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“Left Wing Economic Populism Fights Fascism”

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PkrBum
Floridatexan
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Floridatexan

Floridatexan



PkrBum

PkrBum

Economic fascism is simply socialism with the pretense of private ownership. Control is effective ownership.

In other words... progressivism.

Floridatexan

Floridatexan

PkrBum wrote:Economic fascism is simply socialism with the pretense of private ownership. Control is effective ownership.

In other words... progressivism.


What’s the Matter with Libertarianism?

Who can object to the libertarian principles of individual freedom, personal responsibility, and the right to hold property - at least in the abstract? The problem is that the real world is never "abstract." All philosophies must ultimately confront reality, and the more radical versions of libertarianism (there are many, from extreme anarchism to limited government "minarchism") rely on terminally deficient models of human nature and society. Let's (very briefly) take a look at the problem.

The libertarian model of individual psychology is grounded in the utilitarian, neo-classical economics model of "Homo economicus" (economic man). Our motivations can be reduced to the single-minded pursuit of our (mostly material) self-interests. Accordingly, mainstream economists seem to consider it their mission in life to help us do so more "efficiently." The Nobel economist Amartya Sen many years ago scathingly characterized this simplistic model as "rational fools who are decked out in their one, all-purpose preference function."

The selfish actor model of human nature was tacitly endorsed with the rise of "Neo-Darwinism" in evolutionary biology during the 1970s, as epitomized in biologist Richard Dawkins' famous book The Selfish Gene. As Dawkins summed it up, "We are survival machines - robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes....I shall argue that a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness....we are born selfish."

A line from libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick's path-breaking book, Anarchy, State and Utopia, says it all: "Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group [or state] may do to them without violating their rights." (When asked to specify what those rights are, libertarians often cite philosopher John Locke's mantra "life, liberty, and property.") Not to worry, though. Through the "magic" of Adam Smith's "invisible hand," the efficient pursuit of our self interests in "free markets" will ensure the greatest good for the greatest number.

One problem with this (utopian) model is we now have overwhelming evidence that the individualistic, acquisitive, selfish-gene model of human nature is seriously deficient; it is simplistic, one-sided and in reality resembles the pathological extremes among the personality traits that we find in our society. The evidence about human evolution indicates that our species evolved in small, close-knit social groups in which cooperation and sharing overrode our individual, competitive self-interests for the sake of the common good. (This scenario is reviewed in my books The Fair Society and Holistic Darwinism.) We evolved as intensely interdependent social animals, and our sense of empathy toward others, our sensitivity to reciprocity, our desire for inclusion and our loyalty to the groups we bond with, the intrinsic satisfaction we derive from cooperative activities, and our concern for having the respect and approval of others all evolved in humankind to temper and constrain our individualistic, selfish impulses (as Darwin himself pointed out in The Descent of Man).

So we are not, after all, like bumper cars in a carnival, where we all range freely, and, if we cause "harm" by crashing into others, we simply say "excuse me" and move on. Rather, we are (most of us) embedded in an exceedingly complex network of social relationships, many of which are vital to our well-being. Every day we confront issues relating to the needs and wants of others and must continually make accommodations. And in addressing these conflicting interests, the operative norm is - or should be - fairness, a balancing of the interests and needs of other parties, other "stakeholders."

Indeed, libertarians generally have no model of society as an interdependent group with a common purpose and common interests. For instance, the canonized conservative economist Friedrich Hayek posited a stark choice between two alternative models - either a "free market" of atomized individuals rationally pursuing their self-interests in transactional relationships or an authoritarian, coercive "state" that seeks control over us. In Hayek's words, "socialism means slavery."

The libertarian novelist Ayn Rand went even further. As she saw it, there is a perpetual class war going on between the "creators" and "producers," on the one hand, and the great mass of "parasites" and "moochers" who use government to steal whatever they can from the deserving few. One of Rand's heroes, the defiant architect Howard Roark in her novel The Fountainhead, tells us: "All that proceeds from man's independent ego is good. All that which proceeds from man's dependence upon men is evil...The egotist in the absolute sense is not the man who sacrifices for others....Man's first duty is to himself...His moral law is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men....The only good which men can do to one another and the only statement of their proper relationship is - hands off!"

