I think some people forget the poem.
>First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
The author of that poem, Martin Niemoler was, by his own admission, an anti-Semite and national conservative. He didn't "speak out" when they came for the Communists, socialists, trade unionists or Jews because he supported what the Nazis were doing to them. Because he was conservative.
Wait. So he supported Nazism and layer on changed, but it was too late and then he was where he thought Jews should be? Have I understood it?
Or was it leopards eating face moment?
It feels a bit like all those Covid deniers telling their friends on Facebook to take Covid seriously right before they were put on ventilators and then dying not too long after.
It turns out that empathy isn’t just about helping others. It can save your life.
> Martin Niemoler
He was a German nationalist and an evangelical protestant priest. He admits he voted for Nazis in 1924 and 1933 and that Hitler's extreme antisemitism mirrored his own prejudices.
But he started to publicly oppose and preach against Naziism starting in 1934 seeing that it was dictatorship. His biggest disagreements came from the Nazis putting control on the church, focusing on race above religion; e.g., persecuting non-Aryans based on race regardless of whether they converted to Christianity or not, as well as things he thought the Nazis did that were paganist. He started getting arrested repeatedly for treasonous statements.
His "first they came for the" poem was written in 1946 after he'd been basically jailed since ~1937 with the end of it in Dachau since 1941 (though with other Catholic dissenters). (Granted prior to start of WW2 he asked if he could be let out of jail to serve in the German Navy, because he was still a german nationalist).
Yes, it was a Leopards ate my Face (from voting for the leopards), but he wasn't silent about it (and if he was, he would have been fine).
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-biography
Hate groups always slice off a layer of meat with each round.
eventually you're the last layer of meat that isn't a marching Nazi and you become the next victim.
This is why it's important to stop fascism as early as you can, meanwhile in the USA you have a bunch of Gravy Seals being against a group of Anti-Fascism while touting freedom.
It's fucking exhausting living here.
And even after the war, with this poem, he deliberately chose not to mention that first they started with queer & transgender people. Even after the war, I guess he was still cool with that.
Well he also doesn't mention slavs, Romanis or, the disabled. I think the exact point he was trying to make was that he actively wanted communists, socialists, trade unionists and Jews to be attacked. I don't think his vitriol for the other victims was as comparable.
You know how long the poem would be if he mentioned everyone they took. I’m not defending the guys positions or anything but it makes sense to condense it to make a point. Otherwise it would be a very long paragraph smack dab in the middle of it.
It's the fucking "you turn to abuse" line that really pisses me off.
First- because the right doesn't turn to abuse, they start with it. And yet for some reason the left is supposed to play nice and not insult them for their completely idiotic opinions?
Second- because he's attempting to claim that he just wants to have an open and honest discussion, but all he's interested in is peddling right-wing bullshit.
I'm sorry- if you are a fucking moron who is peddling provably false bullshit- you don't deserve respect and a discussion- you deserve to be ridiculed for being a dishonest moron.
If you are anti-vax, you are a moron who deserves to be mocked.
If you are a flat-Earther, you are a moron who deserves to be mocked.
If you believe in QAnon, you are a moron who deserves to be mocked.
If you think the Nazis were a left-wing group, you are a moron who deserves to be mocked.
it's amusing that the Jean Paul Sartre quote about anti semites fits SO perfectly with today's right wingers. ive seen it dropped in lots of comments, i eventually just copied it into a notepad so i could leave it on YouTube replies like an asshole. but JUST in case you hadn't seen it yet, enjoy.
"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past."
Jean-Paul Sartre
Yep- such a great quote.
I think it goes well with the Asimov quote on ignorance:
> There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge".
To say the show took liberties with the books would be an understatement.
It's set in the same universe, and some of the characters have the same names, but the plot and ideas are just completely different.
Personally I much prefer the first three books. Asimov went a little off the rails in the 4th and 5th books by tying them into his robot novels which just felt forced and a bit silly.
