What produces RUTHLESS DICTATORS?

@dyslexia,

dyslexia wrote:

Quote:
I would view the Taliban as socialistic
and is exactly why I think your stupid

Just maybe you forgot to read the rest of the phrase after the word "socialistic?" I said "socialistic in terms of collectivism of thought and religion." I have not studied their policies in regard to private property and the economy, so that would require more information. If you have some, please offer it.

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@okie,

No, there is no common sense in what you write. You have defined your terms in such a manner as to establish your thesis at the outset, and as you have been forced to defend your unfounded claims, you have shifted the ground, and offered ever more bizarre definitions. Now you claim that the Taliban are "collectivist" because of their insistence on adherence to their (very conservative) view of religion? Jesus, by the time you're done with defining a term, it has been stretched to far as to have become meaningless.

Your original post, in 2005, stated at the outset your intention to demonstrate that "ruthless dictators" are leftists, because of an unhappy childhood (i'm surprised you didn't try to investigate their potty training). You clearly stated that this was because people were calling Bush a Nazi, and you claimed that those people were 180 degrees out of line, because the Nazis were leftists.

You haven't proven your case, and it has been smashed to little bitty pieces again and again my knowledgeable people in this thread, including people who are conservatives. Walter has provided source documents again and again.

So i consider it a witless game to provide you with any definitions. You're just attempting to shift the ground again, and i don't intend to let you off the hook by getting into an extraneous discussion of what constitutes right and left, and how you think you know what Americans think on the subject.

At the outset, you thought you could demonstrate that Hitler and the NSDAP were leftists.

We're still waiting to see the proof.

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@okie,

okie wrote:

In order to determine why you consider Hitler to be a leftist, please provide the parameters by which you are making that judgement, thats all.

By the way, if you're going to engage in debate, you need to be more careful about what you write. I don't consider Hitler to have been a leftist--i never have. I have pointed out again and again that Hitler and the NSDAP were conservative.

Quote:

We talk about liberals and conservatives in this country. Is it too much to ask what defines you as a liberal? How would you define a conservative in terms of what he or she believes? Contrary to what Walter says, this is in fact a matter of opinion or perception, everyone has a slightly different take on it in my opinion, but in general I think some generalities could be agreed upon.

The generalities have been agreed upon--for more than two centuries in the case of left versus right, and for almost two centuries in regard to the terms liberal and conservative. I see no reason to engage in your little game of attempting to define left and right, liberal and conservative in such a way as to establish your thesis without you actually being obliged to prove it.

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@okie,

okie wrote:

Well okay then, how does persecuting religious belief support a right wing agenda? Conservatism, at least here, strongly supports freedom of worship. It is in our Bill of Rights, it is clearly conservative.

I don't and didn't say that persecuting religious belief supports a right wing agenda.

You certainly are aware of the fact (that's a fact, not an opinion) that the churches in Germany (commonly known in th past and today as "die zwei großen Volkskirchen" ['the two great floks churches'], the Catholic church and the Evangelical churches, worked very well with the NSDAP, you do know about the 'German Christians' ...

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@okie,

okie wrote:

So "you don't present opinion?" Thats funny, Walter, not only funny, it is very revealing about how you view yourself.

That's what I've learnt ages back, in my first semester history at university: not presenting opinions but facts.
Which doesn't mean that I have an opinion about those.
But you, okie, kindly don't see, read the facts presented (and sourced) here.

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@okie,

okie wrote:

I think if Walter wanted to offer his opinion about what constitutes left vs right today, it would also help us all understand the arguments here that you are making. But we now know Walter does not present his opinion, ha ha, so maybe he can't do it?

What would it help? We are speaking here about history. In Germany. In 1919. In 1920. In 1923. In 1927. In 1933. In 1937. ...

Read abit about the history of the Weimar Republic to understand the differences.
And before that, about political parties (plural = more than than two groups).

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@okie,

okie wrote:

I think if Walter wanted to offer his opinion about what constitutes left vs right today, it would also help us all understand the arguments here that you are making. But we now know Walter does not present his opinion, ha ha, so maybe he can't do it?

Well, there's a really good book which shows the situation of the political parties in Germany at the end of the Weimar Republic and before: Neumann, Siegfried: Die politischen Parteinen in Deutschland, Berlin, 1932 ('The political parties in Germany').

I do understand that it is mre impossible for someone, who just knows black and white, good Conservatives and bad Liberals, Democrats and Republicans to imagine that there's a world not only outside this system but before as well.

The (mainly) Catholic party 'Tentrum' was - as the name indicates - in the centre.
However, when their Bavarian section split in 1918 and formed a new party, the Bayerische Volkspartei ('Bavarian People's Party) (BVP), this party is was a right-wing party. With a quite large 'left' worker's wing.

Today, the most right-wing party out of those in parliaments is the (only acting in Bavaria) Christlich-Soziale Union (CSU) ('Christian-Social-Union').

And many employers like today more to deal with the "Christliche Gewerkschaft" ('Christian Union') in collective bargaining than with the larger, left-wing, traditional unions.

