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The New Totalitarians Are Here

Posted by Eudaimonia 8 years, 9 months ago to Culture
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"No, even after losing, you will be forced to admit the error of your ways. You must accept that you’ve sinned. You must discard your own values and accept the ideas of your betters. You must denounce yourself for undermining the construction of a better world."
SOURCE URL: http://thefederalist.com/2015/07/06/the-new-totalitarians-are-here/


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  • 14
    Posted by Zenphamy 8 years, 9 months ago
    What I find more frightening than the existence of those that utilize totalitarianism and authoritarianism, is the failure of even this author to recognize that those isms are tools in the pouch intended to gain much more than just the acceptance and agreement of the population for any particular issue. The goal is much worse and more pernicious than that. It is the total destruction of any form of self confidence. Its no longer acceptable to have an opinion formed within your own mind or to believe that such has any purpose to exist--one must seek out the approved and consensus opinion to have and to live by. If we need an opinion about the LGBT community, we must ask the LGBT community. If we need an opinion on the rape 'crisis', we must ask those that see a crisis. If we need an opinion on alcohol, we must ask Carrie Nation.

    But we must never ever have our own opinions based on our own experiences and facts and rational thought, particularly if it differs from or didn't originate from the consensus of those that have a right to form an opinion--even if those only represent less than 5% of the population.

    But what's important is that you don't have an opinion or trust yourself to form one. You can have no respect of yourself as an individual. You must ask.
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    • Posted by woodlema 8 years, 9 months ago
      "But we must never ever have our own opinions based on our own experiences and facts and rational thought, particularly if it differs from or didn't originate from the consensus of those that have a right to form an opinion--even if those only represent less than 5% of the population. "

      VERY VERY SAGE advice. Advice I apply to myself daily.

      An old saying: "More often than not...When the Majority Rules, that just means all the FOOLS are on the same side."
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      • Posted by $ jdg 8 years, 9 months ago
        Anyone who talks like that is some kind of totalitarian. Everyone is entitled to an opinion.
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        • Posted by woodlema 8 years, 9 months ago
          I just watched a discussion with a bunch of Doctors who came to the conclusion that all the previous conventional wisdom,( i.e. majority agreed, ), that keeping kids away from nuts until age 3 is the major cause of all the sever allergies of nuts, and that children should be exposed as early as birth for their immune system to begin protecting them from allergies.

          Two Doctors said something I thought I would NEVER hear a Doctor say. "Wow I guess we were all wrong, who would have thought."

          You could fill a library with all the times conventional "wisdom" from academics was so wrong.

          When Pasture, discovered germs, he was scoffed at, and ridiculed, and when he suggested washing hands before surgery, doctors, educated doctors across the world had to be pulled kicking and screaming to start washing their hands before surgery.

          Not so sure that questioning the "majority" is totalitarianism. To me more like common sense.

          So often it IS that 5% or even the ONE that is totally right and everyone else is wrong.
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  • Posted by Maritimus 8 years, 9 months ago
    I feel compelled to make a few observations, which are meant to illustrate and affirm the message of this article. My authority comes from having lived for 18 years (from age 9 to 27) in a totalitarian communist regime.

    Strictly speaking, "America is not yet creating" Nazis or Stalinists. Yes, there are numerous other "species" of that "genus". It is really important to recognize the evil of the genus. In that connection, notice the relabeling of their movements to avoid recognition.

    The historical totalitarians all spoke of creating the New Man and of the education necessary to change all the people into the new mold. Notice that they really do not mean education, which I would define as an effort to develop, in each individual, the rational and cognitive skills and to instill the knowledge which humanity has accumulated throughout its evolution. No. By education they mean indoctrination.

    I have, for decades, tried to illustrate to people that totalitarianism is to the humans what cancer is to the living tissue. A degeneration of all the basic life processes. I think that it is a true analogy.

    Notice that we used to be a country of individual freedom, rights of property, of pursuit of happiness and freedom of speech (which, of course, means the freedoms of thought and of conscience).

