# XYZ is a socialist / communist, revisited



## Bruno@MT (Mar 28, 2011)

We've had a couple of these threads lately, including my silly Gingrich thread. Personally I don't like bold, unqualified statements like that because they polarize the debate in non productive ways, while the reality is generally more nuanced. Such arguments rarely end well.

My gingrich thread was a first attempt at highlighting this idea. While it had some entertainment value, I don't think everyone got my reasons for creating it. My point was that anyone can be pictured any way by cherrypicking facts and data to build a case

So I decided to test my theory by seeing if I could turn Palin into a socialist or a communist. I also decided against creating a 'Palin is a socialist' thread because the underlying message would probably be lost. So I created this thread and put up a couple of paragraphs exaplaining why I wanted to pain Palin with the red brush.
As luck would have it, I really did not have to search long before digging up this.
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/gov-sarah-palins-record-on-taxes-and-spending/


> One of her signature accomplishments as governor was a $1.5 billion tax increase on oil production, infuriating oil companies, according to The New York Times. She accused oil companies of bribing legislators to keep taxes low and, soon after, passed a $1,200 &#8220;energy rebate&#8221; to each Alaskan from the state&#8217;s budget surplus.



So you see, even the staunchest right winger can be painted red with minimal effort.

With 2012 campaigning approaching I think it is a given that emotions will run high again.
Perhaps political debate will be more productive if both sides refrain from intentionally making polarized catch-phrase statements or link provocative excerpts without discussion starter. Those things really do nothing except fan the flames of the bonfire on which rationality is executed.

At the very least, it would make the lives of the site staff easier during the election season, for which the mods would all be grateful. Pretty please with sugar on top?


----------



## Xue Sheng (Mar 28, 2011)

Now get her to come across as a Fascist and you got something


----------



## granfire (Mar 28, 2011)

Xue Sheng said:


> Now get her to come across as a Fascist and you got something



LOL, come on, I bet that one is a gimme!


----------



## Steve (Mar 28, 2011)

While I agree, it's clear that the polarizing statements are what motivate a couple of people to post.  It's fun for them, and to expect them to stop is unrealistic.   There's nothing in the rules about it, and they generate posts, if nothing else. As long as there are a couple of people here who disagree, the threads generate site traffic.  

Tez has quietly disappeared.  Others have followed.  This site, like it or not, is changing personalities.  It has always trended conservative (American Conservative), but has drifted further in that direction to the point that some feel unwelcome.

Can anything be done?  Should it?   Not necessarily.  I think it just... is.  

I'm still operating under the premise that this is "fun" for me.  If it remains fun, I'll continue to post.  When it's not fun, I just won't feel any compulsion to check the threads anymore.  As it is, outside of the rare grappling oriented thread, the general MA thread or a movie related thread, I seldom bother anymore.


----------



## Xue Sheng (Mar 28, 2011)

stevebjj said:


> While I agree, it's clear that the polarizing statements are what motivate a couple of people to post. It's fun for them, and to expect them to stop is unrealistic. There's nothing in the rules about it, and they generate posts, if nothing else. As long as there are a couple of people here who disagree, the threads generate site traffic.
> 
> Tez has quietly disappeared. Others have followed. This site, like it or not, is changing personalities. It has always trended conservative (American Conservative), but has drifted further in that direction to the point that some feel unwelcome.
> 
> ...


 
Been down this road before, a few times, with a few here on MT as it applies to the MA sections of MT and it does not seem to get better and the site has changed a lot since 2006 when I first got here, there are a lot of good people missing. Ironically most of that MA conversation had to do with the question should the study exist on an MA site and is the negativity driving good people away.


----------



## Bruno@MT (Mar 29, 2011)

stevebjj said:


> While I agree, it's clear that the polarizing statements are what motivate a couple of people to post.  It's fun for them, and to expect them to stop is unrealistic.   There's nothing in the rules about it, and they generate posts, if nothing else. As long as there are a couple of people here who disagree, the threads generate site traffic.
> <snip>
> 
> Can anything be done?  Should it?   Not necessarily.  I think it just... is.
> <snip>



You are right. There is nothing in the rules about it. however, that does not mean that people should pretend to be something they are not. Imo it is really simple. We are together here on this forum, and have to try and make the best of it (or leave).

So either you're part of the solution, or you're part of the problem. Either you are someone who tries to conduct an honest argument, or you're just a mindless troll.


----------



## elder999 (Mar 29, 2011)

Bruno@MT said:


> ................you're just a mindless troll.



QFT.
:lol:


----------



## Cryozombie (Mar 29, 2011)

stevebjj said:


> This site, like it or not, is changing personalities. It has always trended conservative (American Conservative), but has drifted further in that direction to the point that some feel unwelcome.


 
Really, you think so?  With the exception of a handful of excessivley Vocal Ubercons, I've always thought the board leaned much further twords the Liberal side.  I can rattle off the name of 3 or 4 conservatives, but 10 or 12 whom I would consider liberals.

