Okay. No hard feelings from me either.
Maybe one day we will meet in-person and find we are more alike then different.

Don

I apologize for going a little postal with my sarcastic response to Don. I think my first paragraph was an entirely appropriate tongue-in-cheek response to the non-sequitir middle school lecture on the history of Fascism in the 20th Century. I will continue to use the term “fascistic” for those who think the Patriot Act doesn’t go far enough, for those who think cameras on every traffic light are a good idea, or for those who support border security but wouldn’t if the people on the other side were Scandinavians.

But the rest was uncalled for. I can’t read anyone’s mind as to why the objection to my adjectives was raised, and I needed to “count to 10″ before typing a response to what ticked me off. I tend to have a little Don Rickles karma going on in me, and it’s better utilized when solving the world’s problems at the pub rather than on-line.

Now get over it, you hockey pucks.

It was nice to be able to use this place for a few months to exchange our different views before personal attacks started.

I’ve been through this kind of situation before with people who don’t respect one another, refusing polite discourse. I won’t waste my time in that activity.

Take care my friends,

Don

Notice I used small-case “f” fascistic — a colloquial term understood by most — instead of “Fascistic”. I doubt if most of the hard-core right can even speak Italian!

Wow, I feel like that Geico commercial: you know, “So easy even a caveman can do it”. Then the (nattily dressed) caveman takes offense.

I can empathize with Geico, who wudda thought they were out there?

corially,
russ

I take exception to two terms in that phrase that are inflammatory in nature: “fascistic”, and “hard core right”. Those are the kinds of words used on many web sites that often incite flames between people who post comments.

I thought this would be a place where regardless of the political spectrum, people could exchange their thoughts without attacking one another with labels.

I know most of us fall into some kind of “label”, but that becomes apparent without the need to call attention to those labels. Because then the comments often lead to attacks on the person instead of the topic.

Here’s a definition of Fascism from a dictionary:

“The term Fascism was first used of the totalitarian right-wing nationalist regime of Mussolini in Italy (1922–43), and the regimes of the Nazis in Germany and Franco in Spain were also fascist. Fascism tends to include a belief in the supremacy of one national or ethnic group, a contempt for democracy, an insistence on obedience to a powerful leader, and a strong demagogic approach.”

I know there are some very small groups of political people with those beliefs, but they are not in power. We are not witnessing anything like that in American government now. If it were, we would have witnessed large-scale, wide-spread riots after the November ‘06 election. None of that happened because we are not under a Fascist rule of law in any sense of the word.

Any person who read history knows how the Nazis came to power in Germany. None of that is happening here. You show me the riots caused by Fascists here, the burning of religious buildings, the murder of political opposition, the rounding up by secret police without warrants, etc., and then you might begin to have a claim of Fascism here in American governmental leaders.

Until then, it is an insult to Americans to use such language to describe other Americans. In particular, it is an insult to me to think I would tolerate Fascism here in my country that I love dearly.

I urge caution that “labels” be omitted from references here, unless it is the direct desire to start flame wars.

Don

It’s nice to meet you too, at least electronically. Rick and I go back a long way, to solving all the world’s problems at the Schooner in Manhattan Beach in the 1980s. They didn’t adopt our solutions and look at the mess we’re in now!

A couple counter-points: we already have a cabinet department responsible for this: Homeland Security. Now, we could start another thread discussing the wisdom of adding another 100,000 or so federal bureaucrats to the goverment payroll, but it is what it is.

And I disagree that a wall won’t cut it. It already is working well along the border in San Diego ( See http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5323928) and I don’t think smuggling persons in holds of cargo ships is quite the same problem as the illegal crossing problem. If it were to become as bad, inspecting ships thoroughly in ports is something we ought to be doing anyway in these days of suitcase nukes.

I think there’s a visceral reaction among those of us who oppose the fascistic tendencies of the hard core right to be just against anything they’re for, and many of them are for border security for dubious reasons (keepin’ them fer-inners outta my trailer park). I think many progressive people would oppose “family values” simply because Hitler was in favor of them.

Hello, Russ! Welcome to the blog. I’m the better-late-than-never semi-radical contributor to this site. Rick says good things about you. Is he right?

So, my comment. Why not add a Sec. of the Borders to the cabinet? If illegal immigration is a major problem to the majority of the people of this country,then treat the problem like it’s serious and not one more thing to get checked off of a list.

Maybe the Congress should vote on the person so we don’t get any hacks, as in the present surreal administration, where, if you’re not a hack, don’t bother to apply.

A wall won’t cut it, Russ. Not with the Chinese smuggling masses in the holds of ships, the Haitians and Cubans and their suicide rafts, and whatever else we don’t know about…yet. Our border with Canada is 3,000 miles long and famously unguarded, so I guess it’s no secret someone can creep through the forest from Saskatchuwan if he wants to.

My family immigrated here from E. Europe within the last 100 years and i’m grateful for that. So, I’m sympathetic to why people want in. But the system is no system anymore. Controlling access isn’t racist or vicious either. It’s the only way to maintain a certain decent level of existance here that a lot of Americans already here currently don’t meet. Before admitting vast hordes, it would help to get our own house in order in regards to food, education, health care and the homeless.

It’s complicated all right, but impossible to improve with the level of self-serving greedy and blind-to-what-they’ve-done morons running the show right now.

Nice talking to you. I appreciated your direct perspective. See you.
Bob