[dathinab]

war on crime causes crime, draconic penalties do not prevent or even majorly reduce crime if a there is a long list of crime causing things which are not fixed.

Like in no specific order: poverty, bleak future, failed "common" education system, state supported/tolerated exploition of citizens, failing police, falling justice system (if you ask they are meant to protect citizens), systematic deep rooted discrimination, toleration of fascism

[upsidesinclude]

I agree with your assertion, war on any concept is doomed to fail and cause a backlash.

Your list begins to muddy the idea though. Poverty may be the only thing of great import mentioned.

Ignoring criminality (in the name of 'equity') develops into a situation seen in SF, Seattle and Portland. Preventing crime is not itself a draconian practice. Having some kind of penalty for criminal behavior is not draconian.

Ignoring crime and allowing criminals to go unpursued is a demoralizer for the entire community

[worker_person]

100% false.

If there are no consequences, then a percentage of the population will go nuts.

I've had a few young kids ask about going to California to get toys since you don't have to pay for them there. In their mind it's a great deal. Explaining that it's wrong even though you get away with it is awkward.

[dathinab]

There is a difference between no consequences and realizing that the problems are not solved with draconian consequences

The problems need solutions which are not fully but to a non-small degree independent of classical "crime fighting" decisions.

[62951413]

Tell it to former USSR citizens (btw with the exception of education your list describes that country perfectly). Everyone was poor but it didn't make everyone a criminal. Millions of suddenly impoverished middle class people in the 90s didn't turn to crime either. Normal people are normal people and criminals are are criminals regardless of external circumstances.

But you are right, war on crime makes no sense. It should be on _criminals_. Basically, if they have strength left to exercise in prisons they are clearly too well fed and not worked hard enough.

[dh2022]

I would my home country of Romania to your example. Life was miserable through 80s but there hardly any visible crime. Certainly no shoplifting and no vagabonds. We used to have a saying "te bate ca la militie" to describe the consequences of being hauled to the local police (back then called militia) station for "questioning".

[AdrianB1]

What is toleration of fascism? Most people I talked to don't even know what fascism is, but they use the term very liberally. Do you have national-socialists in California?

[dathinab]

facism is far-right authoritarian ultra-nationalism

national-socialist are one movement which is fascist, they are by far not the only one. (Nazis are fascist with socialist paint coat).

The US never had (internally) a problem with nazis, I think. But it does have a problem with white supremacist. It also does have a problem with religious extremist, most times Christian based. Both of this groups have quite a bit of overlap and have often strong fascist tendencies.

And sure California might be one of the US states better of. Tbh. especially with the last statement I was more thinking about some other US states.

[thomassmith65]

  The US never had (internally) a problem with nazis

You're probably aware that America had a substantial minority of Nazis around the outbreak of WWII (https://youtu.be/NC1MNGFHR58). Once the US entered the war, the government definitely (and unsurprisingly) considered the threat of Nazi-sympathizers a real problem.

[engineer_22]

-> facism is far-right authoritarian ultra-nationalism

Colloquially, this is what everyone understands when using the term fascist, but it's not quite in line with the history. 'Fascism' is a pejorative dog whistle, when people hear it they think "enemy" - because in WWII the Italian and German governments were fascist.

In fact, fascism, as I understand it, developed as a "third way" on the European continent. It was a rejection of capitalism as dominated by wealthy US, English interests, and of Communism. It's interesting that it developed in an area of Europe geographically juxtaposed in the middle of two powerful capitalist and communist fronts. Fascism was a reaction to domination by foreign power - so yes, naturally it's nationalistic. It also has a component of strong integration of nation and economy. The fasces is a binding together, metaphorically a combination of social, political, and economic institutions. Initially, it was an attempt to strengthen the nation, to reclaim power over the national destiny, and make good for the people of that country.

Of course, in hind site, we can see that some truly awful deeds were committed by some truly awful people, and we should be vigilant to prevent that from happening again. Unfortunately, it's a hard thing to predict, and even harder to prevent. It of course becomes harder if the name of fascism is misused in partisan political contexts because the nuance and history of the term is quickly lost.

[TMWNN]

>'Fascism' is a pejorative dog whistle, when people hear it they think "enemy" - because in WWII the Italian and German governments were fascist.

>In fact, fascism, as I understand it, developed as a "third way" on the European continent.

Correct.

As you wrote, we naturally associate fascism with the Nazis invading neighboring countries and committing genocide, but its behavior was aberrant. Half of Europe was fascist/right-wing authoritarian in some form between the wars, including Poland, Austria, and Hungary, none of which started a European war; Italy only started one in Ethiopia. To put another way, Hitler's extreme anti-Semitic and anti-Slav attitudes were independent of his calling himself a fascist.

Mussolini in Italy invented fascism—the bundle of sticks and everything—but the "meh" attitude Italians have about fascism today (complete with Mussolini's granddaughter's longtime political career) is because the Italian variety of totalitarianism was never anything like the Nazis or Soviet Communists in its cruelty. Italian fascism always had substantial Jewish leadership and popular support, and Mussolini imposed anti-Jewish laws in the late 1930s only after substantial pressure from Hitler—by then clearly with the whip hand in the two countries' relationship—to do so.

[AdrianB1]

Explain Italian fascism, the very original. Their big boss (not named) was a socialist. Nazis were socialists and current Germany is socialist (not in name, but in behavior). I am not disputing the extreme part, just the right versus left, nazis were never classical liberals, nor religious.

[dragonwriter]

> Explain Italian fascism, the very original. Their big boss (not named) was a socialist. Nazis were socialists

These are both true in, at most, the same sense that it is true that North Korea is a democratic republic.

[Konohamaru]

Every political typologist considers the Nazis and fascists to be far-right. Saying otherwise either makes you look unbelievably ignorant, or one of those Nazi/fascists who are lying about their heritage.

[dathinab]

Yes, through in Germanys political field the far right and far left are in some points very similar in practice especially just before Hitler came into power. At least iff you take a close look. This is why some people say in paractice the political spectrum is more like a circle with a small gap opposite of "center" and the far left/right being each side of the gap. Positions who are fully opposites are clearly right/left but not extremely right left positions, I guess (e.g. non-radical conservatives with non-radical socialists). But then in the end the left/right analogy just falls apart at some point (at least for any non de-facto binary political system).

Anyway this is why Nazis while mainly being far right managed to gather supporters from the far left. And especially in the beginning there where decision done which looked quite socialist, through in retrospective where basically always ware preparations.

I would say saying Nazis where socialists is quite wrong, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a bit of socialism their politics eve if just for pretentious reasons.

Through it also should be noted that the current political spectrum differs quite a bit from back then, neo-nazies normally have very clearly nothing to do with socialist and the far left has not many people which are extreme socialists but also nationalist either as far as I know.

[swader999]

Another aspect of the definition is the marriage of state and corporation. Seeing shades of that since Covid started.