Posted on 04/22/2002 12:00:59 PM PDT by liberalism=failure
Part 1
The Nazis are known most of all for what two things?
Answer:
1) trying to conquer the world and
2) killing the Jews.
For years the left has said that the right in this country is nazi like.
But guess what? The Jews are under attack again. And who, for the most part, is on their side? The right. And who is on the side of the Jew murderers? The left.
In addition the huge rise in antisemitism in Europe is obviously due to their leftist leanings, indeed the more left the country is the more antisemitic they are.
So, how can the right be Nazi-like if it stands with the Jews, when one of the two biggest tenets of Naziism is killing them. That would make no sense.
Part two
What was the rationale the Nazis used to kill Jews? Was it right wing dogma or left wing?
The rationale given was that the Jews, who were on average more successful than their gentile counterparts, had gotten that this success illegitimately. They claimed that the Jews had stolen what was not rightfully theirs. That they were "bloodsuckers" and "moneychangers" etc.
If that line of thinking sounds familiar, it should. Because it's the cornerstone of liberalism. That being that successful groups did not attain their success legitimately, that they exploited and oppressed others.
We see it in all manner of leftist ideology--
The left tells us that--The rich did not get rich because they made good choices and worked hard. They tell us that they got that way through luck, through exploiting others. The left tells us that the reason that in general whites and Asians do better than Hispanics and blacks is not because they study harder and their parents place a higher value on schooling. No, they are lucky, rich, while blacks and Hispanics are poor victims of racism et al.
Bottom line--its the left that is standing with the murderes of Jews today. And it was leftist class envy that killed them 60 years ago.
Conclusion: The Nazis were liberals. And the middle east crisis and a look at history settles it.
They were thought "inferior" not because they were unsuccessful failures. They were thought to be inferior because they WERE successful (in the Nazis view--illegitimately).
That's liberalism. And nothing but liberalism
But, you have your opinion, and apparently you're comfortable with your conclusions.
Personally I refuse to use the word "liberal" in the contemporary generalization sense. The socialists stole it, but it will always mean "freedom" (liber as in liberty) to me, and that's the way I use it.
Hillary is not a liberal. Goldwater was.
IMHO
So a US liberal might advocate subordinating your rights or mine to the needs of the community. Hitler proposed subordinating individual rights and needs to those of the race. In either case, the individual is of less importance than some larger unit. All of this is, by the way, spelled out in Hitler's book "Mein Kampf", as well as on the web in a variety of sites.
The Nazi party also targeted the workers - particularly the unemployed workers who were suffering from the effects of the depression - as voters and activists. Part of the method used to recruit them into the SA was to feed them...i.e., soup kitchens. Interestingly, Hitler also courted the wealthy industrialists. This is not so different than the US Democratic Party strategy!
So yes, I agree. The Nazi party has strong similarities to US liberalism. It was "rightest" only in the sense that it demanded adherence to the government position after it came to power - a path trod by clintoon and carvile in our own recent history.
I think you're exactly on target, KJ. The more recent corruption of "liberal" can only be interpreted as "liberated from all moral absolutes." At least that is what the word has come to mean in religious parlance.
Socialism comes in many flavors, all of them bad.
That's probably because they're liberals.
I think the facts speak pretty loudly. There is no other reason. Jews were doing well in a Germany which was destroyed by inflation. Hitler used the resentment to rise to power. Every liberal needs a villain. And for Hitler it was the Jews.
What the hell does that mean?
Perhaps, but I believe that another study showed that Jews were genetically indistinguishable from Palestinians (which makes sense since of course they are from the same place). And look at the immense diparity of these groups.
No I believe that it is culture that distinguishes Asains and Jews from other groups and accounts for their success. I.e. they have cultures that orient toward success whereas blacks and Hispanics do not.
After all, culture is the only thing that really separates us all from cavemen.
The targetting of the Jews as a scape goat was right out of Karl Marx--a tactic advocated by Marx in the middle of the Nineteenth Century--when he blamed all of the claimed excesses of Capitalism on a Jewish mentality. Scapegoating the Jews was a major tactic in winning the streets from the Communists.
For more on just how far Left the Nazis actually were, and on how perpetuating the myth that they were on the right has served Leftist purposes ever since, see The Lies Of Socialism.
The greatest difference between Hitler and Stalin was that Hitler had better choreographers for his demonstrations of mass support than Stalin. Both were infatuated with demonstrating an appeal to the masses. The Right always has other priorities.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
In my previous response, I neglected to address your comment, immediately above.
The culture/nature debate is really a non-starter. They are flip-sides of the same thing. The thing which distinguishes all of the advanced cultures of the world from all other levels of existence, is this: Man creates his own culture, reflective of his nature. What the multi-culturalists propose, basically, is trashing everyone's culture. While they suggest that they respect diversity, their policies give the lie to this. They respect diversity no more than did the Communists and Nazis.
When you suggest that a particular culture produces a person with particular attributes, you are missing the point. The particular culture is what it is because of the particular attributes of those who created it. Man, unlike other forms of life, consciously defines his own cultural environment. It is never accidental.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
Two I'd recommend are:
Ron Rosenbaum
Explaining Hitler: The Search For The Origins of Evil
Thomas Sowell
Migrations and Cultures: a World View
The former was quite favorably reviewed by Wm. Safire, and the latter author is far from what you'd call "liberal".
Sowell, among other points, suggests that location encouraging trading had more to do with advancement than whatever we mean by race.
Thus, coastal people often had a bit more going upstairs than the knuckle draggers of the deepest darkest interior.
That's all my opinion of their books, both not quick reads, but both food for the mind regarding why Hitler did what he did, and how it is that there are differences in groups of people.
Both are likely still in Amazon, with reviews.
But, passion being what it is, we're soon looking at intermarriage blurring all the assumptions.
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