Skip to content

Well, yes?

Here’s a typical Dinesh D’Souza argument. In Death of a Nation – the far-right commentator, film-maker and recently pardoned ex-con’s fourth political documentary – he tries to make the case that Hitler was a lefty. That’s a tall order, and here’s the best D’Souza can muster: he says Adolf wasn’t a homophobe.

Dunno, I think the socialism part of Nazi might be a small clue.

A reading of Goetz Ali could be useful here.

33 thoughts on “Well, yes?”

  1. Hitler himself stating “I am a socialist” in multiple interviews is a bit of a giveaway too.

  2. Was Hitler socialist? Certainly, everyone at the time accepted that.
    He was other things as well- he was nationalist, modern socialists tend to be internationalist.
    He hated Jews even more than other socialists.
    Of course originally right wing meant supporting a hereditary absolute monarchy supported by the church. Everyone else was left wing.
    Somewhere in the 30s right wing became anything Stalin disliked, which didn’t include Hitler at the time of the Molotov/Ribbentrop pact, but did when Hitler invaded Russia.

  3. They starting labeling Dinesh D’Souza as far-right when he pointed out the Democrats were historically the party of segregation and the KKK. Also despite being an Indian immigrant he refused to join their plantation, hence pursuit by Obama DoJ for very minor campaign finance technicality.

  4. It’s a left wing con-trick.

    Hitler = bad.
    Therefore Hitler = right wing because right wing = bad.

    If you look at the state control exerted by Hitler, it’s a left-wing wet dream.

    The Right do NOT want a big State where government dictates everything. The Left do.

    In that context, Hitler’s policies fit very nicely with Corbyn’s. Including a bit of Jew bashing.

  5. Their reasoning goes like this: Hitler was an anti-communist, therefore he must have been right-wing.

    Mussolini started out as a marxist but, like Oswald Mosley, realised that they didn’t care about helping the working class, only about gaining power to advance their own interests.

    Friedrich von Hayek commented that he found it amusing at how interchangeable the membership of the Austrian communist and nazi parties was.

  6. “Far-Right” = anyone who won’t spew cultural Marxist evil.

    “Pardoned Ex-Con “(just like Jim Rockford eh?). So much for all their bullshit about rehabilitation and a “second chance”. Esp funny as he only became a “con” in the first place for a piece of minor wrong-doing for which leftists received a minor slap on the wrist for doing in far bigger-style. Trump rightly pardoned him in recognition of that fact.

    But once a con always a con says the Gladrag.

    Ljh–“They starting labeling Dinesh D’Souza as far-right when he pointed out the Democrats were historically the party of SLAVERY,segregation and the KKK. ”

    There–fixed that for you.

  7. If one were to use the terms Big State and Small State to define politics, Hitler, Stalin and the Labour party would all be in the same place.

    And the thing is while there is virtually no-one on the right who says there should be no government at all, there are plenty on the left who say the state should control everything.

  8. ‘If you look at the state control exerted by Hitler, it’s a left-wing wet dream.’

    Understand that the U.S. government today extends far more control over the people than Hitler and his Nazis did in Germany. There is government content in EVERYTHING bought and sold.

  9. Shit the only major policy difference between the National Socialist Workers Party and labour is the German nationalism.

  10. here’s the best D’Souza can muster: he says Adolf wasn’t a homophobe.

    If “homophobia” is considered “right-wing”, why were so many homosexuals arrested and imprisoned in the Soviet Union and other Communist countries?

    Not a lot of thinking goes on these days, does it? I don’t mean deep thinking, I mean any fucking thinking at all.

  11. Understand that the U.S. government today extends far more control over the people than Hitler and his Nazis did in Germany. There is government content in EVERYTHING bought and sold.

    I wonder if the Nazi Party was obsessed with how much sugar Germans ate and wanted to control the food supply to enforce it.

  12. Actually, the only real difference between leftish totalitarianism and rightish totalitarianism is that rightish totalitarians are more keen on conquering and enslaving foreign populations, whereas lefty totalitarians tend to be happiest conquering and enslaving their own populations.

    In any event, whenever you hear someone arguing about whether a certain totalitarian – or totalitarian movement – is right leaning or left leaning, you know you’re dealing with someone who is too stupid to understand what totalitarianism actually is.

  13. Understand that the U.S. government today extends far more control over the people than Hitler and his Nazis did in Germany. There is government content in EVERYTHING bought and sold.

    Gamecock –

    Somehow NiV appears to have highjacked your user name. You might want to check with Timmy on that.

  14. The Nazis were conspicuously more intelligent than other socialists in at least one regard. They realised that it was enough to control a company’s activities – there was no need to formally nationalise it.

  15. What are you denying? Government intrusion into American life and business is ubiquitous.

    The Federal Register has 170,000 pages. The Federal government has 615 alphabet agencies to tell you how to live. Nazi Germany never approached this level of intrusion.

  16. Gamecock –

    That level of stupid isn’t easily approachable.

