A rather sad overlord [DevNull puts forth his political beliefs]

[elucidator]

Ah, Zoe, you naif. You’re a socialist, therefore you are lying. By simple deduction, you must therefore have been working to oppress colored folks!

[BrainGlutton]

@DevNull

50 years ago the Democrats were trying to keep the colored people from having equal rights.

True, and irrelevant. Democrat =! liberal. At the time you are describing, Pubs who wanted to abolish Jim Crow were described as “Liberal Republicans.” A species now almost extinct on the North American continent.

[BrainGlutton]

@DevNull

Because they are CONSERVATIVES.

Here’s what’s what about “conservatives,” DevNulll, as defined in the post-Goldwater American conservative movement, and as observed by British journalists Adrian Wooldridge and John Mickletwhaite in their book, Right Nation: Conservative Power in America:"

The exceptionalism of the American Right is partly a matter of its beliefs. The first two definitions of “conservative” offered by the Concise Oxford Dictionary are “adverse to rapid change” and “moderate, avoiding extremes.” Neither of these seems a particularly good description of what is going on in America at the moment. “Conservatism” – no less than its foes “liberalism” or “communitarianism” – has become one of those words that are now as imprecise as they are emotionally charged. Open a newspaper and you can find the word used to describe Jacques Chirac, Trent Lott, the Mullah Omar and Vladimir Putin. Since time immemorial, conservatives have insisted that their deeply pragmatic creed cannot be ideologically pigeonholed.

But, in philosophical terms at least, classical conservatism does mean something. The creed of Edmund Burke, its most eloquent proponent, might be crudely reduced to six principles: a deep suspicion of the power of the state; a preference for liberty over equality; patriotism; a belief in established institutions and hierarchies; skepticism about the idea of progress; and elitism. Winston Churchill happily accepted these principles: he was devoted to nation and empire, disinclined to trust the lower orders with anything, hostile to the welfare state, worried about the diminution of liberty and, as he once remarked ruefully, “preferred the past to the present and the present to the future.”

To simplify a little, the exceptionalism of modern American conservatism lies in its exaggeration of the first three of Burke’s principles and contradiction of the last three. The American Right exhibits a far deeper hostility towards the state than any other modern conservative party. . . . The American right is also more obsessed with personal liberty than any other conservative party, and prepared to tolerate an infinitely higher level of inequality. (One reason why Burke warmed to the American revolutionaries was that, unlike their dangerous French equivalents, the gentlemen rebels concentrated on freedom, not equality.) On patriotism, nobody can deny that conservatives everywhere tend to be a fairly nationalistic bunch. . . . Yet many European conservatives have accepted the idea that their nationality should be diluted in “schemes and speculations” like the European Union, and they are increasingly reconciled to dealing with national security on a multilateral basis. American conservatives clearly are not.

If the American Right was merely a more vigorous form of conservatism, then it would be a lot more predictable. In fact, the American Right takes a resolutely liberal approach to Burke’s last three principles: hierarchy, pessimism and elitism. The heroes of modern American conservatism are not paternalist squires but rugged individualists who don’t know their place: entrepeneurs who build mighty businesses out of nothing, settlers who move out West, and, of course, the cowboy. There is a frontier spirit to the Right – unsurprisingly, since so much of its heartland is made up of new towns of one sort of another.

The geography of conservatism also helps to explain its optimism rather than pessimism. In the war between the Dynamo and the Virgin, as Henry Adams characterized the battle between progress and tradition, most American conservatives are on the side of the Dynamo. They think that the world offers all sorts of wonderful possibilities. And they feel that the only thing that is preventing people from attaining these possibilities is the dead liberal hand of the past. By contrast, Burke has been described flatteringly by European conservatives as a “prophet of the past.” Spend any time with a group of Republicans, and their enthusiasm for the future can be positively exhausting.

As for elitism, rather than dreaming about creating an educated “clerisy” of clever rulers (as Coleridge and T.S. Eliot did), the Republicans ever since the 1960s have played the populist card. Richard Nixon saw himself as the champion of the “silent majority.” In 1988 the aristocratic George H.W. Bush presented himself as a defender of all-American values against the Harvard Yard liberalism of Michael Dukakis. In 2000, George W. Bush, a president’s son who was educated at Andover, Yale and Harvard Business School, played up his role as a down-to-earth Texan taking on the might of Washington. As a result, modern American conservatism has flourished not just in country clubs and boardrooms, but at the grass roots – on talk radio and at precinct meetings, and in revolts against high taxes, the regulation of firearms and other invidious attempts by liberal do-gooders to force honest Americans into some predetermined mold.

Of course, I hope it goes without saying that modern American “conservatism,” so defined, is utterly and completely immoral and indefensible, no less so, or only slightly less so, than the original Burkean definition.

[tomndebb]

@DevNull

Reichswirtschaftsministerium

So an agency that was established no later than 1919 was actually an operation by Hitler to impose socialism on Germany?

