Hitler was a socialist

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.

The entire budget of the US government in 1860 was $60M. Even assuming that entire amount rested on the backs of the South, which it didn't, probably less than half of it did, the per capita federal taxation would be less than $5 per southerner (black and white). The federal government had other income sources, notably land sales.

The financial repression and excessive taxation supposedly inflicted on the South is a compete red herring.

Had the South succeeded in its War, it would have been faced from then on with a potential enemy not 3000 miles away across the Atlantic, but right across the Ohio or Potomac. The inevitable result would have been the need to maintain a much larger miltary establishment than before the war, not to mention the need to fund an entire government, which had previous been split between the sections.

I'm no expert in these matters, but I would be surprised if the South wouldn't have had to be taxed at a rate 5 or 10 times higher than before the war to maintain its independence, even in "peace" time. Andof course all the conflicts between the sections that caused so much animosity before the war would have continued after the war, only with no mechanism for redress other than renewed war. Notably escaping slaves.

BTW, what makes you assume I'm ignorant of the issue. Can you conceive of the possibility that I'm quite familar with it, but have decided that it means something different from what you think it does?

the naked agression of Washington

Very funny. The Pre-WBTS federal government did not have the resources to engage in "naked aggression." Even after the Confedercy attacked US troops, Lincoln was forced to request troops be provided from loyal states. Had they refused, there would have been little he could do to enforce his decisions.

We tend to project the powerful US government of today into the past. The US Army of 1860 consisted of about 16,000 officers and men, most of them scattered in small packets in forts on the coasts and frontier. Such a force just could not conduct naked aggression on an armed community of 12M people. The US regular army could not have conquered the state of VA by itself.

By 1865 the US Army was a formidable force of 1M or more, but that was a result of the war, not its cause.

I have always found the notion that the war was fought by the North to free the slaves as simplistic. The North had as much invested in slavery as the South. Just a cursory knowledge of the leaning of the northern generals through the first three years of the war would enlighten you as to the popular sentiment within the Northern army from commander on down. If you were serious in pursuing this read up on General George McClellan’s views on abolishing slavery. His views were to leave slavery intact in the areas the Northern armies occupied and put down slave insurrections. He fought to restore the Union and would have left slavery intact. In fact Lincoln felt the same way.

yeah right.

let`s go to the source:

Adolf Hitler, “We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak...”

Joseph Goebbels, “Because we are socialists we have felt the deepest blessings of the nation, and because we are nationalists we want to promote socialist justice in a new Germany... We are socialists because we see in socialism, that is the union of all citizens...”

HERMANN GOERING, “We are living through a National Socialist revolution. We emphasize the term “socialist” because many speak only of a “national” revolution. Dubious, but also wrong. It was not only nationalism that led to the breakthrough. We are proud that German socialism also triumphed.”

the origin of the Left/Right spectrum, which originated in the French Revolutionary assemblies.

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.

I’m talking about the results of the WBTS on us, now. There is now no layer between ourselves and the central government. States no longer have any rights, and individuals, fewer, if any rights. We all live at the mercy of the central government, and just hope the ax doesn’t swing our way. I would prefer to deal with the little (local) devil I know, rather than the bigger devil I don’t know in Washington.

So would I. But I believe you are assuming that without the WBTS we would still have the 1860 federal government.

This seems unlikely, as I suspect the New Deal, WWII and the Cold War, not to mention the Great Society, have a lot more to do with our present fix than the WBTS.

After the WBTS, and especially after Reconstruction, for several decades the US returned to a federal government that was not a great deal more intrusive than it was in 1860.

“Ahh.... what do you mean by that exactly?”

As of late, I have seen several DU and KOS themed posts here on FR. One poster referred to Bush as “shrub”. We all know that is straight from DUmmieland.

Now this guy seems to be spouting the DU line that Bush’s grandpa made Hitler the success he was.

Well, those were just a couple of examples. What I EXACTLY mean is that BDS is not just a liberal condition. I see very little difference between a growing number of Freeper posts and DU trash. The posts are often almost identical.

Increasingly, the differences between DUers and certain Freepers become harder to ascertain.

Grandpa Bush did business with Nazi Germany.

He also probably did business with Italy, Spain, France, England, Canada and Argentina.

So what? Prior to WWII the Nazis were not so obviously evil that only those who wanted to were deceived. I don’t remember exactly where I saw it, but I recently read that the total number in the concentration camps in 1939 was under 5,000. Which compares well with the millions in the gulag at the time.

BTW, Gramps probably also did business with USSR.

Hitler was not a socialist, he was a fascist.

Incorrect...

The Fascist Party(Partito Fascista Repubblicano). Italian.

The National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP). German.

Soviet Socialists and National Socialists were the same.

Socialism is not, though it is moving in that directionm from capitalism to communism, according to Marx at least.

Marx was full of crap.

Socialism evolves from feudalism.

Capitalism evolves from Socialism.

Marx had it backward.

Stalin wanted no association made between the Soviet Socialist Republic and the German National Socialists. It was a Stalinist invention to call the NSDAP Fascists, when in fact, the word "fascii" is the Latin rooted Italian that does not translate...

The trusty old Ayn Rand Lexicon (edited by Harry Binswanger) will show this in better detail...

Historically, the National Socialists adopted much symbolism from pagan Rome, along with their hatred of the Jews. The Fascist Party of Mussolini was a natural ally. Many of the Germanic tribes came to Rome, not to destroy it, but to become a part of it...

The NAZIs were pagans, as were the Romans...

The Fascist Party(Partito Fascista Repubblicano). Italian.

The National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP). German.

Soviet Socialists and National Socialists were the same.

stm:Socialism is not, though it is moving in that directionm from capitalism to communism, according to Marx at least.

Marx was full of crap.

Socialism evolves from feudalism.

Capitalism evolves from Socialism.

Marx had it backward.

The trusty old Ayn Rand Lexicon (edited by Harry Binswanger) will show this in better detail...

The NAZIs were pagans, as were the Romans...

Pagans or not, any group you name, I want to thank you for the single most staggeringly bozo post I've ever seen.

Only one comment: 'fascism' descends specifically from the Roman fasces, the bundle of sticks into which a hectoring blade was inserted. In the later Republic and the early Empire, the Consul's guards carried them as signs of authority (and, not incidentally, as crude weapons against the assassination of the Consul).

I'd no idea that bozoness could reach such an apex. Thank you for informing, very adequately, upon that point.

Both the Nazis and the Communists viewed society in hierarchical terms. They both agreed on the rule of a single powerful party over society, in the importance of propaganda and in the state being the decisive actor on the world scene. Above all, they both rejected Christianity and resolved on extreme brutality as the means to eliminate their perceived enemies. They both were mass-murdering philosophies marching behind the red banner. The Nazis and the Communists had no real philosophical objection to either the idea of Utopia or getting along famously with each other. If Hitler had not broken his pact with Stalin, the Left would never have blacklisted Nazism. The differences between the two totalitarian philosophies on the whole are trivial while their aims and means on the whole aimed at a similar future: mankind brought under their eternal rule. In short, no person who truly loves freedom could see good in either philosophy yet millions in their time did and today millions more flock in search of equally seductive nostrums. Collectivism is easily surrendered to while freedom, both as an idea and spirit, is difficult to defend in practice because assuming it defends requires responsible and informed citizens. Leftist philosophies only require that one submit and obey. Truly, any objective comparison of Nazism and Communism will bear out this fact as will the programs pursued by contemporary Leftists. In that regard, looking at the world today, the past is prologue to the present - and the future.

"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

Only one comment: 'fascism' descends specifically from the Roman fasces, the bundle of sticks into which a hectoring blade was inserted.

Fascismo, faschio, fasches, fasci, etc...

Latin rooted words.

The Fascist Party (Partito Fascista Repubblicano). Italian.

The National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP). German.

Soviet Socialists and National Socialists were the same; the Soviet Socialists just killed more people than the other.

Fascismo, faschio, fasches, fasci, who really gives a damn? You want to perpetuate the Stalinist lie?

Stalin killed the same sorts of people too. Any one who thought differently was liquidated by both regimes. Both the Nazis and the Communists valued conformity and found terror useful as a means of political inoculation against the pathogens of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. For them, man was not endowed with rights or animated by God-given dignity; to the contrary, man was a simply cog in a vast and faceless machinery in which no one's life was completely secure. The Left still embraces the same concept today and their enthusiasm for abortion shows the extent to which it would proceed if nothing was allowed to stand in its way. And the Nazis and the Communists both both built a world on millions of corpses after seizing power. Leftisms of any sort, are a danger to the American ideal of what it is possible to pursue since for them, absolute power counts for a great deal more than a respect for human beings. And for today's Left, just as it was for the Nazis and the Communists, the personal is the political and they never let us lost sight of the fact that no sphere of life can pass by without their omnipresent involvement.

"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

The Nazis and Communists sought to built a heaven on earth. They may have exercised caution in how they were going to realize their vision but what escaped those who observed them was how radical they really where. Both systems were not restrained by a respect for the law, morality, or an appeal to human sentimentality in realizing their aims. Such rules help to temper and channel the destructive impulses of human nature towards more instrumental and humane ends but to build a utopia the imperfections of human nature have to be purified with by force, if necessary. After all, a lesser kind of man has no place in a perfect world.

"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

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