Posted on 08/25/2007 9:37:52 AM PDT by Renfield
~~~~~snip~~~~
There is surely no doubt that the man Feser describes sounds very much like a mainstream Leftist by current standards. But who is the man concerned? It is a historically accurate description of Adolf Hitler. Hitler was not only a socialist in his own day but he would even be a mainstream socialist in MOST ways today. Feser does not mention Hitler's antisemitism above, of course, but that too seems once again to have become mainstream among the Western-world Left in the early years of the 21st century. See here for more on that.
One way in which Hitler was unlike modern American Leftist political leaders, however, is that he was to a considerable extent a genuine man of culture. The photo below shows him in white tie and tails attending the Wagner opera festival at Bayreuth in 1939. There is no doubt of his real devotion to opera -- and indeed to classical music generally. Any claim that a devotion to high culture is especially virtuous does therefore tend to be undermined by Hitler's example -- if that is not too ad hominem.
~~~~snip~~~~
(Excerpt) Read more at jonjayray.tripod.com ...
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 a pretty good Presidential candidate for the modern-day U.S. Democratic party:
He had been something of a bohemian in his youth, and always regarded young people and their idealism as the key to progress and the overcoming of outmoded prejudices. And he was widely admired by the young people of his country, many of whom belonged to organizations devoted to practicing and propagating his teachings. He had a lifelong passion for music, art, and architecture, and was even something of a painter. He rejected what he regarded as petty bourgeois moral hang-ups, and he and his girlfriend "lived together" for years. He counted a number of homosexuals as friends and collaborators, and took the view that a man's personal morals were none of his business; some scholars of his life believe that he himself may have been homosexual or bisexual. He was ahead of his time where a number of contemporary progressive causes are concerned: he disliked smoking, regarding it as a serious danger to public health, and took steps to combat it; he was a vegetarian and animal lover; he enacted tough gun control laws; and he advocated euthanasia for the incurably ill.
He championed the rights of workers, regarded capitalist society as brutal and unjust, and sought a third way between communism and the free market. In this regard, he and his associates greatly admired the strong steps taken by President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal to take large-scale economic decision-making out of private hands and put it into those of government planning agencies. His aim was to institute a brand of socialism that avoided the inefficiencies that plagued the Soviet variety, and many former communists found his program highly congenial. He deplored the selfish individualism he took to be endemic to modern Western society, and wanted to replace it with an ethic of self-sacrifice: "As Christ proclaimed 'love one another'," he said, "so our call -- 'people's community,' 'public need before private greed,' 'communally-minded social consciousness' -- rings out.! This call will echo throughout the world!"
The reference to Christ notwithstanding, he was not personally a Christian, regarding the Catholicism he was baptized into as an irrational superstition. In fact he admired Islam more than Christianity, and he and his policies were highly respected by many of the Muslims of his day. He and his associates had a special distaste for the Catholic Church and, given a choice, preferred modern liberalized Protestantism, taking the view that the best form of Christianity would be one that forsook the traditional other-worldly focus on personal salvation and accommodated itself to the requirements of a program for social justice to be implemented by the state. They also considered the possibility that Christianity might eventually have to be abandoned altogether in favor of a return to paganism, a worldview many of them saw as more humane and truer to the heritage of their people. For he and his associates believed strongly that a people's ethnic and racial heritage was what mattered most. Some endorsed a kind of cultural relativism according to which what is true or false and right or wrong in some sense depends on one's ethnic worldview, and especially on what best promotes the well-being of one's ethnic group...."
Interesting article, and a good one to show to acquaintances who think Hitler was a “right-wing Fascist”....
“Na zi” = “National Socialist”
I never understood why so many idiots couldn't grasp that. It's not rocket science. After the destruction of Germany in WW1, it was quite natural for socialism to be adopted.
Getting harder and harder to distinguish this place from KOS.
If a nation is going to disregard Human Rights and disregard Property Rights (different sides of the same coin) they do not have any God given legitimacy.
Sounds like the U.S. today. Kill a baby in the womb (you have THAT CHOICE), but don’t dare light a tobacco product (especially with the signs literally littering some states asking to report your fellow citizen). Hmmm...
Go away!!!
NASDP (Nationalsocialistiche Deutsche Arbeiter Patei) may have been the official name of the party but it’s workings were not.
1937: “The Jews”
2007: “Religious Right”
Same-same.
“Everything must be different!” or “Alles muss anders sein!” was a slogan of the Nazi Party. It is also the heart’s desire of every Leftist since Karl Marx.”
Now doesn’t that sound familiar when considering Hillary? She doesn’t like anything about our way of life and is always saying it all has to change.
But he got the trains to run on time.
I'm not going to give a knee jerk reaction to the point you are making (though I could) but I do want to emphasize what you seem to be saying in that last sentence. It is inevitable that the more power a government seizes unto itself the greater that governments desire to marginalize the individual. Sooner or later billboards WILL crop up with nice slogans like, "YOU MUST WORK HARDER FOR THE FATHERLAND".
And built superhighways (like Algore), too!
Every leftists aka socialist aka democrat aka liberal I`ve ever debated go ballistic when I tell them Hitler was a national socialist and prove it.
They go absolutely nuts trying to disprove all the similarities by pointing to one or two dissimilarities and then attempt to use their miniscule points to argue it disporves the preponderance of evidence against them.
I laugh seeing them writhe,twist and try squirm their way out and just end up telling them the major difference is that hitler was a national socialist and they, democrats,liberals,etc, are international socialists.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.