Not always and everywhere.  WHen the upper Mississippi flooded, most of them looked to their neighbor and not to the government.  Indeed, in the recession, not all are looking to the government, but going out and doing it on their own.

Mason was 98% correct.  But like all of us, he forgot that during the revolution, a full 40% still sided with the crown.  Of that 40%, some left America after it, but many stayed.  They are the ancestors of those who want government to do it all.  But they have been in the minority for the most part.  Even today, they are, even with one of them running the country (he was elected not on what he is doing, but on the fact he had not done anything up to that point).

I like to tell the story of my mother - with 4 kids, and divorced.  We were poor, but she never took a penny from the government.  She would not to this day.  America was built on people like her, but it includes those who want a hand out as well.

Yeah, but I suppose most Yanks think that they saved their asses twice in WW1 and WW2, so the French owe the US big time...but like most people it seems they only saw the past in blocks: I know here in Canada, everyone sees our Army as a peacekeeping Army: totally oblivious to the fact that in the first half of the 20th Century, we were ruling the battlefield..not to mention "winning" our independance throught our feats of arms.

But noooo....Canadians grunts are Peacekeepers, way more P.C. to say that than..I dunno "We held the line in the Trenches against German gas attacks at Ypres with hankerchiefs on which we had to piss on it to not breathe the gas while being outnumbered 10 to 1."

Excellent postage stamp of what was going on.  I dont agree with the interpretation totally, but appreciate it when someone knows their history well.

And yes, America was not able to stand up to the British when France asked (they and the english were pirating our merchant vessels at will until well into the 19th century - a reason we went to war again in 1812).  But I think we more than fulfilled our obligation in 1917 and 1941.

Given the situations (England in the 19th century and Germany in the 20th), I would say our aid was more timely spent than what was asked for back in the 18th century.

Hmm... let me put it this way...

I do expect both a facist regime and a socialist government to, say, have enormous government funded infrastructure projects. That's expected. In fact, economically, I'll admit, they're similar. But superficial is an important word.

I think the problem we're both running into is the difference between philosphy vs. practice. Communism is an extremely different philosophy from feudalism even if they function very similarly.  Now, economically, nazism and socialism are related in areas. But Hitler's reasoning was to preserve cultural purity and strike out at the percieved enemies of his race in order to carry out some sort of racial destiny, while socialism, oppositely, will do things more out of a sense of humanism out of a desire to serve the greater good (in theory). And these different goals are reflected, quite strongly, in their economic and social policies.

That's why I think Nazism and socialism shouldn't be confused. Now, I am "left" wing, I don't think I'm a socialist, but if I was a socialist, I definitely wouldn't be a nazi. I'd also really prefer people know the difference between communism and socialism (socialism is not another word for communism) but I'm not prepared to take that undertaking.

I think this chart is a pretty good illustration of where Hitler is compared to Stalin. While I don't think the chart gives a perfect representation, it works.

www.politicalcompass.org

This is a good website to go to. They made the chart above and somewhere on that website is a good explanation why they placed Hitler where they did.

According to the political test, I'm some sort of anarcho-communist, even though I don't particularly feel like one. Take it with a grain of salt, I guess.

You're looking at that wrong.

The centerpoint is a balance between anarchy and totalitarianism, broken into two subjects, social and economic.

Hitler being less socialist than Stalin just means Hitler was less socialist than Stalin.  It doesn't mean Hitler didn't have a massive bent towards socialism, as one can see by the distinct lack of distance from the midpoint.  The midpoint is half and half.  Half communist is a hell of a lot of communism if you at all consider free markets to be the normal, optimal manner of running an economy.  Nazi Fascism is a massive level of control, Soviet Communism is a more massive level of control, but they both make lassaiz faire look like a bunch of hippies.

If one were to rate people on a bar graph, with zero being social and economic freedom and the level the amount of control in those aspects, it would be less misleading.  Controlling nearly half of all economic activity was not in any way relating to a free market approach, the actual opposite of theoretical communism.

Socialism is a distinct philosophy with distinct goals. It is not a gradient. If you don't want to achieve socialist goals, then you can't be a socialist. Much like you can't really be an existentialist if your life feels full of meaning, or you can't really be a christian if don't believe in God. There is grey area in this, for sure... but if your purported goal is the opposite of socialism, there's not a whole room for interpretation. You're not a socialist.

As I said before, this argument is really what is defined as "socialist". When I think of socialist, I think of it what it was founded to be... a humanistic approach to governance that emphasizes governmental intervention so that all individuals recieve some minimum level of living (or something along those lines). Now the word is simply a synonym for economic government intervention... that's something I take issue with.

