The examples were provided as a refutation of the 'it is legal' defence.
It states only that "legality is not a guide to morality" and does not make the stronger claim you rebut that 'legality is immoral'. Not content with your straw man, you go on to parody those you claim to have made it with your "hurt durr,..".
Please don't. There is always provocation for poor behaviour. It is never an excuse.
Thank you for your reasoned reply. I particularly like the use of 'moron'. Very classy.
My first sentence makes it clear that I'm generalising about all systems. Making a distinction between communism and socialism may be useful in a different context, but here it's pure pedantry.
That 'socialism has never been implemented' is a form of the 'no true scotsman' fallacy. Meaningful observations can be made from attempts to implement socialism, from elements of other forms of government that have had strong socialist elements and from limited implementations of socialism either in terms of scale or scope.
Your 'argument' uses the 'true socialism has never been implemented' phrase which is usually used to dismiss a criticism of socialism. You apparently lack the ability to do more than ape the form and deliver an ad-hominem in passing. You've managed to pack name calling, an ad-hominem and a criticism of tone into one sentence. That's the bottom three in terms of Paul Grahams hierarchy of disagreement. An impressive performance.
How about you make a contribution to the discussion and criticise the idea I expressed, or offer one of your own?
This. And the blend needs to be able to change as the country or organisation's needs change.
An industry that used to be reasonably stably self-regulated may become monopolised and require greater regulation; a service that performed reasonably well may become inefficient and/or a drain on government resources and need to be privatised or broken down and rebuilt.
The same blend or balance that works for one nation won't necessarily work for another, or even that same nation over time.
Capitalism/socialism isn't the axis to be worried about. It's the Authoritarian axis that sees the accumulation of power in the hands of a few - whether that starts from the right or left wing hardly matters.
Communism and socialism fail with humans just the same as capitalism and pretty much any pure 'ism'.
Power accumulates. Checks and balances can slow this, but if there isn't an active effort to deconstruct the accumulation, then all you are doing is slowing the process and the process tends to result in rapid deconstruction of the accumulated power via revolution (whether bloody or not) and the replacement of the old with something that differs only in detail. A kind of boom and bust cycle that only looks like progress.
In the 'real world' people and societies are motivated by a mix of selfishness and altruism; co-operation and competition. Some lean hard one way, some the other. A mix of both, with a dynamic equilibrium seems to produce the most stable forms of government/organisation that results in the best outcomes for the most people.
Socialism and communism can and do work with humans - when it's limited to areas where this is suitable and useful (like infrastructure and utilities or services) and where it's kept in check with regulation or even limited competition. Capitalism works with humans in much the same way - with regulation and oversight, limitations to protect society and by not allowing it in areas where monopolies are harmful or extracting a profit reduces the overall benefit to society. Some communism doesn't scale past the family/neighbourhood. Same with capitalism. Some is only useful at larger scales, but again, needs to be regulated, monitored and kept in check.
Observing that communism/socialism fails is trivial. _Everything_ fails.
Anything that doesn't kill you, makes you stronger
This is the sort of short-sighted statement that's made by someone who has never suffered a crippling injury. And no, dealing the injury physically and/or mentally may be something that affords you an opportunity to grow and develop, but you are still left with some portion of function that is permanently reduced.
What you are looking for is the idea of being constantly challenged. Too little work/stress/strain on the skeletal system and it grows weaker; too little physical work and muscles atrophy; too little exposure to bacteria and infection and our immune system turns inwards etc.
A reasonably constant, sub-injurious level of stress with enough respite to recover tends to produce a reaction that adapts to that level of stress - whether that's physical load, immune response or even mental health. Too little and our amazingly efficient system scavenges what we aren't using. Too much and we end up with long-term damage from insufficient healing.
Seeing someone not coping with a situation (like your 'sheltered people' in the first line) and shrugging your shoulders with a 'that which does not kill us' is pretty damn cold. Maybe they've been sheltered. Maybe they've had to cope with a few too many incidents without enough down time to get stronger. That your challenges have been of the right scale and interval to allow you to grow is awesome. Not everyone gets to play your hand.
One difficulty faced by restaurants is needing to offer service like Uber eats to compete, but finding that it's disrupting their pricing as those customers aren't having their food subsidy offset by drinks, say.
