The Glade 4.0

If only those were the only similarities, perhaps we could call it coincidence.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Eh Obama is a standard liberal democrat. A bit more of an egomaniac I'll grant you, a bit more of a cult of personality ok. But both are dwindling.

Surely many western european leaders are worse in terms of policy.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

Its ironic you post this comment, since that was my point about your feeling this billboard in that configuration was a "teachable opportunity".

No, it has a clearly intended link to our own country, which will at least peak their interest, if only to elicit Serianya's reaction, which sparked this conversation. If the billboard depicted Fredrik Reinfeldt in place or President Obama, do you really think any connection, meaningful or otherwise, would be made? Do you think we would be having this conversation?

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

I'm not so sure about that ... A lot of the "liberal" intellectual elite in Eastern Europe think he's a dangerous demagogue.

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Only we aren't limiting this conversation to President Obama.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Interesting. So, you're unhappy about the right comparing the President to Hitler, when you repeatedly compared Bush with Hitler? It seems that like the Iowa Tea Party, you don't have the same standards when the President isn't part of your tribe.

So then the Tea Party "Stripes" are the same as yours?

Just heard Rush talking about this on my way to lunch. I'm paraphrasing but basically he said "Everyone's all pissed off about Obama being compared to Hitler. Nobody seems to care that he's being compared to Lenin!"

I lol'd.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

Lenin didn't have a Snowballs chance.

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

That has to sting ...

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I can understand what they wanted to portray with the billboard. "Hey, look at these guys that tried Socialism before! We know how that ended up..."

Unfortunately, the public doesn't have enough knowledge of the other two men to make an equal comparison in their heads. They see Hitler, who they likely only know as a genocidal maniac. Then they look over and see Lenin who they likely know nothing about outside of socialism, automatically putting him in a bad light. Then they look at Obama.

A lot of people probably saw that sign and started wondering if Obama was literally going to murder them.

I sincerely doubt that even 0.5% of the people who saw that sign thought such a thing.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

The point is though, Obama is nothing at all like Hitler in any way that matters. Hitler for all intents and purposes was a man who wanted to take over the world militarily and killed hundreds of thousands of people in gas chambers and work camps in brutal fashion.

Any form of totalitarianism from this point onward will come with a smile. It will be "for your own good". Dont eat this, it's for your own good. Drive one of these, it's good for the environment. We will decide what healthcare you get. We'll run your retirement. Wear a helmet, conserve, recycle, keep your kids under surveillance 24/7, no rough sports, no losers, everyone wins... blah blah blah. That's the control we're headed for. Not Hitler.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

He led his nation from hope of a bright future to ruin and division that lasted decades. Folks can associate that with what they imagine is occurring now in the US.

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In time, this too shall pass.

No Dash, President Obama isn't, nor was President Bush. They are they precursor. The Friedrich Ebert and Paul von Hindenburg to the coming storm. Much like the the atrocities, the policies didn't form in a vacuum. However, given the lack of a vacuum, there are enough similarities present to our path, given the ideologies of our leaders, to make an easy, and apt, connection.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

The only "freedom" that is being eroded in the US is economic freedom. You have far more civil rights and liberties than you did 25 years ago, and definitely 50 years ago.

J. Edgar Hoover wiped his *** with the Constitution on a daily basis to an extreme that no politician today can even dream of matching. And when he was caught? People applauded him for what he did, they didn't condemn him. When we get someone that abuses our freedoms on Hoover's level, and the majority of the populace thanks them for it, then you can predict doomsday.

Bullshit. Bullshit on every level. Then an appeal to tradition, and an appal to popularity, and an appeal to authority. Follow that up with an personal appeal to economic and historical ignorance, which while not logical fallacies, are certainly not meritorious.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

1. Appeal to popularity is not a fallacy when the populace essentially (OK, they're one level removed from the decision, but they still mostly get the choice) determines what rights and freedoms you have. Unconstitutional means you just need a few more votes, remember? I'm not sure how what I said counts as an appeal to authority or tradition, we're comparing relative civil rights and freedoms between today and 50 years ago, so showing that much more severe rights violations occurred then than do now and that the legal consequences for those actions were far less severe than they are today shows you have more freedom today.

2. The fact is that Edgar Hoover blatantly committed literally thousands of felonies and violated people's rights every single day for decades and successive administrations ignored it because the public decided that stamping out Communism in the US was more important than their rights. He never ended up in court over any of this even when it became public knowledge, in fact he got a state funeral and the FBI building is still named after him. He wiretapped hundreds of people when it was blatantly illegal and nothing happened. Bush's administration made wiretapping legal before they did it and they still got dragged through the courts.

And it's not just Hoover. In the 1950s taking the fifth amendment against HUAAC, or even just having your name published on pretty much any document released by HUAAC, blacklisted you for life from pretty much all employment and made you a gigantic pariah. Did any of these committee members face criminal or civil judgments for ruining people's lives? Of course not. Conversely, in the 21st century people have sued the government for millions and won simply for being erroneously named as a "person of interest" in a case. (See: Steven Hatfill and the anthrax attacks)

Socialism has become a slur. You can't even think of using the term without people thinking you're using a hyperbole. It's not "evil" or anything, but it is a thing and it exists in our universe. Contrary to what every politician in our country would have you believe.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I have to disagree on this point. Obama is a charismatic leader that favors a centralization of state power and authority, opposes the necessary balance of the judiciary, and believes that the legislature exists only as a vehicle for his agenda. He knows nothing of compromise and cooperative rule.Again, there exists very little evidence that Hitler had anything to do with the Final Solution until it was already in place. Eichmann, however, is an entirely differently story, and the same can be said for Goering and Goebels. Hitler's chief advisors ran Germany during the latter part of the 1930s and were responsible for the push to war and territorial expansion. And this isn't to deny that Hitler was a vehement anti-semite, he simply wanted to expel the Jews like most other nations had during the previous century.Except, that's how Mussolini happened. That's how Franco happened. That's how Hitler happened. The great tyrants of the 20th Century, save Lenin and Stalin, seized power on the back of their electorate through charisma and promises of "safety" and "security".

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Appeal to popularity is a fallacy Xeq unless you're talking about how certain system work in a democratic system. It is still a fallacy when one is talking about what should occur (even in a democratic system).

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Not necessarily. If your position is that whatever the will of the people is, is what should be done, then it is not an appeal to popularity to say that whatever is most popular is also what should happen.

It's just like any other question determined by popularity. One can certainly argued that the best movies of all time are the most-attended ones (not that this is necessarily true, but since the quality of a mocie is heavily subjective, it is not fallacious to point to popularity as evidence of quality.)

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Wow, I haven't seen this much idiocy packed in one thread for a while.

Got anything of value to offer, or just the same low-brow horseshit as usual?

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Ezekiel 23:19-20