But I'm not too sure, okie, that you can follow ...

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@Walter Hinteler,

Walter, I can assure you with 100% certainty that okie cannot follow. In German, he's known as a dumbkoff!

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@okie,

okie wrote:

I would view the Taliban as socialistic in terms of collectivism of thought and religion, they do not allow individual expression, and so that is not conservative as viewed in a modern American context, no way.

And that, right there, pretty much illustrates the problem: you have your idiosyncratic, very narrow definition of what constitutes "conservatism" - and then you go from there to declare that anything that doesn't fall into your definition of "conservative" is "liberal" or "left-wing".

Nevermind that the concepts of liberalism and conservatism, of left and right are pretty well defined, and that they have existed for quite a while now, as Walter and Setanta already pointed out.

Your "conservatism", as you defined it earlier, may be a mix of free-market libertarianism and social conservatism, but there are many more positions to be found on the conservative side of the political spectrum. Just because you don't agree with all of those positions doesn't mean those are "left-wing" positions. Just like if Bush did something that you didn't agree with, that doesn't necessarily make that specific position a "leftist" one. And just because what the NSDAP stood for doesn't fall into your personal definition of what constitutes "conservatism" doesn't mean that the Nazis were socialists.

The argument you have presented here so far essentially boils down to "If I don't agree with it, it's liberalism". But hey, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you'll be able to come up with that list of points that define a right-wing dictatorship... positions that you, personally, might not agree with, but that are still clearly on the right side of the political spectrum... positions that clearly define a totalitarian system on the right side of the spectrum.

That would be interesting.

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@Walter Hinteler,

I've just looked through various party programs past from the period past WWI/earliest Weimar Republic: all parties from the Communists over the Democrats to the German Nationals had anti-capitastic buzz phrases in their programs, differing only according to the social classes they were aiming at.

Taking this as a parameter, the 25-points of the NSDAP were aiming at the -old- middle-class: small businesses, middle seized industry, craftsman's establishments. (See here especially the points 13, 14 and 16).
Generally - and I've pointed to this fact already earlier - that program didn't differ a lot from those of other parties, slightly modest to those from the more centrist parties, whilst those from the left and extreme left were a lot more radical.

However, as long as the NSDAP was refounded in 1925, economics didn't play any role in the party.
That only changed in autumn 1925, when the north German group of "national Socialists" within the NSDAP (aka 'Strasser group) published their ideas. [As a side remark: I've wondered all the time the discussion is going on here, why okie never mentioned the 14 thesis of the German revolution, from 1 August 1929.]

The end of the small National-Socialist left in 1930 is known and has been mentioned on this thread, too.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

So i consider it a witless game to provide you with any definitions.

Setanta, therein lies the problem, you won't even provide the foundation or frame of reference on which you base your reasoning. Surely you would never claim that the perception of what is conservative or liberal remains static throughout history in every part of the world, or would you, and who is the ultimate judge of that? What body of thought or organization owns that definition?

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

The generalities have been agreed upon--for more than two centuries in the case of left versus right, and for almost two centuries in regard to the terms liberal and conservative.

Would you be so kind as to provide a link or a source for those generalities then, or repeat them here for all of us to know as you apparently do?

1 Reply

@okie,

okie, The principles remain the same, only the names change.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

As a side remark: I've wondered all the time the discussion is going on here, why okie never mentioned the 14 thesis of the German revolution, from 1 August 1929.

Oh, sure. Because Schicksalsgemeinschaft translates really well into English....

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@old europe,

old europe wrote:

Oh, sure. Because Schicksalsgemeinschaft translates really well into English....

Something with folks, I'm sure, and that's Socialist.

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@okie,

No, Okie, i've already told you, i'm not going to play your game of defining terms so that you can claim that "common sense" supports your thesis. I'm not obliged to educate those who remain wilfully ignorant, and i'm not obliged to play your silly game of definitions. You constantly speak about how left and right and liberal and conservative are defined now, today, in the United States. That entails two assumptions which are erroneous. The first is rather obvious, that you are the arbitrator of what Americans think about political ideologies, that you can speak for all Americans--but you are not, and you can't. The second is that it is plausible to judge other nations' histories out of the context of their cultures. Hitler and the NSDAP were right-wing, as it happens, by anyone's definition at any time, and not just Germany in the 1920s--but you want to claim that they are not right-wing by a contemporary American definition, and that's bullshit.

That's why i'm not going to play your dull-witted game of definitions, Okie. I don't intend to let you sucker me into a digression from the principle theme here. You have failed to prove that Hitler and the NSDAP were "leftist." You have failed to prove that all ruthless dictators are inevitably leftist. There is no obligation on me to play some silly word game to facilitate your attempt to prove by manipulating definitions what you can't prove with the evidence.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

No, Okie, i've already told you, i'm not going to play your game of defining terms so that you can claim that "common sense" supports your thesis.

So it is a "dull witted game" to try to understand what measuring stick that is being used to determine a judgement? With all due respect, Setanta, that seems silly.

