Posted on 12/10/2013 5:46:13 AM PST by Kaslin
The only way to understand what is happening to America in our time -- and for that matter, in Europe since World War II -- is to understand the left.
And one way to understand the left -- and its enormous appeal to many decent people -- is to understand what it learned from World War II and the Nazi experience. The lessons people draw from history go a long way toward explaining how they view the world and how they behave.
Unfortunately, virtually everything the left learned from the unique evil known as Nazism has been wrong.
The first lesson was that the right is evil, not merely wrong. Because Nazism has been successfully labelled "right-wing," virtually every right-wing position and leader has been either cynically or sincerely characterized by the left as a danger to civilization. That is why the right is so often labelled fascist and compared to Nazis. Vast numbers of people in the West truly believe that if the right prevails, fascism will follow.
Of course, Nazism was not right-wing -- certainly not in American terms. How could it be? Right-wing means less government, not more. Nor was it left-wing, even though "Nazism" was an abbreviation for National Socialism.
Nazism was sui generis. It was radical racism combined with totalitarianism; and racism as a doctrine is neither right nor left.
We have no contemporary movement of any major significance that is Nazi-like. The closest thing we have is Islamist hatred of non-Muslims -- but even that is mostly religion- rather than race-based.
The association of Nazism with right-wing is one reason many Jews loathe the right. In the Jewish psyche, to fight the right is to fight incipient Nazism.
The second lesson the left learned is directly related to the first. If the right is so evil that, if allowed to prevail, Nazism will follow, then surely the left must be beautiful and noble. And that, of course, is how the left sees itself -- as inherently beautiful and noble. After all, how can the opposite of Nazism be anything but noble?
The third erroneous lesson is a deep fear and loathing of nationalism. Since the Nazis committed their crimes in the name of nationalism (race-based nationalism, to be precise), nationalism must be curbed. That explains much of the left's contempt for Americans who wave the flag -- indeed, the left has rendered the term "flag-wavers" a pejorative term.
How else to explain the fact that on American national holidays one finds so many more flags displayed in conservative areas than in liberal ones? The trauma of World War I had already killed nationalism in much of Europe. And World War II did that for the left in America.
The left regards any assertion of American national identity -- not merely flag-waving -- as chauvinism bordering on fascism. When the left charges Americans who fear the dilution of American national identity that could follow citizenship for tens of millions of illegal immigrants with "xenophobia," and "racism," it is not only a cynical attempt to cultivate Latino votes for the Democratic Party. It is also a sincere belief that conservative concerns about American national identity are reminiscent of chauvinist bigotry.
The most obvious example of left-wing opposition to American nationalism is its cultivation of "multiculturalism" as a replacement for American national identity. For the left, American citizens are no longer Americans first and foremost; we are African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanic- or Latino-Americans, Native-Americans, etc. The left celebrates what precedes the hyphen far more than the "American" that follows it. As a result, America no longer instills traditional American values and an American identity on either those born here or in its immigrants, which is the reason for the right's concern over illegal immigration, not bigotry and xenophobia.
A fourth lesson the left learned from Nazism has been that no judging of cultures is permissible. Because the Nazis deemed Jews and others as inferior, we are no longer allowed to judge other cultures. In the post-World War II world of the left, all cultures are equal. To say that the contemporary Islamic world, or that black inner city culture, has serious moral problems that these cultures need to address is to be labelled dangerously racist -- again reminiscent, for the left, of the Nazis who declared other groups (inherently) defective. For the left, the only cultures one may judge adversely are white American and religious Jewish and Christian.
Fifth and finally, the left has affirmed pacifism as an ideal. One would think that the most obvious moral and rational lesson to be learned from the Nazi experience is the need to fight evil. After all, if decent nations were not as militarily strong as they were, and were not as prepared as they were to use that might, the Nazis would not have been defeated, and many millions more "non-Aryans" would have been enslaved and murdered. But the left, including, sad to say, Germany, did not draw that lesson. Instead of learning to fight evil, the left has learned that fighting is evil -- and it has taught this to two generations of Americans.
To amend Santayana's famous dictum, it is those who learn the wrong lessons from history who are condemned to repeat it.
don’t kid yourself, prager, the people leftism appeals to are not “decent”, they are power hungry, faking as civilized, but they would do anything for power and pelf, the wretches
Excerpt From the Lay of the Last Minstrel by Sir Walter Scott
Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored , and unsung.
Nazism also taught social liberalism, for instance that the physically and mentally weak should be euthanized. That included sickly babies and old folks.
A huge part of the Jewish problem to the Nazis was their owning of so much wealth. They were the original 1%ers.
Pray America is Waking
In any case, the American left is blind to its inherent contradictions and as the man said - will repeat the mistakes of the past, only discovering those mistakes when left policies come back to haunt them - with Ocare being the first of those ...
