Posted on 02/06/2012 10:11:48 AM PST by Paladins Prayer
Language barriers are obviously an impediment to communication. If one man speaks Chinese and another Swedish, it may be hard for them to settle even simple matters, let alone the deep issues of the day. Yet there can be language barriers even within a language, such as when people use ill-defined terminology. In fact, some debates rage on endlessly partially because people who have the same tongue are, sometimes unknowingly, speaking a different language.
This occurs to me when I hear many arguments about Left versus Right. For example, it’s not uncommon for conservatives and liberals to debate whether groups such as the Nazis and Italian fascists were of the Left or Right. Of course, it’s not hard to figure out who takes what position! What, however, is the truth?
Some will say that you can recognize the “Right” based on racial and nationalistic ideology, but the fact is that there simply is no unique correlation between groups which textbooks have labeled as rightist and such beliefs. For example, Italian fascism — and the ideology was born in Italy — never had a racial or ethnic component. And this changed only a few decades after its birth when, pandering to Hitler, Benito Mussolini enacted some anti-Jewish laws during the waning days of his regime. Even so, these measures were condemned at the time as un-fascist.
Then there was Francisco Franco in Spain. While labeling him a fascist is more than a stretch, it is fair to say that he was on the Right, as he was a traditional monarchist. Yet he certainly had no racial agenda. And the same can be said about the man who patterned himself after Franco, Augusto Pinochet of Chile. On the other hand, socialist Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe is well-known for his oppressive racial policies.
(Excerpt) Read more at thenewamerican.com ...
Racism in modern day America is almost exclusively a product of the left.
You may identify the left by their main trait which is the projection onto others of their own hatred while imagining themselves to be the very soul of sweetness and light, filled with the milk of human kindness. They preach of their compassion while hardly ever lifting a finger to help another. They are generally the living definition of hypocrisy.
Affirmative Action is a group right.
The right to bear arms is an individual right.
Supporters of socialized medicine are claiming a group right.
Supporters of freedom of religion are expressing an individual right.
I agree with you about the ‘left.’ But I think you missed the point of the article. The article makes the larger point that ‘left’ and ‘right’ are relative terminology and are not the best way of classifying things.
My take: What is called the left in one country would be considered to be the right in another. And vice versa.
Bingo. And that’s why we should use absolute terms.
“I prefer Collectivist and Individualist.”
Individuals form groups to collectively accomplish things they can’t accomplish individually.
“Either individuals have rights, or groups have rights. I do not believe that both can be true.”
As an individual in the group known as “Citizens of the State of Ohio”, I have the right to vote in State of Ohio elections, but not State of Indiana elections.
As an individual in the group known as “My Family”, I might participate in a vote to determine a restaurant at which to have dinner tonight. As an individual, I would determine a restaurant at which to have dinner tonight by making a decision, not by voting.
Voting requires a group.
So, is the right to vote in particular circumstances a group right held by some groups and not others , or an individual right that can only be exercised in a group?
Beats me.
Bear in mind that there is more than one type of right.
I will await instructions from my group. Upon receiving such instruction, I will exercise my Collectivist Right to vote in the manner which has been pre-ordained for me.
Robert Byrd was a Democrat.
“I will await instructions from my group.”
One of your groups is here at FR.
“Upon receiving such instruction...”
Your instruction is to vote “Conservative” at every opportunity.
Mussolini’s fascism did have an ethnic component as far as non-Italian ethnic minorities was concerned. For siding with the Allies in WWI, Italy gained former Austro-Hungarian territories which had about half a million Slovenes and Croats living in them—the Italian government tried to force these people to speak only Italian and to change their surnames to look Italian. I’m not sure about the German-speaking population of the South Tyrol, whether the same measures were taken there.
That’s true.
Franco, on the other hand, was a nationalist and the Spanish nation has always been very “diverse;” of course, Spain also governed a very “diverse” empire in its day. The Pope had specifically forbidden enslavement of the indigenous peoples in the New World, and the Spanish abided by that - Columbus actually went to jail for having brought back some Indians against their will and thus having violated the Pope’s order.
Franco felt that it was important to protect the Jews because they were the people of Jesus. As for Gypsies and other minority groups, the only side that ever targeted them was the left, because they were perceived to be conservative (loyal to the Spanish nation) and unruly. And Franco essentially distanced himself from Hitler after the bombing of Guernica and made Hitler back off after the famous “meeting in the train.”
Rather than left or right, I’d like to echo President Reagan: It’s either up, toward liberty and self-determination, or down, into the depths of tyranny.
Excellent! A keeper.
Italy has a lot of dialects--whether Sicilian is a dialect or a separate language seems a matter of dispute. Sardinian is a separate language, as is Friulian (spoken in the N.E.). In addition there are small Albanian-speaking and Croatian-speaking communities whose ancestors fled from the Turks centuries ago, and a small number of Greek speakers whose presence may date back to the early Middle Ages, or could go back to ancient Greek colonization. In addition, there are German-speakers and Slovenian-speakers in the areas added after World War I. There may be some French speakers near the border with France.
<—————————————MORE-————————— GOVERNMENT CONTROL -———————————LESS——————————>
Communist->Facist->Liberal->Democrat->Moderate->Republican->Conservative->Libertarian->Anarchist
I keep this on my about page.
To the inmate, it matters not who's jail you are in. The fact that you are locked up means that the State is holding your rights, not you. Left or right, the view from the bottom is pretty much the same.
Regards,
GtG
PS Didn't Barry Goldwater's speech writer eventually wind up living on an old tugboat in a commune with a gaggle of hippies?
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