For the LAST time - Hitler was a Lefty!

[naervod]

Hitler was not a leftist!

Just because there hasn't been any Socialist governments, I have had the opportunity to read the platforms of many past and they definitely do not match up with Hitler's points of view.

Hitler was a nationalist, and that pretty much automatically disqualifies you from being a Communist or a Socialist. His goal was not to unite the world in Communism, more to promote the idea that all Germans and Aryans were better than the rest of the world.

Hitler and Stalin were bitter political enemies even at the time of the Soviet-German Non-Agression Pact of 1939. The only reason they did this is because they both wanted to reduce the threat from each other's nation and divy up Eastern Europe. If Hitler was truly Stalin's friend in leftist views, he wouldn't have invaded the USSR in 1941.

 

[barron of ideas]

way off toppic, but this is a good thread to thread jack,

The Chinese diplomat had a great (descriptive) name for someone who went to diplomatic dinners. Chew and lie.

 

[YNCS]

Originally posted by Alcibiaties of Athenae
Honesty was never a Left-wing trait.

I would say something here, but it would probably get me banned. So I'll leave Alcibiaties' comment alone.

 

[Mojotronica]

Originally posted by Jelciakajo

Once Hitler's movement gathered steam, me met privately with industrial leaders and assured them that he would not "nationalize" their businesses, but rather re-arm (incidentally in violation of the Treaty of Versailles) and make them incredibly wealthy, and break all unions. In short, secretly selling out the socialist part of the movement. In quick order, Nazism became fascistic in the sense that it's real aim was to install a military dictator to benefit corporate interests.

This sums it up. Hitler's Germany was not Communist because the gov't left the means of production in private hands.

It was not Socialist because it's Social Darwinist philosophy was the opposite of the social safety net that typifies Socialist systems. E.g. it was opposed to unionization.

It was certainly not a Democracy.

It was closer to an Authoritarian Capitalist state, although to call it Capitalist is ALSO misleading.

It was pure Authoritarianism -- the opposite of pure Libertarianism.

 

[Kentonio]

What? Hitler was left-handed? Really?

Yes he was incidentally.

Guys why is everyone firstly trying to equate the nazi's to modern day political groups in some kind of pathetic superiority contest? This thread was about whether Hitler was left wing or not, I think its fair to say he displayed traits nowadays common to both political wings, lets not degenerate into a stupid mud slinging contest for goodness sake, we are talking about events of over 50 years ago.

The claim that he wasnt in the slightest left wing because he hated the communists im afraid holds no water, it is simply much too simplistic. Despising a party doesnt mean you despise every single facet of that parties beliefs, people are a lot more complex than that.

 

[Alcibiaties of Athenae]

Originally posted by YNCS

I would say something here, but it would probably get me banned. So I'll leave Alcibiaties' comment alone.

Smart move, you got the hint.

Don't try to press like you did in your earlier post again, I don't like trolls, they have a nasty tendancey to get sqashed around here, you would do well to take that under advisement.

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

"Ok everyone, repeat after me - Adolf Hitler was a LEFTY!"

Is someone trying to bait me here?

 

[SKILORD]

Ayn Rand seperated government types (And I apparently agree with her on this point) by size of the government, and in this sense, which is certaintly a good way of looking at things, Hitler's and Stalin's Regimes were almost identical (Actually they were so Identical that if you must put one to the left or the right so must you also put the other)

Mind you, Communism is a very democratic system. It defends liberty and equality. It wants freedom of speech and the well-being of people. It wants peace.

This is said of a system which maintains that some have the right to take the property of others and those who are to be violated have no right to defend themselves. EQUALITY?

Freedom of Speech? How can any government founded on the principle of theft be considered eglitarian?

 

[Stefan Haertel]

I said that those countries that claimed/claim to be Communistic weren't in reality.

 

[Evie]

Skilord :

How can any government which lets the rich get richer and the poor gets poorer, a government in which kids born from rich families have much more chances of doing well in life than those born from poor families, be considered a government based on equality?

A government based on equally sharing the wealth between everyone *IS* based on equality, at least more so than a government which lets a handful of rich people lord their way over throngs of poor.

 

[barron of ideas]

Skilord

Go easy on the government founded on the principle of theft issue. It is pretty easy to defend the maxim, all property is theft. In the sense ther are very few square feet of land that were not taken by force from the prior owner. In england, the original owners ceded to the celts (pcits/welch/scots), the anles and saxons, the vikings, the romans got in there for a while, The Normans, and now the Americans (just checking to see if you were payoing attention.)

