Read most of the article. Verry long.
I think the author’s primary problem is with definitions.
For instance, he appears to define the “right,: conservatism, as roughly equivalent to libertarianism; while the “left” is defined as socialism and authoritarianism.
To understand why such a definition is inaccurate, you have to look at the origin of the Left/Right spectrum, which originated in the French Revolutionary assemblies. Those who were most conservative, supporters of King, Church and aristocracy, sat on the right of the hall. Those who were most anxious to overthrow the existing system and replace it with one of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity sat on the left. The wishy-washy guys sat in the middle.
This points out an immediate problem with applying the spectrum to American, and for that matter most other modern, political controversies. America never had a Right, in the sense of organized groups campaigning for King and established Church. The closest we came were the early Federalists, who had aristocratic tendencies. Had the South won the WBTS, it would probably have wound up with a pretty right-wing government. OTOH, in Europe true Rightists, in the original sense of the word, hung on till WWI and perhaps later.
The Left, meanwhile, in the original sense of the term, was focused primarily on Equality. This was originally political and social equality, but when these goals were largely achieved they started chasing the impossible dream of economic equality.
In the general use of the term, Socialist or Leftist today means Marxist, of one variety or another. The three primary distinguishing characteristics of Marxism are its obsession with economic equality, its opposition to nationalism and other dividers of people, and its belief that the State will eventually “wither away.”
The Nazis denied all three.
While they ran a massive welfare state, the had no particular problem with economic inequality as such, and even intended to impose it by force, with Aryans to be given much more economic power than inferior races.
The “Fraternity” the Nazis wanted glorified nationalism, with all Germans lined up together in opposition to the internationalist “Fraternity” of the socialist working class. In essence, the fraternity of the Nazis was divided vertically. (All Germans against everybody else). The “Fraternity” of the socialists was divided horizontally. (All members of the working class worldwide against everybody else.)
The Nazi ideal was a world dominated by Aryans, with all others enslaved and perhaps eventually exterminated. The socialist ideal was a world of peace, freedom, and equality; with little thought given (in pre-Revolution days) to what might be necessary to get there. What would happen to all those people who weren’t “class-concious proletatians” wasn’t discussed much. The Nazis, OTOH, gloried in the pain, blood and suffering they would inflict on their inferiors.
Perhaps the biggest difference between Nazis and socialists was their attitude towards the state. Before the Bolshevik Revolution socialist assumed the State would rapidly “wither away.” After the Rev it became obvious that this wasn’t going to happen anytime soon and the ideal got moved to the distant future, as the State got more powerful and oppressive. But the ideal never went away.
The Nazis, OTOH, glorified the State and intended for it to last forever.
To sum it up, the Nazis and socialists/communists shared many methods, and were both unalterably opposed to the liberal (original sense of the word), middle-class capitalism on which America has been built, but their goals were about as opposite as any two groups can be.
WRT your very last paragraph:
This is precisely the point.
“Liberalism” is no longer about liberty. It is about government, regulations and laws.
Libertarians are now the true liberals. And the opposite, of Socialists, Nazis, and ... “liberals”.
You are mistaken in characterizing The South as the closest thing we have had to The Right had they won. The South were more akin to libertarians, they believed in states’ rights. The North created The Right. They forced the states to capitulate before a central government, with Lincoln playing the role of Bismarck.
A great post! Though I mildly disagree that fascism socialism, and communism are cut from different cloth.
I take special interest in your reference to the French Revolutionary assemblies:
It is interesting to compare the results of the French Revolution with the rotting corpse of Rome (from which it sprung, IMO). Much like the Roman equity, the French sense of equality never omitted a sense of fraternal order, with a required subclass of workers. Add to that an exaggerated and caricatured "Noblesse Oblige" (again, much like late Rome), and one has all the ingredients needed for a socialist state. One could conclude it was societally close to a decapitated empire-state- A bureaucracy without an empirical CEO. It is no wonder that socialist states so often wind up with a dictatorial emperor.
The American Revolution, on the other hand, resulted in a republic based largely upon the English Common Law and the long-standing English Bill of Rights, hailed a new sense of individual independence. It rejected the fraternity of the feudal system in the whole cloth, offering a divided and opposed government, and ordaining specifically that the basis of human rights are endowed upon us by God above, rather than by any entity made by man.
These two paths, offered in the same breath of Providence have been the choice of man ever since.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus