Although I do I admire your effort. A Constitution may not necessarily cut it. You’ll notice that our Constitution came after our founding. Your looking for a “Raison D’etre” in a founding document.
Scylla quoted:
I always thought it was from “fasces,” which were the axes the Roman consuls carried around. Or do you mean the term and not the word? Probably the term, but oh well…
Oh, and Vietnam borrowed from the Declaration of Independence when they left France.
Scylla wrote
"Fascism" was, in fact, a Marxist coinage.
I’ve never heard of this Land of the Rococco Fascists (author, please?) but this guy’s off his mark. Sure, the modern use of the term originated with Mussolini, but the author’s interpretation of the Nazis’ true political orientation is incorrect. Let me show you:
Fascism—(from the Italian: fascismo) 1. Regime established in Italy from 1922 to 1945, instituted by Mussolini and founded on the dictatorship of one sole party, the exaltation of nationalism and of corporatism. 2. Doctrine and practised vision of establishing a heirarchical regime that is corporatist and nationalist.
—from Le petit LaRousse 1995
Now, I’ve read the Communist Manifesto, and this doesn’t sound like Marxism to me. In fact, the above description sure does sound like the Nazis and not much like the Soviets. The Soviets enforced direct control over all production, while the Nazis simply let corporations do whatever they wanted, as long as they didn’t step out of line with the government. Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz… haven’t we all heard that they did the bidding of their government, flourishing under strong, government-backed laissez-faire business practices? How many corporations got to run wild under the Soviet government?
The Nazis were in fact not Marxists at all and purged all known Communists they could find, once they took power. The term Sozialist was a ruse that stuck, since this made them sound much more palatable to the voters. However, the Nazis calling themselves “socialists” makes about as much sense as the name of the country called the People’s “Republic” of China.
In support of Chance’s point, here’s a quote from the website of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial museum (http://www.ushmm.org/education/history.html):
Whatever sins you lay at the doorstep of socialism, as it found its practice in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, etc., I really don’t think you can include Naziism as one of them. It was its own separate evil.
Actually, I have a professor who spend some time in the gulags in the early 80s before he defected. According to him, the Nazis and the Bolshies were VERY similiar in the idealogy.
Hmm…sounds kinda like the internet before Al Gore. 
I will give it up, not because I am wrong, but because I can’t hit a moving target.
I took issue with “We are the only nation in history to have been founded on the belief that all men are equal.” I chose to disprove a specific sentence because I didn’t feel like arguing against a general ideology, as kimstu did. I’m not a big fan of American exceptionalism; I think it causes people to ignore the political history of other countries, on the notion that other countries just don’t matter.
A lot of Americans think the U.S. was the main force which destroyed Hitler - they are absolutely wrong. A lot of Americans think the U.S. invented the concept of limited government - they are also wrong. These are sort of like urban legends, but they are almost built into the political culture. I have striven to debunk one here, because I feel we would be better off with a sense of our place in the world, rather than some sort of national solipsism.
Well, I said I could disprove what you had written, so I did.
I don’t feel like I pointed that out. My Finland and Liberia examples were just fine; I threw in Italy and France as background, and because I think they are pretty good.
If the target has moved from one of several founding concepts to the sole founding concept, the United States misses as well. There are tons of concepts in the founding of the United States. Freedom is a huge part of America’s founding ideology. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness; the rule of law; limited government; federalism; disestablishmentarianism. Equality is one among many.
I think you’re improvising here. Liberia’s founders did not believe that blacks were inferior to whites, or that only whites should be free. (There were some other political philosophers at the time who believed only whites should be free, not a particularly egalitarian notion.) If they did believe that, they would have stayed home on the plantation. Equality is a much bigger part of Liberia’s founding ideology than the America’s.
Maybe the Finns broke away from Russia because they felt like they were inferior to the Russians. Maybe the Liberians felt that blacks were inferior. Perhaps it was a national inferiority complex which made French commoners rise up against their royalty.
In any case, I have done here what I have done far too often on this message board - do the research someone else isn’t willing to do, to prove a point. The inevitable result, as this thread testifies, is that my opponents simply deny that I have proven my point. In this case, the denial seems to take the form of: Oh, well, I’m pretty sure the Finns didn’t think equality was such a big deal. On one of the electoral college threads, I disproved the idle speculation that the EC prevented sectionalism by pointing out that the EC has historically rewarded sectional candidacies. My opponents don’t care. On the “Global Warming is Crap” thread I provided links showing that the OP contained a lot of false information; I was misunderstood by one person and totally ignored by everyone else, including the author of the bogus factoids. Cecil Adams said that my contention that Russians might have used the Smith & Wesson Russian model was “cockamamie” (spelling?)
What is the point? Don’t answer. It is a rhetorical question. The truth is that I fancy myself a much better writer than I am. My posts are too long and my content is unimpressive.
Honestly. Did nobody else pick up on the irony of this?
