@joefromchicago,
Quote:--Should the definition of "arms" in the second amendment be confined solely to weapons as they existed in 1791?
No, unless you mean firearms.
Quote:--Should television and radio broadcasters enjoy the same freedoms as the "press" under the first amendment?
Yes, and they should also have the same responsibilities and face the same punishments for wrongdoing.
Quote:--Should conversations be protected from warrantless electronic eavesdropping under the fourth amendment?
What kind of conversations?
Quote:--Would imposition of the death penalty for theft violate the "cruel and unusual" provisions of the eighth amendment?
No
@parados,
Quote:Which scenario results in the same for everyone?
Everyone pays $10,000 in taxes
Everyone pays 10% of income in taxes
Everyone is left with $50,000 after they pay taxes.
Everyone pays the same percentage.
Now,enough of the "left/right" liberal/conservative nonsense.
Lets get down to the important issues, like who is more confused...
White rappers or black republicans?
@mysteryman,
That's a hell of a tough question . . . the only other group that compares would be the log cabin gay boys . . .
@Foxfyre,
Don't flatter yourself that you're so clever. Every aspect of your questions implicitly made assumptions that people would have to accept in order to answer them, quite apart from the portion which i quoted. For example, to answer your stupid questions with yes or no answers, one would be obliged to accept the premise that a smaller government would be more efficient, and there is no reason to assume that this would be true--incompetence can come in all sizes of organization, which is why small businesses fail every year.
It is typical of canting, dogmatic conservatives (which fortunately is not even nearly most of them) that they would ask over-simplistic questions of the "have you stopped beating your wife variety," and then try to ride over objections to the leading nature of the questions with snide comments about the ability of their ideological opponents to answer "simple" questions.
@joefromchicago,
Quote:Yeah, MACs are easy to spot. They're the ones who drive on government-funded roads, send their kids to public schools, check out Ann Coulter books from public libraries and read them on public beaches, take federally tested pharmaceuticals and eat federally inspected food, take trips from government-funded airports to national parks, patriotically watch the government-sponsored Fourth of July fireworks displays, complain that the government doesn't interfere enough in the lives of women and gays, and dream of a retirement where they get Medicare and Social Security, all the while bitching about how large and intrusive the government has become.
This answer of Joe's deserves both applause, and to be repeated.
@Foxfyre,
Quote:You can't logically say in one breath that you refuse to answer the question because it is a bogus question and in another breath criticize me for not accepting your 'answers'.
Actually, I can say that in the same breath. Your original question was bogus. I gave a response to your bogus question. You just feel that my response didn't answer the question as you asked it.
"Have you stopped beating your wife? "
"Your question is a logical fallacy because I have never beat my wife" is an answer. It doesn't answer the question as asked but it is certainly a response.
Quote:The question could as easily be phrased: Do you favor a big Federal government that addresses and involves itself in the basic needs and problems of the people or do you favor a Federal government that does not assume any role that can be left to the private sector?
Another false dilemma from you. There are many other choices you have left out. A small Federal government could address the issues of the people. A medium sized government could do that. A Federal government could partner with the private sector. It could do some of the work while allocating other parts to the private sector. Your question presupposes there are only 2 choices.
Quote:You either want a bigger and larger government that is more and more involved in the everyday issues of the people or you don't.
You either want a government that starves the people or you don't? The question is the same nonsense. It is a very simple logical fallacy Fox. You think you can get away with it but I see no reason to let you do so. It is intellectually dishonest to present false dilemmas Fox and then not allow people to point out they are such.
Quote:I think MACs don't have any problem with that kind of question.
Of course you don't have a problem with being intellectually dishonest. We figured that out a long time ago. Now if you would only realize that such intellectual dishonesty doesn't help the MAC position people might take you more seriously.
Let me help you out a little Fox.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dichotomy
http://onegoodmove.org/fallacy/fd.htm
http://atheism.about.com/od/logicalfallacies/a/falsedilemma.htm
False dilemma is a well known fallacy Fox. You are free to present one over and over but don't expect others to think you are looking for an honest debate when you do so.