Quote:

I'm not obliged to educate those who remain wilfully ignorant, and i'm not obliged to play your silly game of definitions.

I am not asking you to educate anyone, I am simply asking you to describe what political policies denote a left vs right policy, as you understand it, and why.

Quote:

You constantly speak about how left and right and liberal and conservative are defined now, today, in the United States. That entails two assumptions which are erroneous. The first is rather obvious, that you are the arbitrator of what Americans think about political ideologies, that you can speak for all Americans--but you are not, and you can't.

No, I only speak for myself, but I do think some of the differences should be generally agreed upon, they should not be worlds apart.

Quote:

The second is that it is plausible to judge other nations' histories out of the context of their cultures. Hitler and the NSDAP were right-wing, as it happens, by anyone's definition at any time, and not just Germany in the 1920s--but you want to claim that they are not right-wing by a contemporary American definition, and that's bullshit.

I don't know why not? If you cannot compare what was considered left vs right in Germany to what we understand about it now, then the terms have no application, no meaning to us at all. If colors were known by different names in Germany, lets say what we know as green today was known as blue in Germany a few decades ago, it would be highly confusing to call something green or blue, nobody could relate to it. Similarly, if the definition of left vs right was differnt in Germany than it is here now, then calling Hitler a right wing extremist has no practical meaning to us now, none. That is why I believe we should at least attempt to compare the policies of Germany to the policies of today in terms of what is considered left vs right, in order for us to relate to it and identify it in today's terms.

Quote:

That's why i'm not going to play your dull-witted game of definitions, Okie. I don't intend to let you sucker me into a digression from the principle theme here. You have failed to prove that Hitler and the NSDAP were "leftist." You have failed to prove that all ruthless dictators are inevitably leftist. There is no obligation on me to play some silly word game to facilitate your attempt to prove by manipulating definitions what you can't prove with the evidence.

Setanta, fine, if thats the way you feel about it, I am only here expressing an opinion, not to play games. I am not seeking to prove anything, I am only seeking to express an opinion, based upon political observations that I think are very valid and pertinent. You don't have to agree, but I would think you should at least have the courtesy to explain or provide the frame of reference or yardstick by which you are judging the left vs right. If you are in fact going to stick to what you think is the 1930's German context of left vs right and refuse to compare that to today, I think you could at least say that in plain terms, that would help. And then we could all acknowledge that the yardstick used in 1930's Germany is certainly different than contemporary America, I think? I would hope that you would not try to make the case that the are the same?

Actually, I think Jonah Goldberg's point was that Nazism was a form of "right wing socialism." So if all you had was a German context, that makes sense to me, perhaps it was right wing, but if everything was some degree of leftism, then a right wing form of leftism is still left wing, as we would judge it today. I don't know how many times I have pointed out the context I have used, but it has been many many times.

1 Reply

@okie,

One more attempt here. I would invite Setanta and Walter, or anyone else, to define the primary differences between left vs right, as you understand them now. We could define a list of areas, such as private property rights, taxes, health care, freedom of speech, freedom of worship, size of government, and so on. I think ican has summed it up pretty well by simply saying it is collectivism vs individualism, I believe that was pretty much what he said, and I think I agree that pretty much captures it. We can apply collectivism or individualism to areas such as private property, business, health care, education, speech, worship, etc.

You may call this a game that you don't wish to play, thats fine, then quit posting here then, because if you cannot agree to what measuring stick is being used, I don't see how we can ever agree on the attributes of what we are attempting to measure.

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It doesn't matter how many times you attempt to "point out a context," all you're doing is attempting to claim that left and right, liberal and conservative mean something different now then they did 80 years ago. I see no reason to accept such an assumption. Your remarks about "right-wing leftism" are a prime example of the extent to which you are willing to go to twist definitions to suit your thesis, and explain why i don't intend to play your defintions game. You refer to someone speaking of "right-wing socialism," and then immediately equate socialism with "leftism," and so come up with that gobbledygook about right-wing leftism.

It is certainly no fault of mine that you do not understand what the traditional definitions of liberal and conservative are, that you don't understand that liberal does not necessarily mean left, and in most of the world means centrist or even center right. It is certainly no fault of mine that you are unwilling to educate yourself, but would rather play a game with definitions. As i've already pointed out, there is already a consensus understanding of all of these terms, and i have no reason to assume that you are in any position to stipulate that they mean something different here and now than they did there and then.

I'm not going to play the game, Okie. You have claimed that Hitler and the NSDAP were "leftist." Not only have you failed to prove it, many people here have provided evidence to the contrary, and Walter has gone to the trouble of finding primary source documents and posting them here. I suspect that you continue to ignore that and trot out this "that was there and then, and this is here and now" drivel, and want to play the definition game, because otherwise, you know your thesis is shot to hell.

You haven't made your case, and many other members have shown that you are wrong. You are just unwilling to admit it.

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@okie,

okie wrote:

You may call this a game that you don't wish to play, thats fine, then quit posting here then.

Go f*ck yourself, clown. I'll post wherever the hell i like.

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