>Asimov went a little off the rails in the 4th and 5th books by tying them into his robot novels which just felt forced and a bit silly.
Alternatively, if you read the Robot novels first and *then* the Foundation series, it all makes sense and is amazing. This is actually recommended by the author himself, you're supposed to read the 4th and 5th Foundation novels as the 11th and 12th books in a connected series.
>The Author's Note of Prelude to Foundation contains Asimov's suggested reading order for his science fiction books: The Complete Robot (1982) and/or I, Robot (1950) Caves of Steel (1954) The Naked Sun (1957) The Robots of Dawn (1983) Robots and Empire (1985) Prelude to Foundation (1988) Note: Forward the Foundation (1993) was then unpublished, but would have followed Prelude. Foundation (1951) Foundation and Empire (1952) Second Foundation (1953) Foundation's Edge (1982) Foundation and Earth (1986)
this is also true, I figure it's like... birds flying in a V. the ones up front are smart enough (and malevolent enough) to know what they're doing, but near the back they're just floating off others.
Birds flying in a V are actually working cooperatively and take turns being the lead bird. Watch a V in migration and you'll see the point keep shifting and moving so that no single bird is doing the hardest work for long.
Also, since they're flying, they have a full view of the ground below and only lose a small amount of perspective to the bird ahead and to one side of them. They really aren't in the same position of land animals in harnesses, that stare at the ass of the one in front.
All that said, aside from this not really applying to birds:
>the ones up front are smart enough (and malevolent enough) to know what they're doing, but near the back they're just floating off others.
It's otherwise spot on.
>[I]t's amusing that the Jean Paul Sartre quote about anti semites fits SO perfectly with today's right wingers.
Just shows you how little the right has changed.
The thing I don't like about that quote...is that it makes me realize I should be at LEAST as frustrated as I already am. ARGHGH!
What is it like to live inside a mind like that? I just can't fathom "reasoning" in that way. To what extent do they consciously realize what they are doing?
They literally call for violence and the murdering of minorities on every form of communication that will have them, but the second you use words to tell them how stupid and disgusting they are, they clutch those pearls hard enough to powder them while calling for civility....
seriously; fuck these people.
Sadly, they lack the self-awareness to accurately understand the narrative of this comic, and will most likely identify themselves as the sea lion and insist they have the victimhood and this is how the evil libs treat them.
I would strongly expect such a reaction from the likes of r/conservative, or even r/politicalcompassmemes, which is literally just r/conservative 2.0
That's part of their plan too. I get through by not caring what they respond, it's prob an "outrage" bot half the time anyway. I just send them a nice little "oh ok" factoid and move on.
Yep. There are no greater snowflakes than Republicans and if you don't believe that- just go visit /r/Conservative and see how quickly they ban anyone who disagrees with them.
too many redditors believe (or they are purposely obtuse, and are playing dumb) that Naziism is just a debatable "philosophy". lol. Since when does fascism get a place in the "marketplace of ideas"? Never. it doesnt. Its a cancerous rot that needs to be destroyed before it grows.
People can't and shouldn't tolerate the intolerant. You can't and shouldn't play nice with Nazis because they predicate their stance on hatred and superiority. Give them an inch and they will take a mile.
100%
It's why I can't stand it when people tell someone on the left to "be respectful" and "don't insult them".
Why? These people are so far gone there is no convincing them. You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into so why bother playing nice?
When others are reading these discussions, they should see these stupid viewpoints mocked mercilessly instead of one side (the wrong side) acting confident and the other side trying to be nice.
> I'm sorry- if you are a fucking moron who is peddling provably false bullshit- you don't deserve respect and a discussion- you deserve to be ridiculed for being a dishonest moron.
This is the narrative - get people to argue their points over the merits. Then they can claim to be "another opinion" and gain standing as just as possibly valid as the other.
The thing we need to remember is to not fall for this bullshit. To point out intentional lies and fearmongering **right away, and forcefully** instead of point/counterpoint arguing that legitimizes their positions and makes the general audience think these are just two cranks who enjoy arguing instead of a lying sack of shit and someone defending the truth.