Joe the Jag is, of course, in addition to being a fake lawyer( see my posts where I showed he knows Nothing about Law Schools and gives people who asked him in all innocence for help, advice that was not worth a ****, NOW gives a moron's interpretation of the second amendment.
Note what the excrementious Joe the Jag wrote:
No, I'm quite sure you don't.
Frankly, I'd be shocked if any self-styled conservative actually disagreed, in practice, with the notion that the constitution is a "living document." Perhaps there are a few cranks and crackpots out there who think that the constitution should be frozen in the late eighteenth century, but then that's why they're considered to be cranks and crackpots.
But, as a test, just ask your conservative friends the following:
--Should the definition of "arms" in the second amendment be confined solely to weapons as they existed in 1791?
--Should television and radio broadcasters enjoy the same freedoms as the "press" under the first amendment?
--Should conversations be protected from warrantless electronic eavesdropping under the fourth amendment?
--Would imposition of the death penalty for theft violate the "cruel and unusual" provisions of the eighth amendment?
In addressing these and other questions, it's simply amazing to discover just how much conservatives really believe in the "living constitution" approach to constitutional interpretation.
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Take Joe the Jag's first two lines. The ass sets up the question so that it conforms to his prejudices. The jerk does not know how the word "arms" has been used. Note below:
To Bear Arms
"Bearing arms," throughout the 18th century, most likely meant to serve as a soldier or to fight (including bearing arms against another man in individual self-defense). Where the term "bear arms" appears, itself, without further modifiers it did not infer a broader meaning such as hunting or the mere carrying or wearing of arms.
For example, Roger Sherman, during House consideration of a militia bill (1790) refers to bearing arms as an individual right of self-defense (against other individuals) as well as a right belonging to the states:
[C]onceived it to be the privilege of every citizen, and one of his most essential rights, to bear arms, and to resist every attack upon his liberty or property, by whomsoever made. The particular states, like private citizens, have a right to be armed, and to defend, by force of arms, their rights, when invaded.
14 Debates in the House of Representatives, ed. Linda Grand De Pauw. (Balt., Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1972), 92-3.
Thus the term bearing arms was understood as not referring exclusively to military service.
Although without modifying terms, as mentioned above, bearing arms probably did not refer to the mere carrying or hunting with arms.
The Second Amendment as passed by the House of Representatives read:
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the People, being the best security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person. (source)
In the conscientious objector clause, "bearing arms" clearly conveys an exclusively military or fighting connotation, and thus it would seem "to bear arms" also has a military meaning. Otherwise, we are talking about different meanings associated with the same word within the same amendment. Highly improbable, especially since most of the framers were lawyers.
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The faux lawyer, Joe the Jag, again sets up a question which is loaded. He is so moronic that he thinks that all conservatives do not know it is a set up. What a Jag he is.
He wrote:
--Should television and radio broadcasters enjoy the same freedoms as the "press" under the first amendment?
A set up.
Newspapers were published in the colonies even before the Revolution. TV and Radio are 20th Century inventions.
Joe the Jag is not a real lawyer or he would not ask stupid questions like those he asks without giving all of the facts.
Note:
Several cases have arisen challenging the freedom of the press to report what it chooses or of laws limiting that freedom. Many of these cases overlap significantly with other First Amendment cases, such as the New York Times defamation case cited above. Consequently, the same privileges that are protected at the individual level are also enjoyed by the press. One major exception is the Court's stance that the First Amendment does not give reporters the right to withhold information they gathered confidentially. If called to testify, the reporter may have to divulge the sources of information they have reported (see Branzburg v. Hayes).
