Iowa Caucuses Today!

[A Black Falcon]

Man can only be free by ceding part of his authority to decide to the state. Without the state, there cannot be freedom. John Locke's second treatise on civil government. It's essentially the founding text of liberalism. Again, I fail to see what this has to do with fascism - it's basically a verbatim repetition of one of the tenets of liberalism.

18th or 19th century-style liberalism, perhaps, but 20th century liberalism is very, very different from that earlier philosophy of the same name... Locke is one of the "fathers of liberalism" and he was all in favor of stuff like enclosure! Not exactly something any modern liberal would get anywhere near.

Anyway, that's fascist because what he's saying there is that people should surrender their freedom for supposed security. Must I repeat that great quote of Ben Franklin's again? :) To some degree this is necessary, but it's pretty obvious that what Rudy has in mind, and always has had in mind, goes FAR, FAR beyond "to some degree". He wants to restrict, or eliminate, civil liberties in the name of "security". This is just one aspect of his controlling, autocratic personality -- he wants full, total control and will not accept anyone else having any. It's how he ran New York, and it's why New York won't be voting for him for president -- they grew sick of him while he was in office. He's a mean, nasty person who loves personal attacks and putdowns and would happily push for pretty much any imaginable restriction of our constitutional or civil rights that could in any way possibly be tied to "security". (if this is an exaggeration, it isn't much of one. He really is like that.)

Essentially, Giuliani is fascist in part because he loves having autocratic power (an essential part of fascism), in part because he completely disrespects civil liberties (also essential), in part because he doesn't like talking to anyone he doesn't like (great trait for leaders! Look how far it's gotten Bush!), and, as his constant "the Middle East is evil, evil, evil, be SCARED!" talk shows, is quite intolerant and has put effort into building up a threat that he hopes will cause people to cede all of their power to him. Because the more scared people are, the more likely they are to give up their rights.

What sort of insane view is that? The freedom to have control of your life stripped away? I literally want to know if he actually knows what the word freedom means.

Ever asked Vladmir Putin or the Chinese government how they describe "democracy"? It'd be slightly different from our definition... :D

I think that comparison is applicable here, even if they go farther than he probably would. :) Giuliani knows full well what freedom means: it means what he wants it to mean.

DJ, surely you understand that in Ron Paul's world there is no government funding for science - or for anything else, for that matter, except perhaps a defensive army. You can disagree with that, but understand that he's not opposed to science so much as he's opposed to the government funding anything.

And that's one of the few things we could do to our government that would be even worse than what Bush has done to it. Incredibly, incredibly dangerous if it ever goes anywhere...

(Huckabee's plans for America would be almost as horrible if they went through, incidently.)