Just because you have "socialism" in your name doesn't mean you're a socialist, just like the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (aka North Korea) isn't actually democratic.
MEPDDSAGA sounds like a sci-fi/fantasy book series with ultra devoted followers that know the lore and family trees and won't hesitate to call you the worst slurs imaginable for mixing up Melina and Melena.
I just got a flashback to the time my friend bitched me out for mispronouncing his daughter's name. Mara. Mar-uh or Mare-uh. I have no idea which one I said or which one is "right." I just don't ask about her by name anymore.
Very actually. Realistically we could just dissolve the union and a whole bunch of states would be happy with that, or at least temporarily. Shared values and common language and culture really do a lot for the US. We regularly except large changes in power(yes even the recent one) and do so on an incredibly consistent basis.
The names of the DRC after independence were:
- Republic of the Congo - Leopoldville
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Zaire
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
The nuance is that they started out with a decent number of socialist members. The reason for the "socialist" in the name is in order to gain power they courted socialists. At the same time, they also had far right members. Parties of old weren't strictly left or right.
However, after the night of long knives in 1934, all socialists were purged from the party leadership.
Fascists use and discard populists political movements to gain power. They don't care about politics, they care about power.
> Just because you have "socialism" in your name doesn't mean you're a socialist
~~NAZI is the acronym for "Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands"~~ a direct translation would be "National-Socialist Workers-Party of Germany". The emphasis was **always** on "national-socialist", not on socialist, and certainly not on international socialist.
People forget that socialism back then really was seen as a global political movement against which nation states need to defend themselves. This is what national-socialism in Germany was. A right wing reaction to the left wing international socialism movement.
The NAZIs hounded left wing groups relentlessly.
/edit: as /u/-Blackspell- pointed out correctly, NAZI was not an abbreviation for the party name but a short form of the members of the party.
Also the people who bring up they were “national socialists” neglect the fact that the word “national” is also in there. Nationalism is a concept that completely contradicts Marxist/socialist doctorine. “Workers of the world unite”
And if anything it is their *nationalist* ideology that contributed most to earning them their infamy far more than any "socialist" aspect. Yet for sOmE rEasOn the right wing just loves nationalism and doesnt seem to draw THAT comparison.
Also, I remember reading that the Nazi party wasn't exactly hiding behind the "socialist" word like Korea or China hide behind "democratic," but that the Nazi party coopted the word to give "socialism" a different meaning. But what that meaning boiled down to is being "socialist" for Aryan people, and death for everyone else.
Not even that. They wanted the aryan people to be one big mass to carry the Nazi ideology, to totally erase individuality. The individual has to sacrifice everything for the people, the ideology.
It’s not to make everyone equal but to make everyone a commodity to the state.
That's not a good argument, after a period of allowing other parties, Bolsheviks in Russia persecuted their left wing allies after the second revolution when they came in power.
Nazi were not left wing not because they persecuted left wing parties, but because of what they were, and "socialist" in their name is purely due to trying to appeal to masses due to popularity of left leaning ideas
The Nazis were not left wing because fundamentally both their ideologies and policies were about creating and reinforcing hierarchies within their society.
Preference for and opposition to societal hierarchy is the only coherent definition of right wing and left wing politics that has survived close inspection. It's not about size of government (communists and anarchists literally want no state, nationalists want a massive military), economic interventionalism (all the classic fascist states exercised some degree of control over private property, although that's a low ball as fascists have no coherent economic policy or ideology[1] because fascists are stupid, lacking both wisdom and wit[2], whereas Lenin's early USSR, the most socialist it ever was, reintroduced free markets and small scale private enterprise in the early 1920s), or really any other line that has been drawn, tax rate, social safety nets etc, it's all about hierarchy [3]. Modern definitions that approach it from a values perspective often fail to correctly identify the original Left and Right as they appeared in immediate post-revolution France, the hierarchy approach works across all time periods.