In two separate cases, the Court ruled that the rights enjoyed by the print media are, in some cases, broader than those enjoyed by the broadcast media (radio and television). While newspapers do not have to provide space for persons to respond to negative stories about them, radio and television stations may be required to provide airtime. Why the difference? The government regulates the number of radio and television signals that can be broadcast in a give geographical area. Consequently, there are a limited number of radio and television stations in a city or town. If someone is criticized on television or on the radio, there are a limited number of places he or she can go to respond. Newspapers, however are not limited by the government. Anyone with a printing press (or a copying machine) can produce a "paper" and distribute it. If someone is criticized in a newspaper, the Court does not require that paper to give them the chance to respond because there are numerous different ways in which they could respond, even printing their own paper.
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Joe the Jag won't tell us that even newspapers do not have the right to withhold information they have withheld confidentially
AND, Radio and TV are required to provide air time to those critiqued for the reasons noted above. As almost everyone knows, reputable sources do provide airtime.
What Joe the Jag obviously does not know is that the illiterates that voted for Obama are unable to read the newspaper editorials with and kind of understanding so they are limited to the regurgitations of the most beautious Whoopie Goldberg for their political groundings.
Joe the Jag wrote:
Several cases have arisen challenging the freedom of the press to report what it chooses or of laws limiting that freedom. Many of these cases overlap significantly with other First Amendment cases, such as the New York Times defamation case cited above. Consequently, the same privileges that are protected at the individual level are also enjoyed by the press. One major exception is the Court's stance that the First Amendment does not give reporters the right to withhold information they gathered confidentially. If called to testify, the reporter may have to divulge the sources of information they have reported (see Branzburg v. Hayes).
In two separate cases, the Court ruled that the rights enjoyed by the print media are, in some cases, broader than those enjoyed by the broadcast media (radio and television). While newspapers do not have to provide space for persons to respond to negative stories about them, radio and television stations may be required to provide airtime. Why the difference? The government regulates the number of radio and television signals that can be broadcast in a give geographical area. Consequently, there are a limited number of radio and television stations in a city or town. If someone is criticized on television or on the radio, there are a limited number of places he or she can go to respond. Newspapers, however are not limited by the government. Anyone with a printing press (or a copying machine) can produce a "paper" and distribute it. If someone is criticized in a newspaper, the Court does not require that paper to give them the chance to respond because there are numerous different ways in which they could respond, even printing their own paper.
Freedom of Assembly & Petition
Joe the Jag continues:
--Should conversations be protected from warrantless electronic eavesdropping under the fourth amendment?
Again, poorly worded and a set up---
What Joe the Jag does not know is the following:
NOTICE THE DATE OF THE ADJUDICATION--JUNE 4, 2009
Judge Revisits Warrantless Eavesdropping
Justice Department, Attorneys for Defunct Charity Must Further Explain Positions
Thursday, June 4, 2009
A federal judge yesterday declined to penalize Justice Department lawyers for flouting his orders in a sensitive electronic surveillance case where the Obama administration sided with its predecessors to the alarm of civil liberties groups.
But U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker did not give the government what it wanted, either. The San Francisco-based judge batted away fresh Justice Department attempts to appeal his rulings, which have been critical of President Obama's approach to protecting state secrets.
Instead, the judge directed attorneys for the administration and for a now-defunct Oregon charity to prepare court filings this summer about the legality of the government's warrantless eavesdropping program and the scope of the executive branch's authority.
The case involves the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, an Oregon charity whose lawyers apparently were overheard on phone conversations under a highly classified National Security Agency surveillance program. The dispute is the deepest and most advanced case to plumb the Bush era's electronic eavesdropping initiative.
Government lawyers for Obama's Justice Department angered the judge this year by arguing that the charity did not have a "need to know" sensitive information and by asserting that they might withdraw documents from the court rather than turn them over to plaintiffs.
Yesterday, Jon Eisenberg, who represents the defunct charity's lawyers, said the Justice Department is now in a position of spelling out its view of executive power, which could conflict with Obama's rhetoric on the campaign trail.
Eisenberg said the judge put off for a later date the charity's request that the government pay its legal fees.
"This is not an ordinary discovery dispute in an ordinary case," Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said. "It involves information that our nation's highest elected and military officials have determined must be protected because such disclosure would irrevocably compromise important national security interests. These officials have submitted lengthy explanations to the district court for their reasoning. We are grateful that the court recognized the importance of this interest."