The benign free market model of society is equally deficient. Many libertarians seem to be myopic about the prevalence of self-interested "organizations" in the marketplace, from the many millions of mom-and-pop businesses with only a few employees to mega-corporations with hundreds of thousands of workers (whose freedom they may severely restrict). These "corporate interests" sometimes oppose the common interest and perpetrate malfeasance. (Do we need to rehearse the recent examples of Enron, Capital Management, Countrywide, Goldman Sachs, BP, Massey Energy and other disasters?) So-called free markets are routinely distorted by the wealthy and powerful, and the libertarians' crusade for lower taxes, less regulation and less government plays into their hands. Perhaps unwittingly, anti-government libertarians would have us trade democratic self-government for an oligarchy.

A more serious concern is that the libertarian fixation with individual freedom distracts us from the underlying biological purpose of a society. The basic, continuing, inescapable problem for humankind, as for all other living organisms, is biological survival and reproduction. Whether we are conscious of it or not, most of us spend a large majority of our time and energy engaged in activities that are directly or indirectly related to meeting no fewer than 14 domains of "basic needs" - biological imperatives ranging from such commonplace things as food, clothing and shelter to physical and mental health and the reproduction and nurturance of the next generation.

In a very real sense, therefore, every organized economy and society represents a "collective survival enterprise" - an immensely complex "combination of labor" (a term I prefer to the traditional "division of labor") upon which all of our lives literally depend. And our first collective obligation is to ensure that all of our basic needs are met. If there is a "right to life," as our Declaration of Independence and pro-life conservatives aver, it does not end at birth; it extends throughout our lives, and it imposes on all of us a responsibility for ensuring the "no-fault" needs of others, when they cannot for various reasons provide for themselves.

So why is libertarianism unfair? It rejects any responsibility for our mutual right to life, where we are all created approximately equal. It would put freedom and property rights ahead of our basic needs, rather than the other way around. It is also oblivious to the claims for reciprocity, an obligation to contribute a fair share to support the collective survival enterprise in return for the benefits that each of us receives. And it is weak on the subject of equity (or social merit) as a criterion for respecting property rights. It presumes a priori that property holdings are deserved, rather than making merit a precondition. Imposing a test of merit would put strict limits on property rights. Finally, it is anti-democratic in that it rejects the power of the majority to restrain our freedom and limit our property rights in the common interest, or for the general welfare.

The conservative Washington Post op-ed writer Michael Gerson observed in a recent column that "Conservatives hold a strong preference for individual freedom. But they traditionally have recognized a limited role for government in smoothing the rough edges of a free society. This concern for the general welfare helps minimize the potential for revolutionary change, while honoring a shared moral commitment to the vulnerable." This kind of "traditional" Burkean (and Platonic) conservativism is radically opposed to libertarianism, which Gerson calls a teenage fantasy that we need to outgrow. Freedom, as the social commentator Charles Morgan put it many years ago, is the space created by the surrounding walls. It's time to begin paying attention to the walls.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-fair-society/201108/what-s-the-matter-libertarianism

****************



2seaoat



Economic fascism is simply socialism with the pretense of private ownership. Control is effective ownership.

In other words... progressivism.


That does not make a bit of sense. Political and economic terms have definitions and concepts which are bastardized by some kind of home brew definitions is just noise, and has no meaning in a scholarly discussion of political concepts.

PkrBum

PkrBum

I can't force you to abandon the narrative that the govt and political parties foist upon us.

It's uncomfortable and unpopular. Statism is a hellofa drug.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html

As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer. The word derives from fasces, the Roman symbol of collectivism and power: a tied bundle of rods with a protruding ax. In its day (the 1920s and 1930s), fascism was seen as the happy medium between boom-and-bust-prone liberal capitalism, with its alleged class conflict, wasteful competition, and profit-oriented egoism, and revolutionary Marxism, with its violent and socially divisive persecution of the bourgeoisie. Fascism substituted the particularity of nationalism and racialism—“blood and soil”—for the internationalism of both classical liberalism and Marxism.

Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.

Fascism is to be distinguished from interventionism, or the mixed economy. Interventionism seeks to guide the market process, not eliminate it, as fascism did. Minimum-wage and antitrust laws, though they regulate the free market, are a far cry from multiyear plans from the Ministry of Economics.