    Those freedoms and rights are all, as the author demonstrates, under attack nowadays. All of us, and I mean truly all Americans, still willing to think with their own heads and who still cherish those freedoms and rights, must resist and organize ourselves to resist always and everywhere the totalitarian indoctrination. We must help people understand the true nature of that onslaught.

    Finally, I would like to ask you all to resolve that you will not, if it comes to that, under even the most painful tortures, concede to the torturer and renounce yourself as an upright and free human being.

    People of Belgrade, on March 27, 1941 overthrew the government of Yugoslavia, after it had signed a pact with Hitler. They chanted in the streets: "Better grave than a slave!" Magically, it rhymes in my mother's tongue just as it does in English. This 5-year old boy still remembers that day.

    Yes, there are things for which it is worth risking one's life. Ask the people who volunteer for our military services. Ask Ayn Rand and her Kira in "We the Living".

    Take all this, please, as food for thought and as one man's opinion.
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    • Posted by BrettRocketSci 8 years, 9 months ago
      Thank you for being here and sharing this! Thanks to Eudaimonia for posting the original article too! We are kindred souls on a sacred mission. We must stand together, act strongly, and never surrender.
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      • Posted by Maritimus 8 years, 9 months ago
        Thank you, BrettRocketSci,

        I couldn't agree with you about about the mission and the "road directions" you point out.

        I should have mentioned also that by the end of the war in 1945, around 10% of the population of Yugoslavia were killed.

        Fare well!
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    • Posted by philosophercat 8 years, 9 months ago
      True and beautiful as a tribute to the best within. I have two knives which belonged to an Estonian woman who was imprisoned by the Soviets after the Hitler-Stalin pact. She was released and imprisoned again when the Nazis captured Estonia. When the red army rolled through she was imprisoned again and years later she escaped and with the two knives and her cooking skills she worked her way to Germany and and across the border into West Germany . She came to freedom in Manchester NH where my Grandmother gave her a job as a cook and house keeper. She made the most wonderful bread and it was a treat to watche her cut the warm bread with her knife and serve it with butter. I inherited the two knoives when she died which I treasure above all else I own except for my Ayn Rand works from across the same border. Lest we forget. .
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  • Posted by philosophercat 8 years, 9 months ago
    The citation is excellent. Pol Pot was a totalitarian educated at the University of Paris where it is said he could quote any passage of Marx by memory. He realized as Plato taught that he must educate the people but only uneducated could be properly given the new education so he shot the ones with their own ideas and any form of education. Under all this is the hatred of the independence of the human mind and its necessity of personal freedom. So the " auto de fe" of the inquisition was a way of burning a human to death to return their souls to god from their own false ideas. This is what dominates the left today:. Hate of the human mind which will not believe.
    '
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    • Posted by $ Abaco 8 years, 9 months ago
      Read "The Stones Cry Out". I mentioned and reviewed it here about a year ago, I think. Man...that book changed my life. It was a little girl's account of trying to survive under Pol Pot. Every American should read it.
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  • Posted by xthinker88 8 years, 9 months ago
    "Yes, I mean people like actor George Takei and his odious attack on Justice Clarence Thomas. Takei called Thomas a “clown in blackface” and said Thomas had “abdicated” his status as an African-American."

    And this from the man who supports the party that had him, PERSONALLY, put into a concentration camp because of his race.
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    • Posted by $ jdg 8 years, 9 months ago
      At least Takei was big enough to apologize.
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      • Posted by Animal 8 years, 9 months ago
        You know, in that whole episode, the apology surprised me much less than the initial statement. Why?

        Because I've met George Takei. I sat next to him on a little commuter airliner flying from Atlanta to Columbus, GA in 1997. I chatted with him about Star Trek (I thought he was great in "Undiscovered Country") and "The Green Berets" (he described John Wayne as 'an incredible, enormous presence.)

        He was friendly, personable, and good-natured. I enjoyed speaking with him. I had a hard time squaring the man I met in 1997 with the comments about Judge Thomas.