Already, Obama and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. have launched reviews of the government's strategy for protecting state secrets, including ways that could give judges more authority to review sensitive materials rather than dismissing lawsuits altogether.
In April, a federal appeals court in California rejected the Obama administration's effort to invoke the state secrets privilege in a case involving the rendition of terrorism suspects to secret CIA "black site" prisons overseas.
Criticism of the state secrets argument has gained currency among congressional Democrats. Today, the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing examining ways to protect classified information without crippling whistleblowers' ability to sue. The Senate Judiciary Committee also could vote as early as today on a similar legislation drafted by Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.)
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The judge wants the Obama Administration to prepare court filings about the legality of the government's warrantless eavesdropping program.
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So, the answer, Joe the Jag, if you were a real lawyer, you would know that the answer has not yet been formulated. So you can stick that question where the sun does not shine.
Is Joe the Jag really so stupid? Does he think that anyone with an IQ above 90 would say yes to the question below?
What a stupid question made by a stupid person.
Joe the Jag asked:
-Would imposition of the death penalty for theft violate the "cruel and unusual" provisions of the eighth amendment?
For theft?
They don't even impose the death penalty very often any more.
Setanta wrote:
To Foxfyre--
Don't flatter yourself that you're so clever. Every aspect of your questions implicitly made assumptions that people would have to accept in order to answer them, quite apart from the portion which i quoted. For example, to answer your stupid questions with yes or no answers, one would be obliged to accept the premise that a smaller government would be more efficient, and there is no reason to assume that this would be true--incompetence can come in all sizes of organization, which is why small businesses fail every year.
It is typical of canting, dogmatic conservatives (which fortunately is not even nearly most of them) that they would ask over-simplistic questions of the "have you stopped beating your wife variety," and then try to ride over objections to the leading nature of the questions with snide comments about the ability of their ideological opponents to answer "simple" questions.
******************************************************************
I took this doddering old man's post on Nazi Germany apart on this thread.
He practically soils himself( don't worry, he wears Depends) when I challenge him. He is afraid of me. But, I think that he knows that some who read my posts in whcih I showed that he is full of half truths and exaggerations wonder why is so pusillanimous.
The "over simplistic" label he places on Foxfyre is nothing compared to his fatuous post on the Nazis.
After being given numerous reasons why the Nazis were really left wing in their proposals(Anyone reading the list of their proposals can identify them as left wing, as I pointed out with evidence and QUOTES from the Nazis themselves, Setanta squatted down to relieve himself--He did not defend himself--So my posts stand for others to read and to decide for themselves.
Setanta's erroneous citations concerning Ford( who may have done some business with the Nazis but hated them) and the now totally descredited Armand Hammer( I gave evidence of his Communist background), was laughable.
His citation of German economists( he did not name them or give a link) who said that inflation was well in hand during the Weimar Repubulic was in error.
William Shirer, far better informed that Setanta, puts the lie to that statement.
So those who read Setanta's erroneous blurb and my response to that can make up their own minds where the truth lies. You certainly won't get any more information from the timorous Setanta.
@Yankee,
Oh, Yankee- I have read your posts and I think that you give some good ideas BUT YOU CANNOT BE MORE EXPERT ON YOUR VIEWS AND OPINIONS THAN JOE FROM CHICAGO. Don't you know? He claims to be a laywer.
( I always said that if he was really a lawyer--a good one--he wouldn't have so much time to spew his flatulences on these threads).
Read his responses carefully. He loves to write carefully disguised Bullshit. But, beware, If you best him, he will not respond. He is a coward. I took him apart several times. Now he is afraid of me. On these threads in the last couple of days I have taken the BOGUS ADVICE he gave to people who had questions about law schools and showed that it was almost completely in error.
Good luch, Yankee!
Yankee wrote:
Re: joefromchicago (Post 3675152)
I do not see a thoughtful response anywhere in your post.
Are you always this vague and arrogant?
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You ain't seen nuthing yet. Joe is really Joe the Jag. If he did go to a law school, I am sure he flunked out and I am sure that he could not have been accepted initially to any law school but a TTT( Third Tier Toilet).
Yankee_Diest TKO asked:
Certainly this isn't an academic argument. I'd love for you to find the word "technology" in the original constitution.
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Ask Herr Diest( who is almost always wrong and certainly almost as arrogant as Joe the Jag) where he can find the word "privacy" in the Constitution. Privacy, of course, is the basis for the ruling made by Justice Blackmun in the 5-4 decision of Roe vs.. Wade.
You see, Yankee, people like Diest TKO do not know law. If they did they would not ask such stupid questions which invite a response like mine.
Setanta wrote:
Previous • Post: # 3,673,638 • Next Setanta
4 Reply report Wed 10 Jun, 2009 07:09 pm Re: JamesMorrison (Post 3673558)
I would make two points with regard to this. One is that i have no reason to assume that the quote of Mr. Roosevelt is genuine. But, assuming for the sake of discussion that it were, the portion of the Possum's post which you have highlighted is a comment by him, and not one attributable to Mr. Roosevelt. The Possum (the name given him here because he has been here in so many guises before being banned for his over-the-top attacks on other members) is not very well thought of here, and that includes members who can be described as conservative, both because of his posting style and because of his outrageous remarks which he is often unable to substantiate, and outright lies in which he has been caught.
But, for the sake of discussion, i will assume that the Roosevelt quote is valid, and will ignore the Possum's editorial comment, which i consider to be without foundation. Mr. Roosevelt took office in 1933, before Hitler came to power, and when the exact nature of the activities of Stalin and the Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union were as yet unknown. So when exactly Mr. Roosevelt made such a comment is of particular importance as the context of the remark. The opinion of the Soviet Uni0n was by no means universally bad--Henry Ford was willing to work with them, as well as Armand Hammer. There was a vague theory of industrial production known as Fordism. I say vague because even Ford himself was full of contradictions. He was willing to hire armed goons to deal with sit-in strikers, and to hire scabs to break strikes. At the same time, his was the idea to make affordable automobiles that his factory workers could afford, and to pave vast parking lots next to his plants. His was a paternalistic attitude reminiscent of that of the owners of big mills in the New England and "old" England in the 19th century--opposed to organized labor but fancying themselves as the stern fathers of vast families of wayward children (rather than grown men and women entitled to have their own opinions on what constituted a living wage and decent working conditions).
Marx had always hotly denied that the paradise of the dictatorship of the proletariat would arise in Russia, and preferred to think of this devoutly desired consummation taking place in Germany. Although one may not entertain a high opinion of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov--Lenin--there can be no doubt that from the perspective of a Marxist, he was faithful to the ideology. Therefore, he determined that the socialist paradise could not be erected in Russia until it truly became a proletarian state, and he promulgated the New Economic Plan, which intended to make Russia an industrialized state in which the Marxist ideal could then be founded. It was because of the NEP that Ford was invited to visit the Soviet Union, and Armand Hammer became close friends with Lenin and even resided in the Soviet Union for several yeas in the 1920s (you might know of him from his oil deals which eventually created Occidental Petroleum).
So references to Bolshevism and to the Soviet Union did not then evoke the horror that they later would do. No one then knew about Stalin's deportation of the Kulaks. Contrary to right-wing propaganda, for as bad as it was, it did not result in the deaths of millions--probably about 400,000 died, mostly of famine. Although that sounds horrible enough, Russia had been the largest exporter of grain before 1914, exceeding in those days, the United States and Canada combined. Most of that grain came from the Ukraine. But the civil war between the Whites and the Reds was largely fought over this territory, and the Social Revolutionaries and the Peasants Party had succeeded in handing out the most land to peasants in the Ukraine, before the Bolsheviks ultimately gained power. Therefore, the vast majority of Stalin's alleged Kulaks (from the Russian word for fist, it was a pejorative term for a prosperous peasant) were found in the Ukraine. Russia would never again recover her position as a net exporter of grain, and famine was all too common in the Soviet Union, especially in early days. Armand Hammer first showed up there brokering a grain deal, which is how he became friends with Lenin.