Sorry. You have to do better than that. I have not claimed that Germany was a haven for free-market Capitalism. I described it as an “odd form” of Capitalism. It definitely had many diffused traits of the sort of Socialism that had spread across most of Europe. However, you have evaded the question. Please provide actual evidence of actual central planning rather than vague hand-waving and references to bureaus that existed before Hitler’s rise to power.

@DevNull

@tomndebb

In Hitler’s language,

He spoke German. I do not know what language you think he spoke. Are you making up a language that you can use to make a point?

@tomndebb

there was a certain level of correspondence based on the fact that many prominent Jewish leaders were in the forefront of the Socialist movement.

Is that certain level none? I come up with none.

“Hitler’s language” was the particular language of political rhetoric that he employed to such effect that you seem to believe every word he uttered. I suspect that you believe he was an outstanding Christian who firmly supported the churches, as well. That is what his rhetoric said as he closed churches and imprisoned clergy.

As to your really odd claim that no Jews were in the forefront of the Socialist movement, I will provide this extremely truncated list (limited to just German (or active in Germany) Jews and ignoring the rest of the world-wide movement):

• • • Pre 1920
      Paul Singer
      Victor Adler
      Moses Hess
      Rosa Luxemburg
      Kurt Eisner
      Gustav Landauer
      Karl Liebnecht (might have been Jewish: lots of pro-Nazi sites claim it, although I have not yet seen specific evidence one way or the other)
      Hugo Haase
      And some guy named Marx
• • • Up to 1933
      Eduard Bernstein
      Hugo Preuss
      Emil Lederer
      Adolph Lowe (at least in the 20s and 30s)
      Rudolf Hilferding
      Hans Neisser (not fully a socialist, but with similar leanings very early in his career)
      Erich Mühsam

Now (improperly*) ignoring those Jewish Socialists who had died by 1920, you are “correct” that there was “not one,” but only because there were many.

• Improperly because the Nazis spent a lot of energy condemning the people who had helped shaped Socialist theory in the 19th century and holding up the early 20th century Socialists as traitors who were considered “typical” of Jewish “perfidy.”

@DevNull

50 years ago the Democrats were trying to keep the colored people from having equal rights. You shouldn’t rely on trends to define words. You should rely on the definition of the word.

You enjoy inventing “facts”?
60 years ago one regional wing of the Democratic Party made an effort to continue to deny blacks civil rights, and diminishing numbers of those politicians wanted to maintain that status quo until around 35 years ago (at which point a lot of them jumped to a different party). It has been well over 70 years since one could claim that “the Democrats” held that position. At that time, the Democrats who favored the elimination of Jim Crow were already known as “liberals” and the Dixiecrats were known as the “Conservative wing” of the Democratic Party.

[Little_Nemo]

Hitler was a member of the political left. His socialist platform and love of all that was the collective is a completely left-wing thing.

Hitler was no leftist or liberal. He pretended to support a socialist platform because he felt it was the most popular political position. Once he gained power he joined with the conservatives and eliminated all the real socialists in the Nazi Party during the Night of Long Knives.

50 years ago the Democrats were trying to keep the colored people from having equal rights.

Fifty years ago, the conservatives were trying to keep the colored folk from having equal rights. When Democrat politicans began supporting civil rights, conservative Democrats joined the Republican Party. How much their views have changed in the last fifty years is a debatable issue. There is still evidence of widespread conservative attempts to disenfranchise Black voters.

[Zoe]

A star in your crown, sir – as we of the rural Protestant persuasion used to say.

[E-Sabbath]

@BrainGlutton

Of course, I hope it goes without saying that modern American “conservatism,” so defined, is utterly and completely immoral and indefensible, no less so, or only slightly less so, than the original Burkean definition.

A deep suspicion of the power of the state; a preference for liberty over equality; patriotism; a suspicion of established institutions and hierarchies; positivism about the idea of progress; and populism.

Yes. Completely immoral and indefensible. Why, we should trust the government to know what’s best for us, we should follow the example of Harrison Bergeron, we should hate our land over all things. Existing government policies should always be followed to the letter. We should always perform things in the ways our forefathers did, and clearly, the mass of mankind are there to be led by the elite few.

BG, you have some 'splaining to do here.

[elucidator]

@Little Nemo

…There is still evidence of widespread conservative attempts to disenfranchise Black voters.

Now, to be fair, Nemo, this effort is not about race, necessarily, but rather about colored folk’s unfortunate political persuasions. Very different, I’m sure you’ll agree.

[DevNull]

@tomndebb

So an agency that was established no later than 1919 was actually an operation by Hitler to impose socialism on Germany?

Yes. President GW Bush did not establish Guantanamo Naval Base, did he? No one laughs when people accuse president GW Bush of using Guatanamo for nefarious purposes that it was not originally intended for.

The IRS can be used as an effective economy steering device. Fema can be used as a powerful tool also. Now imagine if there was a Reichswirtschaftsministerium in the USA with the same powers. I am sure you are not aware of the power that the Reichswirtschaftsministerium wielded by WWII or else you would not have challenged it.

** The job of the Ministry of Economics is simply to set the national
economic tasks; private industry has to fulfil them. Hitler - Four-Year Program September 1936**

Has to? 1936?

Sorry. You have to do better than that.