Yes. That was intentional. You can't be an existentialist if you feel your life is full of meaning. That's a true statement.

OK. I'm not going to defend that definition of facism. It's still distinct from socialism.

Erm, except that no, it's not.

Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Camus, Sartre, De Beauvoir, Fanon, and Frankl, among others, disagree. Strongly.

You're thinking of pessimism or nihilism, which often share existentialism's claims that the meaning of life or existence cannot be rationally found to have positive value (ie. meaning). Existentialism, by contrast holds that we have a remarkable freedom to find meaning in our lives or in the world regardless of our surrounding conditions. (Which is why Marxists and the various traditions which arise in France in the mid- to late twentieth century hate them so much!) It's asilly philosophical quibble with your original post, but hey, it's what catches my attention.

I don't think that the original definition is indefensible. It's just interesting to see how political attitudes change and influence our supposedly disinterested lexicographers.

You're mistaking Marxism for Socialism, a common problem thanks to historical jackasses renaming shit left and right.  The people of the time applied socialist to a number of different theories, it's not a new thing.  Theoretical communism(this is one label on that graph), is one end of the economic spectrum.  Total economic redistribution, total control.  Socialism has been applied to just about everything from the halfway point onward.  The Soviets were socialists, the Fascists were socialist, the Progressives were socialist, our current president is socialist.  Marx might not be very happy with the labeling, but it's been established for over a century so he'll have to get over it.  None of the regimes you're taking as socialist would have made him the least bit happy either.

You also seem to feel you're too far left.  This implies you've been rather well washed into the current philosophies.  Before that idiot Marx started destroying economies left and right, they were going away from the controlled economy approach because it worked so much better.  From a real economists perspective, even the communist ones, just moving a fourth of the way towards that center point is suboptimal.  One of the top ruskies even had the balls to tell his superiors that free market capitalism was a more effective economy.

In effect, you're a lunatic for being anywhere near it, let alone past it.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism

It's ok, really.  You keep pretending I'm ignorant, and I'll keep pretending you just missed that whole "national socialism" bit.  Revisionism has been the trendy thing to do for a lot longer than either of us have been around, so it's not like I expected you to believe the explanation in the first place.

The dictionary entry exemplifies the problem you have with the word.

The first is the main entry for socialism, it covers Soviet style communism, classical marxism, fascism, utopian communism, various tribal governments, all kinds of stuff.  Basically, anything where the state is meddling in production and distribution.

The second is Communism.  Pretty cut and dry.  The first part being utopian, the second being the real world implementation.  Remember, the ruskies built the USSR, not the USCR.

The third is what Marx originally thought up that got labeled Socialism way back when.  It's applicable to the progressive movement, modern liberals, most European countries, etcetera.  Some of us are further along than others, but Europe is almost solidly socialist, and the US is arguable.  The tax code alone is a significant redistribution of wealth, there are numerous social programs on top of that.

None of these are new definitions, none of them were made by yanks.  All three originate in Europe.  The main entry most definitely applies to national socialism, which is kinda why they called it national socialism at the time.  That would be Germany in the 1920's, not modern pop culture in the US.

Fascism isn't considered socialism in Europe because for some reason you guys went Nazi crazy over there and jumped through hoops to avoid sharing any labels after WW2.  The entire continent forgot they were real excited about fascism at the time and wanted to join the comparably successful economic policies a few years earlier.  It works much better than straight socialism, less centralization and excellent rewards for hard work in the government backed corporations as long as the people in power didn't kill off the good businessmen when they took over.

I recreationally call myself 'what passes for a socilist in the US,' but pschoak's sort of got you here. Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito, and Stalin all had a major area of ideological compatibility: authoritarian nationalism. You can throw in Pol Pot, Mao, Idi Amin, those wacky Kims in North Korea, and Castro for good measure.

Perhaps the real root of the word-wrasslin' here is that whenever you have three people call themselves something-ist, there are at least two 'strict definitions' of what that means. I'm a feminist too, but it's often a real drag to try explaining that I only know a few feminisms well and probably less than a dozen by name. I won't even start on what a hoot it was to see LGBTQ in some national paper recently...except to say that in my grammar-nanny's heart, I tend to agree with Gore Vidal that "homosexual" is a noun, not an adjective.

Look, we can all play this game. (You'll have to search for 'socialism' - Google print handles URL's in a funny way.)

Whether you define 'socialism' as government control of the economy or government control of the economy with a view toward some sort of social justice, depends on the focus of your analysis. Can we agree that fascism is a particularly interesting form of government and that it may not be useful to lump it in together with modern Europe? Besides, 'socialism', 'liberalism' ie. capitalism, it's all humanistic nonsense anyway.

So what flavor of feminist are you?