We've had articles, here, about restaurants withdrawing from these services, and others that are starting up out of the normal foot traffic areas with an aim to target delivered food as a portion of their business.
Technology is pervasive and disrupting most businesses.
Yes, I asked you to provide a link or proof to Steven Burn saying he recommends your software. You didn't
I followed your link. None of them are Steve Burn.
So we come back to my initial point that you've failed to disprove
Malwarebytes describes APKs software as 'small'. Similar software is 'small' and 'useful', but APK is just small. Not useful. APKs software isn't useful - just ask Malwarebytes. APK thinks this is a 'RECOMMENDATION'
Shall I add
APK claims Steve Burn recommends him, but can't prove it
I have no idea what you mean in your next lines. It's not english. It's some kind of word salad. Try again. In english. No, I'm not a webmaster. I'm a slashdot user who is tired of your spam and ridiculous claims.
I don't need to cut you down. You can't even provide proof that Steve Burn recommends you. All you have is a list of about a dozen quotes, taken out of context, from nearly a decade on this site. FFS, HomelessInLaJolla got better press.
"Further evidence is required to support or refute..." is not a strong statement of confidence.
I agree. I think the article that links to the research paper overstates the case for climate being responsible, and doesn't do justice to the caution of the original paper. It's useful and necessary to publish weak, inconclusive or even failed results. And the researchers have. Criticising the lack of a strong conclusion isn't useful. This isn't bad science, it's inconclusive science - and reporting that is useful.
My contention is with armchair commentators who post things like "They do realize that trees actually do eventually die of old age right?"
True. I'm offering an alternative specualtion to the GPs speculation. In doing so I'm offering what I consider a more likely interpretation than the GP has reached. If you'd like to challenge that assessment, I am interested.
An appeal to a standard you do not meet
Given that I make no evaluation, such as the GPs 'at least as likely', which I took the trouble to quote, I'm not sure what your point is. I'm calling out the GP to explain his assertion. You seem to want me to justify my calling them out.
So essentially it's an admission that they do not, in fact, know, justifying the original skepticism.
I've qualified my criticism of the GP by trying to more accurately report the summary of the researchers. To consider their caution justification for the speculation as to their failure to consider 'old age' is still an overreach and based on... nothing, except possibly the assumption that the researchers are less knowledgeable or qualified than the GP.
I'm genuinely interested in whether you have a reason or position that supports the 'it's old age' thesis and/or the implication that this has been overlooked by the researchers. My reading suggests that it has been considered, but the timing and numbers led them to suspect that there may be more than this.
One of the advantages of conscription - especially when the ruling class cannot get exemptions - is that the entire population has skin in the game. It's you, or your children, or your friends children who are at risk of dying. Wars become less tempting as a policy option.
The most successful governments now appear to be Putin's style of Kleptocracy or Xi's style of slightly benevolent Dictatorship
How do you define successful?
Listing countries by Human Development Index tends to show countries with left leaning social policies and centrist to slightly right economic ones. A mix of socialism and capitalism.
Picking other indices (longevity, happiness etc.) mixes the ranking, but not the conclusion. Extremes of any sort tend to be unstable and not especially successful over the long term.
They do realize that trees actually do eventually die of old age right?
I put it to you that the researchers involved in this study are at least as knowledgeable as you on this topic. That the conclusions you have considered after reading an article based on their research is likely to have occurred to them (it's not especially novel) and the reason it isn't mentioned is that it has been dismissed.
at least as likely
I'd appreciate you sharing the methodology by which you reached that evaluation.
The summary of the original paper is more cautious than the article (linked, above) and calls for more research to prove/disprove the possible link to climate and environmental changes.
"An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law." - Martin Luther King Jr.
I think this definition [wikipedia.org] is a pretty good one:
Excellent. The links for ref 23 and 24 that discuss fascism all describe it as right wing, for eg.
" After World War I, fascism supplanted monarchism as the principle ideology of the extreme Right." - Thomas M. Magstadt, Understanding Politics: Ideas, Institutions, and Issues, 12th ed.
There's another four references that all say similar things.
By the definition you claim to use, fascism is right wing. We're done.
The reason this is so endlessly confusing to many people is because parties like Democrats and European social democrats advocate some form of (2) while identifying as leftists or "democratic socialists". That's why it makes more sense to view both socialism and fascism as variants of political leftism.
No, the reason it's confusing is that you keep mixing left/right and authoritarian/anarchic.
Strong government regulation - either by direct ownership (left) or private ownership (right) is authoritarian.
That European left leaning governments 'allow' private ownership makes them moderate, not confused. That they regulate this to some extent makes them moderate or centrist. Not confused. That they have other policies in other areas makes them 'left' and not moderate/centrist as they would appear if we just look at property ownership. Also not confused.
That the US has strong private ownership makes them right. Not confused. That they have much less regulation makes them less authoritarian. Not confused.
Less regulation and private ownership (US) is diametrically opposed to strong regulation and state ownership (socialism). Strong regulation and private ownership (fascist) is similar to the US in that both have private ownership, and similar to socialism in that both have strong regulation.
Now, the traditional left-right distinction was between either revolutionaries and monarchist
In the oiriginal, French, definition, yes. But even then it quickly became a worker vs merchant class split that is closer to the meaning, today.
people who want rapid change vs people who want slow change
This touches on a progressive/conservative split that often aligns left/right but not always. Now that Eurpoe has had a period of mostly moderate left governments, those who support the status-quo and who are, technically, politically conservative are also politically left. Those who advocate a change to a more right-wing polity are described as reactionary.
Fascism, in as much as it concerns itself with race and nation, shares elements with the modern right and more closely with the far right. In that Fascism has an element of an idealisation of national identity and national history, they claim they want a return to this idealised state. Whether that involves rapid change or slow change is moot and not really relevant. They wanted change. That makes them reactionary/progressive in terms of change, but conservative in terms of the ideals they wanted to change to.
I'm really not sure where you're going with all this. There are elements of Fascism that are classically left, classically right and far right. There are different strains and versions of Fascism at different points in history and finding the common ground ends up with some fairly broad definitions to cover them all
I think there is a large common core, defined by Gentile, Mussolini, Hitler, and their parties in their massive writings. That defines what fascist ideology is.
It defines what it was, for those people, at that time. What it became and how it is interpreted historically also adds to that.
the "extreme left/extreme right" language wrongly suggests that the two ideologies are diametrically opposed,
They are. On one axis. On the authoritarian/anarchic axis, they are quite close. There's no confusion unless you continue to try to use only a left/right distinction and then go on to claim that they are the same.
On (1) Your assessment of the palatability of fascism is superficial. In Italy, support for the fascists from landowners and capitalists was out of a concern for the growing labour movements and socialist organisations. Fearing revolution, they supported those who opposed such movements - the Fascists. That didn't necessarily make them palatable, nor anything more than allies against a common enemy. This split the fascist movement into various groups that included some that were left-fascist, some right-fascist and some that had elements of both. Fascism, even in its infancy was neither purely left, purely right or even singularly defined. Mussolini wrote that it was right, could be as easily considered centrist and that it didn't really matter. That's three different positions from the one author.
Trying to simplify all of that into a singular definition is only useful if you want to make some fairly broad statements and falls apart in detail.
On (2) Unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean, you seem to define a left right split as a public ownership / control of production and then claim they are similar. They are. Both are left. Public control with private ownership is mild-to-moderate left (or centrist). Public ownership is harder left. Private ownership and control is right.
With respect to the US political identities; The confusion resolves itself when you observe that the US spectrum is shifted right of center with respect to most 20th century definitions of same. That the Democrats are left of US center doesn't make them 'left' in a broader sense. They have elements that are more left than the Republicans, but both parties have elements that are defined as 'right' elsewhere. Again, I'm not sure of the distinction you are trying to make with the public control/ownership. Both are traditionally left. Democrats advocating control vs ownership is moderate left rather than harder left.
Bold it all you like, extremism ends poorly whether it espouses socialism, fascism, corporatism or your other bogeyman de jour. Claiming only one side of the left/right axis is capable of extremism is nonsense.
I've disagreed with you, elsewhere, so while this is something of a 'me too', I'd like to balance my contention with agreement.
As you say, socialism divides us/other based on class; fascism usually on nationalism/race. As you correctly identify, in extremum, both are authoritarian with very similar expressions.
The far-right and far-left end up looking very similar.
Politics in Europe post WWI saw a rise in popularity for socialism. In Germany, struggling to recover from the war and burdened with the sanctions imposed on them, socialism was especially popular. There are elements in early 20th century fascism that grew out of these socialist movements, however it became its own beast, taking with it traits from it's leftist roots and adopting traits that are more usually associated with modern right-wing politics.
In Hitler's case, his rise to power through the Nazis saw an even greater shift away from the roots of Nazism and into the fascism we now associate with the Nazis - itself a distortion of the Italian fascism that it originally emulated. That Hitler continued to pay lip service to socialism is no different to modern politicians in authoritarian states paying lip service to democracy.
It's no contradiction, then, to acknowledge that the beginnings of Nazism had socialist elements, or to report that commentators of the period considered them such. Nor do most people with a decent understanding of the period deny it. Trying to use this as a denial of the elements that Nazism adopted that are traditionally associated with the modern political right is either ignorant or lazy.
Fascism itself has different definitions and different influences depending on period and location. The adoption of the Roman 'fasces' and the concept of strength through unity can be expressed as leftist when that unity is class based, or politically right when it's nationalist or racist.
TL DR; Nazis have elements from both the left and right. Claiming that people of the 20s identified them as left is not disputed because we usually don't talk about Nazism from the 20s, but rather it's 'evolved form' from the late 30s and 40s, which was its own thing, different even from Mussolinis fascism and different from its own roots.
Unless you'd like to be more specific, I'm going to have to assume you're referring to the several posts in this discussion. That the Nazis aren't 'left' is not odd. That the Nazis are considered far-right is not unusual. Calling it 'pecualiar' with a hand wave is cheap and lazy. I'm disappointed.
Now substitute the right with Muslim and Nazis with so-called "islamists".
Rather than instructing me on what to do, how about you make the substitution and go on to make the point or argument? You seem to have a confusion of ideas that I'd rather you elaborated before I engaged.
Slashdot Mirror
Straw man.
The examples were provided as a refutation of the 'it is legal' defence.
It states only that "legality is not a guide to morality" and does not make the stronger claim you rebut that 'legality is immoral'. ..".
Not content with your straw man, you go on to parody those you claim to have made it with your "hurt durr,
Please don't. There is always provocation for poor behaviour. It is never an excuse.
And so we return to irony
Thank you for your reasoned reply. I particularly like the use of 'moron'. Very classy.
My first sentence makes it clear that I'm generalising about all systems. Making a distinction between communism and socialism may be useful in a different context, but here it's pure pedantry.
That 'socialism has never been implemented' is a form of the 'no true scotsman' fallacy. Meaningful observations can be made from attempts to implement socialism, from elements of other forms of government that have had strong socialist elements and from limited implementations of socialism either in terms of scale or scope.
Your 'argument' uses the 'true socialism has never been implemented' phrase which is usually used to dismiss a criticism of socialism. You apparently lack the ability to do more than ape the form and deliver an ad-hominem in passing. You've managed to pack name calling, an ad-hominem and a criticism of tone into one sentence. That's the bottom three in terms of Paul Grahams hierarchy of disagreement. An impressive performance.
How about you make a contribution to the discussion and criticise the idea I expressed, or offer one of your own?
This. And the blend needs to be able to change as the country or organisation's needs change.
An industry that used to be reasonably stably self-regulated may become monopolised and require greater regulation; a service that performed reasonably well may become inefficient and/or a drain on government resources and need to be privatised or broken down and rebuilt.
The same blend or balance that works for one nation won't necessarily work for another, or even that same nation over time.
Capitalism/socialism isn't the axis to be worried about. It's the Authoritarian axis that sees the accumulation of power in the hands of a few - whether that starts from the right or left wing hardly matters.
Communism and socialism fail with humans just the same as capitalism and pretty much any pure 'ism'.
Power accumulates. Checks and balances can slow this, but if there isn't an active effort to deconstruct the accumulation, then all you are doing is slowing the process and the process tends to result in rapid deconstruction of the accumulated power via revolution (whether bloody or not) and the replacement of the old with something that differs only in detail. A kind of boom and bust cycle that only looks like progress.
In the 'real world' people and societies are motivated by a mix of selfishness and altruism; co-operation and competition. Some lean hard one way, some the other. A mix of both, with a dynamic equilibrium seems to produce the most stable forms of government/organisation that results in the best outcomes for the most people.
Socialism and communism can and do work with humans - when it's limited to areas where this is suitable and useful (like infrastructure and utilities or services) and where it's kept in check with regulation or even limited competition. Capitalism works with humans in much the same way - with regulation and oversight, limitations to protect society and by not allowing it in areas where monopolies are harmful or extracting a profit reduces the overall benefit to society. Some communism doesn't scale past the family/neighbourhood. Same with capitalism. Some is only useful at larger scales, but again, needs to be regulated, monitored and kept in check.
Observing that communism/socialism fails is trivial. _Everything_ fails.
Anything that doesn't kill you, makes you stronger
This is the sort of short-sighted statement that's made by someone who has never suffered a crippling injury. And no, dealing the injury physically and/or mentally may be something that affords you an opportunity to grow and develop, but you are still left with some portion of function that is permanently reduced.
What you are looking for is the idea of being constantly challenged. Too little work/stress/strain on the skeletal system and it grows weaker; too little physical work and muscles atrophy; too little exposure to bacteria and infection and our immune system turns inwards etc.
A reasonably constant, sub-injurious level of stress with enough respite to recover tends to produce a reaction that adapts to that level of stress - whether that's physical load, immune response or even mental health. Too little and our amazingly efficient system scavenges what we aren't using. Too much and we end up with long-term damage from insufficient healing.
Seeing someone not coping with a situation (like your 'sheltered people' in the first line) and shrugging your shoulders with a 'that which does not kill us' is pretty damn cold. Maybe they've been sheltered. Maybe they've had to cope with a few too many incidents without enough down time to get stronger. That your challenges have been of the right scale and interval to allow you to grow is awesome. Not everyone gets to play your hand.
One difficulty faced by restaurants is needing to offer service like Uber eats to compete, but finding that it's disrupting their pricing as those customers aren't having their food subsidy offset by drinks, say.
We've had articles, here, about restaurants withdrawing from these services, and others that are starting up out of the normal foot traffic areas with an aim to target delivered food as a portion of their business.
Technology is pervasive and disrupting most businesses.
Yes, I asked you to provide a link or proof to Steven Burn saying he recommends your software. You didn't
I followed your link. None of them are Steve Burn.
So we come back to my initial point that you've failed to disprove
Malwarebytes describes APKs software as 'small'. Similar software is 'small' and 'useful', but APK is just small. Not useful.
APKs software isn't useful - just ask Malwarebytes. APK thinks this is a 'RECOMMENDATION'
Shall I add
APK claims Steve Burn recommends him, but can't prove it
I have no idea what you mean in your next lines. It's not english. It's some kind of word salad. Try again. In english.
No, I'm not a webmaster. I'm a slashdot user who is tired of your spam and ridiculous claims.
I don't need to cut you down. You can't even provide proof that Steve Burn recommends you. All you have is a list of about a dozen quotes, taken out of context, from nearly a decade on this site. FFS, HomelessInLaJolla got better press.
"Further evidence is required to support or refute..." is not a strong statement of confidence.
I agree. I think the article that links to the research paper overstates the case for climate being responsible, and doesn't do justice to the caution of the original paper. It's useful and necessary to publish weak, inconclusive or even failed results. And the researchers have. Criticising the lack of a strong conclusion isn't useful. This isn't bad science, it's inconclusive science - and reporting that is useful.
My contention is with armchair commentators who post things like "They do realize that trees actually do eventually die of old age right?"
Thank you for the reply. It looks like I've misunderstood you when you've used 'successful governments' and appreciate the clarification.
Unfounded hypothesis.
Unproven I'll own, but it's not unfounded.
Speculation
True. I'm offering an alternative specualtion to the GPs speculation. In doing so I'm offering what I consider a more likely interpretation than the GP has reached. If you'd like to challenge that assessment, I am interested.
An appeal to a standard you do not meet
Given that I make no evaluation, such as the GPs 'at least as likely', which I took the trouble to quote, I'm not sure what your point is. I'm calling out the GP to explain his assertion. You seem to want me to justify my calling them out.
So essentially it's an admission that they do not, in fact, know, justifying the original skepticism.
I've qualified my criticism of the GP by trying to more accurately report the summary of the researchers. To consider their caution justification for the speculation as to their failure to consider 'old age' is still an overreach and based on ... nothing, except possibly the assumption that the researchers are less knowledgeable or qualified than the GP.
