Can a movement similar to fascism emerge in the US?

[Mr Khan]

badgenome said:

Mr Khan said:

We could call that "Progressive," then, and it may very well be that that's what the American left is morphing into, at least once we sort out these niggling issues with gay rights, since the objectives of the new left do seem to resemble what we openly called the Progressive movement exactly 100 years ago, and that movement too had some darker sides to it (namely Eugenics), and we can largely draw similarities

Of course where the disagreements lie is whether or not these changes truly entail "Progress," or what we're trying to progress towards, but that might be a better term for it in either event, as i agree the movement has gotten paternalistic, but i disagree that that is inherently a bad thing on its face, just that more effective methods of social engineering need to be found, to get people to eat right, for instance, as that seems to be one point about which it is hard to disagree that leaving things to themselves hasn't really worked out that well

Paternalism is certainly a bad thing when the people running the show are such complete fucking morons. Progressives would probably get a lot farther by demanding accountability and competence from government than they have gotten by changing their label every 20 years or so whenever people have finally had it with their creepy busybodying.

Obviously people are getting fatter, but I rather disagree that we've left things to themselves to the extent that the government has incentivized a great deal of laziness. And I strongly disagree that it should matter whether or not a person chooses to eat right, anyway. At least, it shouldn't matter to anyone who isn't that person. The only way a person's fat-assedness becomes a "public health concern" is if said ass is polluting the public water supply or if we're picking up their medical bills, which we should not be.

Which reminds me: one of the (many, many) things that stupifies me about the left is their constant concern that we "have to do something" about obesity, which more often than not seems to mean banning more shit, yet the same people usually believe that legalizing drugs is the way to go because prohibition has always failed, and besides, it's a person's own goddamn business what they put in their body anyway. Seems... inconsistent, especially in the context of what obesity and drug abuse both do to health care costs, and I can't help but think this isn't based on any science or logic whatsoever, but rather on the fact that drugs are still kind of seen as cool due to the stupid fucking '60s. Goddamn, what a shitty decade. (But then again, so was this past one.) Can you explain that one to me? It really does drive me batty.

I  for one am one of those stick-in-the-muds who is opposed to legalization, but that could be my lingering resentment from living in the same campus-house as a bunch of potheads my freshman year

Part of it is certainly cultural, as it is in many cases (like the righties who screech about a babies right to life and then cheer when criminals get zapped), but i think there is a bit of logic there, at least as far as marijuana goes. Aside from lung cancer possibilities, weed might pose less of a social burden than obesity, which leads more imminently to public bads (and these would be public burdens even if government were removed from the healthcare equation entirely, an unhealthy society would raise costs of healthcare across the board for raising demand, while the supply of health care is reasonably static, and pouring more resources into health care is nonproductive from an opportunity cost standpoint), so free-market or regulated, we have incentive to make sure people are healthy. Obese persons are more limited in the range of jobs in which they could engage as well, moreso than someone who smokes weed

Harder drugs i would certainly oppose having legalized, certainly not ecstasy, meth, or heroin, and i'm on the fence about marijuana

That being said, i'm also opposed to food bans. I'd rather see incentives in place for better access to healthier food, or straight incentives or disincentives for healthier living imposed on the people