Under fascism, the state, through official cartels, controlled all aspects of manufacturing, commerce, finance, and agriculture. Planning boards set product lines, production levels, prices, wages, working conditions, and the size of firms. Licensing was ubiquitous; no economic activity could be undertaken without government permission. Levels of consumption were dictated by the state, and “excess” incomes had to be surrendered as taxes or “loans.” The consequent burdening of manufacturers gave advantages to foreign firms wishing to export. But since government policy aimed at autarky, or national self-sufficiency, protectionism was necessary: imports were barred or strictly controlled, leaving foreign conquest as the only avenue for access to resources unavailable domestically. Fascism was thus incompatible with peace and the international division of labor—hallmarks of liberalism.

Fascism embodied corporatism, in which political representation was based on trade and industry rather than on geography. In this, fascism revealed its roots in syndicalism, a form of socialism originating on the left. The government cartelized firms of the same industry, with representatives of labor and management serving on myriad local, regional, and national boards—subject always to the final authority of the dictator’s economic plan. Corporatism was intended to avert unsettling divisions within the nation, such as lockouts and union strikes. The price of such forced “harmony” was the loss of the ability to bargain and move about freely.

To maintain high employment and minimize popular discontent, fascist governments also undertook massive public-works projects financed by steep taxes, borrowing, and fiat money creation. While many of these projects were domestic—roads, buildings, stadiums—the largest project of all was militarism, with huge armies and arms production.

The fascist leaders’ antagonism to communism has been misinterpreted as an affinity for capitalism. In fact, fascists’ anticommunism was motivated by a belief that in the collectivist milieu of early-twentieth-century Europe, communism was its closest rival for people’s allegiance. As with communism, under fascism, every citizen was regarded as an employee and tenant of the totalitarian, party-dominated state. Consequently, it was the state’s prerogative to use force, or the threat of it, to suppress even peaceful opposition.

If a formal architect of fascism can be identified, it is Benito Mussolini, the onetime Marxist editor who, caught up in nationalist fervor, broke with the left as World War I approached and became Italy’s leader in 1922. Mussolini distinguished fascism from liberal capitalism in his 1928 autobiography:

The citizen in the Fascist State is no longer a selfish individual who has the anti-social right of rebelling against any law of the Collectivity. The Fascist State with its corporative conception puts men and their possibilities into productive work and interprets for them the duties they have to fulfill. (p. 280)

Before his foray into imperialism in 1935, Mussolini was often praised by prominent Americans and Britons, including Winston Churchill, for his economic program.

Similarly, Adolf Hitler, whose National Socialist (Nazi) Party adapted fascism to Germany beginning in 1933, said:

The state should retain supervision and each property owner should consider himself appointed by the state. It is his duty not to use his property against the interests of others among his own people. This is the crucial matter. The Third Reich will always retain its right to control the owners of property. (Barkai 1990, pp. 26–27)

Both nations exhibited elaborate planning schemes for their economies in order to carry out the state’s objectives. Mussolini’s corporate state “consider[ed] private initiative in production the most effective instrument to protect national interests” (Basch 1937, p. 97). But the meaning of “initiative” differed significantly from its meaning in a market economy. Labor and management were organized into twenty-two industry and trade “corporations,” each with Fascist Party members as senior participants. The corporations were consolidated into a National Council of Corporations; however, the real decisions were made by state agencies such as the Instituto per la Ricosstruzione Industriale, which held shares in industrial, agricultural, and real estate enterprises, and the Instituto Mobiliare, which controlled the nation’s credit.

Hitler’s regime eliminated small corporations and made membership in cartels mandatory.1 The Reich Economic Chamber was at the top of a complicated bureaucracy comprising nearly two hundred organizations organized along industry, commercial, and craft lines, as well as several national councils. The Labor Front, an extension of the Nazi Party, directed all labor matters, including wages and assignment of workers to particular jobs. Labor conscription was inaugurated in 1938. Two years earlier, Hitler had imposed a four-year plan to shift the nation’s economy to a war footing. In Europe during this era, Spain, Portugal, and Greece also instituted fascist economies.

In the United States, beginning in 1933, the constellation of government interventions known as the New Deal had features suggestive of the corporate state. The National Industrial Recovery Act created code authorities and codes of practice that governed all aspects of manufacturing and commerce. The National Labor Relations Act made the federal government the final arbiter in labor issues. The Agricultural Adjustment Act introduced central planning to farming. The object was to reduce competition and output in order to keep prices and incomes of particular groups from falling during the Great Depression.