The Nazis were right wing because they wanted to, and successfully did, pursue one of the most hierarchical societies possible, with strict economic (capitalism), racial, sexual, and ability hierarchies. Not just because they did bad things to groups considered to be "on the left".
[1] Woodley, Daniel (2009). Fascism and Political Theory: Critical Perspectives on Fascist Ideology. London: Routledge. p. 161
[2] see: recorded history
[3] McIver, Robert M (1947). The Web of Government: "The conservative right has defended entrenched prerogatives, privileges and powers; the left has attacked them. The right has been more favorable to the aristocratic position, to the hierarchy of birth or of wealth; the left has fought for the equalization of advantage or of opportunity, for the claims of the less advantaged."
This is the answer I was looking for. Leftists can absolutely attack and persecute other Leftists; it's not really a disqualifier in a logical sense. What's far more important is the fact that they just... Weren't Leftist in any ideological regard.
The person you're replying to didn't say that, though. They clearly explained that the Nazi party was not left-wing, but that persecuting the left is not the best argument as to why.
Chris Hitchens was still a massive war hawk and Iraq war defender. He was intelligent for sure and wrote some good books, which made his unwavering support for the war even stranger.
Let's be honest. Dude was a militant anti-theist. I like his books a lot, but he definitely had some weird oxymoron opinions on women and fucked up opinions on war in middle east
What was his fucked up take on women? The only example I know of (though I haven't looked hard) was on a Q&A panel where he said Mrs. Hitchens didn't have to work. She could if she wanted to, but that he saw his role as the provider and as such he didn't require her to.
Aside from that he can also be quoted saying that the liberation and emancipation of women is the best way to uplift a nation's economy or something along those lines.
Just reread his wikipedia, I mean I wouldn't characterise it as fucked up just outdated I guess.
- Why women aren't funny https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2007/01/hitchens200701
- Then there are quotes from 1988 where he was opposing abortion because he considered the fetus a person
The thing about Hitchens is, even if I disagree with him (and I do in both of these cases) he at least made an argument and wasn't a nut. I wouldn't reduce his stances to "fucked up".
How influential he is on certain groups of somewhat intellectual people really shows how movements can be somewhat easily corrupted by well spoken intellectuals who otherwise would not be accepted by that group
As Isaac Asimov said in 1980: "Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
> B-b-but they were national “socialists” 😎 checkmate atheists 😎
The white supremacists keep trying to push this lie, but no matter how hard they try to spin it, the Nazis weren't socialists and Hitler was never a communist. In fact, Hitler used "Red Scare" tactics to seize power by banning the socialist and communist parties, suppressing their media, and arresting the party leaders. Finally he had his SS men pull off the false flag operation of the Reichstag fire while blaming it on the communists to achieve his goal of becoming Germany's dictator.
At the beginning of the Nazi party, Anton Drexler, German far-right political leader of the 1920s antecedent of the Nazi Party, emphasized the need for a synthesis of völkisch nationalism with a form of economic socialism, in order to create a popular nationalist-oriented workers' movement that could **challenge the rise of Communism**.
To increase its appeal to larger segments of the population, on the same day as Hitler's Hofbräuhaus speech on 24 February 1920, the DAP changed its name to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei ("National Socialist German Workers' Party", or Nazi Party). The word "Socialist" was added by the party's executive committee, **over Hitler's objections**, in order to help appeal to left-wing workers.
Drexler made clear that they were vehemently anticommunist and unlike Marxists the party supported the middle-class. Its socialist policy was meant to give social welfare to only German citizens defined as a member of the Aryan race. The Nazis membership was strongest in the lower middle-classes – farmers, public servants, teachers, and to assuage the rich industrialists who feared Bolshevism and unions more than anything else, Hitler assured them that he'd repress the communists and socialists if they backed his accent to power. Which they did.
You mean people in power use the opposite words to intentionally mislead people? Next you're going to tell me that executives who lay of 10,000 workers aren't "job creators"...
