Posted on 12/10/2013 6:00:42 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The only way to understand what is happening to America in our time — and for that matter, in Europe since World War II — is to understand the Left.
And one way to understand the Left — and its enormous appeal to many decent people — is to understand what it learned from World War II and the Nazi experience. The lessons people draw from history go a long way toward explaining how they view the world and how they behave.
Unfortunately, virtually everything the Left learned from the unique evil known as Nazism has been wrong.
The first lesson was that the Right is evil, not merely wrong. Because Nazism has been successfully labelled right wing, virtually every right-wing position and leader has been either cynically or sincerely characterized by the Left as a danger to civilization. That is why the Right is so often labelled fascist and compared to Nazis. Vast numbers of people in the West truly believe that if the Right prevails, fascism will follow.
Of course, Nazism was not right-wing — certainly not in American terms. How could it be? Right-wing means less government, not more. Nor was it left-wing, even though “Nazism” was an abbreviation for National Socialism.
Nazism was sui generis. It was radical racism combined with totalitarianism; and racism as a doctrine is neither Right nor Left.
We have no contemporary movement of any major significance that is Nazi-like. The closest thing we have is Islamist hatred of non-Muslims — but even that is mostly religious rather than race based.
The association of Nazism with the “right wing” is one reason many Jews loathe the Right. In the Jewish psyche, to fight the Right is to fight incipient Nazism.
The second lesson the Left learned is directly related to the first. If the Right is so evil that, if allowed to prevail, Nazism will follow, then surely the Left must be beautiful and noble. And that, of course, is how the Left sees itself — as inherently beautiful and noble. After all, how can the opposite of Nazism be anything but noble?
The third erroneous lesson is a deep fear and loathing of nationalism. Since the Nazis committed their crimes in the name of nationalism (race-based nationalism, to be precise), nationalism must be curbed. That explains much of the Left’s contempt for Americans who wave the flag — indeed, the Left has rendered the term “flag wavers” a pejorative one.
How else to explain the fact that on American national holidays one finds so many more flags displayed in conservative areas than in liberal ones? The trauma of World War I had already killed nationalism in much of Europe. And World War II did that for the Left in America.
The Left regards any assertion of American national identity — not merely flag-waving — as chauvinism bordering on fascism. When the Left charges Americans who fear the dilution of American national identity that could follow citizenship for tens of millions of illegal immigrants with “xenophobia” and “racism,” it is not only a cynical attempt to cultivate Latino votes for the Democratic party. It also comes out of a sincere belief that conservative concerns about American national identity are reminiscent of chauvinist bigotry.
The most obvious example of left-wing opposition to American nationalism is its cultivation of “multi-culturalism” as a replacement for American national identity. For the Left, American citizens are no longer American; we are African American, Asian American, Hispanic- or Latino-American, Native-American, etc. The Left celebrates what precedes the hyphen far more than the “American” that follows it. As a result, our nation no longer instills traditional American values and an American identity in immigrants or the native-born. That is the reason for the Right’s concern over illegal immigration, not bigotry and xenophobia.
A fourth lesson the Left learned from Nazism has been that no judging of cultures is permissible. Because the Nazis deemed Jews and others inferior, we are no longer allowed to judge other cultures. In the post–World War II world of the Left, all cultures are equal. To say that the contemporary Islamic world or black inner-city culture have serious moral problems that they need to address is to be labeled dangerously racist — reminiscent, for the Left, of the Nazis who declared other groups (inherently) defective. For the Left the only cultures one may judge adversely are white American and religious Jewish and Christian.
Fifth and finally, the Left has affirmed pacifism as an ideal. One would think that the most obvious moral and rational lesson to be learned from the Nazi experience is the need to fight evil. After all, if decent nations had not been as militarily strong as they were, and had not been as willing as they were to use that might, the Nazis would not have been defeated, and many millions more “non-Aryans” would have been enslaved and murdered. But the Left, including, sad to say, Germany, did not draw that lesson. Instead of learning to fight evil, the Left has learned that fighting is evil — and it has taught this to two generations of Americans.
To amend Santayana’s famous dictum, it is those who learn the wrong lessons from history who are condemned to repeat it.
— Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His most recent book is Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph.
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These aren’t lessons the Left “learned.” These are lies the Left contrived and spread.
National Socialism was Marxist and Leftist.
Try replying to this post.
Some excellent insights here.
>These aren’t lessons the Left “learned.” These are lies the Left contrived and spread.
>>National Socialism was Marxist and Leftist.
Yah, right. And 6 million Jews died of cholera. Needless to say, your assertion explains why capitalists massively funded fascism in Germany and elsewhere and why fascist thugs beat the crap out of leftists since time began. Read Anthony Sutton’s “Wall St. and the Rise of Hitler” for starters and Carrol Quigley’s “Tragedy and Hope” for finishers.
Conservatives absolutely must begin to understand the dynamic of why capitalism intrinsically evolves towards MONOPOLISM, i.e., “too big to fail”. That is exactly what happens when you gobble up the competition, and corporate bureaucracy then infiltrates government via lobbying and revolving door hiring policies to create even more monopoly. Apparently capitalists, just like marxists, DON’T LIKE COMPETITION, which is the only thing that keeps them honest. Why there isn’t an ANTI-MONOPOLIST faction within conservatism is beyond me.
Judgment at Nuremberg captures the arrogance and brainless abuse of power that typifies our modern left... well worth the time if you're curious about connections between 'progressives' and old time Nazis.
"The effects of human wickedness are written on the page of history in characters of blood: but the impression soon fades away; so more blood must be shed to renew it." ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
These days, I tend to start with Heinlein to understand the political world around me:
"Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria.
The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire."
-- Robert A. Heinlein
Fortunately or unfortunately, we have almost arrived at our curtain call, just as the divide and conquer progressives planned:
"Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either [aristocracy or monarchy]. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide."
~ John Adams
“Why there isn’t an ANTI-MONOPOLIST faction within conservatism is beyond me.”
Perhaps because, currently, big government is more obviously interfering with people’s lives than big business. And monopolies are typically created and maintained with the collusion of government.
At National Review, this is a one page article as it should be.
At the annoying Townhall.com, which I have started avoiding, it is their required, two pages.
>Perhaps because, currently, big government is more obviously interfering with people’s lives than big business. And monopolies are typically created and maintained with the collusion of government.
You idea of “collusion” should be looked at in terms of lobbyists, junkets, vote buying, campaign contributions, revolving door hiring bribery and extortion. It seems to me that businesses hell bent on monopoly do just fine corrupting government on their own. What you’d like to say to me is that Teddy Roosevelt’s trust busting efforts was the work of enterprise policing itself? Ever hear of the term “price fixing”.
“you idea of “collusion” should be looked at in terms of lobbyists, junkets, vote buying, campaign contributions, revolving door hiring bribery and extortion.”
That is what I was thinking of, along with giving whatever they want to do, or prevent others from doing, the force of law. Without government support, it would be hard to enforce a monopoly. A government designed to protect and defend the liberties and rights of individuals wouldn’t be part of that.
bkmk
Exactly why democracy has so many advocates in the Third World and on the Left. They don't actually want it - they want first dibs on control of the authoritarian system that will inevitably supplant it.
Not so famous last words: "Seemed like a good idea at the time."
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