Posted on 03/22/2005 7:20:59 AM PST by Pikamax
I see the beginnings of the modern totalitarian state as rooted in the reductive rationalism of Rousseau and his French, German, and American successors.
I recommend Jacob Talmon's various works for those seeking a deeper understanding of the horror that is the modern benevolent state.
I'm awaiting an answer.
You said the Nazis were socialist because they wanted a strong central state to practice social engineering. Well, all continental Europeans have always wanted a strong central state to practice social engineering. It's the political culture of continental Europe. Always has been, always will be.
Does that mean continental Europe has always been socialist ?
Germany was torn between fascism and communism. The German people were leaning toward the left. Hitler changed the name of his party and co-opted the word Socialist as a political ploy. By 1934 every left leaning member had been purged. In the war in Spain Hitler aided the Fascists gainst the Communists. In WW2 he allied with Fascist Italy and fought against Communist Russia and ed forces in the Balkans.
There is nothing, outside of the revisionist circle jerk that pops up here every once in a while, that indicates that Hitler and his party were socialist. It looks like his co-opting of the word is still fooling people.
Don't be fooled by the party name ...... they were FACISTS.
In other words, collectivist.
Until the Nazi's, big business had never had it so good.
Their program called for the nationalization of education, health care, ...... and other major industries.
Oh, sorta like "no child left behind", prescription drugs, and faith based pork?
The fact that Europe never had a sizeable right wing movement does not mean that the definition of right wing somehow changes for their mileu (lol "MENU"!).
If 99% of the population is Socialist in nature, you dont cut that in half and say that 49% Right Wing, just a different type of "Right Wing", that is incoherent and illogical.
Collectivist doesn't necessarily mean socialist. All comradeship is collectivist. And as I said, the roots of fascism were not in Marxist collectivism but in "Ich fur Dich, Du fur Mich" band of brothers comradeship of the trenches.
Fascist collectivism was, "In my unit we came from different regions and different classes but we were brothers. Why can't all our country be like that ?" Hitler in "Mein Kampf" wrote about how for the first time in his life in the trenches he felt close to other people.
And where does it say that America gets to define what is conservatism ? Why Burke's definition instead of Bossuet's or Bismarck's ?
No. Here is the political progression of the U.S:
Monarchy->liberalism->Socialism
(albeit-we have not arrived at Socialism, and are at a Liberalism vs Socialism dichotomy)
Now here is the politcal progression of Europe:
Monarchy->Socialism
They have little to no elements of Monarchy or liberalism left in there political atmosphere. The essence of the right is deeply entrenched in liberal economics. Just because most of Europe skirted this stage (you could argue Great Britian and France for the first phase of the French Revolution), it does not change their definition of the right.
Because they are very related. You are trying to say that Conservatism can be entrenched from the works of Karl Marx.
???
I think you lost one banana somewhere...
Just in Poland alone:
Similarly, in the German Extraordinary Pacification Campaign of 1940, some 15,000 Polish priests, teachers and political leaders were transported to Dachau , or shot in the Palmiry Forest.
http://www.asthma-drsprecace.com/paper.html
There have been several Saints made of priests who died in the concentration camps while bravely doing good deeds.
Keep going to the real socialist programs, like social security, Medicare, HUD, welfare, etc.
You really aren't making sense. Collectivism comes in all shapes and sizes, vastly predating Marx. Fascist collectivism was just transposing soldierly comradeship on the nation at large.
People who try to connect fascism and socialism are failing miserably to understand that statism is simply the political culture of Europe, right and left. There is no such thing as a non-statist European right. There are no European "libertarians".
Yes, but were they murdered because they were Catholics or educated Poles ?
I beg to differ, the National Socialist Party was not leftist. The Nazi's were completely committed to overthrowing communism. The two parties could not live side by side. One had to go.
Not all the Army was purged of non-Nazis. von Rundtstedt was kept, retired, and called back toward the end. He is one example. Hitler needed him. Toward the end of the war, there were even Muslems in the German army.
On one level, what the heck is the difference? Thousands of Catholic priest were killed in concentration camps by the Nazis. Shouldn't that be enough to dispell the notion that the Nazis and the Church were buddies on the right?
On a deeper level, Hitler hated the church.
"National Socialism and religion cannot exist together....
"The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity.
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