        I'm guessing the apology was sincere.
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  • Posted by $ Stormi 8 years, 9 months ago
    It's the old, "you are either with us or you are against us" pattern. Politicians want to mold children via government schools to be compliant and accepting of beliefs, but not hold their own idea about it. They are not above using cognitive dissonance, hypnosis or the Delphi Technique to train the minds of children and parents alike. Politicians want to criminalize free thought that disagrees with their goals. We are in for some very bad times.
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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 8 years, 9 months ago
    Sounds like: nazi's, communist, marxist, liberals, progressives, radical gays, environmentalists, vegans, vegetarians [and anyone more concerned about earth but not the life upon it] global warming freaks, islam and of course isis!
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  • Posted by Im_J-hnG-lt 8 years, 9 months ago
    Human Rights are considered by humans to be inalienable. The right to Life, Liberty & Opportunity is what makes us human.
    If an individual does not understand & believe in the nature of humanity, that individual cannot be human, They are an alien specie and a natural enemy to humanity & must be dealt with accordingly.

    Human slavery can only be practiced & accepted by aliens to humanity. The negro was formally regarded as sub-human which made their enslavement acceptable. Something like taming & using wild horses to ride & pull. But, most humans are capable of learning & reasoning & acting on their own if given the opportunity. This is why 'black' slavery eventually failed.

    There is greater enslavement by fear, superstition, ignorance, coercion, debt & force today than ever before. The only way to prevent slavery is to empower the individual to recognize & avoid enslavement by any means.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 8 years, 9 months ago
    I've got it! Why not follow the example of the jihadists and use religion to convince the great unwashed. Catholics will be forced, if they don't comply to say 1,000 "Our Fathers" and 2,000 "Hail Marys." Jews will need 30 Yom Kippurs (day of atonement) in a row. Muslims will do a solid two months of Ramadan. With that hanging over their heads, they'll have no choice but to toe the line.
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  • -9
    Posted by CircuitGuy 8 years, 9 months ago
    What nonsense. The Soviets, Nazis, and govt in 1984 really did use force people to try to make people agree with them. The people mentioned in the article did not.
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    • 12
      Posted by Zenphamy 8 years, 9 months ago
      You don't think a fine of $134,000 by government for not baking a cake isn't force?
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      • Posted by woodlema 8 years, 9 months ago
        Not only is it force, it is slavery.

        They are trying to FORCE one person or group to act against not only their will but their conscience.

        I thought slavery was done away with. I am reminded of a quote from Abraham Lincoln regarding Liberty and Tyranny.

        The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name -- liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names --liberty and tyranny.

        The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails today among us human creatures, even in the North, and all professing to love liberty. Hence we behold the processes by which thousands are daily passing from under the yoke of bondage, hailed by some as the advance of liberty, and bewailed by others as the destruction of all liberty.

        -- Abraham Lincoln, in a speech at a Sanitary Fair in Baltimore, MD, on April 18th, 1864
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        • Posted by $ jlc 8 years, 9 months ago
          I had not read that before, woodlema. Thank you.

          This underscores the theme of needing precise definitions before we can craft governing documents or even have a worthwhile discussion.

          Jan
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    • Posted by $ jlc 8 years, 9 months ago
      The only WWII Germans I have personally spoken with did not need to be converted - the Nazi's represented their beliefs. Without the Nazi's, they would have not carried out ill deeds against Jews and other segments of society, but they thought that the Nazi's were factually correct.

      Jan
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      • Posted by woodlema 8 years, 9 months ago
        This is the same with Muslims and Islam.

        To be a "Good Muslim" you must follow those tenets. All of them...

        Like the Nazi's and the German's, once enough of them are in power, then those who REALLY believe will follow suit.

        Likewise this is why ISIS is gaining power and strength, because all those "Muslims" who truly believe will begin acting in the way they really want to but have been afraid to because their numbers were not great enough.
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    • Posted by philosophercat 8 years, 9 months ago
      They did not make people believe, they killed those who held different views and changed the textbooks on the cow like herd that remained. Look at the Nazi philosopher Heidegger who taught his University students Nietzsche so they could become Hitler's successors in expressing the soul of the German people through the power of the State.
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