See Thread title. Granted that’s just one. (In mathematics, “some” means “at least one”)
Blalron’s post just above this one seems to be on a somewhat related wavelength to the OP.
Well, the Democrats have the whole godless communist section to themselves. 
Well, I’ll let rjung speak for himself, but I’m personally worried about electronic voting if there isn’t enough proper third-party oversight.
With paper voting, you can at least go back and count the ballots. The only way to forge an election result would be to make up thousands of fake ballots. If the people in charge of counting are corrupt, you can fire them and hire new people to count.
With pure electronic voting, though, you can only trust the election result as much as you trust the software. Suppose you have a voting booth with nothing but a touch screen: you tap on Richard Tweedledum for President, the screen says “You have selected TWEEDLEDUM”, and the computer adds a vote to Tweedledum’s running total.
Or does it? How do you know that it didn’t actually count your vote for Frank Tweedledee instead, either because of a bug in the software, or a deliberate “back door”? Without a physical record of the votes, you don’t know.
Even if the software is audited by a third party, who guarantees it free of back doors and bugs, you have to trust A) that the third party did a competent job, and B) that the compiled software on the voting machines was produced from exactly the same code that was audited, no more and no less. This back door from the 70s shows why B isn’t as simple as you might think.
**Fascism in the Whitehouse **
Not hardly. Yet.
W Bush with admirable zeal has begun an overdue latterday Crusade to rid this world of tyrants.
A noble pursuit. One very attainable in the 21st Century.
But benevolence itself has hidden barbs. Lenin, Mao, Hussin, and Hitler enslaved millions to bring them to true happiness.
And while W Bush is a Cincinnatus, a crusader crusades best without petty constituional constraints.
Keep vigil.
Given that Blalron’s post seems to be sarcasm (probably in response to yours–and that it had not been posted when you made your claim) and that we do not know whether lander2k2 is actually a “leftist” or simply a bit naive, it would appear that you are simply engaging in more partisan silliness.
Now, I would certainly agree that some members of the Left use fascism as a mindless insult in the way that some members of the Right use communism. It is also possible that some members of the Left actually associate Bush and company with Nazis. However, your hijack of this thread was, at best, premature and may prove to be completely in error. Simply more partisan glurge.
Actually, it wasn’t FDR per se, but during his Presidency that we came probably the closest we’ve ever come in this century to an actual coup attempt.
Wouldn’t that be the same thing? 
Apos, what do you mean by “coup attempt”? A coup by FDR, or against him?
Let me clarify how I see the possibility that Bush being pushed towards fascism. I say “pushed towards” because he doesn’t seem bright enough to orchestrate anything himself, and I say fascism quite deliberately and not as a random fashionable insult. Let me make it clear that when I say “fascism in the Whitehouse” I’m proposing the possibility that there are elements in the administration that are actively working on pushing America in that direction. I can’t see them getting far without many screaming to high heaven about it. But it seems to me that there is some elements trying to go in that direction.
The dictionary defines fascism as: “a system of government characterized by rigid one-party dictatorship, forcible suppression of opposition, private economic enterprise under centralized governmental control, belligerent nationalism, racism, and militarism, etc. “
The one-party dictatorship aspect is obviously not attainable under the US Constitution and while Bush has shown a penchant for encroaching upon constitutional principles in the name of “protecting the homeland,” it is hard to imagine anything like this being pulled off. Forcible suppression of opposition could potentially be accomplished under new measures to “fight terrorism.” Once someone is arbitrarily labeled a terrorist it seems they can be detained without due legal recourse now. While I don’t know of any real instances of political prisoners being taken, it should be noted that terrorist fighting measures could be employed to this end. Private economic enterprise being brought under centralized control doesn’t necessarily mean communism to me. Take the recent invade-a-country-and-award-big-contracts-to-well-connected-corporations stunt. For mine the entire Iraq gig was an economic stimulus plan. Seems to me one way of bringing private enterprise under government control. America is already pretty much socialist what with the size of the federal government and extent of taxation and private enterprise is already under heavy influence from the government, even if only through taxation. As for the belligerent nationalism, note how Bush et al reacted to the nations that questioned the US intentions with regard to Iraq. Racism is a big no-no in America and while it may be present, especially with regard to middle-easterners, no one will say as much. Militarism? Well, nothing needs to be said on that one in the wake of an unprovoked invasion.
As for the points that were raised alluding to how different circumstance are in the US compared to other times and places where fascism has raised its ugly head, while these factors may be true, there sure are some correlations to a specific and very notorious series of events as well. Note the following article:
http://paranoiamagazine.com/democracyfailed.html
As for suggestions about my political leaning, I’m no leftist. My political leaning is away from politics altogether. I think politics as it exists in America today is comically childish. Just MHO.
Um, Paranoia Magazine?
Sure…whatever.
Look over their articles-UFOs, conspiracy theories, etc.
IANA (I am not Apos - a rarely used internet acronym) but I believe he is referring to the MacGuire plot of 1933. A businessman, Gerald MacGuire, approached retired Marine general Smedly Butler and said he represented a group of businessmen where concerned about FDR’s economic policies. They wanted Butler to lead a military coup and force FDR to become a figurehead president. Butler turned down their offer and reported it to Congress.
Or I could be wrong and Apos might be talking about Charles Coughlin, Huey Long, William Pelley, or one of the other people who led movements in the 1930’s that appeared capable of overthrowing the American government.
That was probably one of the most bizarre incidents in the entirety of American history. A group of businessmen tried to utilize a popular but left leaning general for a fascist coup. Who would’ve figured? :dubious:
There’s ample reason to be concerned about the use of electronic voting machines.
http://www.democrats.com/preview.cfm?term=Voting%20Machine%20Manipulation
to sum up:
Current voting machines use proprietary software which can’t be checked.
Hence voting records are unauditable
The major manufacturer of electronic voting machines is Diebold, and their board of directors has many ties to the Republican right.
It’s a formula for disaster.
No, GeeDubya is not a Fascist. He is a mediocre little twit with a wildly exaggerated sense of his own significance, Elmer Fudd channeling Otto von Bismarck.
But he’s not a Fascist.
C’mon, elucidator. Read the thread, man. I didn’t suggest Bush was a fascist. I suggested that there was Fascism in the Whitehouse. I, like you it seems, think that Bush doesn’t have enough IQ points to rub together to be much of anything except a puppet.
That said, your metaphor on Bush was pretty astute.
Wow! What an argument. Well, you’ve convinced me. I see your point now. What was I thinking? You’ve cleared up the precise error in my train of thought and now I can see the whole issue in a new light.
Get a handle on that wandering attention of yours and see if you can make it through to the end of the article and try to formulate an argument on the actual issue. Or are raw facts that conflict with your comfortable view of the world just not even worth acknowledging?
Well, lander, it was a joke, not a contradiction.
Structure as follows: obvious understatement, wildly exaggerated overstatement to underline a common, but derogatory, truth, followed by a repitition of the understatement.
And this “astute”: thats like, a good thing, right?
Even though this was aimed at Guin, it has an interesting self-revelatory aspect that deserves comment.
Your facts are indeed raw. As has been noted, you’ve taken various developments in domestic politics that you don’t like (such as, for God’s sake, the squabble over judicial appointments), strung them together with events on the international scene (GWB - the first president ever to undertake a foolish military adventure with the acquiescence of a complacent Congress) to produce a truly half-baked alarmist theory over our impending slide into fascism.
It’s a positive recipe for being dismissed as a paranoiac who can’t even read a dictionary (of the components of fascism you quoted, perhaps one (the “belligerent nationalism”) has debatable merit.
And while we’re on the subject of usage, it’s “White House” -
two separate words, Gunga Din.
Sorry, my bad. I misunderstood. I got it now.
And yes, astute was like a good thing. Clever, sharp, keen-witted; you know - astute.
You just hate the US and hate bush. That doesn’t qualify you as a savior. More like an extremist with an agenda.