[lapcat]

One does not simply become a fascist dictator without a large number of fascist followers and sympathizers.

It's not like Hitler invented racism. He was charismatic, and thereby became a leader of the movement, but he wasn't a magical pied piper. He told people what they wanted to hear.

Anyway, I'm not sure what the argument is supposed to be, because there's always someone instigating.

The Hitler example just reinforces the point about power vacuums and weak governments. Hitler only served 8 months in prison for a coup attempt (the Beer Hall Putsch) against the Weimar Republic, an extremely weak response that did almost nothing to stop his rise to power.

[marssaxman]

The previous poster said "I want less government in every way - let local people decide for themselves what they want to do." You replied that "local people decided what they wanted to do was invade other countries and commit mass murder." I pointed out that there was quite a lot of government involved in this decision, referring to the well-known history of certain WWII fascist dictatorships in which the entire society was effectively subjugated under the authority of a single person. Your response is... to... agree? I'm not sure how your argument counters the original poster's plea for less government.

[lapcat]

> I pointed out that there was quite a lot of government involved in this decision, referring to the well-known history of certain WWII fascist dictatorships in which the entire society was effectively subjugated under the authority of a single person.

You're completely ignoring how the dictatorship came to be. Hitler didn't just step off a spaceship from another planet and immediately become leader of Germany. There was a democratic government for many years before he came to power, and the Nazi party spent many years gaining political support during that time. In 1932, they won 37% of the vote, becoming the largest political party in the country. The people who voted for them were going down that path voluntarily. You seem to be taking the existence of a dictatorship for granted, a fact without any need of historical or causal explanation, as if nothing that happened before 1933 mattered.

The Nazi party was explicitly racist, explicitly antisemitic, explicitly anti-immigrant. And they were popular! So yes, this was local people getting together and deciding to form a tribe based on hatred of others.