It was not until the show trials of the late 1930s, well into Mr. Roosevelt's second term-- and when most of his "alphabet soup" programs had been already struck down by "those nine old men" on the Supreme Court--that Bolshevism began to have a more universally bad reputation. Nonetheless, the Possum has a certain point, although no one in 1933 would have characterized Roosevelt's programs as fascistic. After all, those people understood that fascism was a right-wing ideology (pacem Okie), and that Mr. Roosevelt's policies were closer to the policies of Lenin's NEP. Ican's hysteria and fulminations against Mr. Obama are over the top, and based in no reality. But his complaints would be nearer the mark if applied to the younger Mr. Roosevelt. (Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., although considered a "radical" by other Republicans, was a Republican, and not a Democrat as Fox once claimed--his younger cousin, Franklin, was, of course a Democrat.) I find it hilarious that people call Mr. Obama a socialist and claim his is the most leftist administration in American history. The palm for that goes to Mr. Roosevelt the younger. But the Congress of 1933 would have signed on to almost anything that Roosevelt came up with in the despair of the times. His NRA (National Recovery Administration) and his WPA (Works Progress Administration) were far closer to Ican's hysteria about the transfer of wealth. The NRA was struck down by the Court in 1935, and in 1936, the Supreme Court held that Mr. Roosevelt's Agricultural Adjustment Act was funded by an unconstitutional tax, and New Dealers began to fear for the WPA, the TVA and Social Security. Personally, i consider that the enabling legislation was at fault, but there can be no doubt that courts, following the lead of the Supremes, became more conservative in their rulings, much to the relief of business men, who felt that they were being robbed to fund a welfare state. Roosevelt then peed in his own Wheaties with his entirely unconstitutional "court packing plan," which not only failed miserably, but which alienated much of the public who had theretofore supported his programs.
The connection to the NSDAP is much less clear. In 1919, Germany was nearly in a state of constant chaos. The popular right-wing line was in two myths--one was the "stab in the back" myth, which held that Weimar politicians had betrayed an army which had never been defeated in the field. This was, of course, a myth because the army had been badly defeated, and because German politicians who had gone to Paris had been promised that they would not be held responsible for events they could not control. Almost all of central and eastern Europe was in chaos, and the French had sent their army, and Czech, Serbian and Greek client armies, out across the map from Bohemia to Turkey to try to end the chaos, which of course resulted in land grabs by most of these armies, or attempts at land grabs. To try to form a bulwark against the Red Army, then in the process of trouncing the White Army in the Ukraine, the largest German Freikorps (originally an 18th century term) was allowed to operate in the Baltic littoral. Right-wing rabble rousers would point to that as evidence that the German army had never really been defeated.
The other myth was that the hyper-inflation and the collapsed economy were the product of the Versailles Treaty. This is the "Versailles Diktat" myth. There are two objections to this which shoot it down unquestionably. The first is that the inflation which plagued Germany began in 1914, before the war even began. German economic scholars writing in the 1980s have produced the documentary evidence that this is so. Not only that, the Weimar Republic took the necessary steps to tend the inflation, revalue the mark, and re-establish a sound economy. Almost all of the legislation which is credit to the NSDAP that stabilized the German economy was actually passed by Weimar, and was in place before the NSDAP ever took control of the Reichstag. The hyper-inflation had ended before Hitler got out of prison. The second objection is that the Germans never actually paid the reparations which were imposed on them. They paid somewhat less than 25% of the bill, and about 80% of what they did pay had been in kind "payments" which were actually physical assets seized by the Allies before Weimar stabilized the political situation. The Versailles Diktat myth is so powerful that it is still taught in high school and even college history courses in the west, although it has long been justifiably discredited by European historians. That is in large measure the fault of John Maynard Keynes. He was a participant in Lloyd George's commission to the Paris Peace Conference, and began to pout when no one would listen to him. He went home before the Conference ended, and wrote a book predicting the economic collapse of German as a result of the treaty. People thought he was pretty damned slick because of that, but people so rarely value such opinions based upon real world conditions. The heavy inflation of 1914-1916 gave way to runaway inflation in 1917 with the enormous expenses resulting from the continued useless, bloody offensives around Verdun and in Flanders. By the time the armistice was signed in 1918, the German economy had already collapsed, and hyper-inflation was already a reality before the Allied commissions met in Paris. Keynes, who was truly brilliant in economics, knew squat about politics (which is why Lloyd George and everyone else on the English commission in Paris ignored him), and his "prediction" was actually only a description of what had already happened, which he then pettishly chose to blame on the Versailles Treaty. The main reason that the Versailles Diktat myth still gets taught in the west was because it was already believe in the West, even before anyone had ever heard of Hitler.
In those chaotic days, when sailors from the Imperial fleet raised the red banners, and fought right-wing Freikorps members in the streets with rifles and machine guns, one small party emerged which attempted an amalgam of left-wing policies and right-wing principles. This was the German Workers Party, the acronmym in German for which was the DAP. If one reads the "25 Point National Socialist Program" published in 1920, before anyone ever heard of Hitler, one can see what a witches brew it was. It was anti-parliamentary, pan-Germanic nationalist and surpemacist, racist, collectivist, promoted eugenics, antisemitism and anti-communism, and denounced economic liberalism and political liberalism--and, finally, it called for totalitarianism to achieve its ends. Hitler became involved because he was still in the Bavarian Army, and was sent to investigate the DAP. He argued their program with party members, and they were impressed enough to invite him to join. He was given the propaganda portfolio. It is small wonder, then, that his Mein Kampf convinced Okie that he was a dangerous leftist ideologue. What he was, actually, and the only thing he was ever good at, was as a gutter politician. His book was merely the equivalent of campaign promises, designed to lure in those who saw something in the DAP program which they liked. There is little reason to believe that any part of it described the policies he intended to implement, other than the invasion of the Ukraine. In 1920, before Hitler was locked up, the party changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). Anyone familiar with the history of socialism will known that nationalism and ethnocentrism are anathema to socialist and Marxist principles--and this is one of the reasons that Okie is so deluded. The DAP started soup kitchens, a very real need in 1920, and "make-work" public work projects to provide employment for some of the millions of soldiers who had come home and could find no work. Comparing Mr. Roosevelt's CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) to this program is as close as anyone can reasonably come to a similarity between Roosevelt's programs and the NSDAP--and it's a damned weak link.
To finish the story, the Freikorps became street bullies who battled in the streets on behalf of political parties. One such Freikorps group, the Sturmabteilung, or SA, which means the "storm battalion," or "assault detachment." The SA was founded in 1919, before the DAP was founded. The origin of the SA was in the special assault units formed in the Imperial armies in 1915, but it became a political organization in 1919--right-wing soldiers who were looking for a party affiliation, and who fought the "reds" in the streets. They first became affiliated with Hitler in his attempts at mass meetings in Munich (the capital of Bavaria) in 1919, and in 1920, when the 25 points of the DAP were being disseminated, the SA, or "Brownshirts" would beat up any hecklers who tried to shout Hitler down in his public meetings. One of the early leaders of the SA was Herman Goering. Goering was a genuine war hero, a fighter ace, whose mentor in the Imperial Air Force had been Manfred von Richtoffen, and who took command of the Red Baron's "flying circus" when Richtoffen was shot down. He was a very visible public hero, and Hitler capitalized on this. Hitler got Hans Klintzsch to take over the SA--he was a former naval officer, and he turned it into a notorious right wing hit squad, like the Organization Counsul, of which he had been a member. Klintzsch taught the SA the murderous techniques they would need in the street fights which were an inevitable feature of German politics in those days--they reveled in their trouncing of opponents during mass meetings. Then the SA was taken over by Ernst Röhm,who was very popular, and who was probably also homosexual. He surrounded himself by an inner leardership which he recruited from among his homosexual bully boy friends, most of whom were bouncers in gay nightclubs. Eventually, Hitler decided he needed to get rid of Röhm and the SA, and he already had the SS in place. Ironically, Goering was one of the architects of the "night of the Long Knives" when the SS put the SA out of business in 1934, when Hitler was safely in power, the Enabling Act had been passed, and the SA was no longer needed, and had in fact become an embarrassment, as it became more widely known that so many members in leadership positions were homosexual. The NSDAP had no use for homosexuals, and they were the first people rounded up for their concentration camps.