I admit, that dispite my dislike for both sides, I have been extremely vocal about Liberals recently... much moreso than the Conservatives... I would say this stems from the political mire in my home state and the mess the Democratic party has been making here... I just can't fathom how anyone thinks what they are doing is good; as a result I have been very outspoken against the group.  It doesn't, however, make me a Conservative or a Republican... just someone that wants to see some REAL Hope and Change.


----------



## Empty Hands (Mar 29, 2011)

Cryozombie said:


> Really, you think so?  With the exception of a handful of excessivley Vocal Ubercons, I've always thought the board leaned much further twords the Liberal side.  I can rattle off the name of 3 or 4 conservatives, but 10 or 12 whom I would consider liberals.



I'll split the difference.  I feel it used to lean conservative, but now leans liberal at least by the numbers of political posters.  Granted, when you normalize for post count due to those Vocal Ubercons, the numbers shift a bit...


----------



## Xue Sheng (Mar 29, 2011)

Bruno@MT said:


> So either you're part of the solution, or you're part of the problem. Either you are someone who tries to conduct an honest argument, or you're just a mindless troll.


 
That has been the stated solution many times for many years now... and you know what... more good people leave and the trolls stay.... so I'm betting this is not the solution


----------



## Steve (Mar 29, 2011)

Cryozombie said:


> Really, you think so?  With the exception of a handful of excessivley Vocal Ubercons, I've always thought the board leaned much further twords the Liberal side.  I can rattle off the name of 3 or 4 conservatives, but 10 or 12 whom I would consider liberals.
> 
> I admit, that dispite my dislike for both sides, I have been extremely vocal about Liberals recently... much moreso than the Conservatives... I would say this stems from the political mire in my home state and the mess the Democratic party has been making here... I just can't fathom how anyone thinks what they are doing is good; as a result I have been very outspoken against the group.  It doesn't, however, make me a Conservative or a Republican... just someone that wants to see some REAL Hope and Change.



Here's my point.  Most around here consider me to be a liberal, although I almost always end up voting GOP/Libertarian in Washington State elections.  Most of my friends consider me to be conservative.  

I've said this before on these boards and it's been treated as a joke, but around here being a moderate conservative equates to being a flaming liberal.  The scale on this board is skewed Right.


----------



## Bruno@MT (Mar 29, 2011)

Xue Sheng said:


> That has been the stated solution many times for many years now... and you know what... more good people leave and the trolls stay.... so I'm betting this is not the solution



True. The people who cause most of the mod work will likely not change their ways, which is sad. However, if enough people read this thread, and 1 or 2 of them stop to think about it and make an effort not to pur oil on the fires, then I have at least achieved something without too much effort.

The main problem as far as I see it - and this opinion is entirely my own and not representative of MT or any of the staff- the problem is that Bob needs traffic because MT is part of his livelihood. A significant part of the traffic is generated in the study.

This means that we have to find a compromise in which site traffic plays an important role. And that precludes taking measures which would actually get rid of the problems. If we wanted to turn the study around, we'd have to start telling people to shape up or ship out. And that would cause a noticeable hit in site traffic.

Another measure which I have taken on my other board is to make the off topic areas invisible until a certain post count and membership time are reached. I don't want newbies to sign up or stick around for the off topic stuff, and I don't want google to find it. If people's main motivation for signing up is not the site topic, then they can get bent for all I care. But again, this would mean a hit in site traffic.

I can tell you that those measures work though. I can't remember the last time we had problems in our off topic areas, and we have people all over the political and religious spectrum, disagreeing with each other on a daily basis. But our ground rule is that everybody has to stay civil and at least semi respectful. If they can't handle that, they are gone. Interestingly though, once you get a sufficiently large group acting like that, it becomes self correcting and we really don't have much work in that area.


----------



## Xue Sheng (Mar 29, 2011)

Two things

First I do believe you have more faith in humanity than I do 



Bruno@MT said:


> Bob needs traffic because MT is part of his livelihood. A significant part of the traffic is generated in the study.


 
Second... this is why I stopped complaining, eveybody has to make a living


----------



## shesulsa (Mar 29, 2011)

Bruno@MT said:


> True. The people who cause most of the mod work will likely not change their ways, which is sad. However, if enough people read this thread, and 1 or 2 of them stop to think about it and make an effort not to pur oil on the fires, then I have at least achieved something without too much effort.
> 
> The main problem as far as I see it - and this opinion is entirely my own and not representative of MT or any of the staff- the problem is that Bob needs traffic because MT is part of his livelihood. A significant part of the traffic is generated in the study.
> 
> ...



 The problem with this is what you're seeing right now:  What some of us consider 'trolls' post repeated drivel and for a while, it worked, it generated site traffic, it generated discussion and numbers were up.  NOW, however, when I load up MT after one day off and I click New Posts I see only two pages of threads where I used to see four or five.