Okay.

Q. Dr. Funk, the essential point of what you have just said, seems to me to be that you received the title of Minister, but that in reality you were not the Minister, but might have had the position of a State Secretary, and that your so- called Ministry of Economics (Reichswirtschaftsministerium) was completely subordinated to the directives of the Four-Year Plan-your co-defendant, Goering, in other words-and was compelled to follow these directives.

Did I understand it correctly?

A.The latter point is correct. The Reichsmarschall has expressed, explained and thus confirmed that himself. But the first statement is not correct because formally, at least, I held the position of Minister, which involved far- reaching administrative responsibility which the Reichsmarschall, of course, could not undertake. The whole point of the reorganisation was that the Reichsmarschall still had charge and control of economic policy in the most important and decisive matters, and gave me corresponding directives, but the execution of these was naturally in the hands of the Ministry and its organizations. But it is true that the position of Minister in the usual meaning of the term, did not exist. There was, so to speak, a higher ministry. But that has happened to me all my life. I arrived at the threshold, so to speak; but I was never permitted to cross it.

I have not claimed that Germany was a haven for free-market Capitalism. I described it as an “odd form” of Capitalism. It definitely had many diffused traits of the sort of Socialism that had spread across most of Europe. However, you have evaded the question. Please provide actual evidence of actual central planning rather than vague hand-waving and references to bureaus that existed before Hitler’s rise to power.

Four year plan. Compulsory four year plan.

– The four year plan technically expired in 1940, but the “Office of the Four Year Plan” (considered a cabinet level agency) had grown to such a power base that the Four year plan was extended indefinitely. – (Wiki)

Sounds like free enterprise was in the hands of the state for good.

Socialism - any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods (Websters)

“Hitler’s language” was the particular language of political rhetoric that he employed to such effect that you seem to believe every word he uttered. I suspect that you believe he was an outstanding Christian who firmly supported the churches, as well. That is what his rhetoric said as he closed churches and imprisoned clergy.

If you feel the need to stop discussing and start attacking me personally with full-blown straw man arguments, then I can see I am rattling your foundations.

Why are you taking it to a personal level and why are you creating assumptions about my unstated beliefs?

As to your really odd claim that no Jews were in the forefront of the Socialist movement, I will provide this extremely truncated list (limited to just German (or active in Germany) Jews and ignoring the rest of the world-wide movement):

• • • Pre 1920
      Paul Singer
      Victor Adler
      Moses Hess
      Rosa Luxemburg
      Kurt Eisner
      Gustav Landauer
      Karl Liebnecht (might have been Jewish: lots of pro-Nazi sites claim it, although I have not yet seen specific evidence one way or the other)
      Hugo Haase
      And some guy named Marx
• • • Up to 1933
      Eduard Bernstein
      Hugo Preuss
      Emil Lederer
      Adolph Lowe (at least in the 20s and 30s)
      Rudolf Hilferding
      Hans Neisser (not fully a socialist, but with similar leanings very early in his career)
      Erich Mühsam

Now (improperly*) ignoring those Jewish Socialists who had died by 1920, you are “correct” that there was “not one,” but only because there were many.

I have been SEVERELY admonished for personally thinking that to be a socialist, one need only basically follow the major tenets of socialism, or at least try to follow… or to promise to follow someday. Now you bring up this list of Jews of which almost all of them never lived under a socialist state (according to the definition I am forced to play by here) and those Jews never, ever advocated pure socialism. WTF? Hitler was ten times the socialist as any of them.

I eat shit for following your line of definitions and I eat shit for following Websters’ line of definitions. It seems to me that a socialist is what is convenient for the left and any person that is an evil socialist is a right-winger or a totalitarian. There are bad socialists you know, and there are socialists that went bad and became progressively worse. It does not take away their socialist label.

(Thank you for limiting the list to Germany. I did not actually qualify my original statement in writing but I should have)

60 years ago one regional wing of the Democratic Party made an effort to continue to deny blacks civil rights, and diminishing numbers of those politicians wanted to maintain that status quo until around 35 years ago (at which point a lot of them jumped to a different party). It has been well over 70 years since one could claim that “the Democrats” held that position. At that time, the Democrats who favored the elimination of Jim Crow were already known as “liberals” and the Dixiecrats were known as the “Conservative wing” of the Democratic Party.

That is the rest of the story… no matter how irrelevant to the topic at hand. Nicely done.

It goes to show, though, once again that liberals want freedom for all and conservatives want little change in the levels of freedom, in this case anyway. In fetus killing and flag burning, conservatives sometimes want to take away freedoms.

When a liberal wants to take away freedoms they cease to become a liberal. They become a leftist. They were liberals at one point and it is correct to say “Yeah, so and so was a liberal”, but to be leftist is to take away freedoms and a liberal would never do that.

[Liberal]

@DevNull

Is Bush that good to make his overlordish destruction invisible to me?

From the perspective of a purist liberal idealogy, I would say that your plight is not unlike that of a man sitting calmly watching the news and smoking a pipe, mildy bemused at the protestors, just as a fire has begun in the attic.

