or literature have been made by Conservatives, in the interests of “Public Morality.” It ain’t the Liberals who tried to ban “Ulysses” and “Tropic of Cancer” or “Howl.”
And as for whether Wikipedia is authoritative, I grant you that it’s sometimes suspect. But it is in wide usgae, and most often reflects popular understanding. I quoted from the Wiki on the Left/Right Spectrum because it was readily available and recognizable, but the description it gives is COMPLETELY in line with the historical usage of the terms. It also cites its references, for easy checking, What authority can YOU cite, other than your own viewpoint, that equates fascism with Leftism?
Alonngside dannysixpack, I consider myself a fiscal conservative but a social liberal. My outlook, although not communist, is communitarian; I’ve quoted this elsewhere, but here it is again:
“It is too early for politicians to presume on our forgetting that the public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object to be pursued; and that no form of government whatever has any other value than as it may be fitted for the attainment of this object.”
That is the essence, as I consider it, of what a “Liberal Democracy” is. It was written by James Madison, in Federalist Paper No. 45. If we have strayed from this (and I will stipulate that we have), it ain’t in the direction you think.
You haven’t mentioned yet whether you consider environemntal protection regulations, consumer protection laws, industrial safety regulations – heck, even the minimum wage laws and the five-day workweek – to be “government intrusion.” Do the powerful (and in our system, wealth is equal to power) have “individual rights” to exploit the powerless?
As far as the shifting of meaning – or appropriation of terminology that bears little or no resemblace to actuality – go, consider these:
1) East Germany was officially called the “German Democratic Republic.” Do you consider that it was in any way a meaningful democracy? Are you likewise willing to “take their word?”
2) In Australia, the more conservative of the two major parties is called the “Liberal Party” (and trust me, they’re quite conservative).
One example of equating Fascism with Leftism. I could find a bunch more if you are unable to find them for yourself.
I have a very low regard for the ACLU. They have done a very poor job of defending rights like those in the Second and Tenth Amendments of the US Constitution. They’ve always been more of a Communist front organization.
I would consider myself a “Classical Liberal” which is a far cry from the left wing liberalism of today’s US democrats. If I were in Australia I would join the Liberal Party and be a Conservative. The Communists have been deliberately mislabeling things since they started. It was the Communists that started the lie that Nazis and Fascists were right wing. They did it to try to improve their own image with the world’s public since they didn’t want the world to confuse their brand of socialism with that of Germany and Italy.
One more time……….We Have Too Many Laws And Regulations. I won’t get into a sideshow argument on every law we have ever had in this country when the original forum was about censorship of Mark Twain.
blackash, that xomba article is in agreement with you, but is an opinion piece by a single author, who gives no references for his statements. His credentials (“Who is Publius”) merely state that he is “a male in Florida who has been writing for Xomba for 4 years.” Like you he is arbitrarily redefining the historical and traditional Left/Right spectrum to suit his agenda “Left = government control, Right = individual liberty”. The comments to that article echo in close sympathy those points that have been raised against you, and the author can no more defend them than you can, other than by saying “It is so because I said so.”
If you were to posit a vertical axis perpendicular to the Left/Right spectrum (let’s call it Up/Down) of greater and lesser government control, a fascist state and a communist state would have more or less equal amplitude, but they would be on opposite sides of the Left/Right divide. You (and Publius) can’t simply appropriate “Left/Right” for your own purposes; that’s as nakedly revisionist as the DDR calling itself “Democratic.”
Here’s a site that does just that: It not only differentiates between fiscal conservatives/liberals and social conservatives/liberals, but includes a scale of “govenrment size” which, tellingly, is not phrased in Left/Right terms: http://bulbajer.wordpress.com/political-spectrum/
The Left/Right spectrum has nothing to do with the levels of government involvement, and much to do with the uses to which government is put. The question is not whether we have too many laws or too few laws, but to what end those laws lead. I’m not asking you too vote “Yay” or “Nay” on every single law we’ve ever passed, but whether certan broad categories of laws (environmental protection, equal rights, product safety, fraud) are appropriate matters for government intervention. They protect society as a whole, particularly its most vulnerable members, from the self-interested “individual liberties” of the powerful. Is that, in a broad sense, something with which government ought to be concerned? Or if you prefer, which broad categories of laws would you eliminate?
Insofar as we’ve drifted far from the cartoon, well, that happens all the time. But it was YOU who first challenged the common, accepted, and entirely correct statement that the Nazis were Rightist.
It just kills Socialists to be compared to their close relatives in ideology, the Nazis and Fascists. Admit it. The major beliefs of Marxists, Maoists, Nazis and Fascists are almost identical. They are all anti-capitalist and anti-individual.
It’s comical. You deride the Xomba article as being an opinion piece after depending on Wikipedia as a source. As subjective as the analysis of where to place a political ideology on the left/right continuum is all articles will be”opinion” including the ones on Wikipedia.
Once more, the Nazis called themselves Socialists and Mussolini was a Socialist. That is good enough for most rational human beings.
Again blackash the wikipedia article lists its sources and references. It provides historical context. When key statements are controversial, it states that they are so, and will include the controversy in the article itself.
The xomba article gives no references, no cites, no context, it merely states “This is so because I say it is so.”
The Communist authoritarian states and the Fascist authoritarian states are by definition authoritarian. But that is not a Left/Right issue. But Fascism is based on nationalist and racist foundations. They seek to reinforce traditional social hierarchies, whereas Communism moves towards egalitarianism, even if it is a forced one. To the extent that it abandons the ideal of egalitarianism, it is no longer Communism.