    What I will say is that – in your ignorance – you’ve completely trivialized the crimes of Nazi Germany against their own citizens, including but not limited to Jews, Roma People, Catholics, the clergy, the Handicapped, Communists, Socialists and “Anti-Social Elements”.

    You need to shut up now… While you’re behind.

  17. “I think the socialism part of Nazi might be a small clue.”

    I think the democratic part of DPRK might be a clue in the opposite direction.

    The Nazis left the socialist part behind in the night of the long knives. Not that left and right is particularly meaningful when you’re talking about Hitler and Stalin, it’s definitely an authoritarian vs liberal axis.

  18. Checking Hitler’s manifesto

    We’ve got state-provided jobs for all, the elimination of unearned income (i.e. interest from capital shares and loans), profit and property confiscation, nationalisation, employee profit-sharing, welfare (pensions, state education, health for mothers and infants), prioritisation of small traders over large ones, and most of all, putting the common interest ahead of individual interests.

    From an economic point of view, there’s nothing in there about free trade, protection of business owners, deregulation, free competition, lowering taxes, shrinking government, shrinking welfare, or other typical right-wing economic interests. Reasons given for exclusion of foreigners seem more about protecting jobs for locals (a left wing interest) rather than protecting traditional national culture/traditions (the typical right-wing interest).

    What exactly do you consider to be “right wing” about a slogan like: “The common interest before self-interest”?

    I agree that the policies that earned them such universal repugnance were more about their authoritarianism than their socialism, but I don’t think that means they weren’t still socialists.

  19. I actually agree with NiV.

    Please send lawyers, guns and money.

    Better still make that just guns and money.

  20. The sine qua non of Socialism is common ownership of the means of production. Without that you really are not a Socialist.

    The Nazis did not support common ownership of the means of production. They were not Socialists.

    You could try arguing that they were some other type of Leftists, but it falls apart at that point.

    Leftists believe in redistributing income. I wasn’t aware Mussolini was for that.

    Leftists believe in the blank slate, with humans good till corrupted. Hitler believed, very firmly, that some people are sub-human from birth. Very firmly.

    Why did all the allegedly Socialists like the Nazis, Mussolini, Franco get on fine, yet were daggers drawn with their fellow Socialist pals in the USSR? Because they were diametrically opposites, perhaps?

    The idea that “Hitler was a Leftist” is a nice idea if you want to avoid having the most hated man in history on your side. But it’s up there with “real communism has never been tried” to people looking at it objectively.

    Stop it! It’s just silly.

  21. “The Nazis did not support common ownership of the means of production. They were not Socialists.”

    That’s true. They supported private property. But, they also had a large command economy. You could own a factory but the government would dictate a great deal about how you operated, what you made and so forth.

    In that regard, I don’t see them as being strictly speaking socialists, but there’s a great deal of overlap. They even privatised a few things.

    But fundamentally, there’s more in common than what separates them. They both come from a perspective that big government is good and everything that results from that. There’s a lot of stuff that’s similar – state trips to the arts, the state thinking it knows what things should be made (the Nazis let people own factories, but told them what to make), large public works programmes.

    The thing is, I really do believe that while not precisely socialists, most socialists wouldn’t have that much problem with Nazi policies. They’re far more friendly to socialists than free marketeers.

  22. Bloke in North Dorset

    Ecks,

    “Please send lawyers, guns and money.

    Better still make that just guns and money.”

    I thought the guns were for disposing of the lawyers (with the honourable exception of m’Lud)?

  23. “The sine qua non of Socialism is common ownership of the means of production. Without that you really are not a Socialist. ”

    Someone needs to read Von Mises. Then stop being silly.

  24. ‘What I will say is that – in your ignorance – you’ve completely trivialized the crimes of Nazi Germany against their own citizens’

    Dumbass. The point is the type of government. Nazi atrocities have double out nothing to do with it. You are blind to history. And the present.

  25. Chester Draws–So ZaNu are not socialist.? If you tried to take Grandpa Death’s bike on the grounds of common ownership he’d give it to you then?

    Musso collected no taxes ?

    Blank slate? Doesn’t square with the People’s Anti-semite’s lifetime of distaste for the Children of Abraham.

    Nazi’s don’t get on with commies? You are George Galloway and I claim my 5 rubles chum. Hitler and Uncle Joe were best buds until 1941 . And nor was it, as many leftist liars claim, just Joe playing for time. The big Georgian turd went out of his way to help the Little Corporal so he did. Including having the disgustingly large ( then as now) French communist party do their best to demoralise France and esp the French army during the Phony war period. Not that demoralising the French Army is that difficult a task.

    Study a bit of history Chester.

  26. “I think the socialism part of Nazi might be a small clue.”

    I think the democratic part of DPRK might be a clue in the opposite direction.

    It just shows that they’ve read their Goebbels as well as their Marx.

  27. Gamecock –

    Well, I gave you the chance to shut up. So now let’s look at what makes you such a cunt. Like I said, stupid of a magnitude you’ve shown is easily approachable, but I’ll do my best.

    Let’s start with this bit of stone cold insanity:

    Understand that the U.S. government today extends far more control over the people than Hitler and his Nazis did in Germany. There is government content in EVERYTHING bought and sold.

    Nazi Germany was a totalitarian dictatorship. The U.S. is a constitutional republic. For people with more than seven working brain cells, this would strongly suggest that the issue isn’t content, it’s consent.

    In both theory and practice, in a totalitarian dictatorship there is no democracy and there is no representation of anyone other than the dictator and the functionaries to whom the dictator has delegated authority/responsibility. In a constitutional republic all power comes from democratically elected representation.

    I know it’s a minor distinction, but it’s one worth noting.

    Anyway, then you hit us with this bit of drivel:

    What are you denying? Government intrusion into American life and business is ubiquitous.

    The Federal Register has 170,000 pages. The Federal government has 615 alphabet agencies to tell you how to live. Nazi Germany never approached this level of intrusion.

    To start with, this shows is that you don’t know anything about either U.S. law or the Federal Register.

    In the U.S. there are four sources of law: Constitutional, Statutory, Administrative and Case. Constitutional and statutory law are reported in both the U.S. Code and U.S. Statutes At Large. Administrative Law (agency regulations and executive orders) are reported in the Federal Register. Case law is reported in the Federal Supplement and Federal Reporter.

    So the first problem with your stupidity is that you’re ignoring 3 or the 4 sources of law in measuring “intrusion”. The second problem with your stupidity is that you clearly don’t understand the full function of the Federal Register.

    The Federal Register not only publishes new agency regulations, it publishes changes to existing regulations (modifications and terminations), as well as proposed regulations, public notices and agency announcements. The number of pages in the Federal Register might allow you to infer the level of bureaucratic/agency activity at any given time, but what it certainly doesn’t not do is allow you to come to a reasoned conclusion as to the impact of whatever regulatory additions and changes may have on the citizenry.

    As to the number of agencies in the U.S. federal government, it’s worth noting (again) that sheer numbers really don’t allow anyone to come to a reasoned conclusion about the level of “intrusion” (a term you don’t define). Just how much does the activities of NASA “intrude” on the average citizen? Somewhere between not much and not at all. What about the Bureau of Indian Affairs? Well, I’m a fat white guy in Ohio and the answer is “none”. For you to make your case, you need to name specific agencies and specific regulations. Anything else is blowing smoke.

    Beyond that, it’s worth noting that the U.S. population in 2017 exceeded 325 million, and the 50 U.S. states plus D.C. amounted to just under 3.8 million miles. In 1933 German had a population of 65 million (which rose to 79 million in 1939 due to the addition of Austria) and a size of just under 138 thousand square miles (and smaller than California). Although you don’t give us the number of Nazi agencies that existed (because you don’t know), I’d suggest that you could make a reasonable argument that 615 agencies isn’t an outlandish number given the size of the country, the size of it’s population and the desires of its citizenry as expressed by democratic elections of representatives how have made public their believes on a variety of public policy positions.

    What pisses me off most about how stupid you’ve been is that now that I’ve compared you to NiV, I’ve got to go back to that little prick and apologize for the injustice I’ve done to him.

  28. “I’d suggest that you could make a reasonable argument that 615 agencies isn’t an outlandish number given the size of the country, the size of it’s population and the desires of its citizenry as expressed by democratic elections of representatives how have made public their believes on a variety of public policy positions.”

    It should be 15. That it is 615 is self evident that the Federal government is absurdly big, doing things it has no business doing.

    Pick up anything in your house. It has government content in it. Read the labels. It has labels because of government.

    That you accept this government intrusion says that you accept fascist government.

  29. “What I will say is that – in your ignorance – you’ve completely trivialized the crimes of Nazi Germany against their own citizens, including but not limited to Jews, Roma People, Catholics, the clergy, the Handicapped, Communists, Socialists and “Anti-Social Elements”.”

    I looked at my copies of Inside the Third Reich, and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and they have been revised. The first page of each says the Nazis killed Jews. The remaining thousand pages are fvcking blank.

    There is vastly more to the Third Reich than, “They killed Jews.”

  30. The democratic republic that was the United States is gone.

    The Democrats do not accept the last election. Democracy exists only when the losing side of the election accepts the loss.

    Fascism: Strong, autocratic central control of a private economy.

    The Federal government has taken on vast powers not granted them by the Constitution. People, like DtP, accept this intrusion. Without restrictions on what the federal government can do, there is no republic.

    DtP seems okay with this, as long as they don’t kill anyone. David Koresh, Samuel Weaver and Vicki Weaver don’t count.

    Dinesh D’Souza himself was a victim of totalitarian government. His prosecution was a violation of his human rights. Which is fine, as long as they don’t commit atrocities.

    I consider banning 100W light bulbs an atrocity.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *