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To: Perseverando

“In style as well as in ideology, fascism and Nazism are phenomena of the political left.”

That’s just not true. It’s a silly claim that just makes conservatives look stupid. There are people on the left who claim that communism is “right wing” too. Both of these groups of people are making up a bogus, ahistorical definition of left or right(whichever one they oppose) that means “they don’t like freedom.”

The reality is there are authoritarian and totalitarian movements on both the right and the left.

Let’s retire this idiotic line of argument. It’s sad that so many older conservatives think that saying stuff like “the Democrats are the real racists” and “nazis were left wing” helps conservatives. It does nothing to disarm leftist attacks and makes conservatives look foolish and dishonest.


9 posted on 08/29/2017 10:18:45 AM PDT by WatchungEagle
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To: WatchungEagle

The Nazis were fascist and fascists of that era were left wing. They were National Socialists, as distinguished from International Socialists, the ones who’re ranting about fascists pertaining to anyone who opposes them today. There are numerous speeches by Goebbels and others among the Nazi leadership ranting about “we are SOCIALISTS” so I don’t know where you’re getting your information, but it’s you who’s looking foolish and dishonest along about now.


10 posted on 08/29/2017 10:23:01 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: WatchungEagle

You do know that Hitler ran for President against the conservative candidate as the candidate of the left? And he lost?


13 posted on 08/29/2017 10:35:42 AM PDT by colorado tanker
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To: WatchungEagle

Hmm?


19 posted on 08/29/2017 1:28:43 PM PDT by chesley (What is life but a long dialog with imbeciles? - Pierre Ryckmans)
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To: WatchungEagle
The reality is there are authoritarian and totalitarian movements on both the right and the left.

See, this is where you're about as wrong as you can get. The reason it is extremely important for the leftwingers to call Naziism "right wing" is precisely to foster this idea that the (American) Right is no different from the Left, or perhaps that, in terms of totalitarianism, the Right is even worse. But the truth is that the United Stated of America is not the same as Germany, nor is it the same as any European country, nor any country anywhere, so saying that what constituted the "Right" in WWII era Germany is the same as the Right in the USA at any time is disingenuous at best and a blatant lie at worst. American conservatism, which is to say the American Right, is anti-totalitarian by definition.

What normally is defined as "right wing" in a society is the most conservative version of that society - the side that resists massive cultural, economic, or governmental changes in order to "conserve" what exists. At the time the USA sprang into existence, Europe was full of monarchies. People were subjects. That is what made the USA such a revolutionary form of government. The "Right" or conservatives in the USA are those who want to preserve the soul of the USA, which is to say, want to preserve what we call "classical liberalism", the idea that the people are supreme over the state, and the state only exists through the consent of the people.

Germany, on the other hand, like virtually all countries in the world, still retained the tradition that the state was supreme over the people, and that the people existed to serve the state, whether that state was ruled by a king, a keiser, or a fascist despot. The truth is, I don't think the Germans ever completely lost that attitude from their culture, but in the WWII era they certainly hadn't. What would have been considered "right wing" in Germany at the time would have been a conservation of the traditional aspects of German culture, which included a subservience of the people to the state. A transition from a keiser to the intermediate and unstable republic and then back to a pseudo-keiser would have been tradition for them, and thus "right wing". But, for Americans, accepting a dictatorship would not, in any way, shape or form, be a return to tradition, but would be a massive change, socially and governmentally, and thus, in no way, could be considered "conservative" or "right wing".

Moral equivalency has been one of the key tools used by the Left since the world first shat them out. It is even called out explicitly in Alinsky's Rules for Radicals: always accuse the opposition of doing what you are doing. This way, the Left (in the USA) can obscure their totalitarian impulses by claiming things like "Well, we have Stalin but you have Hitler!!" But who says the American Right has Hitler? Who on the American Right would ever have agreed with Hitler's governing philosophy? Heck, it is a known fact that the American Left supported Hitler up until he attacked their sainted Uncle Joe, and only then did they turn on him. From an American perspective, Hitler was never "right wing" and, in fact, represented everything that the American Right always fought against.

Saying that "Hitler was Left Wing" may not convince your average rube of anything in this age of meme-wars and whatnot, since seventy plus years of claiming Hitler was conservative have had a lot of success, but that still doesn't make Hitler right wing in American terms, and nobody should ever concede that point.
20 posted on 08/29/2017 2:29:14 PM PDT by fr_freak
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