 There is no question the site traffic is *down* and there are token few who even post anymore.

 I think the membership of the board used to lean more liberal but with a few big personalities allowed to take pot-shots at people for a while, some big name posters (myself included) stopped posting, stopped visiting.    

While I think the board is more balanced now, I think that balance is achieved by people who don't really feel one party or the other really *defines* their individual politics, as evidenced by the educated (except for mine) retorts to partyist blather.  

Bob used to crack a stiffer whip when it came to personal pot-shots in the political forums.  I imagine it's hard to get motivated to do much of anything right now.

 It's also hard to find something positive to write about politics in America with the current state of affairs - Three, count 'em THREE wars when Obama said we'd be done with two, a stalling out of the economy, no real action taken towards big corporations moving their workers out of the country, the polarization has only gotten worse and the Democrats remain wimps.  That doesn't mean, however, that we can't speak cogently about real issues rather than grasp at straws that make the Right look so effing ridiculous. 

Perhaps we could start posting more stuff about ... oh, I dunno ... MARTIAL ARTS????  *considers the topics to start*


----------



## Steve (Mar 29, 2011)

Xue Sheng said:


> Two things
> 
> First I do believe you have more faith in humanity than I do


Faith in humanity....  is that liberal or conservative?


----------



## Xue Sheng (Mar 29, 2011)

stevebjj said:


> Faith in humanity.... is that liberal or conservative?


 
No idea...but I have neither :uhyeah:


----------



## granfire (Mar 29, 2011)

Xue Sheng said:


> No idea...but I have neither :uhyeah:



commy bastard....


----------



## Xue Sheng (Mar 29, 2011)

granfire said:


> commy bastard....


 
No no no no no... I don't have that either


----------



## CoryKS (Mar 29, 2011)

Has anyone chimed in yet that XYZ isn't a socialist because nobody understands what socialism is except for that really dreamy history teacher they had in 10th grade?


----------



## granfire (Mar 29, 2011)

CoryKS said:


> Has anyone chimed in yet that XYZ isn't a socialist because nobody understands what socialism is except for that really dreamy history teacher they had in 10th grade?



BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, you is funny!

I shall try to remember that line though. But since the term 'socialist' is not really used as factual description most of the time, but as insult, does it matter that/if anybody knows what socialism really is?


----------



## shesulsa (Mar 29, 2011)

granfire said:


> BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, you is funny!
> 
> I shall try to remember that line though. But since the term 'socialist' is not really used as factual description most of the time, but as insult, does it matter that/if anybody knows what socialism really is?



Aw, c'mon. Socialism is anything except Limbaugh Rightism, you know it's the truth, just admit it!


----------



## granfire (Mar 29, 2011)

shesulsa said:


> Aw, c'mon. Socialism is anything except Limbaugh Rightism, you know it's the truth, just admit it!



I read so on the intrawebz, so it has to be true!

(you know, billi said so!)


----------



## elder999 (Mar 29, 2011)

You've all got it wrong.

THe Nazis were socialist, because they used the word "Socialist" in their name.

They_ said_ they were socialists, and so they were.

The old East Germany was a Democracy, because they were the _German *Democratic* Republic_.

North Korea? Clearly a Democratic Republic, since they're _the People's *Democratic Republic* of Korea_.

China? Reoublican, it is, after all, _the People's *Republic* of China_.

Cuba is also a republic, simply, _the *Republic* of Cuba_.
:lfao:


----------



## Xue Sheng (Mar 29, 2011)

elder999 said:


> You've all got it wrong.
> 
> THe Nazis were socialist, because they used the word "Socialist" in their name.
> 
> ...


 
DAMN!!! Then that means....... we're...... United.... Sorry I can't buy that one... the rest...WELL YEAH!!!!

But the USA being United...Nah I don't believe that


----------



## crushing (Mar 29, 2011)

elder999 said:


> THe Nazis were socialist, because they used the word "Socialist" in their name.


 
I've been reading the comments, and it seems more along the lines that some people consider the Nazi's as socialist because of their having had a very strong centralized goverment leading a planned economy all for the public interest of course.  They tend to mention Socalist as part of National Socialist because they think it is fitting for the economic system as the Nazi's imposed.

But, to give those posters that much credit would make it more difficult to take shots at them and have so much fun at their expense.

I know, I know.  The shell of private ownership that the Nazi's did allow PROVES conclusively and without a doubt that they weren't anything like socialists.


----------



## Xue Sheng (Mar 29, 2011)

granfire said:


> BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, you is funny!
> 
> I shall try to remember that line though. But since the term 'socialist' is not really used as factual description most of the time, but as insult, does it matter that/if anybody knows what socialism really is?