Nazism was dedicated to the proposition of the racial superiority of the German peoples. Of the preeminence of “traditional” values, and the suppression of modernist, “degenerate” culture and ideas. Yes, it offends me terribly to have it suggested that these are in any representative of Liberal/Leftist ideology.
blackash: Historians OVERWHELMINGLY call the Nazis right-wing, certainly all the legitimate and respected ones do. Deal with it. The only people who say otherwise are rightwingers who themselves are uncomfortable with being anywhere near the same end of the continuum as the Nazis – as who can blame them? – or who want to demonize liberals, as evidently you do.
Go read any authoritative history of the Third Reich. An excellent one is by Richard J. Evans, widely acknowledge as one of the foremost scholars of Nazi German in the world. Just read the first book, The Coming of the Third Reich. He has references enough for the geekiest history buff.
As any “rational” person should know, what you call yourself need not bear a relationship to reality. Witness the “Clear Skies” act, which increased pollution levels, or the “Patriot Act,” which undermined civil liberties, or any Communist state, none of which have never resembled true Marxist communism. And as we said (and you ignored), Hitler took over an existing organization and changed it radically, as well as attacking Socialists in the street. This is, at most, high school history.
“If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, it must be a duck”
“Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? / Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.”
Jonah Goldberg? Yeah, right. He defined “fascism” as “bad stuff,” and then defined “liberal” as “fascist,” with no proper, historically-grounded definition of either. Rarely as such a content-free book been printed. Even in a relatively mild interview in Salon.com he couldn’t defend his own fact-free linkages of A = B.
“We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions”
-Adolf Hitler (Speech of May 1, 1927. Quoted by Toland, 1976, p. 306)
mjd.kwanyin over 13 years ago
perfect…..
Nebulous Premium Member over 13 years ago
@baslimthebegger: I would think that Mr.Clemens would be willing to use a popular cliche to make a point, even if he disagreed with it. And the printable part of his comment would be: The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. — Twain, Mark
grapfhics over 13 years ago
It just shows again how disappointed the Almighty was in the monkey.
blackash2004-tree Premium Member over 13 years ago
The speech police attempt to control the people by controlling how we speak and think.
For once I agree with Oliphant but how is using a substitute for the word that everyone understands different from using the word itself? The word in question is just a form of the Latin for black.
donschneider44 over 13 years ago
Yay, verily , Yay ! pavlov , but only if the “match strikers” join the books !
cdward over 13 years ago
Maybe Pat’s word choice (Political-correct Nazis) sounds Republican, but the idea that changing the literature of the past to suit the sensibilities of the present is warped is hardly Republican. I’ll bet a vast majority of Democrats would agree.
On the other hand, a conservative bible recently came out that does just that to scripture - expunging the liberal parts, as it were.
Jason Allen over 13 years ago
Et tu, Pat? Did these “PC Nazis” systematically kill 11 million people? Did they conduct horrific medical experiments on civilians and try to create a “master race”? No? THEN DON’T CALL THEM NATZIS!
As for the “N” word, it’s called talking to the children, discussing what it means, and the context in which it was written. My class read that book unaltered. Our teacher took great pains to discuss “that word” and the narrow context in which it was acceptable to use in class (in a direct quote of the book only). If we were to use it outside that context we would fail the class and receive serious detention time for racism.
tspyra over 13 years ago
you can’t rewrite history… oh, wait, I guess you can….
Motivemagus over 13 years ago
charlie: They substituted the word “slave” for the N-word. Clemens knew exactly what he was doing. He was showing how racism turned fellow human beings into things, in part by assigning them another word. There is a shock value for the word today that did not exist then, but frankly I think Clemens would like it even better as a consequence. He was deliberately taking a shot at society, after all – that was the whole point of the book! That’s why racists try to censor it - it makes them look bad. As for your comment on writers’ words not being sacrosanct, there is a big difference between translating into another language entirely and censoring specific words that make people uncomfortable, which is what is being done here, in Twain’s own language (it’s not like it’s unreadable by modern readers!). The former is a special case that, when done well, tries to capture the intent of the writer rather than revising it. The latter is changing what the writer wrote and meant. I don’t accept it. And you may decide that is personal bias as a published author and the husband of an award-winning published author, but it also means I know whereof I speak personally.
WarBush over 13 years ago
So M Kitt are you saying that Jesus would have kicked Pat Roberts’ #$$?
iamthelorax over 13 years ago
And liberals now lose the right to laugh at religious people who burn Harry Potter books. Same $* different smell.
Devils Knight over 13 years ago
I work in Detroit Mi. and actually there must not be anything wronge with using the so called N-word because I hear people saying it all the time so whats the problem because is’nt racist to allow one group of people to use the word and not the other group
Simon_Jester over 13 years ago
This is nothing new; there have been attempts to censor Huckleberry Finn going on since the early sixties. The late Bill Mauldin once drew a fabulous cartoon about it – a gaggle of birds with scissors for heads, systematically turning a copy of Huck FInn into Swiss cheese.
Like the previous attempts to bowdlerize HF, I believe this one will come to naught as well.
As for you Charlie….yeah riiiiiight, it’s ‘those people’s’ OWN fault.
And by the way, Jesus DID condemn organized religion; His blast at the lawyers and Pharisees ( “You make your followers twice as fit for Hell as you are yourselves.” ) was not directed at any individual, but at the religious heirarchy of His day as a whole.
