Is a fascist paladin...

"There are three things that cannot be combined: Intelligence, Decency, and National Socialism.

You can be intelligent and a Nazi. Then you are not decent.
And you can be decent and intelligent. Then you are not a Nazi."

>who sides with the law regardless if it's fair or not,
Does he side with it no matter who violates it, too?
Sounds like you're describing something closer to Judge Dredd than Nazis, creep.

Anarchist.

>Paladins of the Crown and Paladins of Conquest exist specifically to adress this issue, user. It's not 2006 anymore, paladins are not cookie cutter Lawful Good clones.
Also Vengeance Oath though that would probably be more about a Paladin who doesn't actively LIKE but SUPPORTS the fascist state out of a sense of necessity.

>Kike doesn't like NatSoc
Woooooooooooooooow.
At no point did OP say Nazi. Fascism = ! NatSoc.

No, a Fascist Paladin belives in the superiority of his race and that objective historic processes have ordained his great leader to reign over them and manifest their future empire through war.

>At no point did OP say Nazi. Fascism = ! NatSoc.
Nazis are so fucking stupid in autistically specific ways I swear.

I'm sure the picture was entirely unrelated. It just happened to be attached to his post. An accident, really.

>this is what passes for bantz on /pol/

Yeesh.

Samefag.

>Everyone that points out what a retard you are is the same person

>there's no way multiple people could disagree with me
I wouldn't respond, but honestly the thread was pretty shit to begin with, so no loss.

Shit, he's onto me!

Depends on how you define fascism. Technically it's an idea as old as Rome, in a way.

Isn't that just Judge Dread?

I don't know, he's rebelled against the State numerous times, and even against the LAW at least once or twice

Wtf, I love fascism now!

Is that supposed to be an insult?

Fascism is about passion and national honor, not numbers and planning.

Fascist ideology is hard to define, especially since so many people apply the label to any authority figure that they don't like. Fascism is an anti-ideological, anti-rational movement specific to the 20th century which found prominence in Europe. It is a fundamentally violent ideology which glorifies conflict in general and war in particular. Fascists view war as a way of deciding who deserved the most resources by definitively demonstrating who was the strongest.

Fascism views people as irrational and the belief of fascism is that the masses need a strong leader who can direct the people against social ills by harnessing this irrationality into political action. A fascist has no identity separate from the state. You know your place in the hierarchy and you know exactly who has power over you, and who you have power over.

Because fascism is anti-rational, it explains why fascist view points are so contradictory. If you look at the fascist manifestos, they aren't full of policy prescriptions, but rather an airing of grievances. Fascist figureheads often just reacted to whatever was happening at the time rather than following any concrete doctrine.

However, there are only really a few things that consistently drive people to become fascist. A fear of impurity, or a fear of becoming corrupted, and a fear of change from ancient tradition. Hence the obsession with military and imperialism. Finally, inequality. Fascists don't believe any two people are equal, let alone groups of people and that anybody who says otherwise is trying to trick you so they can get power over you.

>Complacency to injustice is injustice itself.
who defines injustice though?
Say you have one ethnic group that is sexually abusing the children of another ethnic group. If the children's ethnic group responds to this harshly, they're being "racist" and that is unjust But if punishment is not being handed out according to the severity of the crime, then you are being unjust to the victims.
There's always going to be "injustices" because someone is going to feel wronged in the pursuit of justice, and some are going to take their side that their treatment is unjust (just look at the death penalty and how people react to it).
Justice is always going to be "unjust" to someone in someone's eyes.

>checked
But op's point is that "good" is a matter of perspective, and the paladin in question may consider the values of the fascist state to be good (preservation of tradition, society, nation) and that which it opposes to be bad (degeneracy, corruption of ideals, sedition to the "state").
So for example, while many would view letting a transgender person exist as a good thing, said paladin would view it as evil as any orc, since it is degenerate (instead of moving towards the perfection of male/female, it destroys the meaning of gender) and a corruption of the ideals of what it means to be a man and/or woman. If protecting the ideal is "goodness" then the opposite would be evil and the opposition of it would be the opposition of evil.

>Is such a character evil if he acts in good faith, or is he just lawful stupid?
He is, in fact, lawful good.
>who advocates strict controls and occasional raids on suspects
every government does this, including democracies and republics
>doesn't act out of cruelty or harms the innocent
sounds good
>who truthfully believes that this is the only way that peace and prosperity can come to pass.
No different from any other government out ther
>To him tyranny means not being able to walk the streets alone at night out of fear, not that the government will have to take a look at your private letters.
Well, given we live in a world where the government can already look at our private letters, as can corporations bound by virtually no laws, and yet we still can't walk the streets alone at night out of fear...gonna say honestly sounds like an improvement, all things considered.

>You can be intelligent and a Nazi. Then you are not decent.
>not wanting your nation to be the sex tourism capital of the world, where mothers, daughters, and sons are pimped out to anyone with $2, and children are given transgender opporations so they can serve select clientele while international elites profit off of your suffering is being indecent
Wew lad

You can have a fascist paladin just like a communist paladin, or a traditionalist paladin, or a Republican or Democratic paladin. Paladins do good, because they are good.

But a paladin who doesn't think that mass execution, political repression, torture, genocide, property confiscation and extrajudicial killings aren't evil is deluded. And a totalitarian regime that allows people like that to serve it either loses its totalitarian nature, or, more typically, it's smart enough to eliminate such people immediately. There's a reason why Rommel took poison.

There are no Lawful Good Jew-catchers. A Lawful Good person's heart breaks to see genocide, and feels compelled to try to stop it, either through diplomacy or force. His conscience couldn't let him stand by while innocent people were hurt.

If he's smart, he'll stop being a fascist. If he lets his political ideology dictate his actions, rather than his conscience, he'll become Lawful Neutral, at best. If he takes the lesser-of-two-evils approach and executes some villagers to teach the partisans the next town over a thing or two, he's Lawful Evil.

>Nazis are the only people against sex tourism

>Fascist ideology is hard to define, especially since so many people apply the label to any authority figure that they don't like.
true
>Fascism is an anti-ideological, anti-rational movement specific to the 20th century which found prominence in Europe. It is a fundamentally violent ideology which glorifies conflict in general and war in particular. Fascists view war as a way of deciding who deserved the most resources by definitively demonstrating who was the strongest.
less true. Fascism didn't glorify war, it accepted that war was inevitable and that a nation should be prepared for war to the highest degree it possibly could. that's why it was so authoritarian, so that choices could be made and everyone knew their duty. A fascist has no identity beyond the Nation, which is ruled by the State (slight difference)
Fascism isn't "anti-rational." If was, at the time, a perfectly rational view given the absolute state of WWI and how it had been conducted. It lacked concrete doctrines because fluidity of response was needed to changing situations. Concrete Doctrines is what caused half of the shitshow that was WWI.
>However, there are only really a few things that consistently drive people to become fascist. A fear of impurity, or a fear of becoming corrupted, and a fear of change from ancient tradition.
So, a fear of losing who they are, basically, and a desire to retain that which makes them unique. And this is...bad?

>But a paladin who doesn't think that mass execution, political repression, torture, genocide, property confiscation and extrajudicial killings aren't evil is deluded.

DEUS VULT

>Fascism isn't "anti-rational."

To elaborate on what I say above, fascism is anti-rational because it was influenced by french philosophers like gustav le bon who advocated the things I put forward in my definition: a strong leader who led the irrational masses against social ills.

At its heart, fascism is an emotional movement. That is why there were very few policy prescriptions in fascist manifestos. It's more grievances.

holy shit bro

you posted a meme on Veeky Forums

pretty much /thread right here

Ah, I see.
A better term you're looking for is "anti-enlightenment" rather than "anti-rational." Fascism certainly has its foundations in Romanticism, which was a counter philosophy to Enlightenment.

Thanks Satan!

That actually seems like it might be more accurate. I'll take that into consideration. Thank you.

fascism is masculine ("chad") socialism. If you are old enough to remember (or researched) 80s socialist feminism, feminists of the time defined female 'caring' morality as opposed to male 'justice' morality.

thus, in at least some ideological systems, fascist paladins (of justice) are possible.

all paladins are "fascist" anyway because this is the go-to insult against lawful good

That's Gygax's version of lawful good paladin

You know, it's pretty damned frustrating to be a white nationalist with unsubtle faggots like these undermining what little progress we make. M8, you have to be subtle about it or people will dismiss your shit out of hand. Next time, use authoritarian instead of fascist, use cleric instead of paladin, post a less inflammatory opening pic, and bother to do more than a lazy afternoon's research of the board you're baiting. Fuck it's terrible being surrounded by meathead incompetents, with boots on the ground like these, it's a damned miracle we've even gotten this far.

it's almost like 5e doesn't require paladins to be LG anymore

>mass execution

Killing bandit gangs? A trial is more than they usually get from good PCs...