I've written here many times about the parliamentary maneouvers which Hitler used to take power. But to dispose of Okie's thesis, allow me to point out that there are two types of compaign promises. The kind with which we are familiar are publically made, and Mein Kampf was in the nature of such promises. It is important to remember that Hitler was the propaganda chief of the DAP when he wrote that. These are the promises which really mean nothing, and are only made to attract public support. The other type of campaign promises are made behind closed doors to money men--to industrialists, bankers and financiers. These are the kind of campaign promises of which the public never hears, and which are always kept. They get the money the politician needs to run his campaign and support his party (and this is precisely what Hitler and the NSDAP did), and those promises are kept so that the money men won't turn off the tap. The industrialists and bankers who supported Hitler in the early 1930s got the plum government contracts when the Enabling Act was passed and the NSDAP began the process of destroying and outlawing all other political parties. No one with any real knowledge of the period and the actions of Hitler and the NSDAP will have any doubt about the right-wing and fascist character of his true policies and goals.
So, i would agree that Mr. Roosevelt's policies looked a lot like Lenin's NEP, and bore a faint resemblance to some DAP policies. But Roosevelt was a leftist, and had no political goals to match Hitler's, and made no deals with bankers and industrialists as Hitler did. Wealty Republicans in the 1930s made a point of attending public gatherings where Roosevelt was to speak so that they could hiss and boo and heckle him. They hated him. There was nothing remotely ethnocentric about Lenin's policies, and he abhored antisemitism--and ethnocentrism and antisemitism were core values of the NSDAP. Lenin, in fact, took positive steps to prevent antisemitism, and brought Felix Dzerzhinsky up short when he suggested that the CHEKA (the forerunner of the KGB) should hunt down "Jew bankers."
Mr. Roosevelt had no policy of ethnocentrism. He had no policy of antisemitism. He was not an anti-parliamentarian, although he rode rough-shod over a Congress which told him: "Whip us, beat us, make us write bad checks!" He was not only not opposed to liberal politics and economics, he practiced liberal politics and economics. He did not support or publicly endorse eugenics. How he felt about collectivism i couldn't say, but i don't think the AAA intended to establish agricultural collectivism. There is no evidence that he was racist, and the blacks of America looked up to him, and especially to Eleanor, as their best hope to gain the civil rights to which they were entitled (whether or not that was justified, i am not prepared to say). There is absolutely no basis of which i know to claim that Mr. Roosevelt believed in political totalitarianism. And that covers the core principles of the NSDAP's 25 points.
To suggest that Mr. Roosevelt resembled the Leninist Soviet Union (and especially as no one in the west yet knew what the Stalinist Soviet Union would look like) is not all that unreasonable. To suggest that his policies resembled those of the DAP or the NSDAP is much like observing that the sun shines on Berlin and the sun shines on Washington, so that, therefore, they must be identical.
Now, Mr. Morrison, i've answered your question. Will you do me the courtesy of answering my two questions, in light of my response? They only require simple yes or no answers, and, as Cyclo has observed, you didn't really answer them.
And I responded and showed that Setanta had made many errors and misstatements in his blurb. I have not yet finished critiquing his ideas and will continue as soon as I append the earlier paragraphs in which I eviscerated Setanta. He, of course, did not deign to defend himself, remembering past encounters where I showed that he was wrong in most of his points.