Jaedabee Premium Member over 13 years ago
The “n” word with two Gs does NOT have a positive context, past or present, except in our misguided urban youth.
The word “niger,” meaning “Black” in several languages and also the nave of a river in Africa, is more likely the closest thing to a safe word. Niger with 2 Gs is and always has been a derogatory term for black people.
I do not agree with the censoring of this book. This is getting ridiculous. We have books removing bad words, we have Southern governments saying they didn’t go to war over slavery (they did, it was one of the primary declarations in their constitution), this is just getting stupid.
rotts over 13 years ago
It’s as bad to “revise” Huck Finn as it would be to do the same for any novel that includes the vernacular of the times in its dialogue or descriptions. Imagine “Americanizing” Dickens’ works. One of the reasons these works survive is because of the colorful language of the times. Revisionist ANYTHING degrades the art.
Dtroutma over 13 years ago
Make the religious right learn Aramaic and Greek, neither Latin nor English will do! Original text only.
Sam Clemens documented his culture, and commented on it, in the recognizable language of his day. Brighter than many of his contemporaries, he led an “interesting” life and saw first hand much of what he wrote about.
Today, “judgements” are made by those without experience, knowledge, or an interest in understanding any different from themselves- they are the true “bigots”.
HabaneroBuck over 13 years ago
The whole point of the N-word with two g’s in Huckleberry Finn is to illustrate the point that this character was the most tender and caring one of them all, even though society had given him the derogatory title. It was purposely paradoxical.
If the book was a racist diatribe, I suppose I would understand, but ultimately I believe in leaving things exactly as they were published in their day, because for the most part, works of art are important to us in the future not so merely for the lessons they teach, but for the slice of historical perspective that they offer.
fritzoid Premium Member over 13 years ago
Richard S., a more galling instance of “Americanizing” the Harry Potter books was changing the title of the first volume. The target audiences in the UK and the USA were the same, but for some reason they figured American kids would be more confused by the Philosopher’s Stone than British kids. “Sorcerer’s Stone” my foot. Is it any wonder our schoolchildren are falling behind the rest of the world in Alchemy scores?
thirdrailmiche over 13 years ago
Sounds like the real problem is how the book is being taught. Whether the n word has a different meaning now would be a moot point, if the book is taught in historical context. Reading the book with no idea about the time it was written does a disservice to both the author and the reader.
Bilword over 13 years ago
why don’t they print their expurgated version on Mr. Clemon’s printing press, you know, the one that didn’t work and cost him thousands and thousands of $
CorosiveFrog Premium Member over 13 years ago
There is something that absolutely blows my mind about the american use of the N word; a black comedian saying “n/gga” is to a white person saying “n*gger” what Spaceballs is to Star Wars.
The use of the n word in rap culture is an example of reappropriation. My old handle “Corosive Frog”, was an attempt at it. The word “frog” was used as a racial slur against french canadians for centuries, along with “speak white” (that one was recuperaed, too. It became the title of a poem (by Michèle Lalonde, in 1970) and a short film by Pierre Falardeau and Julien Poulin.)
Many words used to insult homosexuals (like f@g, bleeep, sssy) and to insult women and feminists (like “btch”) have been recuperated, too.
I think it’s one of the most awesome things an oppressed group can do; It’s standing up and saying; “You used that word as weapon, I’m fed up and I’m not gonna let it hurt me anymore. I’ll take that stupid little word and use it so much it becomes absolutely meaningless. Or better yet; turn it into my political slogan!”
It’s so much better than bombing mailboxes!
Better yet; after emancipation, it may be tempting for the majority to forget that those groups were oppressed not so long ago but when you hear those words, you can’t pretend the past was all rosy; the hard truth comes right back into your face and that’s what hurts.
There’s something hypocritical about that taboo aboud the n word. You see, the popular culture is full of racial stereotypes; the welfare queen, mainstream rap culture directed at suburban white kids, movies…but “look, we are not racist at all and we’ve never been, we ban the N word from our language.”
ChukLitl Premium Member over 13 years ago
He was depicting a time & place where that was the word in the boy’s limited vocabulary that defined why his friend had legal problems.
Spyderred over 13 years ago
As a writer, i’m sensitive to the nuances of a given word, and would suggest it is the worst form of censorship to try to edit the past.
Bluejayz over 13 years ago
Charlie555 said: “Clement could not have been using it in the way it is defined today - as a racial slur.”
Charlie, you are dead wrong! Twain knew very well and fully intended the shock value of using “nigger” in Huck Finn. (Why is everyone tippy-toeing around the use of the word “nigger”? It’s the central topic of Oliphant’s cartoon, and if the word is censored in our comments, the ‘toon should not have been published.) “Nigger” was a bastardization of Niger to Negro to “Nigra” to “nigger”, and it has always been used in a derogatory sense. Just because it was used by “genteel” whites didn’t make it any less of a slur. Think about the delicious irony of Jim’s comment about a steamboat boiler explosion: “Nobody was hurt. Two niggers killed, but nobody was hurt.”
And “nigger” in no way translates as “slave”. There were white slaves in Greece and Rome who were teachers and social companions. We slave away at work. But to call someone a “nigger” is to reduce him to a sub-human animal. Not the same at all!
Ink-adink-adoo over 13 years ago
Twain’s response rhymes with Huck.
runar over 13 years ago
Why not “update” the language in the Declaration of Independence or US Constitution while we’re at it?
ray32648 over 13 years ago
To change the word so as to not have to face up to the consequences is indicative of American society’s refusal to take responsibility for their actions. The book shouldn’t be censored in any way and parents and teachers should use it to explain the deplorable situation from which it arose.
blackash2004-tree Premium Member over 13 years ago
pdenman said, “cdward - the Nazis were actually extreme right wing.”
Nazis were National Socialists. That would be left wing.
Bluejayz you are not entirely correct. At some point in time the Latin root for black (niger) and Greek (negros) was used by the Spanish and Portuguese to describe the inhabitants of sub-Saharan Africa. As the English speaking people became acquainted with the term it became pronounced as “nigger” and later when spelling was standardized the dictionary writers of that age went back to the Latin and Greek to use “Negro” as the term of choice. However, in many areas the pronunciation remained the same and today would have been spelled “nigger.” The term hasn’t been negative or derogatory until relatively recently and that really depends on the context of the audience.
Motivemagus over 13 years ago
blackash, you are incorrect. The Nazis were right-wing. Every legitimate historian in the entire world says that. Just because the word “socialist” was in the name doesn’t make them left-wing. Hitler took over an existing name and made it a right-wing organization. He also attacked the left (socialists and Communists) right from the beginning. So calling him a leftist is simply absurd. As for your interpretation of the negative value of the N-word, that is a recent interpretation. Just because they used it for the inhabitants of sub-Saharan Africa does not mean it wasn’t insulting, either. It just means they thought everyone there was inferior.
Motivemagus over 13 years ago
charlie, I did not say the meaning was different. I said it had greater shock value today, because people not only realize it is an insulting slur, but it is one that people should not say. I say again: there is no reason to change this word. There is no compelling reason to think it will be misunderstood. It may have greater emotional impact – but that’s what writers want. And yes, it was a slur back then, that was my point, remember? That African-Americans were called “boy,” or “nigger” instead of being treated as human beings.
rockngolfer over 13 years ago
I am against changing classic books, or rewriting history. If you want to add to the volume of knowledge, write something new.
crmorris1957 Premium Member over 13 years ago
Sorry, but this liberal doesn’t censor books. Only the author has that right. In this case, since he has been dead lo these many years, the book should stand as is.
CorosiveFrog Premium Member over 13 years ago
In the french-speaking world, there is a controversy like that about “Tintin in the Congo”. It was the first book of the Tintin series, writen in the late 1920s by a belgian author and set in the Congo, which was a Belgian colony, back then.
The book, although the Tintin series is a major work in 20th century french-language litterature and essentially founded a cartoon style, the frenco-belgian, is ridden with black stereotypes, colonialist imagery and other stuff that just doesn’t fit the idealistic character Tintin later became.
People want to censor that. Is it reallly out of fear of outraging a nation that, as to this day, endures much worse than a comic book and has other things to worry about or is it becasue we are ashamed of believing all that cr@p?
GKW11 over 13 years ago
The “n” word must be left in the novel, but not everyone has had the profoundly uncomfortable experience I had in reading the inflammatory word aloud to a high school English class which included African-American students who had a hard time understanding Twain’s intent in putting the word in the mouths of not just the racists in the book, but in his hero, Huck’s, and that of the nobel Jim. It was hard, if not impossible, to convince them that Huck was an unwitting inheritor of racist attitudes and Jim was not simply an “Uncle Tom,” but an uneducated victim of society in the same sense that Huck was. I made the decision in reading the book aloud to supplant the “n word with the word “slave.” l have a hard time deciding if I was a coward or if I was justified in serving the dignity of those black kids who just didn’t understand.
GKW11 over 13 years ago
Hey, Bluejayz: It was Huck who said nobody hurt, just a nigger killed, not Jim. Jim would never have said that. And of course, while Huck likely never learned how dehumanizing the word was, he learned to love Jim and appreciate his humanity and nobility.
blackash2004-tree Premium Member over 13 years ago
motivemagus,
Nazi, Fascist, Marxist, Maoist, Socialist, Communist, Progressive………………….it’s all the same sick, fanatical belief in state control of individuals lives. All of these cults are ultimately statists that evolve into totalitarianism. And it’s all Left Wing.
Five hundred years ago if as an English speaker I went to West Africa and called a native of the area black how would that have been insulting or a slur?
4uk4ata over 13 years ago
“Nazi, Fascist, Marxist, Maoist, Socialist, Communist, Progressive………………….it’s all the same sick, fanatical belief in state control of individuals lives”
Really? I haven’t spoken to many nazis, fascists, Marxists, Maoists, or Communists, but the several Socialists and “progressives” I’ve discused were hardly fanatical, or sick. In fact, progressives aren’t all that keen on giving the state near-total control of individuals’ lives - it stresses some economic redistribution, but countries with much more “progressive” influences, like Sweden, have produced millionnaires as well.
Left-wing ideologies have their fair share of skeletons in the closet, but I think you are just engaging in feel-good political name-calling here by bunching all those political terms together an pinning them on the other side.
Great job getting me sidetracked, though.
Anyway, we sometimes do get a little hung up on the whole “race” issue.
Motivemagus over 13 years ago
The N-word was used by the British for Indians as well, Richard.
ray32648 over 13 years ago
Yes, motive, the British used it as a derogatory term referring to any non-white group.
ray32648 over 13 years ago
The depth of blackash’s ignorance is awe inspiring, isn’t it?
