the thing that got me started thinking about this is himler's orders after july 20 plot to arrest family members of the plotters according to an ancient germanic tradition (too lazy to wiki the name).
little more research uncovered more cartoonish barbarism. posden speech says that he doesnt mind enslaving others to serve germany.
mind you germans were a civilized nation. i dont know about other fascist nations like italy, spain, portugal or quizeling's regime in norway, but nazis had a certain angle of reviving savage practices of the yesterday.
this thread is not simply about that killing people is wrong. (hey stalin killed more). but about the common cause that german simpeltons like hitler, goebels, georing, and himler found and rallied the two-bit masses. i really think that right-wingers all over the world have this trend. sexism, racism, envying jewish money, torturing prisoners, nuking a-rabs, putting natives above immigrants (germany first). what is more ironic is that most top nazis were very educated and not some angry plumbers shouting "they took our jobs" in South Park
Fascism wasn't right-wing, and Nazism was a progressive socialist movement. It is mainly the political left that envies "the rich" and wants the government to take away other peoples stuff. Anti-Semitism was an instance of socialist class envy. The only racism in modern American politics is that of the political left, e.g. affirmative action and identity politics. And Nazi race ideology was an outgrowth of the left-wing eugenics movement. Every left-wing regime in the 40's tortured prisoners, was sexist and put natives before immigrants. And it is mostly the political left that favors protective tariffs, i.e. "our country first". Contemporary right-wingers do have a tendency of wanting to nuke Arabs, but it was the progressive left that built the imperialist American military which pissed off the terrorists in the first place. Not to mention that none of the Nazis barbarism had been possible without gun control, military conscription or central banking (to finance the wars), all of which are ideas of the political left.
"Not to mention that none of the Nazis barbarism had been possible without gun control, military conscription or central banking (to finance the wars), all of which are ideas of the political left."
IM talking about the ideas not what made them possible. to be popular you have to be Econ left/social-right. the only people that support culture and civilization are the educated bourgeoisie. the masses are morons who made Hitler overwhelmingly popular and only started crying when their asses were handed down to them in Stalingrad.
Revived barbaric trends? Before Hitler had even come to power, the Kaiser was eliminating a tribe in Zambia. The cleansing of that tribe was more complete than what was done to any other African tribe in that region back then.
Of course the Germans had been, were, and are largely a civilized peoples. It's just that there's nothing to stop a civilized nation from engaging in barbaric behaviour. One could say the same thing about Turks today.
Charles Fourier had an 80,000 years plan, suggested getting rid of Jews (and Chinese) because according to him they found capitalism, and argued that people will farm on the north pole once the said people disappear off the earth, because everything will be just swell then and there.
He was a socialist. French. In the early 19th century.
Pierre Leroux even more anti-jewish. (He had a habit of using the word Jew as a catch-all insult to brand anyone and everyone he thought did anyhting on the market.) Just about all his writing contain elimination of Jews as founders of capitalism.
Also French. Also 19th century. Also leading socialist. (He coined the word in France.)
The basic trend started by these fellows was popular with dangerous idiots in Europe in general. Not just Germany; although it gained ground in Germany from France in the 1890's. The feudal barbarism (also a form of religious intolerance and social planning) was encouraged in certain parts of Germany and mixed well with these ideas, leading to the monstrosity called the National Socialist Movement.
i'm talking about reviving barbaric practices, not mass murder or ethnic cleansing.
The entire world is essentially National Socialist. The UN, with its abstract version of the USSR coat of arms, tries to replace it with global socialism.
so basically, there was nothing special about the Nazis. the whole world was tying virgins on a pole as a sacrifice for the dragon?
Nationalism sprung out of the Prussian school system more than anything else. What I'm saying is that it caught on like wild fire and spread everywhere else in full tide very early. The Nazi's were apparently occult. Every region has its own flavour. It all revolves around clique formation. This is necessary to make people want to jump in front of bullets and shoot "foreigners" without hesitation or remorse and otherwise exploit "foreigners".
Caley McKibbin:Nationalism sprung out of the Prussian school system more than anything else.
How did the Prussian school system lead to Nazism? I'm not disagreeing with you, I just wondered how specifically Prussianism influenced Nazism.
How did the Prussian school system lead to Nazism?
State school systems are intended to foster a sense of national identity and most (or all) systems are fundamentally based on the Prussian system. I don't know what kind of schools you went to. In every school that I ever attended every morning was veritably a religious ceremony of national anthem singing. If you were late for class you better not be caught walking outside let alone opening the door during the playing of the music over the PA system, lest you receive a tongue lashing for not being proud enough to be "Canadian" and disrespecting King and State.