[DevNull]

@Little Nemo

Hitler was no leftist or liberal. He pretended to support a socialist platform because he felt it was the most popular political position. Once he gained power he joined with the conservatives and eliminated all the real socialists in the Nazi Party during the Night of Long Knives.

Real socialists?

I do not know if you are aware of this, but there are many brands of socialism. there is not one “real” one and a bunch of fake ones. They are all real when they happen to you.

Hitler made a collective out of the country and tossed the free market out the window in 1936. Are trying to sell me that he “pretended to support a socialist platform” from 1919 to 1934, then after the big 15 year fooling he actually implemented socialized health care, socialized schooling, socialized retirement benefits, socialized state welfare. wow. He fooled everyone. He was no socialist. His social state was wicked conservative! Feh.

Look, if I pretend to be gay for 15 years then start actually doing gay things for another ten years like have lots of gay sex and have gay orgies with showtunes blaring from my pink iPod boombox until I was killed one night in a secret gay bunker then I think history would not be so kind to my non-gayness. Know what I mean?

When Democrat politicans began supporting civil rights

Someone forgot to tell the southern Democrats to pretend to support civil rights.

Hey. History is real fun when you can accuse people of pretending.

[tomndebb]

@DevNull

Yes. President GW Bush did not establish Guantanamo Naval Base, did he? No one laughs when people accuse president GW Bush of using Guatanamo for nefarious purposes that it was not originally intended for.

The IRS can be used as an effective economy steering device. Fema can be used as a powerful tool also. Now imagine if there was a Reichswirtschaftsministerium in the USA with the same powers. I am sure you are not aware of the power that the Reichswirtschaftsministerium wielded by WWII or else you would not have challenged it.

No. President Bush added a prison, with new structures and new personnel in the region where a naval base is located. Guantanamo is the name of the geographic region–the bay. The detention center has its own name, (Guantanamo Bay Detainment Camp), just as the naval base has its own name, (Guantanamo Bay Naval Base). The shared name of the location does not change the purpose of either.

Now, it is true that a previously established institution can be changed to carry out new duties or the same duties in different ways. However, your entire claim to that point in the discussion was that we should simply enter the name of the minstry into Google™. You provided no reference to the actual activities of the ministry or how they may or may not have changed in 1933. If you are making the arguments, you need to supply the evidence and shouting “Google” does not do it.

@DevNull

** The job of the Ministry of Economics is simply to set the national
economic tasks; private industry has to fulfil them. Hitler - Four-Year Program September 1936**
. . .

Q. Dr. Funk, the essential point of what you have just said, seems to me to be that you received the title of Minister, but that in reality you were not the Minister, but might have had the position of a State Secretary, and that your so- called Ministry of Economics (Reichswirtschaftsministerium) was completely subordinated to the directives of the Four-Year Plan-your co-defendant, Goering, in other words-and was compelled to follow these directives.

Did I understand it correctly?

A.The latter point is correct. The Reichsmarschall has expressed, explained and thus confirmed that himself. But the first statement is not correct because formally, at least, I held the position of Minister, which involved far- reaching administrative responsibility which the Reichsmarschall, of course, could not undertake. The whole point of the reorganisation was that the Reichsmarschall still had charge and control of economic policy in the most important and decisive matters, and gave me corresponding directives, but the execution of these was naturally in the hands of the Ministry and its organizations. But it is true that the position of Minister in the usual meaning of the term, did not exist. There was, so to speak, a higher ministry. But that has happened to me all my life. I arrived at the threshold, so to speak; but I was never permitted to cross it.

Four year plan. Compulsory four year plan.

– The four year plan technically expired in 1940, but the “Office of the Four Year Plan” (considered a cabinet level agency) had grown to such a power base that the Four year plan was extended indefinitely. – (Wiki)

Sounds like free enterprise was in the hands of the state for good.

Ah, finally! You are actually bringing evidence to the discussion. Thank you.

However, I still note that all we have are vague discussions of various ministries. Do you have any evidence that the ministry actually set all financial exchanges in the country? Yeah, a “four year plan” sounds a lot like Stalinist rhetoric, but what did the plan do? And even if the plan was put in motion, (whatever that means), where is the evidence that Krupp or Siemens were told what to build in what quantities at what prices? “Plans” are all very well, but it is the execution of those plans that determines their utility. Recall that from my perspective, much of Europe (certainly including the Weimar Republic) had already embraced a limited Socialism in their economic policies. That set a base line. To show that Hitler was “Socialist,” I would like to see evidence that his actual policies resulted in actual direct government control of the economy.

@DevNull

If you feel the need to stop discussing and start attacking me personally with full-blown straw man arguments, then I can see I am rattling your foundations.

Why are you taking it to a personal level and why are you creating assumptions about my unstated beliefs?

What personal attack do you think has been made? You have spent a significant amount of energy quoting Hitler’s speeches with the intention of proving from them that he was a Socailist, despite the contrary view that his speeches were an appeal to sentiments of the German people (who already had Socialist leanings) that were not necessarily carried out. Since you place such trust in the value of his speeches, I used a rhetorical device to ask whether you believe his similar speeches on the matter of his religious beliefs and the importance of religion in Germany were equally true. If one set of speeches was nothing but pablum for public consumption, why can it not be true that others (even all others) were similarly intended?