CorosiveFrog Premium Member over 13 years ago
blackash, you look just about as modern, trustful of the future and moderate as my old mother and the people in my town…
…and no, that’s not a compliment! even young people there seem to stay there because they are afraid of everywhere else.
blackash2004-tree Premium Member over 13 years ago
ray32648,
Most people that can’t win the argument resort to ad hominem attacks.
I don’t consider the use of Latin and Greek derivatives of the word “black” to be part of the debate on the classification of political and social systems but some of you keep wanting to make the case that it is.
Read “Mein Kampf”, “The Communist Manifesto” and “The Public and its Problems” and then tell me the authors aren’t students of the same school of thought.
As an Individualist Libertarian with strong traditional and conservative social beliefs I find the idea of the totalitarian state abhorrent. Would any of you seriously suggest that Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro or Robert Mugabe are anything but totalitarian? If you travel to the extreme left wing of the political spectrum you will find Totalitarianism.
dannysixpack over 13 years ago
twians use of the word “nigger”, in huck finn was intentional and it is a necessary part of the reading as it shows, internally how the mind and language and racism work.
you can find twains commentary on the sanitization BECAUSE the controversy existed back then, as well.
some of you might try reading the book. “slave” is ridiculous.
the changing of the word was done because some of the readers found it “injurous”.
awwwwwww. then those readers can’t possibly ever understand, accomodate or assimilate twains point in huck finn, and shouldn’t bother reading it in any version. sanitized it won’t work.
now as for the injurious part i say BULLS#?T
go into any new york city public school elementary, mid or high school, or i dare say any public school in america with a black population. Ride the subways before school or when school lets out.
you will hear about 1 out of every 10 words uttered by the schoolkids to be “nigger”.
i find it utterly offensive. Offensive that they use it. Offensive that if i use it in quotes, as a white man, i’ll be called a racist. What a double standard that is.
Just look at the comments to this thread, no one will even write it.
so these 6-18 year olds can use it as 10 percent of their vocabulary, but to read a great writers (on of the greatest in the english language) make a point with it, about the racisim of his time (and ours), is somehow ‘INJUROUS”.
if you believe that, i have a bridge to sell you.
and the use of “nazi” is appropriate here. The nazi’s burned books to eradicate opposing views and history. The emasculation of huck finn in this way may even be worse than burning it.
fritzoid Premium Member over 13 years ago
blackash’s postings are understandable, if you grant his fundamental premise: that the Left/Right divide is strictly along the line of more/less government control. As such, totalitarian systems must (by his definition) be Leftist.
Both Liberalism and Conservatism, at their extremes, have the potential to wield Total Power. Fascism weds the government to the Business Establishment. Theocracy weds the government to the Religious Establishment. I don’t know if there’s a term for this (other than “military dictatorships”), but many, MANY Totalitarian states wed the government to the Military Establishment. These are all inimical to Liberalism/Leftism, and are traditionally considered Right-Wing dictatorships. A real Communist or Socialist (that is, a MARXIST rather than Stalinist or Maoist) dictatorship, would be a “dictatorship of the proletariat”, which is sort of an oxymoron, since once power is centralized into a few hands, those in control are no longer proles.
The National Socialists were, in fact, Socialist in name only, but they were very much Nationalist (and look where Nationalist parties are traditionally placed on the Left/Right spectrum). They were supported by the Rightist interests in Germany, primarily to fight the Communists (who were, I grant, extreme Leftists).
By blackash’s formulation, the ultimate Conservatve/Rightist development would not merely be Libertarianism, but Anarchy, and that’s an absurdity.
blackash2004-tree Premium Member over 13 years ago
Anarchy would be on the extreme right wing of the political spectrum and I don’t understand how that would be absurd. Many of the groups calling themselves anarchists are really marxists that are either not aware of the true definitions of the terms or are dishonest in the way they define themselves. Anarchy is almost as bad as Totalitarianism and I would hope nobody would suggest Libertarians are in favor of it.
After all was said and done the actions taken by the fascist governments of the past century regardless of their stated philosophical reasoning was little different from that taken by the self-proclaimed socialist governments. If you will read the founders of those systems you will find many started as socialists (like Mussolini) and then changed names or tactics to gain power. Their true beliefs never really changed. I would also suggest the Fascists controlled business and not the other way around.
Motivemagus over 13 years ago
The “right” and conservatism in general is focused on retaining the status quo, which means it conflicts completely with anarchy, blackash, which preserves nothing, and libertarianism in purest form. The overlap with the conservative GOP is in the sense of removal of government, but the conservative GOP wants to enable the power of corporations and the rich, which I think is not what libertarians intend. Some of the same methods but for quite different reasons. Libertarians are quite close to anarchists, in my view, but deny it because fundamentally I think they naively believe that society will self-correct without anything but individuals taking action. History does not support this view. (Or see Somalia, for instance, practically a pure libertarian state in recent days.) Where your view of fascists versus socialists doesn’t quite work is that you are mistaking totalitarianism for either. Norway and Sweden are heavily socialist but are entirely nontotalitarian. Fascism is explicitly about ONE individual controlling the government and the people absolutely, which conflicts with socialism, which is supposed to be of the people, by the people, and for the people (recognize that?), and uses the government as the main tool of the people. Quite different. (Incidentally, if you read Lincoln’s speeches on labor and the wealthy, you will think Karl Marx was one of his advisors.) Also your point that someone may start as a socialist and become something different once in power is not a criticism of socialism but of that person. You can say the same of George W. Bush, who claimed to be a compassionate conservative but showed himself otherwise when in office.
fritzoid Premium Member over 13 years ago
OK, we’re getting close here.