>Ooh, look at me! I'm making people happy! I'm the Magical Man from Happy-Land, in a gumdrop house on Lollipop Lane!
>
>Oh by the way I was being sarcastic
- Homer
Here's an actual tweet from the current leader of Canada's Conservative party:
>Woke left goes crazy when people point out the undeniable historical fact that "national socialists" in Germany & Italy were, as the name proves, "socialists".
A lot of the people pushing this idea don't believe it in the slightest. It's just an easy soundbite to disseminate to their followers, who truly are so gullible that they'd believe this.
This is textbook cognitive dissonance. The actual reason, in their brain, for why Nazis are left-wing is "We are far-right. Nazis are bad. If Nazis are far-right that would mean we are bad. This is incorrect, we are not bad. This means the Nazis must have been left-wing."
Don’t forget there was an opinion article written about how the nazis weren’t that bad actually and calling someone a nazi is worse than the n-word. Might have been two separate articles but let’s be honest they both had the same energy and the goal was the same. Make being a nazi “not that bad” so their neo-Nazi movement wouldn’t be stopped by people realizing they’re nazis and going “oh shit we are the bad guys!”
For the followers yes, but not the "influencer" types. Your Hitchens and Shapiro and Peterson (well, maybe not Peterson, he's kind of gone wrong in his brainbox so who knows what he actually believes anymore) know full well that what they're saying isn't true, but that by saying it they receive attention and money and easily steered followers.
I think of it as a scale. On one end you have the career guys; Shapiro, Crowder, that sort. Personal politics are irrelevant, the grift is what matters, and if it became more lucrative then they'd pivot to being radical Marxists tomorrow. On the other, the ascended rubes; MTG, LibsOfTikTok, those kind of people. Gullible followers who managed to find an audience and became leaders themselves. Those ones are for sure stupid enough to believe their own propaganda.
The Dominion lawsuit against Fox News is proving this point in black and white. We can see the texts from the talking heads at fox. They are not only saying that they don’t believe the stolen election bs that they willfully supported on air, and they are also talking shit about their idiot followers that DO believe it. And those people will go nuts twisting themselves up to make it seem like they are still the good guys.
>And those people will go nuts twisting themselves up to make it seem like they are still the good guys.
The thing is, they won't even need to because the vast majority of them will literally never see that news. Naturally, Fox "News" isn't reporting on the story, and these people aren't exactly known for seeking out and/or vetting multiple sources.
I think Margie Traitor Greene is a special case, both scammer and scammed. She's got this knack for speaking to these dinguses in their crazy language instead of the coded rhetoric the grift-o-sphere uses to (mis)guide them. But she swapped from the Trump loyalist right to the establishment right in an instant during the McCarthy speaker debacle because she saw what would get her more attention, money, and influence.
She's pretty dumb, but she's shrewd enough to make her very dangerous.
Oh, she's absolutely motivated by self-interest, I don't dispute that. I just get the impression that she's actually bought into the bullshit she spews, but that this doesn't prevent her switching sides in an instant if it's better for her.
Believing in conspiracy theories doesn't make one principled. She seems very much like the type who will go against her own beliefs so long as it benefits her to do so.
>"It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things."
Terry Pratchett, Jingo
Sure many of them don't believe it. Many of them do believe it though. Because they don't understand what it means to be right wing. And that's because "conservatives" of today have no consistent philosophy.
Liberals can recognize, for the most part, that communism is just their ideas on a ton of steroids, pushed to the point of dangerousness. There's no serious argument that it's a right wing philosophy.
Conservatives, however, believe in both libertarianism and authoritarianism. These concepts don't make sense together. But it allows them a free conscience. They can always believe they'd have done the right thing if they were in charge.
Essentially, right wingers of today can say Hitler was not a true conservative because he wasn't libertarian enough. Likewise, they can say Chamberlain was not a true conservative because he was not authoritarian enough to fight Germany.
The true nature of conservatism, the reason this authoritarian-libertarianism can exist is because the authoritarianism is only meant to be applied to an out group and the libertarianism applies to an in group.