@DevNull

I have been SEVERELY admonished for personally thinking that to be a socialist, one need only basically follow the major tenets of socialism, or at least try to follow… or to promise to follow someday. Now you bring up this list of Jews of which almost all of them never lived under a socialist state (according to the definition I am forced to play by here) and those Jews never, ever advocated pure socialism. WTF? Hitler was ten times the socialist as any of them.

Nah. Nothing off the sort–and playing the martyr does not become you. You have not been “SEVERELY” admonished, at all. You also have wrong the issues on which you have been challenged. It is not that one “need only” follow the basic tenets of Socialism; it is that you have not provided sufficient evidence that Hitler actually followed them (such as your reliance on speeches for most of this thread) along with your particularly odd definitions of Socialism, apparently confusing economic systems with governmental systems. (And I am not denying that there are many points of mutual reinforcement between the two, but your definitions simply take anything “bad” and lump it in as “Socialism” with no distinctions between economics and governance.)

Regarding the Jewish issue, in an earlier exchange including other posters you made the odd claim that Hitler (presumably as a Socialist) hated Jews for their excessive Capitalism and when it was pointed out that Jews were very much in the forefront of the Socialist movement we had this exchange:

@DevNull

@tomndebb

there was a certain level of correspondence based on the fact that many prominent Jewish leaders were in the forefront of the Socialist movement.

Is that certain level none? I come up with none.

So you claim that Hitler hated Jews for being Capitalists. I demonstrate that at three separate levels–that of the early philosophers and economic theorists of Germany who actually placed Socialism into the realm of European economic thought, that of the early 20th century German Socialists whom Hitler included for condemnation as having “lost” or “sold out” Germany in WWI, and that of German politicians and economists who helped to shape the Weimar Republic and the economic theories of German universities–German Jews were in the forefront, just as had been posted earlier.

Now you try to dismiss these people (Jews hated by Hitler who were never Capitalists) on the rather weak claim that, in your opinion, they never lived within a true Socialist society? Sorry, you are just flailing, here, trying to avoid the issue.

[tomndebb]

@DevNull

then after the big 15 year fooling he actually implemented socialized health care, socialized schooling, socialized retirement benefits, socialized state welfare. wow. He fooled everyone. He was no socialist. His social state was wicked conservative!

He did not initiate any of those plans, although he modified some. He simply took the existing Socialist-leaning programs that were in place and put his name on them.

And I have not seen anyone call him a Conservative in this thread. (If I missed such a claim, I am pretty sure that that poster’s remark would be individual to them and not any sort of general consensus.) You are the one who entered the thread with your own idiolectic definitions for Liberal, Conservative, Socialist, Leftist, and Rightist. You are welcome to use those words in your own private manner, but until you persuade the vast majority of people in the world to accept your private definitions, you are going to encounter confusion and conflict in most of your exchanges.

[Captain_Amazing]

@DevNull

Hitler made a collective out of the country and tossed the free market out the window in 1936. Are trying to sell me that he “pretended to support a socialist platform” from 1919 to 1934, then after the big 15 year fooling he actually implemented socialized health care, socialized schooling, socialized retirement benefits, socialized state welfare. wow. He fooled everyone. He was no socialist. His social state was wicked conservative! Feh.

Like Tomndebb said. Germany already had most of those programs in place, thanks to Bismarck (who adopted the programs in order to steal the Socialists’ thunder).

@tomndebb

However, I still note that all we have are vague discussions of various ministries. Do you have any evidence that the ministry actually set all financial exchanges in the country? Yeah, a “four year plan” sounds a lot like Stalinist rhetoric, but what did the plan do? And even if the plan was put in motion, (whatever that means), where is the evidence that Krupp or Siemens were told what to build in what quantities at what prices?

Just for the record, there was a great deal of coordination between the industrial firms and the government in the Four Year Plan. From the documents of the “Krupp Trial” (where members of the Krupp firm were put on trial at Nuremburg for their actions in rearming Germany):

The defendants, and other Krupp officials whose cooperation was needed for the accomplishment of the aims of the Four Year Plan, were advised as to the purposes of the plan and participated in its execution.
. . .

Krupp fully and willingly cooperated in the rearmament of Germany for foreign aggression. The Krupp firm, under the direction of the defendants, synchronized all its activities with the German Government and its plans and preparations for invasions and wars. . . .

Krupp laboratories, furnaces, and mines were utilized in the attempt to make Germany self-sufficient and invincible. In cooperation with the Four Year Plan, research was conducted in coal chemistry, and metallurgy, under the direction of the defendant Houdremont, for the purpose of reducing Germany’s dependence upon outside sources by the fullest utilization of German ores and other raw materials, even those of poor quality/

There’s obviously more, and it’s worth reading when you get a chance. While there wasn’t much nationalization of industry, there were quotas set by commities of government and industrial leaders, the establishment of industry wide cartels, and a large deal of government interference in the economy. It was hardly a free market (although it wasn’t much like the Soviet economy either. The idea was just that the economy needed to be subordinant to the national interest, and if that meant setting wages and prices, or establishing production quotas, or setting up monopolies, or using slave labor, so be it)

[DevNull]

@Liberal

From the perspective of a purist liberal idealogy, I would say that your plight is not unlike that of a man sitting calmly watching the news and smoking a pipe, mildy bemused at the protestors, just as a fire has begun in the attic.