“After all was said and done the actions taken by the fascist governments of the past century regardless of their stated philosophical reasoning was little different from that taken by the self-proclaimed socialist governments. ”
The converse of that is that the actions taken by communist governments of the past century regardless of their stated philosophical reasoning were little different from those taken by the self-proclaimed fascist governments.
(I substituted “communist” for “socialist” to differentiate Stalinist Russia from, say, Sweden. The word “socialism” has a meaning, and is not merely a synonym for “bad.”)
The consolidation of power and social control into an entrenched and self-perpetuating system has nothing to do with the traditional, historical, and generally-accepted division between the Left and the Right, between Liberals and Conservatives. Power is its own philosophical justification, and needs no ideology. The difference between a Leftist Totalitarian State and a Rightist Totalitarian State is in “Who holds the power?” not “How much power is wielded?” (in both cases, the power is absolute).
You may not agree with the accepted definitions of “Liberal/Conservative” or “Left/Right”, and its true that both are relative and somewhat arbitrary. But you can’t unilaterally dictate that they mean what YOU want them to mean, if you want to communicate with others in a meaningful and productive way.
(By the way, the 1960’s radicals shouting “Smash the State!” would be intensely surprised to hear themselves described as “Conservatives”.)
Dkram over 13 years ago
You all have said allot, and allot more is comeing I’m sure.
If making changes in a house will cause a ghost to rise objection.
Making changes in his book should cause a very gumpy ghost to rise in Conn.
As for me, I read the King James.
\\//_
blackash2004-tree Premium Member over 13 years ago
We are getting a long way from the cartoon and what most of us would consider censorship of Mark Twain.
Motivemagus, you set up so many straw dogs it’s difficult to know where to begin. Life is too short to respond to all of the points you make I disagree with.
As a Conservative/Libertarian Right Winger I am not in favor (and I don’t think most of the people voting as I do would be in favor) of maintaining the status quo. We also don’t want to abolish all government and we don’t want to trade governance by the people for governance by unions and corporations. Yes, libertarians are closer to anarchists than to totalitarians, but then socialists are closer to totalitarians than to anarchists. We don’t deny the point.
Not all socialist or fascist governments are totalitarian but many are authoritarian and the ones that are neither tend to be heavy handed concerning economic freedom and have burdensome taxation. Not all socialist governments are truly democratic and not all fascist governments are dictatorial. It’s six of one and a half dozen of the other. Abraham Lincoln isn’t my idea of a great President. And finally George Bush was a Moderate Republican, just like his father.
Fritzoid, you and I probably could agree on many of the things being discussed here but we can’t agree on what the “accepted definitions of “Liberal/Conservative” or “Left/Right” are. That doesn’t automatically mean your view is correct.
As a Right Winger I am opposed to government censorship or coerced private or group censorship. Conservatives and Libertarians are Right Wing and Nazis and Fascists are not.
fritzoid Premium Member over 13 years ago
“but we can’t agree on what the “accepted definitions of “Liberal/Conservative” or “Left/Right” are. That doesn’t automatically mean your view is correct.”
I’m correct in that my view reflects the general and accepted definitions. If YOU don’t accept them, that means they are not universally accepted, but they are generally accepted, and have been used more or less consistently as such for centuries. Look it up. From the Wikipedia article on “Left-right politics”:
“Traditionally, the Left includes progressives, social liberals, social democrats, socialists, communists and anarchists. The Right includes conservatives, reactionaries, capitalists, monarchists, nationalists and fascists.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_politics
Look up the words “Liberal” and “Conservative” in any authoritative (not to say authoritarian) dictionary.
Words have meanings.
“Liberal” and “Conservative” are both the most moderate positions Left and Right (respectively) of the Center. Perhaps there’s a difference between “Left/Right-Wing” and “Extreme Left/Right” that we’re using differently (as you consider yourself “Right Wing” I’d consider myself “Left Wing”, but probably neither of us would be comfortable with the label “Extremist”), but just because there are attitudes and positions which are associated with the Right with which you do not agree, you can’t simply say that those positions are Leftist rather than Rightist.
fritzoid Premium Member over 13 years ago
As a Libertarian, what do you feel about consumer protection laws? Workplace safety laws? Equal rights legislation? Environmental protection regulations? Is Libertarianism “Do as thou wilt; That is the whole of the law” (the Satanist’s Creed) or “An it harm none, do as ye will” (the Wiccan Creed)? The difference is small, but vital. Do the powerful have a right to exploit the powerless? Does your right to swing your fist extend beyond where my nose begins?
Do you understand that the ACLU, that bugbear of the Conservatives, is fundamentally Libertarian in mission and function?
blackash2004-tree Premium Member over 13 years ago
Be careful with what you find in Wikipedia. A great bit of good information can be found there along with a lot of worthless garbage.
Regardless of what Wikipedia has in one article (others say differently) the idea that anarchists are left wing and fascists are right wing is incorrect.
Mussolini started out as a socialist, was forced out of the Italian Socialist Party due to his support of Italy’s war effort, and started his own party which was based on National Socialism rather than International Socialism. His governance was basically no different from what the socialists advocated for Italy. The family feud amongst the various branches of Italian Socialism was bitter and many of the Communist and Marxist varieties of the left hated Mussolini, but it didn’t change what he was.
Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei is the German term for the National Socialist German Workers Party. The Nazi’s called themselves socialists for which I’m willing to take their word. Or would you suggest they really didn’t mean it?
