Posted on 05/27/2004 6:32:13 AM PDT by RedBloodedAmerican
Couldn't find this posted on FR.
Fascinating stuff (all of it)--thank you for posting!
Hitler was a socialist. It can't be said ENOUGH!
Bump for later read.
All the liberals say this so it must be true. They're all too dumb to realize that Nazi is an acronym for National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or National Socialist German Worker's Party.
Mother of God.
There are parts of this that will make Dr. Ray the 901st file.
Save this somewhere, before it goes down the Memory Hole.
Without wasting a lot of time on the article, one thing stood out as wrongheaded: the discussion about Hitler and the Nazis being "middle class". There was no "middle class" in the American sense in Germany. Rather, there was (1) the aristocracy, (2) the bourgeoisie (non-noble rich, owners of significant businesses, etc., living primarily on undearned incomes), (3) the petit bourgeoisie or, to use the German term, Kleinbuerger, (4) the working class (the vast majority in urban areas, (5) peasants (farmers ranging from prosperous Frei Baueren with large farms to landless agricultural laborers, and (6) a relataively small lumpenpoletariat. The closest thing to what we would call "middle class" in this country would be the kleinbuerger (which would include most white collar workers and professionals) and the upper third of the working class (master and journeymen in trades, etc.).
There are still some who claim the German Democratic Republic in East Germany was communist. Can't they read?
Dr. Ray is an amiable fellow. I e-mailed him some questions about fascism a few months ago and he responded to all by the next day. This fellow is one of the good guys.
bttt
I had a professor who told me that Hitler was just fooling the people. He said he was a Socialist so that they would vote for him -- but in reality all his policies were evil right-wing policies.
Germany in the 1920's and early 30's had tons of Communist, Socialist, and Trade Unionist activists. The voters knew a Leftist when they saw one. And they voted for National Socialism because the policies sounded good (to them). To say (as my professor did) that the rabble were fooled by the name of the party and didn't really mean to support a Leftist is just twaddle.
A major read...
First, the title. "Hitler was a socialist". Well, duh; the name of his party was the National Socialist Party! This is a surprise, then, that he was a socialist?
Then there's this assertion:
Before we answer that question, however, let us look at what the Left and Right in politics consist of at present. Consider this description by Edward Feser of someone who would have been an ideal Presidential candidate for the modern-day U.S. Democratic party:
Followed by a description of Hitler. In reading through the 3 paragraphs that follow, it's easy to find individual characteristics that are applicable to many Democratic politicians. It's also quite possible to pick out characteristics that apply to some Republicans as well (for example, President Bush was not exactly the ideal family man up until about the age of 40). But it's quite impossible to apply the entire description to any Presidential candidate of any party, never mind their "ideal" candidate.
So we surely do need to look at the plausibility of the "insanity" claim. Do madmen achieve popular acclaim among their own people? Do madmen inspire their countrymen to epics of self-sacrifice? Do madmen leave a mark on history unlike any other? Until Hitler came along, the answers to all these questions would surely have been "no".
Uh, what? Here's a presumption that's challengable. The author himself makes the point of the difficulty of having to prove, or disprove, that a given historical figure was mad. So I can hardly accept that "the answers to all these questions would surely have been 'no'", because I would not be able to determine the mental status of any person in the past who had inspired their populace to such measures.
At that point I pretty much lost any confidence in the author, and stopped reading.
Amen. This can't be stressed enough. If you really seek to control other people, Socialism is the only mechanism. And it's always wrong.
VERY good piece!
National socialism is the only practicable socialism.
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