In the US various indian groups wared, the Sious took over lands from western indians like the Crow, the the US of A made and broke a lot of treaties ( I saw a quote while I was on vacation at the Craxzy Horse Sculpture (mountain terraforming), "the only promise the US made it kept was that they were going to take our land")

With the exceptioon of a few spots like Iceland which have volcano's forming new land, there isn't much of the earth's surface that didn't have multiple owners, with the chance of ownership following a violent disagreement.

 

[SKILORD]

How can any government which lets the rich get richer and the poor gets poorer, a government in which kids born from rich families have much more chances of doing well in life than those born from poor families, be considered a government based on equality?

How can a government based on Party membership be considered any better than a fuedal oligarchy? Is that not a step back from Capitailism?

the the US of A made and broke a lot of treaties

Actually we didn't, we made treaties that the Indians didn't understand and then carried them out as we understood them. It was a scam, but we never lied

A government based on equally sharing the wealth between everyone *IS* based on equality, at least more so than a government which lets a handful of rich people lord their way over throngs of poor.

No, it doesn't. By what right do they claim my wealth? What have they done to earn it? Nothing other than having been poor. I beleive that all deserve an equal shot at life, which is why Public schooling is a good move, but I cannot beleive that the fruits of my labor should be bestowed upon those who have done no labor to prosper from.

 

[barron of ideas]

Ski Lord

"Never" is one of those words you need to use carefully. Like Salt, too much use is hazardous to your health. I would not want to support the position the USA NEVER lied. Treaties were made by politicians. How can you tell a politician is lying? His lips are moving.

We told the Sioux they retained the Black Hills of South Dakota. Then Gold was found. Oops, the Black Hills aren't part of any Sioux reservation. I am afraid there are a lot of broken promises in our history.

 

[Mojotronica]

Originally posted by SKILORD


Actually we didn't, we made treaties that the Indians didn't understand and then carried them out as we understood them. It was a scam, but we never lied

I can think of several examples off-hand where the US blatantly broke treaties they had signed w/ various tribes.

The one that stands out though is a land-rights treaty signed with the Cherokees. Their lands (around the Carolinas) were being encroached upon by squaters and they were in danger of being expelled altogether. Unlike some previous tribes, the Cherokee made a conscious effort to pursue their case within the American legal system. They took their case all the way to the Supreme Court, which UPHELD their right to their lands based on the treaty.

However President Andrew Jackson, charged with enforcing the Supreme Court's decision, did nothing to prevent the forcible relocation of the Cherokee to "Indian Territory" -- the present state of Oklahoma.

Their cross-country journey is quite famous and very tragic, and is called the "trail of tears."

These days here in Washington state the Macau tribe is fighting a legal battle against environmentalists over treaty-guaranteed whaling rights. The Macau want to whale regularly, and the environmental science consensus is that the Grey Whale, their traditional prey, is hearty enough to be hunted.

Environmental activists oppose the whaling, of course. But also anti-Indian fishing rights organizations -- typically right-wing -- oppose the Macau's right to hunt.

Politics makes strange bedfellows.

I am in favor of upholding the Macau's treaty rights, as long as the Grey Whale population can sustain it. I think the environmentalist's should conced this point in favor of a more scientifically sound environmental issue. The anti-treaty rights set is ALWAYS going to oppose any -- perceived -- special rights for Native Americans on principle. I say, let them have this issue.

Bottom line -- Native American's ancestors were here first and I think they deserve some concessions. The population of NA's in the US is very small, so any priviledges they receive are not costing the taxpayers much at all. It's a complete ego issue for their opposition.

 

[Evie]

"No, it doesn't. By what right do they claim my wealth?"

That's not a matter of equality. That's a matter

"What have they done to earn it? Nothing other than having been poor."

...more often than not (in pre-communist states) because they are massively underpaid so that some few individuals can make more money.

"I beleive that all deserve an equal shot at life, which is why Public schooling is a good move"

...but all don't have an equal shot at life when public schooling isn't applied fully all the way into university.

All also do not have an equal shot at life when private healtcare is allowed - the richer get a better shot at staying alive. When private schooling is allowed, the richer also get a better shot at education.

"but I cannot beleive that the fruits of my labor should be bestowed upon those who have done no labor to prosper from."