A few years ago Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty parroted on television what was said at the time of the creation of the provincial schools in Canada about the main purpose of the system: to create a national identity.
Caley McKibbin:State school systems are intended to foster a sense of national identity
I think that's part of it, but more importantly Prussian-style schooling conditioned obedience. It is this unthinking obedience of authority in the population that the Nazis readily exploited for their purposes.
Same thing in Japan prior WWII.
In the late 19th century, after two decades since Japan began to industrialize, a new education law, the Imperial Rescript, was passed, stressing military training starting in the equivilent of middle school. It also proscribed a very restricted number of things to be taught and reinforced, mostly centering around social unity, military service, and respect of official government hierarchy.
I'm not sure I understand why you wrote this.
Are you trying to make the blanket statement that what you call "Right Wingers" all fit the same mode and all agree on bad philosophy that inevitably leads to barbarism?
Or are you saying that one would expect "culture" to prevent barbarism? -no such correlation.
Are you saying you're a "Left Winger" and they are exempt from stupidity?
Few questions:
In my opinion a more common denominator for extremist behavior is that a group that in their own minds feel that they are "morally in the right" in their beliefs, slowly but surely morph into greater and greater coercion on others, to force them into this "correct thinking".
Another fairly common thing done by groups that believe themselves to be more moral and more ethical, is to group "other thinking" citizens into large catchall families that you can deride.
When you cast such blanket aspersions on a group you are discriminating (which is within your rights),
but the so called left would be the first to shout the loudest at what they deem discrimination against you name it: minorities, women, gays, Muslims, unemployed, poor etc. etc. while they gladly yell discriminatory accusations at their non favorite groups: Right wingers, Republicans, Tea Partiers, Alaskans, Christians, Southerners etc. etc.
I would hope that amongst Libertarians you will find that the enemy is not a person who believes differently than you, but that everyone is allowed to live his own life and make his own decisions. The enemy is anyone that tries to enforce his ideas on others.
Caley McKibbin:In every school that I ever attended every morning was veritably a religious ceremony of national anthem singing. If you were late for class you better not be caught walking outside let alone opening the door during the playing of the music over the PA system, lest you receive a tongue lashing for not being proud enough to be "Canadian" and disrespecting King and State.
Much the same here in the states. Pledging alleigence to the flag every morning was of paramount importance in elementary and middle school. I remember in 5th grade we had this program where all of the 4th and 5th grade classes got together and we'd do various "patriotic" things, including singing some country song about how great America is and how proud we are. A few kids in the beginning refused to participate, including myself, and we received a tongue lashing. So most of us (including myself) participated because we didn't know any better, and two kids continued to refuse to participate, and they got in trouble. And it's not like this occurred in the deep south or anything. This was in a suburb of Detroit. Not a very patriotic place, compared to other areas of the country.
Political Atheists Blog
i am not trying to bait right-wingers. i am sure many avowed archconservatives want to be "by the book" and do not agree with rash and unreasoned behavior that the Nazis often favored. many Prussian senior officers who served for the wehrmatch were angered that the Nazis often relied on emotion and gusto and disregarded laws of war.
all I'm saying that the Nazis had a clear pattern for adoration of primitive barbarism, emotion, anti-intellectualism. there are many passages were Hitler endorses impulsiveness, derides eggheads and praises caprice. don't think, act - was the slogan
And a right-winger is someone who is emotional, anti-intellectual and impulsive, as distinguished from the rationalistic left? Do you have that understanding of left and right?
Yes I agree, the Nazis had many anti intellectual and barbaric traits. So did many other totalitarian groups like the Khmer Rouge and the Communists.
I just don't understand why you bring Right wingers into your argument, and whyat proof you have that the majority of them have the traits you claim.
"I just don't understand why you bring Right wingers into your argument, and what proof you have that the majority of them have the traits you claim."
because conservatism historically is the idea of preserving traditional norms, often resorting to appeal to tradition. there is a crucial difference between nazis and stalin or che guavera. the reds were not trying to justify their actions by romantisising the old customs.
We must be honest, decent, loyal and comradely to members of our own blood and to nobody else. What happens to a Russian, to a Czech, does not interest me in the slightest. What other nations can offer in the way of good blood of our type, we will take, if necessary, by kidnapping their children and raising them here with us. Whether nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only so far as we need them as slaves for our culture; otherwise, it is of no interest to me. Himler
the nazis were not interested in proposing universal solutions or changing the world. they only wanted prosperity for their own kind. this is completely different weltanschauung.
as i said again, this post is not about baiting right-wingers but exploring the cultural aspect of nazis.