The pipe is supposed to represent my calmness. Fine. The news on tv is my remoteness compared to the issues in play. Cool. The fire is impending doom for the person or the house. Got it.

soooo… Did someone start the fire on purpose or was it an accident, and if it was on purpose then why did whoever started it start it in the attic?

I am missing the connection to anyone’s plight, except maybe the plight of those who forgot to mail their house insurance premium because they were too busy arguing political sciences on teh internets.

[Fear_Itself]

@DevNull

…and if it was on purpose then why did whoever started it start it in the attic?

Because we’re leftists. It’s what we do.

[BrainGlutton]

@E-Sabbath

A deep suspicion of the power of the state; a preference for liberty over equality; patriotism; a suspicion of established institutions and hierarchies; positivism about the idea of progress; and populism.

Yes. Completely immoral and indefensible. Why, we should trust the government to know what’s best for us, we should follow the example of Harrison Bergeron, we should hate our land over all things. Existing government policies should always be followed to the letter. We should always perform things in the ways our forefathers did, and clearly, the mass of mankind are there to be led by the elite few.

BG, you have some 'splaining to do here.

Sue me, I left out the .

Nevertheless, America has already gone way, way too far in preferring “liberty” over equality. It’s time for some major course correction there, at least. See this thread.

[DevNull]

@tomndebb

No. President Bush added a prison, with new structures and new personnel in the region where a naval base is located. Guantanamo is the name of the geographic region–the bay. The detention center has its own name, (Guantanamo Bay Detainment Camp), just as the naval base has its own name, (Guantanamo Bay Naval Base). The shared name of the location does not change the purpose of either.

The Four Year Plan that Hitler enacted did change the purpose of the Ministry of Economics.

Hitler had Goering add the control of the Four-year plan to the Ministry of Economics in 1936. In 1938 Walther Funk took over the Ministry of Economics and used the power of the Four Year Plan to take full control of German raw materials, mining, iron, power plants, finance and credit, foreign trade, and exports.

Full control. For the collective. Not for the individual.

Now, it is true that a previously established institution can be changed to carry out new duties or the same duties in different ways. However, your entire claim to that point in the discussion was that we should simply enter the name of the minstry into Google™.

You should. you want to know why you should?

Because I am not here to change your mind. If you are interested enough in what I have to say, go Google it yourself. Google is huge, global huge. A savvy searcher can glean wonders of information from the thing. A smart person can analyze and process. If you do not agree with what I say, why bother questioning me. Post your superior point and leave me out of it. If I do not like your point I will leave you out of it. K? K.

The public will see both sides, trust me. You do not need to question me personally unless you are so infatuated with my brain that you need to poke around in it. I am more than happy to let you poke around in it but you gotta lay of the pompous bit. Telling me how to think or how to debate is fucking obnoxious. I stay within the rules and I am pretty damn polite for someone who is needled for thinking a certain way.

You provided no reference to the actual activities of the ministry or how they may or may not have changed in 1933. If you are making the arguments, you need to supply the evidence and shouting “Google” does not do it.

I am not making an argument in the first place. I was content with my OP and people started asking me questions. If I wanted to answer questions, I would answer questions instead of asking them.

I am being polite in answering questions that you all ask of me. Be grateful for what I answer if my statements interest you enough to ask me questions over them.

However, I still note that all we have are vague discussions of various ministries. Do you have any evidence that the ministry actually set all financial exchanges in the country? Yeah, a “four year plan” sounds a lot like Stalinist rhetoric, but what did the plan do?

See above. If you are really interested, I will do your research for you. Just give me some time to come through with it and you may have to remind me once or twice.

To show that Hitler was “Socialist,” I would like to see evidence that his actual policies resulted in actual direct government control of the economy.

Rather than do a lot of pointless back and forth, let’s cut this short.

If Hitler was not in control of the means of production, then he was not Authoritarian or Totalitarian, or Communist or Socialist.

He hated Capitalism and the only evidence he may have been a Capitalist is a speech he made in 1943 and he did not use the word.

So what was he then? What am I missing? What was his political leanings and what was his economic legacy?

What personal attack do you think has been made?

An attack on the quality on my approach.

It is simply an excessively silly approach to the discussion

My integrity in discussion.

This sort of sophistry picked up from the remnants of the John Birch society will lose you points in any serious discussion

You have spent a significant amount of energy quoting Hitler’s speeches with the intention of proving from them that he was a Socailist, despite the contrary view that his speeches were an appeal to sentiments of the German people (who already had Socialist leanings) that were not necessarily carried out. Since you place such trust in the value of his speeches, I used a rhetorical device to ask whether you believe his similar speeches on the matter of his religious beliefs and the importance of religion in Germany were equally true. If one set of speeches was nothing but pablum for public consumption, why can it not be true that others (even all others) were similarly intended?