>political repression
Suppression of rebellions is definitely lawful, and often good.

>torture
An eye for an eye is classic historical LG but many modern people would call it torture.

>genocide
Orc Lives Matter.

>property confiscation
Taxes.

>extrajudicial killing
Paladins are literally divinely empowered agents of justice. They're probably *more* legitimate than mundane courts.

Not really making your case here, user.

But we all agree that Gygax's opinions on most things were shit and should be discarded, so I don't know why you mentioned that other than to make an inflammatory "Gygax supports Nazis so you should too" statement.

No, we don't agree. Gygax was right, and his historically correct and pragmatic LG was unfairly tarred as "fascist" by weaker, more selfish people from softer times.

He was certainly not a Nazi - he expressed classic Anglo morality. But since basic LG is called fascist, sure, to antifa black bloc, paladins are fascist.

>antifa
And there it is.

>Suppression of rebellions is definitely lawful, and often good.

That's not the same thing as political repression. Political repression is also about suppressing peaceful protests and the spread of ideas, not just uprisings and rebellions. That's why it's Repression.

>but who doesn't act out of cruelty and who would never employ violence against an innocent citizen

>Posts a fucking Nazi

Fuck off /pol/.

> Posts an ad-hominem instead of refuting OP's argument

Typical.

What about when the state enforces religious ideas as law like the persecution of the hugenots in france, under king loius xv

The point of this thread was to create a beacon for /pol/tards on Veeky Forums, user. This has been an ongoing thing for over a year now.

Your mistake was thinking that anyone here is obligated to argue with you about politics on the elfgames board instead of just calling you a faggot and telling you to get lost.

Is it good to execute someone simply for telling the truth publicly about the corruption, self-dealing, cronyism, and nepotism that your rulers are engaging in? Because a fascist paladin will be called upon to do that.

This raises a good question; what level of corruption must a paladin put up with in the rightful government?

That would be religious repression, yeah. What with the whole 'Abolishing all rights of protestants in his kingdom'.

Are you not just describing Judge Dredd? I wouldn't call him evil.

Can paladins serve a single religion, or are they morally obligated to be multi-faith?

But Dredd has gone against the law plenty of times, as you know from being a Dredd fan.

Judge Dredd is a solid Lawful Neutral character if ever there was one.

post proofs

...

Presumably they can be single faith but put 'Do good' above all else.

It depends on the writer.

But Judge Dredd IS the law, user.

It's more fun to call you out on not knowing anything about the topic and just shotgunning out things you know Veeky Forums likes in an attempt to fit in.

Good point. I guess Dredd's helmet is actually black and white, since his comic is often printed in black and white.

I mentioned that. It's just that tie is so setting dependent I'd never make a character like that since it requires the GM to have something a particular way. Spirituality has to be tied to the particular state for it to work in an extensive way. More so than the average fantasy setting has.

>I guess Dredd's helmet is actually black and white, since his comic is often printed in black and white.

You're probably baiting but Mega City One doesn't have the death penalty in some versions of Dredd.

This is now a crusader memes thread

I does not matter if he believes what he is doing is right. The tortures, murders and suppressions of a fascist state are evil regardless of the intent behind the individual agents of that state.

The truth of who Hitler is not that he was a failed artist or a patriot furious at what happened to his country, the truth of Hitler as a person is in his deeds, in the Holocaust and the wars he waged.

Conviction means nothing in the face of actions.

What kind of mutant is judge dredd to have such a huge chin?

> corruption, self-dealing, cronyism, and nepotism
> implying Fascism defends any of that
Meanwhile liberals supported the most corrupt candidate in modern times.

Well... that's a bit of an awkward one. He's not a mutant. He's a clone. Who has mutant family. Their mutation is huge chins.

>I does not matter if he believes what he is doing is right. The tortures, murders and suppressions of a fascist state are evil regardless of the intent behind the individual agents of that state
Right, so I guess that makes any state evil regardless of anything?
>tortures
gee, what is spending years locked up in small buildings filled with violent and/or undesirable people that the state has locked away "for the good of society. I mean, clearly, prison is an evil institution, the Nazis had prisons.
>Murders
yeah, the state killing people who "cause grievous harm to society" is absolutely bullshit. I mean, nothing could ever justify it and any state that does it is evil.
>suppressions
yep, better not try to suppress any behaviors that might "cause harm to the society or its people" because that's just evil.

By your logic, any state is as evil as the nazis, because they "torture, murder, and suppress" people inside the state. And thus, no one who works or exists inside said state without trying to destroy it can possibly be good.

In D&D, things like good and evil are objective cosmic forces, so intention is irrelevant. So if he is torturing babies because his fantasy fuhrer said so, he's evil. Even if he thinks it's good.

I'll sum up your response:
>I don't understand or I am willfully ignorant of the fact that there are degrees of state enforced violence. I don't understand or I am willfully ignorant of the fact that justification for use of one type of violence does not extend to the use of another type of violence. I don't understand or I am willfully ignorant of the extreme violence perpetuated by fascist states on their populations that exceed justifications provided for those measures. I don't understand or I am willfully ignorant.

This thread was a farce anyway.

> Killing bandit gangs? A trial is more than they usually get from good PCs...

Killing a group of bandits in a pitched fight isn't comparable to the Killing Fields of Pol Pot.

> Suppression of rebellions is definitely lawful, and often good.

What about suppression of peaceful demonstrations? Or what about peaceful assembly? What about one guy passing someone else a pamphlet saying something you dislike? What if you're voted out of power, before you can finish doing what you want?

> An eye for an eye is classic historical LG but many modern people would call it torture.

Proportional punishment is not the same as torture, and "an eye for an eye" hasn't meant "poke out his eye" since Hammurabi. Saddam Hussein put people through wood chippers feet first when he was bored. Lawful Good people take issue with that.

> Orc Lives Matter

Are orcs sentient? Then yes, they do.

> Taxes

In most voluntary societies, staying under the protection of the state means you implicitly agree to obey its laws. It's when you're either stripped of citizenship (The Jews), forbidden to leave (East Berliners) or don't get a vote (1776) that it becomes an issue.

> Paladins are literally divinely empowered agents of justice. They're probably *more* legitimate than mundane courts.

Can paladins fall?

If yes, that means they can do wrong, which means that their decisions are not infallible and thus deserve some degree of petition, and should give the judged due process as a matter of course, for the sake of their own souls at least.

If not, that means the gods don't care what they do, and so they must be held accountable by their fellow mortals.

the only thing farcical is your inability to grasp the point I was making responded to the user.
>X is evil, Y does X, therefore X is evil!
>Everyone does X, thus everyone is evil
And here you come along and claim
>Well, there are degrees of X, which means that these people I don't like are evil for using X, but those people over there use a "lesser form" of X so that's a ok.
That's like saying Hitler was evil for signing off on the Blitz and bombing British women and children, but the Allies were good boys who dindu nuffin when they bombed German women and children and set entire cities to the firebomb. Theyz just spreading the word uh Jezuz.
Don't pull this "degrees" bullshit. Either something is good, or something is bad, but you don't get to insist on a double standard. If you rob someone, that is evil, it doesn't matter if you take 100% of their stuff or 40% of their stuff. If you want to claim killing is wrong, then it is wrong 100% of the time, and you don't get to claim "well, they only killed that guy by like 40% rather than burning him to ashes at 100%, so it's okay what they did."
If torture is wrong, then it is wrong. If suppression is wrong, than it is wrong. You don't get to insist that "well, we don't torture and suppress as much as they did, so we'z kool" and have a leg to stand on

> If you want to claim killing is wrong, then it is wrong 100% of the time
That is stupid. Killing a person in self defense is different from killing a person because you want to take his wallet. You can condemn the second without prohibiting the first.

It is an insult you pinko

>killing a person in self defense is different from killing a person because you want to take his wallet
And yet, people will insist that fascists are evil for killing people in the name of self defense, while insisting that it is perfectly moral to kill fascists in self defense.
It's rank hypocrisy. "Wah, nazis were evil because they killed millions of people claiming it was self defense." "Hazza!, we're good for killing millions of people and claiming it was self defense!"
Negro, please!

Of course, this thread will get 200 replies anyway

Communists and Socialists sure aren't.

I hate that Fascism = Nazi now. Yes I know OP is a /pol/tard and this thread is blatant nazi bait what with the Star Trek screencap. And YES, Hitler (who did everything wrong) was pretty much the epitome of a fascist. But because that toothbrush mustache motherfucker effectively 'Tolkien'd fascism, we can never have any flavors besides Nazi's.