I'm genuinely interested in whether you have a reason or position that supports the 'it's old age' thesis and/or the implication that this has been overlooked by the researchers. My reading suggests that it has been considered, but the timing and numbers led them to suspect that there may be more than this.
One of the advantages of conscription - especially when the ruling class cannot get exemptions - is that the entire population has skin in the game. It's you, or your children, or your friends children who are at risk of dying. Wars become less tempting as a policy option.
The most successful governments now appear to be Putin's style of Kleptocracy or Xi's style of slightly benevolent Dictatorship
How do you define successful?
Listing countries by Human Development Index tends to show countries with left leaning social policies and centrist to slightly right economic ones. A mix of socialism and capitalism.
Picking other indices (longevity, happiness etc.) mixes the ranking, but not the conclusion. Extremes of any sort tend to be unstable and not especially successful over the long term.
They do realize that trees actually do eventually die of old age right?
I put it to you that the researchers involved in this study are at least as knowledgeable as you on this topic. That the conclusions you have considered after reading an article based on their research is likely to have occurred to them (it's not especially novel) and the reason it isn't mentioned is that it has been dismissed.
at least as likely
I'd appreciate you sharing the methodology by which you reached that evaluation.
The summary of the original paper is more cautious than the article (linked, above) and calls for more research to prove/disprove the possible link to climate and environmental changes.
Importantly, what this is saying is that a portion of the population that pirates do so for reasons that the distributors control or can address.
Increasingly draconian DRM and punitive punishment does little to either decrease piracy or create more customers.
Increasing the ease of access to content and either lowering price and/or offering some kind of tiered pricing will do both.
"An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law." - Martin Luther King Jr.
I think this definition [wikipedia.org] is a pretty good one:
Excellent. The links for ref 23 and 24 that discuss fascism all describe it as right wing, for eg.
" After World War I, fascism supplanted monarchism as the principle ideology of the extreme Right." - Thomas M. Magstadt, Understanding Politics: Ideas, Institutions, and Issues, 12th ed.
There's another four references that all say similar things.
By the definition you claim to use, fascism is right wing.
We're done.
The reason this is so endlessly confusing to many people is because parties like Democrats and European social democrats advocate some form of (2) while identifying as leftists or "democratic socialists". That's why it makes more sense to view both socialism and fascism as variants of political leftism.
No, the reason it's confusing is that you keep mixing left/right and authoritarian/anarchic.
Strong government regulation - either by direct ownership (left) or private ownership (right) is authoritarian.
That European left leaning governments 'allow' private ownership makes them moderate, not confused. That they regulate this to some extent makes them moderate or centrist. Not confused. That they have other policies in other areas makes them 'left' and not moderate/centrist as they would appear if we just look at property ownership. Also not confused.
That the US has strong private ownership makes them right. Not confused. That they have much less regulation makes them less authoritarian. Not confused.
Less regulation and private ownership (US) is diametrically opposed to strong regulation and state ownership (socialism). Strong regulation and private ownership (fascist) is similar to the US in that both have private ownership, and similar to socialism in that both have strong regulation.
Now, the traditional left-right distinction was between either revolutionaries and monarchist
In the oiriginal, French, definition, yes. But even then it quickly became a worker vs merchant class split that is closer to the meaning, today.
people who want rapid change vs people who want slow change
This touches on a progressive/conservative split that often aligns left/right but not always. Now that Eurpoe has had a period of mostly moderate left governments, those who support the status-quo and who are, technically, politically conservative are also politically left. Those who advocate a change to a more right-wing polity are described as reactionary.
Fascism, in as much as it concerns itself with race and nation, shares elements with the modern right and more closely with the far right. In that Fascism has an element of an idealisation of national identity and national history, they claim they want a return to this idealised state. Whether that involves rapid change or slow change is moot and not really relevant. They wanted change. That makes them reactionary/progressive in terms of change, but conservative in terms of the ideals they wanted to change to.
I'm really not sure where you're going with all this. There are elements of Fascism that are classically left, classically right and far right. There are different strains and versions of Fascism at different points in history and finding the common ground ends up with some fairly broad definitions to cover them all
I think there is a large common core, defined by Gentile, Mussolini, Hitler, and their parties in their massive writings. That defines what fascist ideology is.
It defines what it was, for those people, at that time. What it became and how it is interpreted historically also adds to that.
the "extreme left/extreme right" language wrongly suggests that the two ideologies are diametrically opposed,
They are. On one axis. On the authoritarian/anarchic axis, they are quite close. There's no confusion unless you continue to try to use only a left/right distinction and then go on to claim that they are the same.
On (1)
Your assessment of the palatability of fascism is superficial. In Italy, support for the fascists from landowners and capitalists was out of a concern for the growing labour movements and socialist organisations. Fearing revolution, they supported those who opposed such movements - the Fascists. That didn't necessarily make them palatable, nor anything more than allies against a common enemy. This split the fascist movement into various groups that included some that were left-fascist, some right-fascist and some that had elements of both. Fascism, even in its infancy was neither purely left, purely right or even singularly defined. Mussolini wrote that it was right, could be as easily considered centrist and that it didn't really matter. That's three different positions from the one author.
Trying to simplify all of that into a singular definition is only useful if you want to make some fairly broad statements and falls apart in detail.
On (2)
Unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean, you seem to define a left right split as a public ownership / control of production and then claim they are similar. They are. Both are left. Public control with private ownership is mild-to-moderate left (or centrist). Public ownership is harder left. Private ownership and control is right.
With respect to the US political identities;
The confusion resolves itself when you observe that the US spectrum is shifted right of center with respect to most 20th century definitions of same. That the Democrats are left of US center doesn't make them 'left' in a broader sense. They have elements that are more left than the Republicans, but both parties have elements that are defined as 'right' elsewhere. Again, I'm not sure of the distinction you are trying to make with the public control/ownership. Both are traditionally left. Democrats advocating control vs ownership is moderate left rather than harder left.
Bold it all you like, extremism ends poorly whether it espouses socialism, fascism, corporatism or your other bogeyman de jour. Claiming only one side of the left/right axis is capable of extremism is nonsense.
They are close only because you are using non left/right elements for classification.
Both are totalitarian/authoritarian. Their similarity lies on a different (often orthoganl) axis.
I've disagreed with you, elsewhere, so while this is something of a 'me too', I'd like to balance my contention with agreement.
As you say, socialism divides us/other based on class; fascism usually on nationalism/race. As you correctly identify, in extremum, both are authoritarian with very similar expressions.
The far-right and far-left end up looking very similar.
Politics in Europe post WWI saw a rise in popularity for socialism. In Germany, struggling to recover from the war and burdened with the sanctions imposed on them, socialism was especially popular. There are elements in early 20th century fascism that grew out of these socialist movements, however it became its own beast, taking with it traits from it's leftist roots and adopting traits that are more usually associated with modern right-wing politics.
In Hitler's case, his rise to power through the Nazis saw an even greater shift away from the roots of Nazism and into the fascism we now associate with the Nazis - itself a distortion of the Italian fascism that it originally emulated. That Hitler continued to pay lip service to socialism is no different to modern politicians in authoritarian states paying lip service to democracy.
It's no contradiction, then, to acknowledge that the beginnings of Nazism had socialist elements, or to report that commentators of the period considered them such. Nor do most people with a decent understanding of the period deny it. Trying to use this as a denial of the elements that Nazism adopted that are traditionally associated with the modern political right is either ignorant or lazy.
Fascism itself has different definitions and different influences depending on period and location. The adoption of the Roman 'fasces' and the concept of strength through unity can be expressed as leftist when that unity is class based, or politically right when it's nationalist or racist.
TL DR; Nazis have elements from both the left and right. Claiming that people of the 20s identified them as left is not disputed because we usually don't talk about Nazism from the 20s, but rather it's 'evolved form' from the late 30s and 40s, which was its own thing, different even from Mussolinis fascism and different from its own roots.
This is quite a peculiar argument
Unless you'd like to be more specific, I'm going to have to assume you're referring to the several posts in this discussion. That the Nazis aren't 'left' is not odd. That the Nazis are considered far-right is not unusual. Calling it 'pecualiar' with a hand wave is cheap and lazy. I'm disappointed.
Now substitute the right with Muslim and Nazis with so-called "islamists".
Rather than instructing me on what to do, how about you make the substitution and go on to make the point or argument? You seem to have a confusion of ideas that I'd rather you elaborated before I engaged.