I am not here to prove he was a socialist. I am defending my thoughts against equally footed opinions. No one came up to me and said, hey bud, Hitler was a socialist, don’t let the commies tell you otherwise.

Hitler said he was a socialist, made speeches like he was a socilalist, kept all socialist programmes he inherited and made a few of his own. Hitler was 100% all about the collective. Nazis gave up their most prized possession to the collective. Their mind.

You may think my thoughts are not great proof, but I think the same of everyone else’s. I can analyze quite well. I am not sold on anything other than people go to great lengths to discount some things.

Nah. Nothing off the sort–and playing the martyr does not become you. You have not been “SEVERELY” admonished, at all.

A poster calling my posts “horse manure” is not admonishing?

A poster calling my talents “worthy of right-wing radio” is not admonishing?

You also have wrong the issues on which you have been challenged. It is not that one “need only” follow the basic tenets of Socialism; it is that you have not provided sufficient evidence that Hitler actually followed them (such as your reliance on speeches for most of this thread) along with your particularly odd definitions of Socialism,

My definition came from Webster’s dictionary.

I am not apologizing for that and I am not changing my ways on that.

You cannot claim superiority over Webster’s dictionary.

apparently confusing economic systems with governmental systems. (And I am not denying that there are many points of mutual reinforcement between the two, but your definitions simply take anything “bad” and lump it in as “Socialism” with no distinctions between economics and governance.)

That is because there is no good socialist society in the history of mankind.

Until it happens, it is all bad.

Regarding the Jewish issue, in an earlier exchange including other posters you made the odd claim that Hitler (presumably as a Socialist) hated Jews for their excessive Capitalism and when it was pointed out that Jews were very much in the forefront of the Socialist movement we had this exchange:

How odd do you find it that instead of actually providing evidence, you simply stated that there were “there was a certain level of correspondence based” instead of listing them in the first place. I looked in the thread, I found none.

Did you expect me to Google it?

I did Google it anyway and I don’t know what you think the forefront of the Socialist movement was, but it wasn’t Jews in Germany. There were a few prominent Jews who liked and wrote about certain aspects of socialism and some who called themselves socialists, but none of them appeared on the forefront of the movement in my humble opinion.

I consider the forefront like actually winning elections on Socialist platforms (like Hitler) and implementing socialist programs (like Hitler).

If you meant the forefront of calling themselves socialists then maybe you are 100% right.

So you claim that Hitler hated Jews for being Capitalists.

Damn straight.

I demonstrate that at three separate levels–that of the early philosophers and economic theorists of Germany who actually placed Socialism into the realm of European economic thought, that of the early 20th century German Socialists whom Hitler included for condemnation as having “lost” or “sold out” Germany in WWI, and that of German politicians and economists who helped to shape the Weimar Republic and the economic theories of German universities–German Jews were in the forefront, just as had been posted earlier.

Now you try to dismiss these people (Jews hated by Hitler who were never Capitalists) on the rather weak claim that, in your opinion, they never lived within a true Socialist society? Sorry, you are just flailing, here, trying to avoid the issue.

After reading up on the subject for years, I have been subject to many, many theories on why Hilter hated the Jews.

I never heard of the Socialist one until 2003.

I dismiss it.

I dismiss most of them too. Don’t feel bad.

Compiled from teh nets.

The nazis were jealous that the Jews had the riches and the main businesses, and a great life.

He was jealous because some Jews were successful and held powerful positions in Austria and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. At the same time, the world was suffering in the Great Depression. For various reasons, including war reparations for World War I, Germany was being hit the hardest by the worldwide economic depression. Successful Jews were envied and blamed for “taking German jobs.”

During World War I, communism was on the rise. Lenin’s Revolution had forced Russia out of the war. The German Army at times faced near rebellion among their own troops. This contributed to Germany being forced to sue for peace. Since some socialist/communist leaders were Jewish this was exploited as another reason for Germans to hate Jews. Hitler often spoke of Bolshevik (communist) Jewry. There is still a strong association in some people’s minds between Jews and leftism of various kinds.

Hitler and other Germans absorbed some of their parents' racism. Anti-Semitism has a long history. 

Some Germans held to the belief that "Jewish bankers" were responsible for the Treaty of Versailles because they stopped funding WWI. 

The Balfour Declaration of 1917 supposedly proves that Jews betrayed Germany in World War I. According to one who holds this theory, "During the Great War (World War I), members of the Zionist Jewish elite bartered with England and promised to bring the United States into the war in exchange for Palestine. This is the root cause of the belief that the Jews contributed to the defeat and subsequent economic rape of Germany in the post-war years." However, this wasn't something mentioned much in Germany and seems to be a post-1945 (!) preoccupation of a few anti-Zionists. 

Jews became a scapegoat for all of Germany's economic problems. (According to this racist sentiment, "international Jewish financiers like the Rothschilds, Oppenheimers, Bilderbergs, etc., plunged the world into a war for their business profit.") 