...but in many case where communists group took power, that's the whole point : the vast majority worked hard for a handful of peanuts, and a tiny minority got all the money with hardly any work put in it.

The "poor" that communism rewarded (in theory) weren't the slackers that sat on their back doing nothing all day ; they were primarily the worker on which the entire industrial power and the entire wealth of the nation was based and who were treated virtually like slaves by their employers who comparatively did very little work.

That said, I agree that there are far better options than communism - as ever, the extremes are NEVER good choices. But communism was definitely based on the ideal of equality.

 

[SKILORD]

...but all don't have an equal shot at life when public schooling isn't applied fully all the way into university.

It isn't so hard to get intoa community college that we cannot consider them 'Public'. Admittedly they aren't very good, but the private sector seems to always attract the cream of the crop.... I don't know how to explain that to a Marxist apologist like yourself.

All also do not have an equal shot at life when private healtcare is allowed - the richer get a better shot at staying alive. When private schooling is allowed, the richer also get a better shot at education.

A shot which they paid for with the money they earn running the companies which offer the incomes to the workers. I can't say thsat those who are not talented or intellegent deserve to be paid an equal amount as the CEO (Tho their likely overpaid, but that's their own damn fault since they disregard Franklin's sound economic advice ("Take care of your shop and your shop will take care of you") and choose to gain a short term reward rather than creating a sound institution which may perserve them and their decendants) who works damn hard.

Ideally CApitailism rewards the best workers with higher salaries and benefits at the better companies. Communism has no such merit system even ideally.

As fir you Mojo:

I am not attempting to place an outline for diplomacy or foreign affairs, I am working domestic policywith Oda here.

 

[Mojotronica]

Originally posted by SKILORD


As fir you Mojo:

I am not attempting to place an outline for diplomacy or foreign affairs, I am working domestic policywith Oda here.

Sorry to butt in...

 

[onejayhawk]

Originally posted by Vrylakas
Polymath wrote:
Yup, my wife is sinister too.
Ooohh, got me one o' those too.

Me three. It is amazing that this comment is relevant in a thread on Hitler.

It has been said before, but I reiterate, names are only labels. The National Socialist party was about as socialist as the DDR was democratic, and for approximately the same reasons.

J

 

[Evie]

LoL. Me, a marxist apologist?

Not anymore than I am a capitalist apologist. I could just as easily reverse my stance. But this topic already has you to point out the weaknesses of communism and the strenghts of capitalism ; I'm simply arguing that contrary to some ridiculous assumptions I'Ve seen, communism vs full-fledged capitalism is NOT black VS white. They're both ideals (Capitalism ideal : everyone has equal chances ; and the laws of market provide that everyone can seize those chances, that there is no problem with the market ; Commumism ideal : everyone has enough to live their life and work all together for the greater good of all). Of course, both of them fail to take into account the basic flaws of human nature (greed for capitalism, which results in those able to seize economical power using it not to make the economy run more like it should by the capitalist laws, but to their own enrichment) ; laziness for communism which results in people, since the government is going to pay everyone the same no matter how hard they work, not putting much of an effort, if any at all).

In a perfect world, both communism and capitalism would be wonderful systems that would put an end to hunger, poverty and the like and ensure that all get to live a good life. The capitalist system would see people who cares about the others being in charge of the business, and talking only as much as they need for their CEO pay and for the company profit. The communist system would see everyone working together hard for the common good.

Sadly, us humans being as we are, we're never going to be in a perfect world, and as a result trying for either of the two ideals will only result in extreme abuses at one end or the other. Full-fledged communism can't work, and full-fledged capitalism can't work (in both case, for any sustained period of time anyway). The one eventually must be laced with liberalism measures on the economy to avoid an entire self-disintegreation, and the others must eventually be laced with some socialist-inspired measures or result in mass poverty, sickness, etc.

 

[Richard III]

Why are you guys dignifying this punk kid with your arguments?

If someone was to say "Hitler's statism was effectively socialist," I would actually enjoy that debate; the answer is actually "it's complicated," because his policies were quite varied for different parts of the economy at different times.

But we're dealing in the pre-infantile version of political analysis and economics here. "My friends good, his friends bad." "Hitler said offensive things, so he must be a commie." It's like saying Somoza repressed people, so he too must be a commie.

Really profound stuff. Ignore this kid (I just did), purge him, push him out. Life is too short.

R.III