waiting for the other shoe to drop....

[fpb]

What is the reverse of being spoiled? Because the chain-disasters of the last several months have done it to me.
The heating is working. Telephone, internet and all applications are OK. I stopped a nasty little leak in the toilet with no problem. I am not quarrelling with anyone (except that, sooner or later, I have to disabuse johncwright of his bizarre ideas about Italian history). The money is no worse than it has ever been, the cold snap is beginning to lift, and no major crises are on the horizon. I think I have started to lose some weight, and a very great fanfic writer (kennahijja, of course) has dedicated a fanfic to me out of the blue.

So how come I am sitting here waiting for the other shoe to drop?

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Glad things are looking up :-)

[tashmania.livejournal.com]

Oh I'm so glad to hear things are looking up! You deserve a respite from the things you have been through of late.

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

I think that's the "pleasantly surprised" part of "expect the worst, hope for the best."

A simple test.

[johncwright.livejournal.com]

"sooner or later, I have to disabuse johncwright of his bizarre ideas about Italian history"

Bizarre? Because I do not think Benito Mussolini and Ronald Reagan represent a similar political philosophy?

Let us try a simple test. I will name a political issue, give the Socialist position on it, and you tell me if the Fascist or the Republican also favors that issue. Shall we start?

1. Gun control. Socialists favor it. Who agrees, Fascist or the Republican?
2. Socialized medicine. Socialists favor it. Who agrees, Fascist or the Republican?
3. Political revolution. Socialists favor it, depending on how Marxist their socialism it. Who agrees, Fascist or the Republican?
4. Everything for the state, everything controlled by the state. Socialists favor it. Who agrees, Fascist or the Republican?
5. Politicizing language, so that words mean what the Party says they mean, not what the dictionary says they mean. Socialists favor it. Who agrees, Fascist or the Republican?
6. Land Reform. Socialists favor it. Who agrees, Fascist or the Republican?
7. Wage and Price Controls. Socialists favor it. Who agrees, Fascist or the Republican?
8. Setting all civilian sectors of society on a military footing. Socialists favor it, depending on how Marxist their socialism it. Who agrees, Fascist or the Republican?
9. State control of the Church; abolition of those elements of the Church which cannot be taken under state control. Socialists favor it. Who agrees, Fascist or the Republican?
10. Eugenics. Socialists favor it. Who agrees, Fascist or the Republican?
11. State control of the press, public speech, assemblies. Socialists favor it. Who agrees, Fascist or the Republican?
12. The cult of charismatic dictatorship. Socialists favor it. Who agrees, Fascist or the Republican?
13. State control of the money supply; Keynesian economics, or Marxist economics. Abolition of the Gold Standard. Socialists favor it. Who agrees, Fascist or the Republican?
14. Abolition of the Monarchy. Aha! Something the Socialist favor but the Fascists might or might not, depending. Do Republicans favor Monarchy? Not if their name means anything.
15. Abortion. Socialists favor it. Who agrees, Fascist or the Republican?
16. Birth control. Socialists favor it. Who agrees, Fascist or the Republican?
17. State control of the schools. Socialists favor it. Who agrees, Fascist or the Republican?
18. State control of the media. State patronage of the arts. Socialists favor it. Who agrees, Fascist or the Republican?

Look, Fabio, I could have halted this list with question number one. That is the one and the only political consideration that matters. The world view of people who trust their neighbors to own guns and the world view of people who fear their neighbors to own guns is a gulf that reason cannot bridge.

Now, name a single issue where the Fascists are on my side of the gulf, next to me and agreeing with me. I cannot think of one.

All that is going on here is a stupid word game. The Arians and the Orthodox accused each other of being heretics, and called each other "atheists" because, as twin brothers, they hated each other. If there was a religious spectrum of heresy to parallel the political spectrum, The Arians would be "Right" and the Orthodox" would be "Left." Karl Marx and Ayn Rand and Bertrand Russel, as atheists, would be places on the far Right, right next to Bishop Arius. That religious spectrum, as a tool to distinguish alike religious views and compare them, would be useless.

Fascism is a heresy of Socialism: that's all. Fascism does not spring out of Capitalism nor Limited Government theories of the natural Rights of Man; nor spring out of Monarchic theories of the Divine Right of Kings.

Re: A simple test.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

This sustained assault by false dichotomy and misinformed broad statement only proves that "socialist" is your shorthand for "anything I find politically threatening". Nobody could possibly imagine even a coherent ideology, let alone what Socialism really has been in European history, from your accumulation of hate targets.

However, it would require me the equivalent of a book to even unravel all this nonsense point by point. The difference between partisan column writing and history is that history takes time and reasoning; partisan column writing only requires sloganeering. I might add that the remark about your ignorance of Italian history - though sufficiently supported by your bizarre ideas about Mussolini and your continued misuse of Machiavelli - was not intended in earnest and certainly not meant to bring about this kind of declaration of ideological war.

One thing is certain: even if I took on myself to spend much of the next year trying to set you straight on MATTER OF FACT (such as the ideological roots of abortion, where you are about as grossly wrong as it is possible to be), you would refuse to be convinced. I have already expended a considerable amount of bandwidth on a similar enterprise - for instance, trying to make you understand the obvious fact that Socialism is not equal to Marxism and that Marxism is not equal to Leninism - only to find, at the very end of the post and as a comment to it, the word "Marxism" used as an equivalent to "Socialism".

This sort of thing is profoundly depressing. It is not that you have rejected an argument, it is that you have not noticed it. Several paragraphs of historical description have been simply ignored - and at the end of it, Leninism is Socialism is Marxism is anything you fear and hate. This is my experience of debating politics with you; can you wonder that I do not hurry to continue it? For one thing, I simply don't have the time. But if I thought that this would be likely to be a fruitful argument, I would find the time; even at the expense of my own writing. The fact is that I do not think you are willing, or more to the point capable, to listen. If I want to talk to the wall, I have enough walls right here in my flat.