[extropy-chat] Tyranny in place (resend 1)

Keith Henson hkhenson at rogers.com
Tue Oct 3 21:31:36 UTC 2006


At 09:22 PM 10/2/2006 -0400, Joseph wrote:
>Russell Wallace wrote:

snip

> > But this sort of thing isn't hitherto-unseen at all. Hitler and
> > Mussolini used the argument that they needed power to protect the
> > people against communism. Communism was a real threat (it killed tens
> > of millions of people, far more than the Islamic fundamentalists have)

I take a different view of such ideologies, considering them to be window 
dressing on a deeper problem.  But even so, the original Islamic expansion 
resulted in an awful lot of deaths on a considerably smaller population base.

> > - but fascism was not the answer. It isn't the answer to Islamic
> > fundamentalism today either.

If there is a perceived need to kill vast numbers of people, some 
"justification," rationalization will be found.  It's the human way, we 
can't go fully into war mode madness without it.

> > I think the threat of terrorism is greatly overstated, but I agree
> > there is a threat and it has to be fought.

The problem being that darn near nobody understands the cause or what to do 
about it.

> > It does not at all follow
> > that we in the West should tolerate erosion of our civil liberties by
> > our own governments. It's not just that it's not necessary - _it's
> > also not helpful_. If you have a problem, and you try to solve it by
> > surrendering your freedom, you now have two problems.

Yep.

>I disagree with the false dichotomy you have presented. Fascism and
>Communism were not opposites. Rather, they were both merely forms of
>Totalitarianism with the window-dressing changed.

And what is "Totalitarianism" and what are the conditions in which it 
arises?  Put another way, Hitler would have stayed a watercolor painter if 
_________.

>In allying themselves
>with the Soviet Union against the Axis, the Allies were merely using one
>form of Totalitarianism to help defeat another. They could just as
>easily have reversed the process, allying themselves with Nazi Germany
>against the USSR, and then fought the Axis thereafter.

Not possible unless the USSR had attacked.

And though there was lots of noise about it, and fighting around the edges, 
in the post WWII years USSR (with its expansionist communist memes) never 
attacked.  I think I know the reason.  Anyone else want to state it?

>Islamist totalitarianism is no different in its goal and broad form than
>either Naziism or Soviet Communism. It seeks global domination, and does
>through through the totalitarian control of the populace (in this
>specific case, that control is achieved through politico-religious,
>rather than purely political ideology).

Ok.  Why is this happening *now* rather than say 40 years ago?  I.e., what 
has changed?

snip

Keith Henson




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