And you wonder why the French won’t give you directions in Paris…
pan
Boris B:
Sel-pity aside, you haven’t proven squat. I have said America is the only country to be founded on the principle of equality.
You have come back and said, I don’t think that’s true.
I have said, well prove me wrong.
You say, lots of nations care about equality and have laws on it going way back.
I have said, that has nothing to do with the statement that I made.
You have said Liberia, probably says something about equality, somewhere in one of its founding documents.
I say, big whoop, that’s still not the question, and you haven’t actually found anything, you are just guessing.
You complain about doing all this research, and say how wrong it is of me to make such an exclusionary statement because it detracts from our learning of other country’s accomplishments.
I say, what the hell does that have to do with anything? I’m talking about America here. If you want to open up a thread on the accomplishments of Slovokia, and say that they were the first to make cheese, I’m not going to come in to your thread and complain about it and say that doesn’t sound right to me.
If you have a direct cite, showing it as the founding principle of another nation, please, by all means, show it. If you don’t, see if you can find one, or stop complaining.
Jeez,
Chance:
You need to reread my quote. What the Author (also Tom Wolfe) is saying is that the Marxists labelled the Nazis fascist in order to distance themselves.
Nazis actually became totalitarianists IMHO, but they started off as Revolutionary Socialists, as their name suggests.
Fascism is misapplied.
Flymaster:
Yeah, a little duck and weave there. You know what I mean. I recall something said by Buckley along the lines of “Each new century starts 20 years early in terms of social change.” Except he said it eloquently. Not that that helps.
Just as genetic engineering has its genesis in the 20th century, the technology will ultimately be the province of the 21st.
The Nazis most certainly did not start out as revolutionary socialists. From the beginning they looked to a small band of armed men to make change in society rather than mass working-class action. They continually looked to the heads of the banks and industry for funding, promising they’d look after corporate interests once in power. And they played upon people’s fears in the economic crisis, calling for going back to the way things were rather than arguing for change to prevent this sort of crisis from happening again.
Finally, the stupid bastards didn’t take power in a revolution, they were given it by the ruling government after an election.
I, for one, was nowhere near inspired by your jingoistic diatribe about the greatness of this nation you so avidly embrace. I’m voting, but as an indication of my distaste for both Bush and Gore. And I honestly don’t care about the fine hairsplitting you’re getting into about the founding principles. But calling Nazis ‘Marxists’ and ‘revolutionary Socialists’ is a slap in the face I will not let go unanswered. I certainly don’t expect to convince you, knowing the conservative Christian-based viewpoint upon which you stand, but I won’t be silent either in the face of this kind of slander.
While they were not the same in theory, they did indeed use many of the same tactics-intolerance, violence, and hatred.
Neither group was afraid of resorting to lies and terrorism to get what they wanted.
I have talked to people who lived in the former USSR. You wouldn’t want to live in such a place, trust me.
Olentzero:
It’s a cite from Tom Wolfe. He is genrally known as a very careful researcher.
I can’t beleive you object to the term “Revolutionary.” “They were elected,” you say.
Have you ever heard of The Beer Hall Putsch?
It was an attempt at a gunpoint revolutionary coup d’etat for chrissakes!
Jeez,
The Nazis were Socialists for Chrissake! Were they good socialists, fulfilling Marx’s vision and ethics? No.
They were self-proclaimed socialists. You’ll also recall that there was this ideological meeting of the minds between Russia and Germany in an insignificant little treaty that occured in 1939, but that probably escaped your notice as well.
You may not like it. That doesn’t mean it’s not true.
Russia and Nazi Germany baiscally had an alliance at the outset of WW2
http://www.mars.acnet.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/stalin/lectures/nazisoviet.html
or how about here:
http://www.russianculture.about.com/culture/russianculture/library/weekly/aa040698.htm
There’s this thing called checking your facts. It’s useful before going off half-cocked. Avoids embarassment and such.
As for my “jingoistic diatribe,” well hey, if you have such disdain for your country, you are always free to leave, you know? If a little pride offends you, tough shit. Sorry that reality doesn’t fit so neatly into enlightened model.
The Nazis called themselves Socialists. Calling oneself something doesn’t make it so. It could have four legs, a tail, whiskers and goes “meow” but if you call it a dog that doesn’t make it a dog.
How the hell does the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact prove that the Nazis were Socialists?! Or the Beer Hall Putsch, for that matter? The putsch (which failed, btw) was a small band of armed conspirators trying to take power for themselves. That’s neither revolutionary nor socialist. The pact of 1939 stemmed from Stalin’s program of ‘peaceful coexistence’ with the capitalist world, something that neither Lenin or Trotsky (who were indeed revolutionary socialists) found unacceptable.
As for disdain for this country - I was born here and I have every right to voice my opinions as to why I don’t like it and what’s going on here. Pride doesn’t offend me, just the jingoistic “we’re so great” approach that ignores a lot of the blood this country has spilled in the name of its own interests.