I wouldn't mind even if the post was about baiting right wingers or not, unless I understand your argument and what you base it on, it is hard to comment.
But I am beginning to see where your argument started:
Even on Wikipedia the definition of Nazism says "Far right" extremism and then it ascribes character traits like racism and supremacists as common to the far right.
So in your opening you make the statement:
"i really think that right-wingers all over the world have this trend. sexism, racism, envying jewish money, torturing prisoners, nuking a-rabs, putting natives above immigrants (germany first)"
So my reply has two prongs:
Here is some more on Nazi policy from Wikipedia:
"They declared support for a nationalist form of socialism that was to provide for the Aryan race and the German nation: economic security, social welfare programs for workers, a just wage, honour for workers' importance to the nation, and protection from capitalist exploitation.[18]"
None of this will sit well with classical conservatives. This is left wing socialism.
You (and Wikipedia) automatically classify it as right wing because it has elements of racism, supremacy and xenophobia in it. There is a knee jerk reaction by uninformed especially the news media to force these two into the same category.(that even within itself is a form of xenophobia designed to make opposing arguments irrelevant)I will handle that in point two but that is not a useful conclusion.
The Nazis like all extremist organizations on the left and the right, used whatever popular slogans out there would make them the most popular and then they would rewrite or ignore or lie about it when they are later no longer following that philosophy.
Xenophobia is a particularly useful idea to stir up hysteria amongst the masses, especially if you can also claim that they (them other minded people)are responsible for our brothers and sisters suffering. It is used by all effective revolutionaries and dictators and even todays politicians (eg. those socialist democrats are just plain evil, those stupid uneducated conservatives don't know how to argue)
Jews that hate Arabs, Arabs that hate Jews protestants that hate catholics, Muslims that hate Christians, vica versa. endless examples.
It is done by all groups and all factions
The KKK was heavily supported by southern democrats. Republicans played a large role in freeing the slaves,conservatives do not hate minorities or women or the poor, that is politicalspeak by the left. They don't want laws made that favor these or any other privileged group to have legislation giving them special rights and special status. That is not the same as hating them.
There are many many examples of left wing racism (Jesse Jackson) and right wing altruism and consequently horrible examples of torture of prisoners, militarism etc etc on both sides.
Stupidity and barbarism knows no political boundaries.
As I said before the common thread you will find in all of these horrible regimes is that extremism is usually based on some claim of moral superiority and higher ethical standards in the root stages of the organization and that evolves into such "superior thinkers" claiming for themselves the right to force the others to believe their truth.
It happens with right wing, left wing and middle of the road organizations
Naziism can only be understood as a cultural movement with a political arm. The Nazis were innovators in art and cinema, and they revered modernized folk art like Wagner's Ring. They also innovated the use of logos (an innovation so powerful their main logo is still banned in Germany).
Inspiring themselves from ancient barbarian practices was one more way to distinguish themselves from the cultural mores of Christian-Aristocratic German tradition.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
Germanic laws rotated around two principles.
The first rotated around blood feud, called faida: the old "an eye for an eye" also cited in the Bible. It was of course a most primitive principle and not exclusively Germanic.
The second, and most famous, was weregild, or "price for a man". It was one of the greatest achievements of the Germanic civilization and it reigned supreme until the Carolingian era. It replaced the custom of "legalized vengeance" with a system of money reparations for blood crimes. Of course it didn't apply to slaves (being considered property their slaying was to be compensated like any other case of property damage) and not all men were equal. among some people women were worth more than men of similar rank and among others clergymen were worth more than noblemen of similar rank . Some weregilds were incredibly elaborate: for example the Edict of Rothari, the great Lombard King, even specified particular reparation if a man was hurt or slain while riding a horse.
Having said that Himmler probably just applied to the old custom of blood feud: you hurt my fuhrer, I'll hurt your family. An eye for an eye, it's as simple as that. Himmler's beliefs were invariably confused and included a mish-mash of XIX century Germanic renaissance, astrology and various brands of occultism. After his SS wiped out Ernst Rohm's SA in the Night of Long Knives, his previously second-level movement was showered with money and he spent fortunes in pursue of obscure esoteric and historical secrets. His passion for both the occult and ancient Germanic history has perhaps been exagerated by post-war propaganda but it's well known Hitler himself (a well known materialist and skeptic) often angrily rebuked him for wasting time and money on such things as astrologers and useless historical research.
himler used a term but i can't find it now. it means punishing of family members of the criminal.