Happy Fourth of July!

[AliensShrinkedMyPony]

That's no surprise, many people don't even know their country's history, so it's no surprise they do not know other countries' history. I don't have the slightest idea of who was the first German king.

That's a good question.
We used to have only the vikings, the third Reich and the GDR theme at school, which I can remember
Chernobyl ... no kings 

[petrus4]

If you truly want to celebrate the fourth, look past the propaganda.  Study Aristotle, Bacon, Madison.  Most importantly, look past the Constitution.  Go further back, and study the Articles of Confederation.  Study Jefferson's debates with Hamilton, and observe how the poison of federalism crept in, under the guise of that most insidious of oppressive concepts, "unity."

I am seeing, too often recently, the use of a tremendous amount of completely fabricated terminology, as justifications to prevent people from speaking.  "Hate speech."  "Bigotry."  "Insane troll logic."

Two days ago, a subreddit which I customarily read, http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy, decided to ban all incoming links from CNN.com, due to that news agency's recent acts of transparent self-incrimination, and Donald Trump's repeated labelling of them as "fake news."

I do not condone censorship.  If, at any time in the past on this forum, I have ever implied otherwise, then I will re-iterate now, that I do not condone censorship.  I have not seen the conspiracy subreddit talk of banning links from Rumour Mill News or Rense.com, two other web sites which I consider dispensaries of unadulterated mental illness.  Yet despite my own classification of them as such, I still do not condone their censorship.  I am no lover of the Israeli government, yet I have heard Jeff Rense give voice to a degree of vicious anti-Semitism that literally caused me physical nausea; but I still do not advocate his censorship.

For most of my life I have considered Adolf Hitler to be a physically incarnate demon, or at least the pragmatic moral equivalent of such.  Yet that did not prevent me from spending three years on 4chan, and reading the writings of numerous people who consider the man a misunderstood hero.  I am no closer now to sharing their opinion about him than I was at the beginning of that time.  On the contrary, my direct exposure to fascist ideology has assisted me greatly in understanding the logical fallacies of which it is composed, and to now at least begin to innoculate myself against those same tendencies when I observe them on Reddit.

Is Mein Kampf "hate speech?"  Most assuredly, according to the criteria of those who use that term.  Yet I am strongly inclined to believe, that nowhere would there be a more adamant supporter of Mein Kampf being labelled as hate speech and banned, than Hitler himself.

This is because Hitler knew that the only way to undermine freedom, is to encourage those who previously valued it, to make that one, first exception to the rule.  That one first instance where it is said, that while freedom of expression is granted universally in every other case, we will make this single, lone exception here where it is not.

The first exception is the most important; and that is because it is the most difficult.  Chaos can not establish itself in a single step, where harmony has existed previously.  The first exception, however, leads invariably to others; and that is the point.

Kant encouraged his readers to only accept moral imperatives as binding to others, which they would be willing to be bound by themselves.  Fascism can only exist where individuals can be successfully tempted into violating that principle.  When the American government opened Guantanamo Bay, you will notice that white Americans were not told that they were going to be made inmates there.  Oh, no.  That would never happen.

No, Guantanamo Bay was only for Muslims.  It was only for terrorists.  It was only for the others.  It wasn't for us.  Concentration camps are fine, as long as they aren't for us.  Censorship is fine, as long as it isn't for us.  Removal of the right to free assembly is fine, as long as it isn't for us.  As long as it is only for the others, there's no problem.



This is how it works.  They rely on selfishness, insularity, and myopia.  Let them come for the Jews; I'm a Gentile.  Let them come for the gays; I'm straight.  That is none of my business; it won't affect me.

You will always be allowed to wave flags.  That doesn't hurt them.  They want you to do that, because they know you want freedom, and the ability to wave flags lets you maintain the illusion that you still have it.  What they really don't want is for you to realise what I am currently telling you; because once you realise that, then what they are doing becomes unacceptable to you, and although they will never tell you this, they need your consent.

You might have heard the claim recently, as have I, that moving into the Aquarian Age now means that we are in a "post-truth era."  It is actually completely the opposite.  Aquarian empiricism allows truth to be proven and recognised as having greater solidity than ever before.  Four and four equalling eight, can only be true if two and two also equal four.  The truth is that which is provably true in both directions, via induction and deduction.  Kant's universal, categorical imperative is an outgrowth of this; a law that is acceptable if it binds both someone who advocates it, and someone who does not.

Hitler was only correct in viewing what Sparta became, later in its' history, as fascist.  Sparta only became fascist when it began making exceptions.  When it no longer granted to others, the freedom that it demonstrated it wanted for itself at Thermopylae.  When the Spartans began installing their "harmosts," or imperial viceroys, in cities which were not their own, then Sparta had become fascist.

America has done the same thing.  Guantanamo Bay is a monument to fascism, because it represents Americans making exceptions.  It represents the American government attempting to abolish due process in the case of certain people, as much as it can possibly get away with.

That is where fascism begins.  If you want to truly celebrate the fourth, of either July or November, then remember that.

[AliensShrinkedMyPony]

Is Mein Kampf "hate speech?"  Most assuredly, according to the criteria of those who use that term.  Yet I am strongly inclined to believe, that nowhere would there be a more adamant supporter of Mein Kampf being labelled as hate speech and banned, than Hitler himself.

This is because Hitler knew that the only way to undermine freedom, is to encourage those who previously valued it, to make that one, first exception to the rule.  That one first instance where it is said, that while freedom of expression is granted universally in every other case, we will make this single, lone exception here where it is not.

The book "mein Kampf" is forbidden in germany. Hitler was mad. I can not say anything else about it in germany.
All the problems we germans have today are created by him.
The book "Mein Kampf" is quite boring to read.
I think it is hate speech.
I think he was only part of the game. He was useful to somebody...
To read about other countries and their rulers and country-formations and their  history  has always liked me more.

Like ArMaPs Country. The King who made Portugal independent is a real leader to me.