As for you, Guinastasia, we’ve been through this before. You know damn well I don’t believe the USSR was in any way socialist. And besides, what excuses the Tsars fron the intolerance, violence, and hatred they used?
I guess you haven’t read Mein Kampf either. Pretty Socialist stuff.
“The Revolution has begun!” Hitler, 1938.
I actually agree that Marxism has never been successfully instituted. The idea “From each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities” is a noble one.
But you accuse me of splitting hairs? The Nazi ideology was socialist. So was Russia’s. The fact that they failed to institute the ideas succesfully has little bearing on the fact that they were Socialists, and I don’t see how you can deny that Stalin and Hitler were bedfellows for a time.
Yes, you are free to say whatever you want. You are also free to leave if you want. Wondeful thing, yes?
Alas that it were also true amongst the majority of “Socialist” countries.
Right, would you mind pointing me to the relevant work by Marx that blames the Jews for economic crises? I seem to have missed it. Oh wait, no I didn’t - 'cos there ISN’T ONE!
I don’t deny Stalin and Hitler signed a non-aggression pact. But the burden of proof is on you to show how that indicates Hitler was, or started out as, a revolutionary socialist. Quotes uttered years after he took power don’t cut it. The putsch in and of itself doesn’t prove that either. Hell, Pinochet was at the head of an armed takeover in Chile. Does that make him a socialist?
The gist of your argument, as I see it, is “Germany and Russia ended up the same way, so they must have started out the same way”. It’s an assertion that completely belies your ignorance of the histories of Germany and Russia and the conditions under which Nazism emerged in the one and revolutionary socialism gained ground in the other. But then I haven’t seen much in your posts anywhere on this board that indicates you aren’t. Ignorant, that is.
Just out of curiosity Olentzero… under what economic platform were Nazi Germany and the USSR? I understand your devout position for Nader and the Green Party and a Socialist U.S. (never going to happen), but why do these examples of “Socialist” governments offend you so much? I don’t believe Scylla was trying to say that Socialism leads to Nazi Germany or Russian concentration camps.
Scylla… excellent post. (the OP I mean)
OK, JAG, this is the quote in question from Scylla. There are two possible interpretations:
-
The Nazis started out as revolutionary socialists but somehow got perverted and their ideas distorted and we ended up with Fascism.
-
The Nazis started out as revolutionary socialists and the logic of their ideas led them to the state they created in Germany.
It’s possible that Scylla was not actually saying that Socialism leads to Nazi concentration camps and the GULag, but I don’t see him making any assertions as to what outside elements or ideas led the Nazis astray.
Aside from being fairly repugnant from a human rights perspective, among others, the reason I find these examples of “Socialist” government offensive is because people like Scylla who haven’t the least conception of what socialism is actually about use them as examples of why socialism will ultimately fail.
And no, I’m not going to hold forth in this thread as to what socialism is really all about. Go read some Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky first and then come ask me some questions.
Olentzero:
Actually I used the wrong date for the Hitler Quote. It was actually November 8, 1923 (Ring a Bell?) My mistake.
You have brought up two issues.
-
The Nazis were not Revolutionaries
-
They were not Socialists
As for number one, the Beer Hall Putsch was an armed attempt by the Nazi party (not just a couple of guys, as you seem to think,) to throw out the “November Criminals” then in power and install a “Socialist” government with Hitler as its head. At this time there an estimated 55,000 members of the Nazi party. Famous WW1 Genral Erich Ludendorf had been enlisted to control the army. At the time Hitler and Goring and his troops stormed the place other attacks were going on to seize the barracks of the Rehswehr and the police.
Are you seriously going to sit there and claim that that doesn’t sound Revolutionary? You would take issue with that adjective being applied?
2. They were Socialists. As Justanother guy says I am not trying to imply that Socialism leads to Nazism, but that was what they said they were. That was the rhetoric they used. You will notice that the central control necessary to Socialism lends itself very well to abuse by a Totalitarianist. I have no doubt that that was Hitler’s intent from the beginning: Seize the reins of a Socialist Government that he installed specifically for that purpose. Just like Stalin and Castro.
Was Hiter a true believer in Socialism? No. Clearly not.
Were the Nazis a socialist party, or at least strongly rooted in Socialism? Of course.
If you’ve read Mein Kampf there can be no doubt that Hitler is speaking out against the Democratic government then in existence for its “corruption and distance from the German people”, and appealing to the ideologies of Marxist socialism, by endorsing them.
This is pretty much unassailable fact. There is a huge amount of historic evidence, and documents to back me up on this, including Hitler’s own words, the Nazi ideology, and the NAME OF THE FUCKING PARTY. What more do you want?
How about if I say that they were bad socialists?
That they perverted the ideals of Socialism?
Granted, man. No problem.
But don’t jump uly with me for claiming they were “Revolutionary Socialists,” There’s a hell of a lot to support that.