Hitler and many Nazis were influenced by an anti-Semitic book called "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion." 

Some claim that Hitler's mother was half-Jewish and he was ashamed of this. (Hitler's grandmother on his father's side was a housekeeper in the home of a Jewish family. When she left she was pregnant with his father.) 

A rumor says that in Hitler's youth he slept with a Jewish prostitute and contracted syphillis. 


Hitler lived in Vienna from 1907 to 1913 and those were the most difficult years of his life. Hitler was trying to become an Architect or to make himself a name in field of arts. He was twice rejected from the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. The second rejection by the Academy was one of the most traumatic experience of his life; all his dreams were shattered. After discovering that four out of seven professors that rejected him were Jewish he blamed the Jews for his failure. 

The Nazis had a vision of an Aryan German race that did not include Jews and many other groups of people. 

Here is an example of Hitler's anti-Semetic racism from a speech given in Munich in July 1922: "His is no master people; he is an exploiter: the Jews are a people of robbers. He has never founded any civilisation, though he has destroyed civilisations by the hundred...everything he has stolen. Foreign people, foreign workmen build him his temples, it is foreigners who create and work for him, it is foreigners who shed their blood for him." 

Jewish communities tend have a very strong group collective mindset. They differentiated themselves from other Germans. This made them easier to single out for hatred. 

Some say Hitler and the Nazis were simply opportunistic demagogues. Inciting hatred of the Jews was the means to an end. The Nazis used hatred of the Jews to unify the German people and create a new German empire. Nothing unites a people more than when they believe they are constantly under attack and fighting a common enemy. The Jews were convenient enemies. After propagating this idea of Jews being the scum of the earth so passionately, Hitler and the Nazis may have deluded themselves into believing it more deeply. 

The Christian religions blamed the death of Christ on the Jews. One can see in the Bible the statement that the Jews demanded the death of Jesus, and said, "let it be upon our heads and that of our children." This became an excuse to abuse the Jews for more than a thousand years. It was not until the 1960's (I think) that the Catholic Church stated that the Jews were NOT to blame for the death of Jesus. 

In the 1930s there was a lot of anti-Jewish feeling and resentment in the Western world. Many Jews who wanted to escape the persecution in Germany were refused entry into the US and other European countries. 

As a nationalist party, any group that felt it had a higher loyalty than the nation was going to be in for trouble. This is why the Nazis tried to suppress all religion, and even set up its own secular Church. Jews tended to have family links outside Germany, especially in Russia or the US, which would make them much harder to indoctrinate with nationalist bull. 

Anti-semitism has been rife throughout European history, largely because they were a distinct, easily identifiable group, who refused to integrate. (Those who really wanted to integrate converted.) Of course now we see pluralism as a virtue, and a variety of ethnicities and religions as a positive thing. However, if you want to set yourself up as the totalitarian dictator of a NATION then you have to establish a clear identity for that nation and stick to it; variety is an anathema. 

Another key element of a dictatorship is fear, and a visible scapegoat experiencing the wrath of the state is a good way to keep people from stepping out of line. 

Hitler was an unstable man. 

Wow.

That is a lot of theory. Why should I buy yours? You spend an inordinate time telling me how to think and discuss issues.

[Der_Trihs]

@E-Sabbath

A deep suspicion of the power of the state; a preference for liberty over equality; patriotism; a suspicion of established institutions and hierarchies; positivism about the idea of progress; and populism.

Except for patriotism ( of the “all foreigners are subhuman, and any who disagree with us enemies of the homeland !” variety ), none of that has much if anything to do with American conservativism. They don’t fear the power of the state; they want it in everybody’s bedrooms and listening to our phone calls, and executing people right and left.

The only liberty they care about is the liberty to exploit or crush or kill anyone they feel like; they don’t care about the liberty of anyone but themselves. At best, and often not that. And you can’t have liberty without some equality.

“A suspicion of established institutions and hierarchies” ? That’s about as un-conservative belief I can think of. “Shut up, have faith and follow orders” is more like it. Believe what you are told, even if it contradicts what was said earlier. We have always been at war with Eastasia.

Conservative is anti progress. Except for the military; the conservative lust to kill overcomes it’s hatred of change there.

And “populism” ? Only of the “appeal to the bigots and fanatics” variety.

@E-Sabbath

We should always perform things in the ways our forefathers did, and clearly, the mass of mankind are there to be led by the elite few.

That is the conservative viewpoint.

[Little_Nemo]

Hitler made a collective out of the country and tossed the free market out the window in 1936. Are trying to sell me that he “pretended to support a socialist platform” from 1919 to 1934, then after the big 15 year fooling he actually implemented socialized health care, socialized schooling, socialized retirement benefits, socialized state welfare. wow. He fooled everyone. He was no socialist. His social state was wicked conservative! Feh.

I suppose if any of the things you said were true, you might have a case. But in fact, Hitler reduced many of the social programs that existed in Germany prior to him assuming power. And he banned all labor unions. And closed down all left-wing newspapers. And outlawed abortions. And increased military spending.

I guess the only thing you got right was when you pointed out that Hitler’s social state was wicked conservative.