Thoughts on the Debate

First off, I have no argument with the sagacious views of the judges. They called the debates the way they saw them, and gave evidence to support their claims. I enjoyed the limited feedback that the judges' views received as well. The key issue for me in this debate was the ability of the fascisti to embrace their point of view and WILL it, as a living ideology. This was really hard, and I saw flashes of it. Why I think this is so important is that we are so repulsed by the actions of Nazism, we tend to be blinded to the allure of fascism. To modern sensibilities, you would have to be crazy to embrace this nihilistic ideology. It is not so crazy when you look at what these countries went through with WWI and after. The real sense of grievance (justified or not) was palpable. The anxiety, the real fear that society was breaking down, with strikes, rioting, and attempted revolution after WWI left deep scars. When faced with the choice between liberty and safety, many of us would like to feel that liberty matters more. For many people in this age, the call of safety was stronger.

The question was raised about budget deficits in one of the debates, as being a reason to disqualify fascism as economically sound. A budget deficit is not inherently good or bad. It depends on the reason for running it. What is helping to prop up American Aggregate Demand at the moment is the Stimulus Bill. That is deficit spending. The New Deal was deficit spending. When Roosevelt went back to trying to balance the budget, the economy went back into recession.