Words do have meanings but when one word can mean anything it actually means nothing. Misuse of a word can make the masses believe a definition that is incorrect, but when most of humanity thought the world was flat did that make it so?
The road to hell is paved with good intentions and many laws are passed with those good intentions. We have too many laws, too many regulations and too many government bureaucrats.
One final thought, the ACLU was founded by Communists, Socialists and Pacifists. I wouldn’t call them Libertarians in philosophy or policy.
dannysixpack over 13 years ago
the terms liberal and conservative have lost their meaning by the butchery of politics today. as have other terms like activist judge and strict constructionist.
the terms have been usurped. by small minded groups.
I am a social liberal and fiscal conservative. In the no-so distant past this would have made me a conservative. a true conservative would find it abhorrant that the government would do anything to control or legislate morality in the bedroom, promotion of religion by government, but the neo-cons have no consiounce when it comes to that. Social, a true conservative would sound like a libertarian.
but in the modern day, a neo-conservative wants the government to enforce his ideas socially while removing government from any corporate regulation.
the neo-conservative is really very liberal (in the true sense of the word) when he wants to elevate the rights and power of the corporation to EXCEED the rights and power of the individual, while claiming the mantel of “strict constructionist”.
this is the road to facism, be it on the left or on the right. The consititution says “we the people”, the is the legitimate social contract that the experiment called the USA is founded on.
it doesn’t say “we the multi-national corporations”, yet this is what is in control. It is not legitimate, it is not our social contract, and could be well on the road to fascism, be it left, right or center.
rockngolfer over 13 years ago
Okay, I have this favorite film that discusses political systems. It’s a little long, but good. Check out the written definitions, too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vC8Hffm9BE
And have you seen Amos and Andy on TV lately? I think they were banned forever.
fritzoid Premium Member over 13 years ago
The American Civil Liberties Union’s sole purpose for existence is to strike down laws which impinge on the Civil Liberties which are guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. They do not advocate for further laws, they seek to strike them down: for instance, laws outlawing membership in unpopular political parties, such as Communists (it is not illegal to be a Communist in America), laws compelling Pacifists to serve in combat (it is not illegal to insist on Conscientious Objector status), obscenity laws, blasphemy laws, imposition of religious ritual into state-sponsored activities (under the First Amendment, Christianity has no more privileged status than Islam or atheism). Regardless of who founded it, the ACLU is Libertarian. Again, the Liberals/Leftists have no monopoly on trying to impose intrusive laws.
Historically, most efforts in this country to legislate against/ban unpopular ideas, works of art, or literature have been made by Conservatives, in the interests of “Public Morality.” It ain’t the Liberals who tried to ban “Ulysses” and “Tropic of Cancer” or “Howl.”
And as for whether Wikipedia is authoritative, I grant you that it’s sometimes suspect. But it is in wide usgae, and most often reflects popular understanding. I quoted from the Wiki on the Left/Right Spectrum because it was readily available and recognizable, but the description it gives is COMPLETELY in line with the historical usage of the terms. It also cites its references, for easy checking, What authority can YOU cite, other than your own viewpoint, that equates fascism with Leftism?
Alonngside dannysixpack, I consider myself a fiscal conservative but a social liberal. My outlook, although not communist, is communitarian; I’ve quoted this elsewhere, but here it is again:
“It is too early for politicians to presume on our forgetting that the public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object to be pursued; and that no form of government whatever has any other value than as it may be fitted for the attainment of this object.”
That is the essence, as I consider it, of what a “Liberal Democracy” is. It was written by James Madison, in Federalist Paper No. 45. If we have strayed from this (and I will stipulate that we have), it ain’t in the direction you think.
You haven’t mentioned yet whether you consider environemntal protection regulations, consumer protection laws, industrial safety regulations – heck, even the minimum wage laws and the five-day workweek – to be “government intrusion.” Do the powerful (and in our system, wealth is equal to power) have “individual rights” to exploit the powerless?
As far as the shifting of meaning – or appropriation of terminology that bears little or no resemblace to actuality – go, consider these:
1) East Germany was officially called the “German Democratic Republic.” Do you consider that it was in any way a meaningful democracy? Are you likewise willing to “take their word?”
2) In Australia, the more conservative of the two major parties is called the “Liberal Party” (and trust me, they’re quite conservative).
blackash2004-tree Premium Member over 13 years ago
http://www.xomba.com/fromlefttorightunderstandingthepolitical_spectrum
One example of equating Fascism with Leftism. I could find a bunch more if you are unable to find them for yourself.
I have a very low regard for the ACLU. They have done a very poor job of defending rights like those in the Second and Tenth Amendments of the US Constitution. They’ve always been more of a Communist front organization.
I would consider myself a “Classical Liberal” which is a far cry from the left wing liberalism of today’s US democrats. If I were in Australia I would join the Liberal Party and be a Conservative. The Communists have been deliberately mislabeling things since they started. It was the Communists that started the lie that Nazis and Fascists were right wing. They did it to try to improve their own image with the world’s public since they didn’t want the world to confuse their brand of socialism with that of Germany and Italy.
One more time……….We Have Too Many Laws And Regulations. I won’t get into a sideshow argument on every law we have ever had in this country when the original forum was about censorship of Mark Twain.
fritzoid Premium Member over 13 years ago
blackash, that xomba article is in agreement with you, but is an opinion piece by a single author, who gives no references for his statements. His credentials (“Who is Publius”) merely state that he is “a male in Florida who has been writing for Xomba for 4 years.” Like you he is arbitrarily redefining the historical and traditional Left/Right spectrum to suit his agenda “Left = government control, Right = individual liberty”. The comments to that article echo in close sympathy those points that have been raised against you, and the author can no more defend them than you can, other than by saying “It is so because I said so.”