Well he’s pretty much dead wrong. Nazisim was a left wing movement through and through. The scapegoat of the moment might well have been based on race (which it really wasn’t since other semitic people were not considered untermensch, see the alliance with various arabs), but that was nothing close to the core of what the party was about and how it operated. To even vaguely give the Left a pass on this is moronic. The Left today uses tactics which are part and parcel of that used by the Nazis without a hint of shame. Hell, before the war started Hitler was a progressive hero.
Perhaps he’s trying to be diplomatic, but tossing the truth out in that interest is hokum.
Historian John Keegan wrote, “Unless we unlearn the habits we have taught ourselves, we shall not survive.” Though Keegan was speaking of war, I try to apply his thought to my personal life. Some days better than others...
It’s really not that hard to understand. People want wealth and power. Wealth can get you power, but power can also get you wealth. Was Mao wealthy? No, but he could acquire power and become wealthy. Was Castro wealthy? No, but he could acquire power and become wealthy. Was Stalin wealthy? No, but he could acquire power and become wealthy. Was Hitler wealthy? No, but he could acquire power and become wealthy.
You acquire power by gathering people to your cause/political party. When you have power, then you acquire other people’s wealth.
Rule by the Arayan superrace was translated into czars and rule by elite “smart people” in extra-governmental roles.
Naziism was a socialist movement. The only way in which it’s flavor of totalitarianism varied from communism is in details, not results. It allowed private ownership, but the state had control to the last decision. It pushed nationalism, but only as seen by the people in power. Stalin also ended up playing the nationalism card when he needed to. There were massive welfare programs enacted by the Nazis, and they had a very cradle to grave mentality when it came to social programs (some of it was the legacy of the game Bismark played to placate the left when he was unifying Germany).
Freepers should send it across the fruited plain to their entire e-lists.
Leni
Communism, socialism, income redistribution, environmentalism, fairness doctrine, social justice, liberalism, progressivism......all just names to gain power to seize other people’s wealth for yourself. You might give a crumb to your followers, but the main thing is for you to have power so you can take other people’s wealth for YOURSELF. Welcome to the Democrat party. A loose conglomeration of thieves all trying for power so they can take other people’s wealth (Even if those people don’t have a lot of wealth because it all adds up).
Prager has this backwards.
Americans who want less government are NOT "right wing".
Think of the political spectrum not as a line, but as a circle. Go far enough left and you meet the right, and vice versa
Nazism and Communism are just two sides of the same evil coin.
Nazism was a manifestation of the Left.
In reality, it was the Communists above all others who prevented revolution in Spain. Later, when the Right Wing forces were in full control, the Communists showed themselves willing to go a great deal further than the Liberals in hunting down revolutionary leaders.[Snip]
Between the Communists and those who claim to stand to the Left of them there is a real difference. The Communists hold that Fascism can be beaten by alliance with sections of the capitalist class (the Popular Front); their opponents hold that this maneuver simply gives Fascism new breeding-grounds. The question has got to be settled; to make the wrong decision may be to land ourselves in for centuries of semi-slavery. -- From Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell:
This is written well, but I disagree.
Today’s left are exactly the people who followed the Nazi movement in 1933 Germany and the Soviet communist movement. Today’s left looks for an excuse to justify forcing others to do as they demand, to appropriate the wealth of others and use it for their own followers, or merely to obey those who promise to redistribute the wealth and reduce “inequality” if they might be on the winning side in that application of force.
It’s not that they learned the wrong lesson from Nazism, but that they learned the real lesson - package your confiscation better and you can get away with it for longer, perhaps for long enough to consolidate worldwide power.
Racism is not a political ideal of the left?
Gimme a break.
They are vehemently anti-white racists,
and of course, vehemently anti-Western culture.
It is possible to correct a lesson learned incorrectly but only if correction is sought.
Many positions assert that if only they knew the truth they would mend their foolish path to destroy America’s promise of opportunity. Many people devote much time and energy providing facts in the mistaken belief that low information voters would vote differently if only they had the facts.
There would be some merit to that position if it were true. The time has come to recognize that the low information voters are not seeking opportunity. They are seeking outcomes they feel will benefit them. They offer their vote to the candidate who offers them the best outcomes. The notion that the candidate who advocates robbing Peter to pay Paul will gain Paul’s support is not outmoded.
The progressive’s agenda for America teaches the wrong lessons of history but informed people cannot learn from wrong lessons. However, it is possible to indoctrinate uninformed people to learn false lessons when that lesson promises them a better life.
A brain is indeed a terrible thing to waste and the number of America’s wasted brains is increasing.
Sorry, Dennis. Had to stop reading right there.
The article is flawed. The left IS Nazism.
And they did learn something from Hitler. How to intimidate voters using thugs.
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