 
Well...no

But just in case anyone is legitimately interested

Capitalism

Communism

Fascism

Nazism

Republic

Socialism


And Before anyone asks why I put one before or after another..its in ALPHABETCAL ORDER

I swear anyone starts something about that.... and to quote Charlie Browns little sister &#8230;I&#8217;ll thump ya


----------



## elder999 (Mar 29, 2011)

crushing said:


> I've been reading the comments, and it seems more along the lines that some people consider the Nazi's as socialist because of their having had a very strong centralized goverment leading a planned economy all for the public interest of course. They tend to mention Socalist as part of National Socialist because they think it is fitting for the economic system as the Nazi's imposed.
> 
> But, to give those posters that much credit would make it more difficult to take shots at them and have so much fun at their expense.
> 
> I know, I know. The shell of private ownership that the Nazi's did allow PROVES conclusively and without a doubt that they weren't anything like socialists.


 
On the other hand, by that standard Alexander Hamilton was a socialist.


----------



## Xue Sheng (Mar 29, 2011)

elder999 said:


> On the other hand, by that standard Alexander Hamilton was a socialist.


 
:hmm: George Washington did not like the idea of political parties..... what's that make him


----------



## billc (Mar 29, 2011)

I have to say that if debate and conversation drives people away, well, I guess they should find somewhere where people simply agree with them.  I have been called names and been criticized a lot here on the study, and yet, here I stand.  This whole thread is essentially based on my threads, thank you, showing that much energy to refute me is complimentary.  Since a lot of the people who seem to have stopped posting are on the left, Tez seems to be one, but it could be she has obligations somewhere else right now, it is not very impressive.  Someone disagrees with your opinions, so you leave not real impressive.  I know the only person I have ever launched on is Steve Bjj because he can be a pretty rude guy.  I have for the most part tried to  be polite, and have posted what I find in a non-threatening way.  I can't say it has always been reciprocated, but hey, that's the nature of strong political debate.  Especially when you are debating people on the left.  At least they aren't participtating in thuggery.

Granfire is the only person  I have put on my ignore list because of consistent rudeness, not because I simply disagree with differing opinions, a few others are on the short list to join granfire but I like to read what the other side has to say so I have done my best to ignore the rude behavior.    Apparently, if some people have left, it is because they don't like people who disagree with them.  I mean come on.  You don't even have to look at the posts of people you don't like.  You can even put them on the ignore list so you don't even have to take active measures to not read their posts.:angel:

THis is the study, it allows people to talk about politics.  You have to come to the study by an act of will, you are not forced here either.  Come on.  If you can't deal with someone elses views, how are you going to handle an actual physical threat in the real world.


----------



## Cryozombie (Mar 29, 2011)

Xue Sheng said:


> And Before anyone asks why I put one before or after another..its in ALPHABETCAL ORDER



Who's Alphabet?  The White Man's Alphabet?  You racist Bastard!

:lfao:


----------



## Cryozombie (Mar 29, 2011)

Xue Sheng said:


> :hmm: George Washington did not like the idea of political parties..... what's that make him



Smart.


----------



## billc (Mar 29, 2011)

Cryozombie, a sexist as well because I bet men made up the alphabet, that is why w, for women, is so close to the bottom.


----------



## crushing (Mar 29, 2011)

elder999 said:


> On the other hand, by that standard Alexander Hamilton was a socialist.


 
Possibly.  Now we are in to degrees.  More of a mixed economy.  The _heavier_ the level of Federalism, the closer it gets to socialism, don't you think?


----------



## billc (Mar 29, 2011)

Here is something from one of my favorite sources:

http://constitutionalistnc.tripod.com/hitler-leftist/id9.html (the clickable index below is at the end of this paper on why hitler is a socialist.)

Clickable Index: 


A modern Leftist 
Mises on Nazim and Bolshevism 
Insane? 
The country gentleman with majolica pots 
Party programme 
A Galbraithian Leftist 
Eugenics 
Feminism 
Nazis were Greens 
A population theorist 
More Leftist than racist 
Genocide is socialist 
Mussolini and the fractious Left 
Tom Wolfe on Nazism 
Quote from Goebbels 
Leftist election posters 
Left/Right categorization inadequate? 
Denials of Hitler's Leftism: Kangas 
Peikoff on Nazi Leftism 
Why the enmity between Nazis and the "Reds"? 
But he was a nationalist! 
There have always been Leftist nationalists 
Stalin the nationalist 
Non-Marxist objections 
Neo-Nazis are different 
Why was Hitler so powerful? 
Love between the leader and the led 
A democrat rather than a revolutionary 
Post election manoeuvres 
Hitler's socialist deeds 
Conservatives and Hitler 
Why Hitler's nationalism is confusing 
Hitler's magic mix 
Nationalism as a novelty 
Nazism bourgeois? 
Hitler was popular 
Stalin as a national socialist 
Ho Chi Minh as a national socialist 
Is racism Rightist? 
Other Fascists were not antisemitic 
Distinguishing Hitler and Stalin 
The holocaust
Fascism and Mussolini
Nazism in Germany today 
Fascism in contemporary Russia 
A final summary 

References for the paper:

REFERENCES 



Adorno,T.W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D.J. & Sanford, R.N. (1950). The authoritarian personality New York: Harper. 
Ardrey, R. (1961) African genesis London: Collins 
Brown, R.(1986) Social psychology (2nd. Ed.) N.Y.: Free Press. Harper 
Bullock, A. (1964) Hitler: A study in tyranny N.Y.: Harper 
De Corte, T.L. (1978) "Menace of Undesirables: The Eugenics Movement During the Progressive Era", University of Nevada, Las Vegas. 
De Felice, R. (1977) Interpretations of Fascism Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U.P. 
Dietrich, D.J. (1988) National renewal, anti-Semitism, and political continuity: A psychological assessment. Political Psychology 9, 385-411. 
Feuchtwanger, E.J. (1995) From Weimar to Hitler: Germany 1918-33. N.Y.: St Martin's Press. 
Fischer, C.J. (1978) The occupational background of the S.A.'s rank and file membership during the depression years , 1929 to mid-1934. In: Stachura, P. The shaping of the Nazi state. London: Croom Helm. 
Galbraith, J.K. (1969) The affluent society 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin 
Gregor, A.J. (1979) Italian Fascism and developmental dictatorship Princeton, N.J.: Univ. Press. 
Hagan, J. (1966) Modern History and its Themes Croydon, Victoria, Australia: Longmans. 
Heiden, K. (1939) One man against Europe Harmondsworth, Mddx.: Penguin 
Herzer, I. (1989) The Italian refuge: Rescue of Jews during the holocaust Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press 
Lipson, L. (1993) The ethical crises of civilization Newbury Park: Sage. 
Locke, R. (2001) Rethinking History: Were the Nazis Really Nationalists? FrontPageMagazine.com. August 28 
Madden, P. (1987) The social class origins of Nazi party members as determined by occupations, 1919-1933. Social Science Quarterly 68, 263-280. 
O'Sullivan, N. (1983) Fascism. London: Dent. 
Pickens, D. (1968) Eugenics and the Progressives. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press 
Ray, J.J. (1984). Half of all racists are Left-wing. Political Psychology, 5, 227-236. 
Ray, J.J. & Furnham, A. (1984) Authoritarianism, conservatism and racism. Ethnic & Racial Studies 7, 406-412. 
Richmond, M. (1998) Margaret Sanger's eugenics. See here or here. 
Ritzler, B.A. (1978) The Nuremberg mind revisited: A quantitative approach. J. Personality Assessment 42, 344-353. 
Roberts, S.H. (1938) The house that Hitler built N.Y.: Harper. 
Schoeck, H. (1969) Envy: A theory of social behaviour London: Martin Secker & Warburg. 
Shirer, W.L. (1964) The rise and fall of the Third Reich London: Pan 
Skidelsky, R. (1975) Oswald Mosley London: Macmillan. 
Sniderman, P.M., Brody, R.A. & Kuklinski, J.H. (1984) Policy reasoning and political values: The problem of racial	equality. American Journal of Political Science 28, 75-94. 
Steinberg, J. (1990) All or nothing: The Axis and the holocaust London: Routledge. 
Taylor, A.J.P. (1963) The origins of the second world war. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 
Toland, J. (1976) Adolf Hitler Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday. 
Unger, A.L. (1965) Party and state in Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. Political Quarterly 36, 441-459. 
Zillmer, E.A., Archer, R.P. & Castino, R. (1989) Rorschach records of Nazi war criminals: A reanalysis using current scoring and interpretation practices. J. Personality Assessment 53, 85-99. 





Stalin as a National Socialist 


As has been mentioned already, Hitler's strategy for popularity was not lost on Stalin. Quite soon after Hitler invaded Russia, Stalin reopened the Russian Orthodox churches and restored the old ranks and orders of the Russian Imperial army to the Red Army so that it became simply the Russian Army and stressed nationalist themes (e.g. defence of "Mother Russia") in his internal propaganda. As one result of this, to this day Russians refer to the Second World War as "the great patriotic war". Stalin may have started out as an international socialist but he ended up a national socialist. So Hitler was a Rightist only in the sense that Stalin was. If Stalin was Right-wing, however, black might as well be white.

Hitler's Socialist Deeds 


When in power Hitler also implemented a quite socialist programme. Like F.D. Roosevelt, he provided employment by a much expanded programme of public works (including roadworks) and his Kraft durch Freude ("power through joy") movement was notable for such benefits as providing workers with subsidized holidays at a standard that only the rich could formerly afford. And while Hitler did not nationalize all industry, there was extensive compulsory reorganization of it and tight party control over it. It might be noted that even in the post-war Communist bloc there was never total nationalization of industry. In fact, in Poland, most agriculture always remained in private hands. 

For more details of how socialist the German economy was under the Nazis, see Reisman. Excerpt: 

"What Mises identified was that private ownership of the means of production existed in name only under the Nazis and that the actual substance of ownership of the means of production resided in the German government. For it was the German government and not the nominal private owners that exercised all of the substantive powers of ownership: it, not the nominal private owners, decided what was to be produced, in what quantity, by what methods, and to whom it was to be distributed, as well as what prices would be charged and what wages would be paid, and what dividends or other income the nominal private owners would be permitted to receive. The position of the alleged private owners, Mises showed, was reduced essentially to that of government pensioners.


The Left/Right division is at fault 

Faced with the challenge to their preconceptions constituted by the material I have so far presented, some people take refuge in the well-known fact that political attitudes are complex and are seldom fully represented by a simple division of politics into Left and Right. They deny that Hitler was Leftist by denying that ANYBODY is simply Leftist. 

I don't think this gets anybody very far, however. What I have shown (and will proceed to show at even greater length) is that Hitler fell squarely within that stream of political thought that is usually called Leftist. That is a fact. That is information. And that is something that is not now generally known. And no matter how you rejig your conception of politics generally, that affinity will not go away. It is commonly said that Nazism and Communism were both "authoritarian" or "totalitarian" -- which is undoubtedly true -- but what I show here is that there were far greater affinities than that. Basic doctrines, ideas and preachments of Nazis and Communists were similar as well as their method of government. 

But, as it happens, the Left/Right division of politics is not just some silly scheme put out by people who are too simple to think of anything better. There is a long history of attempts to devise better schemes but they all founder on how people in general actually vote and think. Most people DO organize their views in a recognizably Left/Right way. For a brief introduction to the research and thinking on the dimensionality of political attitudes, see here


----------



## billc (Mar 29, 2011)

This paper,  points out that even neo-nazis are lefties, although they claim to be on the right.


But Neo-Nazis are Rightist! 

A remaining important objection to the account I have given so far is that Hitler's few remaining admirers in at least the Anglo-Saxon countries all seem to be on the political far-Right. In discussing that, however, I must immediately insist that I am not discussing antisemitism generally. Antisemitism and respect for Hitler are far from the same thing. Although vocal support for antisemitism was in Hitler's day widespread across the American political spectrum -- from Henry Ford on the Right to "Progressives" on the Left -- such support is these days mostly to be found on the extreme Left and for such people Hitler is anathema. And the antisemitism of the former Soviet leadership also shows that antisemitism and respect for Hitler are not at all one and the same. 

But in the Anglosphere countries Hitler DOES still have his admirers among a tiny band of neo-Nazis and it is true that these are usually called the extreme Right. They normally refer to themselves as "The Right", in fact. How do I know that? I know that because I in fact happen to be one of the very few people to have studied neo-Nazis intensively. And I have reported my findings about them in the academic journals -- see here and here. But if Hitler was a socialist, how come that these "far-Rightists" still admire him? 

Before I answer that, however, I must point out that the description "Far-Right" is a great misnomer for the successors of Hitler in modern-day Germany. As we will see below, modern-day German neo-Nazis are demonstrably just as Leftist as Hitler was. So are American, British and Australian neo-Nazis also Leftist in any sense? 

The answer to that is a simple one: They are pre-war Leftists, just as Hitler was. They are a relic in the modern world of thinking that was once common on the Left but no longer is. They are a hangover from the past in every sense. They are antisemitic just as Hitler was. They are racial supremacists just as Hitler was. They are advocates of discipline just as Hitler was. They are advocates of national unity just as Hitler was. They glorify war just as Hitler did etc. And all those things that Hitler advocated were also advocated among the prewar American Left. 

That does however raise the question of WHY such thinking is seen as "Rightist" today. And the answer to THAT goes back to the nature of Leftism! The political content of Leftism varies greatly from time to time. The sudden about-turn of the Left on antisemitism in recent times is vivid proof of that. And what the political content of Leftism is depends on the Zeitgeist -- the conventional wisdom of the day. Leftists take whatever is commonly believed and push it to extremes in order to draw attention to themselves as being the good guys -- the courageous champions of popular causes. So when the superiority of certain races was commonly accepted, Leftists were champions of racism. So when eugenics was commonly accepted as wise, Leftists were champions of eugenics -- etc. In recent times they have come to see more righteousness to be had from championing the Palestinian Arabs than from championing the Jews so we have seen their rapid transition from excoriating antisemitism to becoming "Antizionist". 

But the thinking of the man in the street does not change nearly as radically as Leftists do. Although it may no longer be fashionable, belief in the superiority of whites over blacks is still widespread, for instance. Such beliefs have become less common but they have not gone away. They are however distinctly non-Leftist in today's climate of opinion so are usually defined as "Rightist" by default. So the beliefs of the neo-Nazis are Rightist only in the default sense of not being currently Leftist. They are part of the general stream of popular thinking but that part of it which is currently out of fashion. I say a little more on that elsewhere. 

