[Warfish]

Originally Posted by long island leprechaun

I've studiously avoided posting in the politics forum...

Our loss tbh.

I think the Second Amendment is one of those items. It has troubled constitutional scholars and justices for much of its life, primarily because.....

The courts have made quite clear what it means, and the solution if the People dislike that meaning is clear. Amend the Constitution to correct it, if you can get the People to support your cause.

Somehow we could ban alcohol and correct civil rights, but cannot do anything else since? The loss of the Amendment process as an answer is one of our biggest problems and failings IMO. Teh route to "fix" is very clear, if we chose to have the debate and use it.

The above reading would argue that in the SA there are essentially two strands of rights: personal ownership for individual protection or sport, and the organized civilian counterbalance

You've nailed it. The Amendment serves two purposes. A. the right to personal arms for personal use (common then, less so now, but still common). And B. A force, even if only theoretical, to stand in opposition to the federal should the Federal go too far (as the King they just rebelled against had), in order to keep the new Government in check of the poeple and away from totalitarianism.

Originally Posted by long island leprechaun

Fascism certainly runs closer on the social dimension to the far-right in the U.S. and runs beyond the left in economic and organizational dimensions.

Well said, although I would add two things: In a question of degrees there is no meaningful similarity bewteen current American right-wing and Nazi Facism. No American (R) wants to exterminate a group of Americans, nor do they want to engage in Millitary Totalitarianism.

If anything, the furthest reaches of the American right-wing are more akin to a Taliban-light (in their desire for religious-based system of laws) than anything the Nazi's did. Even then, there is no question of degree, with the american far-right being much less than any similar current Islamic-based Nation in terms of religious-based impositions.

If Nazi Germany was just another version of socialism, it would hardly have garnered such support.

Sure it would, look who made out the best under Hitler....the big German Firms who produced things. Rule by the Corporate Party loyalists, socialism for everyone else (Germans only of course).

Not dissimilar is the Big business had a very cosy relationship with the Nazis that worked to support both enormous profits, influence and support of Nazi power, all in the service of social and nationalistic goals that demonized and marginalized threats to racial purity and national patriotism, were highly militaristic and arrogant, and took law-and-order to an extreme of abuse, torture, and genocide. Oddly, the Communists were much the same, but under different rhetoric. Neither really promoted democracy, the volk, the proletariat, or any other term that conceded power to the populace. The Nazis were flaming demons; the Communists were fraudulent demons... both were dispicable.

Well said. Totalitarianism is the word that best describes both, complete subjucation of the Nation and people to a single form of leadership (the party in both cases), unquestionable for fear of death, and in complete power and control of all aspects of the Nation.