Now, I would say, academically it is incredibly unlikely for a Paladin to be fascist or for Fascism to work as a LG system for the manifold reasons other anons have already expressed: it's simply not compatible with a western self determinant mind set where good springs forth from the choice of the individual. Fascism instead operates under the assumption that the individual is wholly evil or flawed, and requires the state to govern them.

There is ONE sort of instance I can think of where Fascism works as a LG philosophy, and conveniently it can only exist in a realm of high fantasy with paladins and wizards. That being the fascism of the divinely influenced, mandated, or representative ruler. Historically, divine mandate has always simply been part control method (hey, God said I was in charge, you don't want to fuck with God right?) and part social contract. Even the most ardent theological scholar isn't going to argue that the kings of the middle ages were ACTUAL divine agents.

But in a fantasy realm, where Gods are real things? A King who is actually divinely chosen or even divine themselves is absolutely possible. And in such a case, the word and law of such a monarch defines not only what is law (what society considers moral) but what the UNIVERSE considers moral; whether by their own more intimate knowledge of the infinite mechanics of the universe, or by their own empowered mandate which lets them define those mechanics. In other words, God either A. Knows more about whats going on and how things work than you, or B. Decides whats going on and how things work. In either case, their will becomes de-facto morality.

...

>Is such a character evil if he acts in good faith, or is he just lawful stupid?
Fascists always think they're the good guys.
Then they kill people who disagree.

...

Fuck you

Politics belong on /pol/ and nowhere else because they're fucking cancer

Part of the issue with this whole debate is the fact that good and evil irl are so damn subjective. If a society includes capitol punishment for certain offenses, some might argue that's evil and Pally will fall if he brings in a murder who will be hung later on.

Good and Evil, irl, are much more fluid than anyone likes to admit. Values change over time. But in the game world of D&D, good and evil are hard, concrete concepts that have real power, effects and consequences.

Now, for me at least, in a game like D&D I would say good and evil come from intent. Personal Gain at the expense of others is Evil. Self Sacrifice for the benefit of others is Good. Neutral is the person who will toss their spare change into the Salvation Army bucket outside the Grocery Store, but never consider something like actually volunteering at a soup kitchen. Or, swiping office supplies, but never considering actually embezzling from the company.

So your Pally would work, by my own rullings, provided his INTENT was to provide a stable, safe, "good" society. Now, when said pally sees the aparatus failing to do so, or grinding someone innocent under it's merciless wheels, he should protest. Being a Pally IS hard. Your not supposed to ever accept things being "good enough" even though you know they will never be "perfect." On the other hand, pally's are also Lawfull. So your Pally here would seek whatever means the system already provides to work towards perfection. And his intent protects his status as a Pally. He might, and probably should, do some pennence should he fail to get a person he KNOWS is innocent pardoned before they are executed, but only because a properly played pally is their own harshest critic. He shouldn't loose powers or anything, he should just be disappointed in himself and engage in some activity to assuage his own guilt.

But that's just me. YMMV.

It only makes sense in a scenario where there is a single omniscient God. In scenarios where there are different view points in the form of differing gods or the main God isn't omniscient then the divine mandate doesn't carry immutable weight. In the presence of multiple divinities the question of 'whose right' will arise, and in the presence of a god who is not omniscient a PC can question the veracity of the claim of divine insight. The thing is that if an omniscient God is in that universe then there really isn't any need for a government of man, fascist or otherwise.

>It only makes sense in a scenario where there is a single omniscient God. In scenarios where there are different view points in the form of differing gods or the main God isn't omniscient then the divine mandate doesn't carry immutable weight.
no it doesn't. History is filled with Pagan, Polytheistic kingdoms who had Kings that ruled by divine right. Maybe not every king, but there were kings chosen by various Gods or Goddesses, and some who were directly born from from a God or Goddess.

/pol/ needs to fuck off.

>it's simply not compatible with a western self determinant mind set where good springs forth from the choice of the individual.

Good thing that in DnD Good is an actually tangible force of the universe and is independent of relative viewpoints. If the Fascist regime works for the fair rule of law and avoids unfair or unwarranted evils it is at worst LN, and Paladins can be one alignment step away from their patron god/philosophy.
You can have a LG Paladin of a LG god so why can't a LG Paladin support a LN civilization if he think's it's the best way to spread good?

LN God*

Just cross the entire good and bad spectrum, replace it all by just FASCIST

Evil babies tho.

Those are a thing.

Please no drakenguard flashbacks user. I want off this wild ride.