And so it is because the old-fashioned thinking of the neo-Nazis is these days thoroughly excoriated by the Left that they see themselves as of the Right and reject any idea that they are socialists. I can attest from my own extensive interviews with Australian neo-Nazis (see here and here) that they mostly blot out any mention of Hitler's socialism from their consciousness. The most I ever heard any of them make out of it was that, by "socialism", Hitler was simply referring to national solidarity and everybody pulling together -- which was indeed a major part of Hitler's message and which has been a major aim of socialism from Hegel on. And things like autarky and government control of the whole of society were attractive to them too so they were in fact far more socialist than they would ever have acknowledged. They don't realize that they are simply old-fashioned Leftists. Since most of the world seems to have forgotten what pre-war Leftism consisted of, however, that is hardly surprising. 

And the neo-Nazis are assisted in their view of themselves as Rightist by Hitler's anticommunism. The falling-out among the Nazis and the Communists was in Hitler's day largely a falling-out among thieves but the latter half of the second world war made the opposition between the two very vivid in the public consciousness so that opposition has become a major part of the definition of what Nazism is. And Marxism/Leninism was avowedly internationalist rather than racist. Lenin and the Bolsheviks despised nationalism and wished to supplant national solidarity with class solidarity. Given the contempt for Slavs often expressed by Marx & Engels, one can perhaps understand that Lenin and his Russian (Slavic) Bolsheviks concentrated so heavily on Marx & Engels's vision of international worker solidarity and ignored the thoroughly German nationalism also often expressed by Engels in particular. 

That class-war was the best way to better the economic position of the worker was, however, never completely obvious. The Fascists did not think so nor did most Leftists in democratic countries. Nonetheless, the internationalist and class-based (rather than race-based) nature of Communism did have the effect in the postwar era of identifying Leftism with skepticism about patriotism, nationalism and any feeling that the traditions of one's own country were of great value. The result of this was that people with strong patriotic, nationalist and traditionalist feelings in the Anglo-Saxon countries felt rather despised and oppressed by the mostly Leftist intelligentsia and sought allies and inspiration wherever they could. And Hitler was certainly a great exponent of national pride, community traditions and patriotism. So those who felt marginalized by their appreciation of their own traditional values and their own community must have been tempted in some extreme cases to feel some sympathy for Hitler.


----------



## elder999 (Mar 29, 2011)

billcihak said:


> This paper, points out that even neo-nazis are lefties, although they claim to be on the right.
> 
> 
> But Neo-Nazis are Rightist! .


 
 And so we once again miss the point altogether, and come full circle from the original post:



Bruno@MT said:


> So I decided to test my theory by seeing if I could turn Palin into a socialist or a communist. I also decided against creating a 'Palin is a socialist' thread because the underlying message would probably be lost.
> 
> *So you see, even the staunchest right winger can be painted red with minimal effort.*
> 
> ...


----------



## billc (Mar 29, 2011)

From the paper, a section on the economist Von Mises:

(For those who are unaware of it, Von Mises was an Austrian Jewish intellectual and a remarkably prescient economist. He got out of Vienna just hours ahead of the Gestapo. He did therefore have both every reason and every opportunity to be a close observer of Nazism. So let us also read a bit of what he said about the Nazi economy 

The Nazis did not, as their foreign admirers contend, enforce price control within a market economy. With them price control was only one device within the frame of an all-around system of central planning. In the Nazi economy there was no question of private initiative and free enterprise. All production activities were directed by the Reichswirtschaftsministerium. No enterprise was free to deviate in the conduct of its operations from the orders issued by the government. Price control was only a device in the complex of innumerable decrees and orders regulating the minutest details of every business activity and precisely fixing every individual's tasks on the one hand and his income and standard of living on the other. 

What made it difficult for many people to grasp the very nature of the Nazi economic system was the fact that the Nazis did not expropriate the entrepreneurs and capitalists openly and that they did not adopt the principle of income equality which the Bolshevists espoused in the first years of Soviet rule and discarded only later. Yet the Nazis removed the bourgeois completely from control. Those entrepreneurs who were neither Jewish nor suspect of liberal and pacifist leanings retained their positions in the economic structure. But they were virtually merely salaried civil servants bound to comply unconditionally with the orders of their superiors, the bureaucrats of the Reich and the Nazi party.