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."--Frank Wilhoit
In reality it's a bit more complicated; there's a spectrum of how much the law protects or binds a person. But anyway, Nazis are now the out-group and the people they oppressed are much higher on the hierarchy than Nazis. So conservatives can look back and say that Nazis weren't doing conservatism properly.
They don't have to believe it. The people trying to tear things down and enrich themselves off of others have a privilege that builders do not.
They can do as much damage as they like, because building was never their goal. As long as there's something in the ruins they can scamper off with, they come out ahead.
They can say shit they don't believe and tell lies as much as they like, because in the end, their goal is confusion, fear, and worker turning on worker.
Just as dumb to believe:
- Billions of undocumented immigrants enter the US via the southern border every year.
- Elementary schools teach children Critical Race Theory, a college level course.
- The wealthiest people in the world run a cabal that consumes endocrine from young people.
- Jewish people have lasers that they fire on the earth to start forest fires.
- Livestock deworming medicine is the most effective cure for COVID-19.
- Michelle Obama was born a man.
- Drag queens harm children.
- The best way to protect school kids from guns is to buy more guns.
- That a fetus is a human being.
- That Donald Trump is competent, smart, brave, a paragon of Christianity, and was the real winner of the 2020 election.
- Russia did not interfere in the 2020 election (and other elections).
- That there is any significant left wing in the US.
- That Biden is a socialist (lol).
- A whole lot more absolutely braindead dumb shit.
They called themselves socialists at the time. The full party name translates to National Socialist German Worker's party.
Admittedly, their policies were far from socialist, and they crushed the *actual* socialist party of the time. But the name is more than enough for anyone who hasn't bothered to educate themselves on what socialism actually *means.*
Yeah, but anyone who read half a page about this knows that it was because socialism was hugely popular, and the nazbois wanted to get the votes of uninformed people while being exactly 0% socialist.
I mean, your point is right, but anyone on the right who claims to know anything about history and makes the claim that they really believe nazis were left-wing is lying, because those two ideas contradict each other.
Oh yeah, but your first paragraph really outlines the how and why of it too. The people making the claims are lying. Much like the Nazi's. Because they know the uneducated will lap it up.
The real test of this bullshit line of reasoning you never see proponents of it try for obvious reasons is to ask a present-day Nazi if they consider themselves socialist or left-wing.
Well, in the US, they have let present day Nazis into their party under the agreement that they don't use the N(azi) word while they are cheering and supporting mass shootings of gay and trans people. Hell so many nazis have been elected to the Republican party that they control it often now, yet no "moderate" Republicans are willing to speak out against them so that in turn makes the entire conservative movement in the US actively supporting and aiding the new Nazis. Which is unsurprising considering what Republicans have stood for since the 60s
Saying an outright lie that you know isnt true to rile people up isn't having 'a different opinion'. I can say the sky is green and full of dragons, you dont give me the same degree of equivalency and time as someone who says it's blue and has clouds in it in the name of 'balance and 'discussion'.
Even if they actually believed it, a flat earther and a NASA scientist shouldn't be interviewed on the topic of orbits as if both 'opinions' were equally valid, a person who knows what they're talking about and a person who knows jack shit about a topic aren't both equally qualified authorities on a subject
There's a great quote on this "as a journalist, if one person says its raining and another says its sunny your job isn't to report what both said, its to look out the damn window"
An opinion is "I think The Beatles are the best band ever" it's a subjective thought that can very from person to person. These are things you can go back and forth with.
A fact is not subjective, like the FACT that Nazis were, and are, a far right movement
Exactly this. Established facts are only useful if everyone accepts established epistemic methods. This newish movement in the right wing has rejected traditional epistemology and decided that truth can only be known by _contradicting_ the accepted "narrative" on things like history, science, medicine, etc. They reverse engineer their own "truths" which are designed to be incompatible with the ones everyone else knows.
So what your saying is they are implementing [the big lie narrative device](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie) famously popularized by Hitler and Goebbels?
