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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"Isn't it interesting how fascists always steal the word 'freedom' ?"
I am actually watching a movie right now. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" w/ Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara. However I just watched a scene with DC speaking with the older patriarch of the family that he will be investigating (played by Christopher Plummer) and one line stood out to me that I hadn't noticed before.
CP's character is talking about his brother who joined the Nazis when he was 17 and who joined the "Nationalist Socialist Freedom League", or something like that in Swedish. And then he said the above quote. "Isn't it interesting how fascists always steal the word 'freedom'?"
It just struck me how the right has been pushing the "freedom" thing for years - even before Trump - and it occurred to me how the use of this word in their rhetoric was not an accident. It is a deliberate attempt to make people think that others are trying to take away their liberty, and that those people are the enemy.
kimbutgar
(21,188 posts)It is such a fake adjective for right wingers to spout their bs.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)do you prefer for the concept? Or perhaps is it what type of you-know-what do you prefer? Anything to do with individualism?
kimbutgar
(21,188 posts)By the way your comment to me sounds kind of mean.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)humanism and liberalism to me. Although they're sincere, they don't mean quite the same things to most conservatives as they do to liberals, usually less commitment to individual rights and more to group hierarchical and even authoritarian roles within social hierarchies. Which is why I asked about individualism.
We can't let them appropriate and degrade these terms to serve authoritarian mindsets.
Walleye
(31,045 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)in order to protect themselves is baked into the mentality, and the cause. False victimhood is a huge force behind the growing extremism across the board, from class based to white nationalism to just-wanna-hit-"back."
Victims of society don't just have a right but even a noble calling to take over, destroy the bad old establishment, and replace with whatever the leader they choose says they will.
Walleye
(31,045 posts)I dont know what they think they are victims of except the age old, women wont let them be monsters. I guess victimhood is very seductive
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)that ultimately can "justify" any behavior if it isn't defused and diffused. Most populist movements are potentially dangerously destructive, as are many, but not all, of the leaders who choose this means to power.
(It's noteworthy that Sanders couldn't control the aggressive hard-cores who joined his movement.)
The same genuine inequities and other problems used to radicalize complainers make sensible people want to solve them and create better.
That's where we come in. It's no accident that the Biden team is fighting for America's "soul" with building and working on solving the problems. Or that we elect builders.
Poiuyt
(18,130 posts)I never thought patriotism meant destroying the country you supposedly love.
LakeArenal
(28,845 posts)calimary
(81,466 posts)Busterscruggs
(448 posts)Democracy community and socialist sound awful when they really are the exact opposite
Wounded Bear
(58,706 posts)Response to Wounded Bear (Reply #6)
Chin music This message was self-deleted by its author.
Progressive Jones
(6,011 posts)It's all about them spreading lies about being "persecuted".
onecaliberal
(32,894 posts)Doodley
(9,124 posts)patphil
(6,207 posts)JHB
(37,161 posts)...gained a mostly-political victory in 1862 and successfully seceded. The novels took the situation through the Great War that broke out in 1914, with USA and CSA on opposite sides, with the CSA losing.
The Nazi-esque party that arose in the CSA in the war's aftermath, and took it over in the 30s, was the "Freedom Party."
It didn't take a lot of pondering to come up with that. It's pretty boilerplate American Wingnut.
vercetti2021
(10,156 posts)Okayish movies though
I_UndergroundPanther
(12,480 posts)Freedom means something different from the way we define it
To a facsist pig it means freedom to harm other people or kill people they dont like and it means freedom from responsibility and accountability and.
Freedom from the law.
.
rampartc
(5,435 posts)means unfettered liberty to exploit the weak." will durant
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)Also, freedom from taxes. Can't forget that.
I_UndergroundPanther
(12,480 posts)From obligations to others.
DFW
(54,436 posts)0:21 to 0:26 for the smug "freedom" claim, and 2:05 to 2:25 for the brilliant reposte
It's fiction, but oh, so true nonetheless.
Emile
(22,911 posts)speak easy
(9,302 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)(Those are the people we're talking about.) All passionately agree the establishment and its institutions must be taken over and replaced.
Unfortunately, they typically have far less commitment left over for what comes next. That's where The Charismatic Leader comes in. His followers know he wants what they want (he says so, often!) and with their support will make it happen.
Mr. Ected
(9,670 posts)It's as close as you can get to calling them out on their bullshit "freedom" claims and stick them with an altogether repulsive label.
dalton99a
(81,570 posts)etc. etc.
GoodRaisin
(8,929 posts)Pushing the opposite traits of what they actually are. Or like when Fox News used to lead with fair and balanced. Yeah, sure.
Ive pretty much learned that when they lead with these kind of claims you need to run the other way.