If you were to posit a vertical axis perpendicular to the Left/Right spectrum (let’s call it Up/Down) of greater and lesser government control, a fascist state and a communist state would have more or less equal amplitude, but they would be on opposite sides of the Left/Right divide. You (and Publius) can’t simply appropriate “Left/Right” for your own purposes; that’s as nakedly revisionist as the DDR calling itself “Democratic.”
Here’s a site that does just that: It not only differentiates between fiscal conservatives/liberals and social conservatives/liberals, but includes a scale of “govenrment size” which, tellingly, is not phrased in Left/Right terms: http://bulbajer.wordpress.com/political-spectrum/
The Left/Right spectrum has nothing to do with the levels of government involvement, and much to do with the uses to which government is put. The question is not whether we have too many laws or too few laws, but to what end those laws lead. I’m not asking you too vote “Yay” or “Nay” on every single law we’ve ever passed, but whether certan broad categories of laws (environmental protection, equal rights, product safety, fraud) are appropriate matters for government intervention. They protect society as a whole, particularly its most vulnerable members, from the self-interested “individual liberties” of the powerful. Is that, in a broad sense, something with which government ought to be concerned? Or if you prefer, which broad categories of laws would you eliminate?
Insofar as we’ve drifted far from the cartoon, well, that happens all the time. But it was YOU who first challenged the common, accepted, and entirely correct statement that the Nazis were Rightist.
blackash2004-tree Premium Member over 13 years ago
You missed it. I wasn’t the first.
It just kills Socialists to be compared to their close relatives in ideology, the Nazis and Fascists. Admit it. The major beliefs of Marxists, Maoists, Nazis and Fascists are almost identical. They are all anti-capitalist and anti-individual.
It’s comical. You deride the Xomba article as being an opinion piece after depending on Wikipedia as a source. As subjective as the analysis of where to place a political ideology on the left/right continuum is all articles will be”opinion” including the ones on Wikipedia.
Once more, the Nazis called themselves Socialists and Mussolini was a Socialist. That is good enough for most rational human beings.
fritzoid Premium Member over 13 years ago
Again blackash the wikipedia article lists its sources and references. It provides historical context. When key statements are controversial, it states that they are so, and will include the controversy in the article itself.
The xomba article gives no references, no cites, no context, it merely states “This is so because I say it is so.”
The Communist authoritarian states and the Fascist authoritarian states are by definition authoritarian. But that is not a Left/Right issue. But Fascism is based on nationalist and racist foundations. They seek to reinforce traditional social hierarchies, whereas Communism moves towards egalitarianism, even if it is a forced one. To the extent that it abandons the ideal of egalitarianism, it is no longer Communism.
Nazism was dedicated to the proposition of the racial superiority of the German peoples. Of the preeminence of “traditional” values, and the suppression of modernist, “degenerate” culture and ideas. Yes, it offends me terribly to have it suggested that these are in any representative of Liberal/Leftist ideology.
Motivemagus over 13 years ago
blackash: Historians OVERWHELMINGLY call the Nazis right-wing, certainly all the legitimate and respected ones do. Deal with it. The only people who say otherwise are rightwingers who themselves are uncomfortable with being anywhere near the same end of the continuum as the Nazis – as who can blame them? – or who want to demonize liberals, as evidently you do. Go read any authoritative history of the Third Reich. An excellent one is by Richard J. Evans, widely acknowledge as one of the foremost scholars of Nazi German in the world. Just read the first book, The Coming of the Third Reich. He has references enough for the geekiest history buff. As any “rational” person should know, what you call yourself need not bear a relationship to reality. Witness the “Clear Skies” act, which increased pollution levels, or the “Patriot Act,” which undermined civil liberties, or any Communist state, none of which have never resembled true Marxist communism. And as we said (and you ignored), Hitler took over an existing organization and changed it radically, as well as attacking Socialists in the street. This is, at most, high school history.
blackash2004-tree Premium Member over 13 years ago
“If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, it must be a duck”
“Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? / Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.”
http://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-Politics/dp/0385511841/ref=sr11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1294706551&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/rise-radicalism-psychology-messianic-extremism/dp/0870001582/ref=sr11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1294706595&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Suicide-West-Meaning-Destiny-Liberalism/dp/0895265990/ref=sr11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1294706676&sr=1-1
Motivemagus over 13 years ago
Jonah Goldberg? Yeah, right. He defined “fascism” as “bad stuff,” and then defined “liberal” as “fascist,” with no proper, historically-grounded definition of either. Rarely as such a content-free book been printed. Even in a relatively mild interview in Salon.com he couldn’t defend his own fact-free linkages of A = B.
blackash2004-tree Premium Member over 13 years ago
He did defend it…………..it just went over your head.
Motivemagus over 13 years ago
Nice try, blackash: you lose.
blackash2004-tree Premium Member over 13 years ago
Nazism is the illegitimate love child of Socialism and Racism.
Fascism is simply Socialism served with linguine. A little is added and nothing is taken away.
dannysixpack over 13 years ago
Hitler was democratically elected.
nazi germany was captialistic.
blackash2004-tree Premium Member over 13 years ago
“We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions”
-Adolf Hitler (Speech of May 1, 1927. Quoted by Toland, 1976, p. 306)