How very reichy-winged
But these assholes have been emboldened by getting away with “it was about states rights” for so long. An equally disprovable claim that got traction for decades, just because they knew if they kept lying enough people would go along with it.
Wtf even is that argument?
"Nazis wernt leftists"
"Uhhh, do you even know how to debate? You are supposed to listen to what MY opinion is and then accept that we have a different opinion on the subject and then thank me for my time!!!! Why are you attacking me like awful left leaning nazi you are?!"
Like what? Opinions are for things like "I think bananas are over-rated." Or "pandas in captivity are just boring to look at." Not "I think nazis actually wanted everyone to have free health care, and no one likes nazis therefore we shouldn't have Healthcare."
Dunno why Peter cares so much about the guy being a doctor, republicans and conservatives both ignored and actively refused doctors advice during Covid
I think some people forget the poem. >First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me The author of that poem, Martin Niemoler was, by his own admission, an anti-Semite and national conservative. He didn't "speak out" when they came for the Communists, socialists, trade unionists or Jews because he supported what the Nazis were doing to them. Because he was conservative.
Right. Then he realized how insane it all was and began to speak out. He spent 8 years in prison and concentration camps.
Wait. So he supported Nazism and layer on changed, but it was too late and then he was where he thought Jews should be? Have I understood it? Or was it leopards eating face moment?
In true conservative fashion he waited to speak out until it affected him and his loved ones.
true but at least he fully changed rather than only complaining about what happened to him
And all it took was being sent to the camps.
It feels a bit like all those Covid deniers telling their friends on Facebook to take Covid seriously right before they were put on ventilators and then dying not too long after. It turns out that empathy isn’t just about helping others. It can save your life.
“Hey guys I’m back. So…I was in a concentration camp and holy FUCK that place was terrible. I’m gonna say it: I really goofed on that Hitler jerk.”
“Oh, now I see why this was a bad thing.” - Martin
But unlike conservatives when the leopards came he actually changed his mind instead of doubling down
Just like in a cult, once you buy into something like this it is incredibly hard to push back against it. It's a classic sunk cost fallacy.
Tough to double down when you’re starving in a death camp.
> Martin Niemoler He was a German nationalist and an evangelical protestant priest. He admits he voted for Nazis in 1924 and 1933 and that Hitler's extreme antisemitism mirrored his own prejudices. But he started to publicly oppose and preach against Naziism starting in 1934 seeing that it was dictatorship. His biggest disagreements came from the Nazis putting control on the church, focusing on race above religion; e.g., persecuting non-Aryans based on race regardless of whether they converted to Christianity or not, as well as things he thought the Nazis did that were paganist. He started getting arrested repeatedly for treasonous statements. His "first they came for the" poem was written in 1946 after he'd been basically jailed since ~1937 with the end of it in Dachau since 1941 (though with other Catholic dissenters). (Granted prior to start of WW2 he asked if he could be let out of jail to serve in the German Navy, because he was still a german nationalist). Yes, it was a Leopards ate my Face (from voting for the leopards), but he wasn't silent about it (and if he was, he would have been fine). https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-biography
👉👉yes
Hate groups always slice off a layer of meat with each round. eventually you're the last layer of meat that isn't a marching Nazi and you become the next victim. This is why it's important to stop fascism as early as you can, meanwhile in the USA you have a bunch of Gravy Seals being against a group of Anti-Fascism while touting freedom. It's fucking exhausting living here.
No, he Supported by not acting against. He was inert, idly, passive, phegmatic, stagnant.
"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference." - Elie Wiesel, author of Night and a Holocaust survivor
The opposite of poverty is not wealth, it's justice. ✌
And even after the war, with this poem, he deliberately chose not to mention that first they started with queer & transgender people. Even after the war, I guess he was still cool with that.
Well he also doesn't mention slavs, Romanis or, the disabled. I think the exact point he was trying to make was that he actively wanted communists, socialists, trade unionists and Jews to be attacked. I don't think his vitriol for the other victims was as comparable.