It is a matter of controversy whether President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was directly influenced by fascist economic policies. Mussolini praised the New Deal as “boldly . . . interventionist in the field of economics,” and Roosevelt complimented Mussolini for his “honest purpose of restoring Italy” and acknowledged that he kept “in fairly close touch with that admirable Italian gentleman.” Also, Hugh Johnson, head of the National Recovery Administration, was known to carry a copy of Raffaello Viglione’s pro-Mussolini book, The Corporate State, with him, presented a copy to Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, and, on retirement, paid tribute to the Italian dictator.

Deus X

Deus X

Responding to PkrBoy's taunts just encourages him. He has no desire--or ability, for that matter--to engage in intelligent dialogue. His only purpose is to annoy and sow discord. If everyone just ignored him, he'd lose interest and go away.

DON'T FEED THE TROLL!

2seaoat



The cut and paste political propaganda, is NOT the truth. This opinion piece is cleverly trying to change standard definitions in pure Orwellian double speak. One would have to be educated in political concepts to see how sophomoric the article is.......if one does not understand political concepts, then I fully understand the attraction to sophomoric sophistry.....or ss for short.

Floridatexan

Floridatexan

2seaoat wrote:The cut and paste political propaganda, is NOT the truth.  This opinion piece is cleverly trying to change standard definitions in pure Orwellian double speak.  One would have to be educated in political concepts to see how sophomoric the article is.......if one does not understand political concepts, then I fully understand the attraction to sophomoric sophistry.....or ss for short.

Introduction

Libertarianism includes a broad spectrum of political philosophies, each sharing the common overall priority of minimal government combined with optimum possible individual liberty. Its goals prioritize freedom: freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom to bear arms, freedom of and from religion, freedom of the Press, freedom of ownership and economic freedom. It promotes personal responsibility and private charity, as opposed to the provision of welfare services by the state, and it rejects the compulsions of Socialism and Communism.

Individual Libertarians may differ considerably over particular issues and, although there are Libertarian political parties worldwide, even these differ significantly in their outlooks and policies. There is also a significant disparity between the usage of the term in the United States (where it is often considered synonymous with Liberalism and Individualism in general, and Conservatism in particular, especially insofar as it supports limited government) and elsewhere (where it is more often understood to refer to radical leftist currents of Anarchism).

Generally speaking, Libertarians defend the ideal of freedom from the perspective of how little one is constrained by authority, i.e. how much one is allowed to do (negative liberty), as opposed to the opportunity and ability to act to fulfill one's own potential (positive liberty), a distinction first noted by John Stuart Mill. They view life, liberty and property as the ultimate rights possessed by individuals, and that compromising one necessarily endangers the rest. They consider compromise of these individual rights by political action to be "tyranny of the majority", a term first coined by Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 - 1859), and made famous by John Stuart Mill. Many Libertarians would also argue, however, that representative majority rule democracy has largely become controlled by special interest groups who represent a minority, leading to a "tyranny of the minority" against the real numerical majority.

The term "libertarian" stems from the French word "libertaire" ("for liberty"), and its first recorded use in a political sense was in 1857 by Anarcho-Communist Joseph Déjacque (1821 -1864). In common usage, "libertarian" refers to a person who advocates liberty, especially with regard to thought or conduct, or a person who maintains the doctrine of free will.

History of Libertarianism

The history of Libertarianism is also the history of classical Liberalism, and the two concepts are very closely related. The initial theory arose from Enlightenment ideas in 18th Century Europe and America, especially the political philosophies of John Locke and the Baron de Montesquieu (1689 - 1755), and the moral and economic philosophy of Adam Smith.

Locke believed that the role of any legislature was to protect natural rights in the legal form of civil rights. He proposed a labour theory of property whereby each individual owns the fruits of his efforts by virtue of his labour, and from this an economy emerges based on private property and trade, with money as the medium of exchange.

At around the same time, the French philosopher Montesquieu developed a distinction between sovereign and administrative powers, and proposed a separation of powers (usually into the Executive, the Legislative and the Judicial) to act as a counterweight to the natural tendency of administrative power to grow at the expense of individual rights. This became an important concept in both constitutional monarchies and republics.