***So yes, I still think Hitler was a lefty and a socialist.***


----------



## billc (Mar 29, 2011)

Missing the point even more:

And let us look at the words of someone who was actually in Germany in the 1930s and who thus saw Nazism close up. He said:
"If I'd been German and not a Jew, I could see I might have become a Nazi, a German nationalist. I could see how they'd become passionate about saving the nation. It was a time when you didn't believe there was a future unless the world was fundamentally transformed."
So who said that? It was the famous historian, Eric Hobsbawm (original surname: Obstbaum), who became a Communist instead and who later became known as perhaps Britain's most resolute Communist. Hobsbawn clearly saw only slight differences between Communism and Nazism at that time. And as this summary of a book (by Richard Overy) comparing Hitler and Stalin says:
"But the resemblances are inescapable. Both tyrannies relied on a desperate ideology of do-or-die confrontation. Both were obsessed by battle imagery: 'The dictatorships were military metaphors, founded to fight political war.' And despite the rhetoric about a fate-struggle between socialism and capitalism, the two economic systems converged strongly. Stalin's Russia permitted a substantial private sector, while Nazi Germany became rapidly dominated by state direction and state-owned industries.


----------



## Cryozombie (Mar 29, 2011)

billcihak said:


> Cryozombie, a sexist as well because I bet men made up the alphabet, that is why w, for women, is so close to the bottom.



And why "A" is for Awesome, which *Men* Are!


----------



## billc (Mar 29, 2011)

As a note, post 23,24 and 26 invited the response that I gave on why hitler was a socialist.  It seems that some on the political left, (okay, I think more than some) can look at something and make it that which it is not, and then take something else and not see it as it is.  For example, and this relates to the topic at hand, the left sees clearly that abortion rights are in the constitution, but the right to own and carry a firearm are not.  Much like Hitler being a socialist, they can pick out certain items to make it look like palin is a socialist, but with papers by a PH.D., a book by a Ph.D in economics, commentary by another economist and a book researched by Jonah Goldberg, they cannot see that Hitler was truly a lefty, not a righty, and a socialist.


----------



## billc (Mar 29, 2011)

My posting of the article was also for the sake of Crushing.  The article is pretty accessible because of the click on index and it goes into his point about the veneer of private enterprise.  But, the article dismantles that argument when it gets into what was actually controlled by the nazis, as far as the economy was concerned.


----------



## granfire (Mar 29, 2011)

billcihak said:


> My posting of the article was also for the sake of Crushing.  The article is pretty accessible because of the click on index and it goes into his point about the veneer of private enterprise.  But, the article dismantles that argument when it gets into what was actually controlled by the nazis, as far as the economy was concerned.




Considering that to lead a glee club you had to be party member, the question on whether or not they controlled the economy is moot.


----------



## billc (Mar 29, 2011)

From Friedrich A. Von Hayek, a Nobel award winning economist (back when it probably really meant something) and his thoughts on nazism being actual socialism.

http://www.brookesnews.com/091910hayeknazis.html

From the letter:

The persecution of the Marxists, and of democrats in general, tends to obscure the fundamental fact that National "Socialism" is a genuine socialist movement, whose leading ideas are the final fruit of the anti-liberal tendencies which have been steadily gaining ground in Germany since the later part of the Bismarckian era, and which led the majority of the German intelligentsia first to "socialism of the chair" and later to Marxism in its social-democratic or communist form.

The famous 25 points drawn up by Herr Feder, one of Hitler's early allies, repeatedly endorsed by Hitler and recognized by the by-laws of the National-Socialist party as the immutable basis of all its actions, which together with an extensive commentary is circulating throughout Germany in many hundreds of thousands of copies, is full of ideas resembling those of the early socialists.

...But the dominant feature is a fierce hatred of anything capitalistic-individualistic profit seeking, large scale enterprise, banks, joint-stock companies, department stores, "international finance and loan capital," the system of "interest slavery" in general; the abolition of these is described as the "basis of the programme, around which everything else turns."  It was to this programme that the masses of the German people, who were already completely under the influence of collectivist ideas, responded so enthusiastically.

That this violent anti-capitalistic attack is genuine, and not a mere piece of propaganda, becomes as clear from the personal history of the intellectual leaders of the movement as from the general milieu from which it springs.  It is not even denied that many of the young men who today play a prominent part in it have previously been communists or socialists.


----------



## Bruno@MT (Mar 30, 2011)

Believe it or not Bill, but this thread is not targeted specifically at you. I just used my socialist example to make the point that anything can be argued either way.

The major point about my thread is not about agreeing or disagreeing. My online friends include a white militia guy, a treehugger, a conspiracy nut, a guy from idaho who calls himself so right wing that he puts on 2 right cowboy boots in the morning, a mormom, a catholic, gays, lesbians, christian fundamentalists, special forces guys from various nations, etc. Within such a group, it is no surprise that there is very little we agree upon.

Agreeing or not is not the point. The point is that it is possible to disagree without insulting each other, without building strawman arguments and without just spouting mindless propaganda.


----------



## Xue Sheng (Mar 30, 2011)

Cryozombie said:


> Who's Alphabet? The White Man's Alphabet? You racist Bastard!
> 
> :lfao:


 
THAT'S IT..you were WARNED :whip:  

SHEESH!!!

Next time I will put it in Chinese Character order...That will learn ya :uhyeah:


----------

