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Politics As Usual – Left Frames Its Philosophy As Right-Wing
Flopping Aces ^ | 02-28-13 | Warren Beatty

Posted on 02/28/2013 10:37:59 AM PST by Starman417

socialist

Have you ever wondered why Fascism (essentially socialism) and Nazism (again, essentially socialism) are considered to be right-wing political philosophies? It's because the left-wing and its obedient lap-dog, the MSM, have gone to great lenghts to recast them as right-wing philosophies.

In an effort to create as much distance as possible between Hitler and his socialist principles, Hitler has deliberately been mislabeled as extreme right wing by the socialist movement. Adolf Hitler and his National Socialists (the Nazi party) represented extreme left wing politics. Leftists are quick to cite the fact that one of Hitler's first actions was to get rid of the leftist socialists & trade unions. But what leftists fail to point out is that the socialists & trade unions were comprised of and led by communists, the main enemy, according to Hitler, of Germany. They also cite that Hitler, in 1919, attended a German Workers Party (GWP) meeting. The subject of the talk being given at the meeting was "How and by what means is Socialism to be destroyed?" But what leftists fail to point out is that Hitler soon joined the GWP, became their leader, and renamed the GWP as the National Socialist German Workers Party (NAZI) to try to appeal to socialists.

"The main point is this - to detach from the genocide of the holocaust, leftists have not only disowned the fascists (and especially the Nazis) they have gone to the trouble of pinning them to the right. Of course it's a complete lie, and that's why the left defends it so savagely. Anyone that points out the truth is attacked in massive fashion."

Further, the left "... attempt[s] to recast Mussolini as 'right wing' although his relativistic, atheist philosophy and socialist roots were distinctly 'left-wing'."

David Limbaugh, in 2011, wrote: "Redistributionism is at the heart of their philosophy. As political theory and actual practice throughout history demonstrate, both communism and fascism are left-wing political and economic ideologies - as far as they can be from the right wing of the spectrum."

Dr. Walter E. Williams, in 2012, wrote: "Today's leftists, socialists and progressives would bristle at the suggestion that their agenda differs little from those of Nazi, Soviet and Maoist mass murderers."

In the irony department, I find these quotes from leftists to be quite humorous: "Hitler was indeed right wing, his totalitarian policies were designed to remove all class structure." and, "His policies were indeed similar to the 20th century Communist policies, which are extreme right winged regimes." So now the policies of removing class structure and communism are somehow right-wing policies. I guess the left or the MSM has never heard of redistribution or the EPA. Further, isn't it rather ironic that Hitler said, "... we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak." How many times have we heard Obama use the same words, the same idea, to further his economic policies?

(excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...


TOPICS: Government; Politics
KEYWORDS: blogpimp; bobwoodward; genesperling; leftist; liberal; partisanmediashills; progressive; sequester

1 posted on 02/28/2013 10:38:18 AM PST by Starman417
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To: Starman417

Just start calling the ‘rats Democratic National Socialists.


2 posted on 02/28/2013 10:44:19 AM PST by Paladin2
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To: Starman417
This is why the public schools (communist teachers union) stopped teaching history in schools. Instead, they teach Social(ism) studies, and glorify it (Mmmmm Mmmmmm Mmmmmm barack hussain oboma).
Don't believe me? As your kids what they're learning in school every day (Yes, even in your kids school. Denial is an ugly thing). It only takes a few minutes for you to to find out I'm right.

This is why American kids are so messed up in the head. They live in a communist world from pre-K to 12th grade (and maybe into college), but when they're not in the compounds, they live in the real world. They find out humans are not really mind controlled robots and part of a great government collective. They find out real humans are........real humans!

3 posted on 02/28/2013 10:56:48 AM PST by concerned about politics ("Get thee behind me, Liberal")
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To: Paladin2

I agree with all that was said in the article. When you compare Nazi political philosophy with Communism there appear to be differences:

- Hitler espoused nationalism in regard to Germany, but in reality Germany was simply the vehicle to create this “reich” that Hitler envisoned, but in both nazism and communism the State is in control of everything.

- Hitler allowed private industry, but it was crony capitalism. Private companies that cooperated totally with Hitler and the State were the only ones allowed to continue. The State determined what companies were to produce.

- Hitler used military power to force the expansion of his political will and philosophy. Communism tended to use internal revolution to create instability, then seize power. Of course the Soviet Union did use military power to intimidate or expand their empire by force as well, but only later on when their military power was strong enough to do so.

I’m sure there are other examples, but these were two that came to my mind.


4 posted on 02/28/2013 11:02:27 AM PST by rusty schucklefurd
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To: Starman417

Watch this if you’re the least bit confused on what governments and politics are:

http://www.wimp.com/thegovernment/


5 posted on 02/28/2013 11:04:37 AM PST by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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To: Starman417

6 posted on 02/28/2013 11:05:49 AM PST by Jeff Chandler (WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?)
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To: Starman417

It’s much easier to understand if you look at the political spectrum as a line instead of a circle. Totalitarian philosophies (Communism, Fascism, Nazism, liberalism) are at the bottom of the circle while free philosophies are at the top.

Conservatism calls for limited government. The truest right-wing philosophy believes in the God-given rights and freedom of the individual.

Fascism, Nazism, Communism and liberalism call for the individual to be subjected, in varying degrees, to the will of the state. Hence they are related philosophies.


7 posted on 02/28/2013 11:11:51 AM PST by Colonel_Flagg ("Don't be afraid to see what you see." -- Ronald Reagan)
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To: Colonel_Flagg

I should have said, a circle instead of a line. Figures. :)


8 posted on 02/28/2013 11:18:33 AM PST by Colonel_Flagg ("Don't be afraid to see what you see." -- Ronald Reagan)
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To: Jeff Chandler

That book is required reading, as far as I’m concerned! “Liberal Fascism” is brilliant!


9 posted on 02/28/2013 11:58:12 AM PST by Da Bilge Troll (Defeatism is not a winning strategy!)
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To: Colonel_Flagg
Have you seen the quiz at http://www.theadvocates.org/ where they score your quiz result on a "political diamond"? Very similar to your circle.
10 posted on 02/28/2013 12:12:55 PM PST by Da Bilge Troll (Defeatism is not a winning strategy!)
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To: Starman417

The RATS are really, really, good at Projection because they have been using it for so long to cover their sinful ways inthe eyes of others...


11 posted on 02/28/2013 12:23:41 PM PST by GraceG
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To: 1010RD

Thanks that was great. I just sent it to a liberal friend. I hope his head explodes.


12 posted on 02/28/2013 1:05:17 PM PST by usurper (Liberals GET OFF MY LAWN)
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To: Starman417

The real reason is that so long as the Soviet Union existed, “right wing” had the coherent meaning “opposed to the Comintern”, while “left wing” meant supporting the goals of the Comintern. Thus Nazis and Fascists whose economic and social programs were largely identical to Stalin’s, along with monarchists, clericalists (of whatever Christian confession), Tories, free marketeers of the sort that used to be called “liberal” who are now, in America, called conservatives, were all “right wing”, while “fellow-travelers” (liberals in current usage) along with Communists who toed the Party line out of Moscow were “left wing”.

(Yes, yes, I know they originally had to do with seating the French parliament at the time of the Revolution, but that meaning is long gone.)

The usage stuck because the Marcusian multiculturalist left has the same opponents the Comintern did, even though for practical reasons (socialism and communism don’t work, while fascism does) they have all become fascists in terms of their economic program.


13 posted on 02/28/2013 2:02:21 PM PST by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know...)
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To: Starman417
It has to do with street fighting between Communists and Fascists or Nazis back in the 1920s and 1930s. In those days, Communists and Socialists or Social Democrats defined the Left and anybody who opposed both parties was liable to be categorized as right-wing. Also, the fact that Mussolini and Hitler didn't nationalize land or industry or commerce contributed to that judgment.

Maybe better than try to pin fascism or nazism on the right or the left would be to recognize that this whole "right-left" thing is a bit arbitrary and subjective and inadequate to reality. What was left or right in the 19th or early 20th century doesn't bear much resemblance to what's considered left or right today. And right and left may not tell us what's really important to know. Too many different views are liable to be bundled together as right-win or left-wing, and there are too many opportunities for complacency and self-righteous preening over one's own superiority.

14 posted on 02/28/2013 2:13:34 PM PST by x
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To: usurper

Pass it along to conservatives and moderates as well. You’ll be surprised at how many people have forgotten or never knew that info.


15 posted on 02/28/2013 2:13:43 PM PST by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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To: Colonel_Flagg

That circle idea doesn’t work. You run into the exact same false left/right commie/nazi dichotomy. The real spectrum should tell us whether the state is bigger or smaller, or rather more or less centralized. In the very least however it’s setup, it should focus on one or a few aspects in particular, which is what the classical spectrum was meant to do for what was important during the French revolution, i.e. are you an absolutist, a constitutional monarchist, a radical republican, etc.

That ideologies falling between “social democracy” and classical liberalism, or however you wanna define today’s liberalism and conservatism, stand close to eachother relative to communism and naziism, which also are closely situated, is not to imply they are opposites. They do not belong at opposites of an ellipsis nor at the top and bottom of a circle. What we call libs and neocons, for instance, are vanishingly close to fascists. I don’t know why anyone would pretend socialists and near-socialists were mighty opposites.


16 posted on 02/28/2013 2:18:42 PM PST by Tublecane
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To: x

Commies were correct to place nazis as rightists because they were: they were the right wing of socialism. That is to say, they were socialists who concerned themselves chiefly with their own country and the surrounding territory. They weren’t out to conquer the world like Marxists. They also let various traditional institutions survive, for instance the family, private business, unions, etc., though under severe regulation. They weren’t quite as leftwing as the leftiest of leftists.

Why the should matter to us anymore than the difference between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks isn’t clear to me. Except commies have exerted undue influence on the contemporary mind, and though it wasn’t always the case since WWII no one wants to be confused for fascist. So not only was the infighting between rival socialist factions expanded to the general consciousness, and not only did they trick us into thinking it was of vital meaning, but somehow nazism was twisted into representing not only the right wing of socialism but the right wing of everything! They got to be ancient slavery, feudalism, 19th century laissez-faire, and everything else, or everything else supposedly bad, in the wayback. Leftwing leftists, meanwhile, got to be the future, progress, etc. In which they were aided by no one ever being told what, exactly, that future was going to look like.

