The 'Cubanization' of Latin America -- John Bolton's concerns about Castro are being legitimized

"Chavez is a master at blending what we traditionally consider left wing and right wing politics into a single brew. Most of us have always recognized that they were but two sides of a single coin, but Chavez combines them effectively."

inaccurate statement; communism is not "left wing" and fascism is not "right wing". communism and fascism are both extreme right wing ideologies. total left wing is anarchy, total right wing is total statist control. communists do it for the "people", fascists do it for the "nation". the communists and fascists in reality do the same thing to their subjects, just for different reasons.

chavez is a pig, he can not be confronted given the current (global) political environment and therefore must be isolated. the third world is what it is because of people like him, and have to be left to their own devices for another generation apparently.

after all, we would not want to upset the french and the pygmies at the un.

communism and fascism are both extreme right wing ideologies.

So Mao and Reagan are on the same side of the political fence? You might be able to convince people here that both Communism and Fascism-National Socialism are extreme left-wing ideologies, but if traditional conservatism is right-wing, then Fascism and Communism are decidedly left-wing. Both Fascism and Communism share a concept of the State as being the supreme power. Conservatism as understood here at FR rejects that view.

knew i was going to get deservedly hammered on this one.

i was in error as i misread the original statement. the qualifier to his/her statement "traditionally" changes everything and proves that i can jump the gun.

i still however maintain my belief that communism and fascism are both extreme right wing ideologies.

a communist dictatorship and a fascist dictatorship are entities which enforce total state control over every aspect of the individual. there is no difference from the perspective of the citizen living under these forms of government. this is the right of the political spectrum, total government.

anarchy and libertarianism are the absence of government, this is left of the spectrum, total absence of government. again there is no difference as far as the citizen is concerned, the strong survive and the rest perish.

we live in the middle, a republican or liberal democracy.

communists who have been dictating educational policy in the west for the last 90 years so hate their opposition that they have schooled generations to believe they are opposite philosophically. in practice there was no difference between hitler and stalin. do you believe their respective philosophies define both ends of the political spectrum...? if so then total government control exists as the entire realm of human possibility on the extreme left and extreme right.

i reject this notion in totality.

hope this clarifies things, though nothing is clear when these issues are considered

communism is not "left wing" and fascism is not "right wing". communism and fascism are both extreme right wing ideologies. total left wing is anarchy, total right wing is total statist control.

The traditional understanding is communism as left wing, and fascism as right wing. Certainly the stalinists used the terms in this way. You are right in pointing out that there is little effective difference between the two.

As a way of differentiating the two, communists generally espoused an internationalist philosophy whereas the so-called right-wing fascists tended to be extreme nationalists. But even that is rather unsatisfying as both use nationalism when it suits them and both build international alliances when it suits them.

Communists leaned toward total state control of the economy, whereas fascists tend toward state control of owners, but this is a pretty nebulous distinction.

The important thing to remember is that the left-right distinction between the two is mostly propaganda, as you rightly point out, they are but two sides of the same coin. The problem comes in when American conservatism is referred to right-wing, implying that somewhere on a continuum between one kind of totalitarianism and it supposed opposing twin, you will find crew-cut Republicans, and this is a mistake. Its a mistake when the totalitarians say it and its a mistake when American conservatives allow themselves to be drawn in to using such language with respect to themselves.

American conservatism is a thing of its own. We are no where on any continuum between Stalin and Mussolini, we have nothing in common with either of them. Half-way between total state control (left) and total state control (right) you will not find John Locke and you won't find Jefferson. We are neither "left" nor "right". We are something else entirely.

Halfway removed from totalitarianism would be, in my view, the mixed economies that make up most of the world. Some are more free, some are less free, but none of them have any clear philosophical barrier separating them from Chavez and Castro, though they might like to believe otherwise.

My reference to Chavez having combined "left" and "right" was a reference to his combining Marx with outspoken Venezuelan nationalism and pan-latin nationalism.

in practice there was no difference between hitler and stalin. do you believe their respective philosophies define both ends of the political spectrum...? if so then total government control exists as the entire realm of human possibility on the extreme left and extreme right. i reject this notion in totality.

Then you and I are more or less in agreement that we are not half way between Stalin and Hitler. You have tried to make sense of it by putting both at one end of the spectrum, and I have resolved it by rejecting the model altogether. But we agree that you can't get to Jefferson by watering down Hitler or Marx, which renders the traditional left-vs-right meaningless.

good post.

the point i was trying to make is that for a communist form to slip into a fascist form is not a leap passing over the entire political spectrum. these forms are closely related and therefore only separated by rhetoric. both forms exhibit total control over the individual by the government.

our form of government is in the middle, and therefore hated in the extreme by anarchists, communists and fascists. in short we have it all... and we in fact do.

i'd love to continue, but a totalitarian dictator with absolute power (the wife) is going to kill me if i don't go up to bed.

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