The random political thoughts thread (Part Deux)

[scaeagles]

You're changing your baseline. Previously you said that using the words evil and nazi could inspire the violence. I point out where there elected Dem party leaders are doing just that and you say "well, they didn't do this".

[Morrigoon]

Just playing devil's advocate here, because I actually agree (that carrying Nazi symbols to a debate on nat'l health care is stupid), but it's worth pointing out that the Nazis were ostensibly socialist. I can see how they'd make the connection, even though I think it's ludicrous.

[JWBear]

Originally Posted by Morrigoon

Just playing devil's advocate here, because I actually agree (that carrying Nazi symbols to a debate on nat'l health care is stupid), but it's worth pointing out that the Nazis were ostensibly socialist. I can see how they'd make the connection, even though I think it's ludicrous.

They may have used the word "Socialism" (Well... "sozialismus" really) in their name, but it was - if you excuse the pun - in name only. They were a right-wing, pro capitalisim party.

[Morrigoon]

Originally Posted by JWBear

They may have used the word "Socialism" (Well... "sozialismus" really) in their name, but it was - if you excuse the pun - in name only. They were a right-wing, pro capitalisim party.

Hence my use of the word "ostensibly"

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Morrigoon

Hence my use of the word "ostensibly"

Yes, but not even ostensibly in the way we're using the word today. On the classic political spectrum, National Socialism was always always came from a right-side tradition similar to fascism (and though in many ways communism and fascism look similar in practice they come from very different ideological places) and pretty much opposite from socialism/communism as practiced in Europe at the time.

It wasn't so much socialism in the sense of abolishing property rights and the equality of all but more in the sense of abolishing private property and nationalizing anything that impeded German nationalism (more "only racially German people have property rights" than "property rights are inimical to common man").

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by JWBear

They may have used the word "Socialism" (Well... "sozialismus" really) in their name, but it was - if you excuse the pun - in name only. They were a right-wing, pro capitalisim party.

I have to strongly object to that. They were about a state controlled economy. From MSN encarta -

Concretely, the “new order” involved abolishing trade unions and cooperatives, confiscating their financial and other assets, eliminating collective bargaining between workers and their employers, prohibiting strikes and lockouts, and requiring membership by law of all German workers in the state-controlled Deutsche Arbeitsfront (German Labor Front), or DAF. Wages were determined by the ministry of national economy. Government officials, called trustees of labor and appointed by the minister of national economy, handled all questions relating to wages and hours and conditions of work.

The trade associations of business owners and industrialists of the Weimar Republic were transformed into organs of state control. Membership by employers was compulsory. Supervision of these associations was vested in the ministry of national economy, which had the power to recognize trade organizations as the sole representatives of their respective branches of industry, organize new associations, dissolve or merge existing ones, and appoint and recall the leaders of all the associations. Through the exercise of these powers and also as specifically empowered by law, the ministry of economy greatly expanded existing cartels and cartelized entire industries. The banks were similarly “coordinated.” Private property rights were preserved, and previously nationalized enterprises were “reprivatized”—that is, returned to private ownership but all owners were subject to rigid state controls. By all of these and related means the Hitler regime eliminated competition.

[JWBear]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

I have to strongly object to that. They were about a state controlled economy. From MSN encarta -

That still isn't socialism. The state did not own the companies, just regulated them.

The majority of the piece you quoted had to do with eliminating unions; a capitalist's wet dream.

[Alex]

I won't say that many people hold all of the ideas, or that they even form the mainstream of Republican/conservative thinking. But within a segment they are all arguments swirling around. But to be somewhat fair, when Bush was president you could find all kinds of crap about how Bush was actively working to dismantle our country (I could find plenty of examples laying out exactly who he'd go about canceling the 2008 presidential election so that he could remain in power forever). Generally I resist the notion that Bush and his administration was acting out of overt malignant desires (even if they had malignant results).

Glenn Beck, however, has skirted or crossed the line on these and many worse. And I will admit that I tend to assume that anybody who says they listen to him with anything less than smirking disdain may have been lobotomized in the past. But that is rude of me to make such judgments without checking for scars.

[scaeagles]

I have never listened to Beck, for the record, and I haven't watched O'reilly in many, many years.

I interpretted Pelosi's "nazi" usage much, much differently. I saw it as her trying to link the protesters to skin heads.

I accept that you do not equate them, and niether do I. The reason I brought it up was your specific statement of

It's a HUGE difference between, "This is a very very important issue and it's frustrating that there are people preventing it from being solved" vs. "These people are doing evil things and I'm going to use words like 'Naziism' 'evil' and 'vigilante'."

Granted, vigilante didn't come into play in Pelosi and Reid, but they were using evil and nazi.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

I have never listened to Beck, for the record, and I haven't watched O'reilly in many, many years.

I interpretted Pelosi's "nazi" usage much, much differently. I saw it as her trying to link the protesters to skin heads.

I accept that you do not equate them, and niether do I. The reason I brought it up was your specific statement of

Interviewer: Do you think there’s legitimate grassroot opposition going on here?

Pelosi: "I think they’re Astroturf… You be the judge. "They’re carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on healthcare."




She didn't say they were Nazis. She said, correctly, that they were carrying the symbols. These people have been calling the healthcare proposal a Nazi proposal for months. They have been on the news carrying sings that talk about it being a Nazi program, carrying red line crossing out the swastika signs. She, and everyone else listening and watching, are fully aware that these people are coming to townhall meetings with these symbols with the intention of saying, "What the Dems are proposing is Naziism." There is no way I can possibly believe that she thought that those people are Nazi sympathizers. It's so completely in the domain of obvious that there was no need for her to elaborate and say, "There are people who are carrying "signs with swastikas crossed out" and other anti-nazi signs." Her meaning is clearly, "No, I do not consider them legitimate. I consider no one who is engaging in the hyperbole of bringing swastika to townhall meetings as a shorthand for leveling accusations of Naziism against the healthcare efforts to be legitimage."