This Big Lie was made plausible, slightly, by Big German Business having partly funded the nazi party, which allowed them to get away with the pitiful “last gasp of capitalism” argument (if it was that, it was capitalists trying to hold on by becoming less capitalistic, not more, which incidentally involves them becoming socialists; of course to commies anything non-Marxist is evil and retrograde even if it is lurching to the left). Also, they talked about Frederick Barbarossa and restoring the Holy Roman Empire, plastered pictures of milkmaids and sheaves of wheat everywhere, and invoked the old Norse Gods. They were so oldfashioned that they jumped back a couple of millenia.

Which makes it hard to tell whether it was oldfashioned or futuristic. I run into the same dilemma with communists, too, maybe even moreso. Read the communist manifesto and tell me it doesn’t sound like a romantic aristocrat looking down on upstart burghers. Hard to say whether they’re attacking industrial society compared to the better past or the brighter future. Except that when you ponder what comes after the temporary dictatorship of the proletariat all that comes to mind is primitive tribalism. There’s a great book on this called “The Lost Literature of Socialism” by George Watson. He went back and read what they actually wrote, rather than what defenders and attackers have been les to believe or deliberately led others to believe they were on about. I can’t even summarize it here, really, because it’s that far away from how I’ve been accustomed to think.


17 posted on 02/28/2013 2:52:20 PM PST by Tublecane
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To: The_Reader_David

I wouldn’t say the French revolution meaning is gone. People still tend to think in terms of left = radical, right = reactionary, and center = status quot. Or perhaps better put: center = keep things as they are, left = change things, right = put things back the way they were. If you get any more specific than that, for instance making the left more democratic and the right more aristocratic, it soon loses all meaning. But in a very basic sense the old meaning still holds.

Unfortunately, several new meanings have been superimposed on the basic one, for instance commies being to the left and nazis to the right. One of the biggest defects of the classical spectrum is that it can’t possibly sustain such a polarization. It would be fortunate, then, if the old French revolutionary meaning had been lost by now. But since it hasn’t, people are driven to the absurdity of mistaking nazis for being oldfashioned.


18 posted on 02/28/2013 3:03:04 PM PST by Tublecane
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To: x

Right-left thinking requires you to think relativistically. Which we do all the time, but can be tricky when people are as interested as they are in the outcome when it comes to politics. Lazy thinking has leftists as “progressive” and futuristic and fighters have oldfashioned. We don’t know what the future holds, we could both go boldly forth and revert simultaneously, like Iran a few decades ago. Most libs now are socialists and stand somewhere just shy of fascism.

On the other hand do conservatives celebrate everything in the past? We so-called in the contemporary U.S. pay homage in words to “the Western tradition” and Judeo-Christian values, but our specific political ideas largely derive from mo further back than the classical liberalism of the enlightenment. Most of us don’t even make it back to the Reagan era, despite big talk, and only isolated nuts pretend like we can return to pre-New Deal days. We stand shy of fascism, too, only less enthusiastically.


19 posted on 02/28/2013 3:19:01 PM PST by Tublecane
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To: Tublecane
Which makes it hard to tell whether it was old-fashioned or futuristic. I run into the same dilemma with communists, too, maybe even more so. Read the communist manifesto and tell me it doesn’t sound like a romantic aristocrat looking down on upstart burghers. Hard to say whether they’re attacking industrial society compared to the better past or the brighter future. Except that when you ponder what comes after the temporary dictatorship of the proletariat all that comes to mind is primitive tribalism. There’s a great book on this called “The Lost Literature of Socialism” by George Watson. He went back and read what they actually wrote, rather than what defenders and attackers have been les to believe or deliberately led others to believe they were on about.

That is actually true and insightful. The confusion about whether fascism -- and Nazism in particular -- was backward-looking or forward-looking is similar. Was Nazism about Norse gods and earthy, simple peasants or about new technologies and the latest racial pseudo-science? The answer is it was about both and many other things besides.

I guess people need the "right-left" dichotomy to make sense of politics, but we ought to recognize its limitations. The European and the American ideas of what constitutes leftism and (especially) rightism are very different. Old feudal ideas that counted as conservative or right-wing in Europe would be regarded by many here as left-wing statism, while free market, quasi-libertarian American conservatism counts as liberalism or radicalism to some Europeans.

Any kind of political schema is going to be simplistic from some point of view. I guess the answer is that people continue to discuss the topic and not accept simplistic answers that pretend to neatly classify everything.

Europe is still in the after-throes of an age when its left-wingers and right-wingers were shooting and throwing bombs at each other. There was something of that still going on in the 70s and 80s and even later, so for Europeans "right wing" is going to refer to Nazi or fascist groups as they still need a score card to see which set of political thugs is trying to kill which other political groups, even though such groups have much in common.

20 posted on 02/28/2013 3:46:43 PM PST by x
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