Adam Smith's moral philosophy stressed government non-intervention so that individuals could achieve whatever their "God-given talents" would allow without interference from arbitrary forces. He also opposed trade guilds (fore-runners to modern unions) and joint stock companies (or corporations) for the same reasons.

The Founding Fathers of the United States enshrined the protection of liberty as the primary purpose of government in the Declaration of Independence of 1776 and the United States Constitution, and Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826) in particular was key in etablishing the Law of Equal Liberty and the Non-Aggression Principle as major tenets. Very similar ideas were also included in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789, a key document in the French Revolution.

John Stuart Mill declared that his preferred doctrine of Utilitarianism requires that political arrangements satisfy the "liberty principle", whereby each person is guaranteed the greatest possible liberty that would not interfere with the liberty of others, in order maximize happiness.

In the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, Progressivism in the United States and Socialism in Europe increasingly focused on the advancement of workers' rights and social justice to counteract the increasing excesses of rampant Capitalism and industrialism. It was only in the latter half of the 20th Century that the term "libertarian", which had earlier been associated with Anarchism, came to be adopted by those whose attitudes bore closer resemblance to classical liberals.

Types of Libertarianism

Libertarianism is usually split into two main types:

Rights Libertarianism (or Rights Theory or Libertarian Moralism or Deontological Libertarianism):

Rights Theorists assert: 1) that: all persons are the absolute owners of their lives, and should be free to do whatever they wish with their own bodies or property, provided they do not infringe on the rights of another to do the same (the Law of Equal Liberty); and 2) that aggression, or the initiation of physical force or the threat of such, against a person or his property, is inherently illegitimate insofar as it impinges on on the equal rights of a person (the Non-Aggression Principle), except in the case of self-defence. This view of "natural rights" derives from the early writings of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.

Most Rights Libertarians recognize the necessity of a limited role of government as a "necessary evil" to protect individuals from any violation of their rights, and to prosecute those who initiate force against others (Minarchism), although some oppose the existence of government and taxation altogether on the grounds that it represents aggression against individual rights by its very nature (Anarcho-Capitalism).
Robert Nozick (1938 -2002) and Murray Rothbard (1926 - 1995) are representatives of this view of Libertarianism.

Consequentialist Libertarianism (or Libertarian Consequentialism)

Consequentialist Libertarians justify the rights of individuals on pragmatic or consequentialist, as well as moral, grounds (Consequentialism is the moral theory that the consequences of a particular action form the basis for any valid moral judgment about that action). They are less concerned with the Non-Aggression Principle and more concerned with the notion of a society that allows individuals to enjoy political and economic liberty, which they see as the foundation for human happiness and prosperity. They argue that individual liberty leads to economic efficiency and other benefits, and is thus the most effective means of promoting or enhancing social welfare.
Milton Friedman (1912 - 2006), Ludwig von Mises (1881 - 1973), and Friedrich Hayek (1899 - 1992) are major proponents of this view.

Another split is between left-wing and right-wing Libertarianism:

Left-Libertarianism (or Geolibertarianism):

Left-Libertarianism combines a strong commitment to personal liberty with an egalitarian view concerning natural resources, believing that it is not legitimate for someone to claim private ownership of resources to the detriment of others, and that each individual is entitled to an equal share of natural resources. Many Left-Libertarians advocate strong alliances with the Left on issues such as the anti-war movement and labour unions, and some wish to revive voluntary cooperative ideas such as mutualism.

Agorism is an extreme form of Anarcho-Capitalism and Libertarianism, developed by Samuel Edward Konkin III (1947 - 2004) and building on the ideas of Murray Rothbard (1926 - 1995), which takes as its ultimate goal a society in which all relations between people are voluntary exchanges, a completely free market in an underground or "counter economy" in which the State is redundant (Anarchism). Agorists consider themselves Left-Libertarians, although there is contention over that.

Right-Libertarianism (or Libertarian Conservatism):

Right-Libertarianism is synthesis of Libertarianism and right-wing conservatism, and stresses limited government and strong Capitalism. It differs from some Christian-influenced conservativism in that it generally favours the separation of church and state. It is sometimes split into four main branches:

Classical or Traditional Libertarianism, whose main goals are the shrinking of the power of government and the promotion of free markets, and generally believes that social liberalism and anti-militarism promote economically conservative goals.

Neolibertarianism, which, in opposition to Classical Libertarianism, supports an interventionist foreign policy and militarism to expand democracy.

Paleolibertarianism, a more culturally conservative and ardently Christian view than Classical Libertarianism, usually involving views against abortion and for the complete privatization of education.

Small Government Conservatism, a socially conservative outlook which generally considers any necessary government enforcement the responsibility of state governments, not the federal government.

https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_libertarianism.html

**********

zsomething



Speaking of fighting fascism...

Richard Spencer is calling it quits because Antifa took all the "fun" out of being a Nazi for him.


Spencer has been a lightning rod as he seeks to spread his National Policy Institute’s white nationalist views to the public, while others fight to keep that ideology from a forum that might lend it credibility.

Spencer’s events have exacerbated the same raw tensions that have led to clashes between far-left and far-right extremists at other events across the country. After he led a torchlight march at the University of Virginia that ignited a weekend of violence between white supremacists and protesters in Charlottesville last August, many universities tried to keep Spencer from speaking on campus, citing safety concerns.

Michigan State leaders reluctantly agreed to let Spencer speak after settling a lawsuit brought by one of his supporters.

In the YouTube video, Spencer said he was committed to keeping his views in the public forum, but acknowledged that anti-fascist extremists, sometimes known as Antifa, had been successful in preventing people from getting to his events.

At the University of Florida, where the governor declared a state of emergency in the days before Spencer’s visit and the public university spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on security, protesters chanted and shouted down Spencer and other speakers, effectively drowning them out and shutting down the speech.

The idea behind the “college tour was not to inspire pitched battles between our side and the Antifa,” Spencer said. The intent was to go “into the belly of the beast,” “academic Marxist-controlled territory” and introduce “alt-right” ideas to an intellectual debate, he said. What happened at Michigan State was “a near riot” outside the venue, he said. “When they become violent clashes and pitched battles, they aren’t fun,” he said.

Awwwww, white supremacy isn't FUN anymore, because people are spoiling it for him. What an asshole.

I do love this right-wing myth about college being full of "Marxists." I've worked in academia, and there are a few lefty goofs out there (and FOX News will report on every single one they find), but there are just as many right-wing goofs. It's all part of the Republican plot to scare their voters away from college, and all education in general, because if they don't stay stupid, they won't keep voting for Republicans...

Telstar

Telstar

zsomething wrote:Speaking of fighting fascism...

Richard Spencer is calling it quits because Antifa took all the "fun" out of being a Nazi for him.


Spencer has been a lightning rod as he seeks to spread his National Policy Institute’s white nationalist views to the public, while others fight to keep that ideology from a forum that might lend it credibility.

Spencer’s events have exacerbated the same raw tensions that have led to clashes between far-left and far-right extremists at other events across the country. After he led a torchlight march at the University of Virginia that ignited a weekend of violence between white supremacists and protesters in Charlottesville last August, many universities tried to keep Spencer from speaking on campus, citing safety concerns.

Michigan State leaders reluctantly agreed to let Spencer speak after settling a lawsuit brought by one of his supporters.

In the YouTube video, Spencer said he was committed to keeping his views in the public forum, but acknowledged that anti-fascist extremists, sometimes known as Antifa, had been successful in preventing people from getting to his events.

At the University of Florida, where the governor declared a state of emergency in the days before Spencer’s visit and the public university spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on security, protesters chanted and shouted down Spencer and other speakers, effectively drowning them out and shutting down the speech.

The idea behind the “college tour was not to inspire pitched battles between our side and the Antifa,” Spencer said. The intent was to go “into the belly of the beast,” “academic Marxist-controlled territory” and introduce “alt-right” ideas to an intellectual debate, he said. What happened at Michigan State was “a near riot” outside the venue, he said. “When they become violent clashes and pitched battles, they aren’t fun,” he said.

Awwwww, white supremacy isn't FUN anymore, because people are spoiling it for him.  What an asshole.

I do love this right-wing myth about college being full of "Marxists."  I've worked in academia, and there are a few lefty goofs out there (and FOX News will report on every single one they find), but there are just as many right-wing goofs.  It's all part of the Republican plot to scare their voters away from college, and all education in general, because if they don't stay stupid, they won't keep voting for Republicans...




Republicans like bone spur and Silly Sarah.

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