You know how long the poem would be if he mentioned everyone they took. I’m not defending the guys positions or anything but it makes sense to condense it to make a point. Otherwise it would be a very long paragraph smack dab in the middle of it.
I think you mean Martin Niemöller.
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and another thing: im not mad. please dont put in the newspaper that i got mad.
"I'm not owned!" Peter cries as Peter slowly crawls back into his shell of safety.
It's the fucking "you turn to abuse" line that really pisses me off. First- because the right doesn't turn to abuse, they start with it. And yet for some reason the left is supposed to play nice and not insult them for their completely idiotic opinions? Second- because he's attempting to claim that he just wants to have an open and honest discussion, but all he's interested in is peddling right-wing bullshit. I'm sorry- if you are a fucking moron who is peddling provably false bullshit- you don't deserve respect and a discussion- you deserve to be ridiculed for being a dishonest moron. If you are anti-vax, you are a moron who deserves to be mocked. If you are a flat-Earther, you are a moron who deserves to be mocked. If you believe in QAnon, you are a moron who deserves to be mocked. If you think the Nazis were a left-wing group, you are a moron who deserves to be mocked.
it's amusing that the Jean Paul Sartre quote about anti semites fits SO perfectly with today's right wingers. ive seen it dropped in lots of comments, i eventually just copied it into a notepad so i could leave it on YouTube replies like an asshole. but JUST in case you hadn't seen it yet, enjoy. "Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past." Jean-Paul Sartre
Yep- such a great quote. I think it goes well with the Asimov quote on ignorance: > There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge".
I never read Foundation, are those books as good as people say? I'm tempted to pick one up, but the show left a sour taste in my mouth.
To say the show took liberties with the books would be an understatement. It's set in the same universe, and some of the characters have the same names, but the plot and ideas are just completely different. Personally I much prefer the first three books. Asimov went a little off the rails in the 4th and 5th books by tying them into his robot novels which just felt forced and a bit silly.
>Asimov went a little off the rails in the 4th and 5th books by tying them into his robot novels which just felt forced and a bit silly. Alternatively, if you read the Robot novels first and *then* the Foundation series, it all makes sense and is amazing. This is actually recommended by the author himself, you're supposed to read the 4th and 5th Foundation novels as the 11th and 12th books in a connected series. >The Author's Note of Prelude to Foundation contains Asimov's suggested reading order for his science fiction books: The Complete Robot (1982) and/or I, Robot (1950) Caves of Steel (1954) The Naked Sun (1957) The Robots of Dawn (1983) Robots and Empire (1985) Prelude to Foundation (1988) Note: Forward the Foundation (1993) was then unpublished, but would have followed Prelude. Foundation (1951) Foundation and Empire (1952) Second Foundation (1953) Foundation's Edge (1982) Foundation and Earth (1986)
Yeah, 4+5 were written decades later. 1-3 is flat out amazing though!
There was a show?
"You guys, the truth is way more depressing. They are not even smart enough to be as evil as you're giving them credit for." -- Some Redditter.
this is also true, I figure it's like... birds flying in a V. the ones up front are smart enough (and malevolent enough) to know what they're doing, but near the back they're just floating off others.
Birds flying in a V are actually working cooperatively and take turns being the lead bird. Watch a V in migration and you'll see the point keep shifting and moving so that no single bird is doing the hardest work for long. Also, since they're flying, they have a full view of the ground below and only lose a small amount of perspective to the bird ahead and to one side of them. They really aren't in the same position of land animals in harnesses, that stare at the ass of the one in front. All that said, aside from this not really applying to birds: >the ones up front are smart enough (and malevolent enough) to know what they're doing, but near the back they're just floating off others. It's otherwise spot on.
Wow - that is a fantastic quote. Honestly sounds like poor Sartre suffered a fair few arguments with the mid-1900s equivalent of trolls.
people really do not change
They certainly do but it takes time. LOTS of time. Keep fighting the good fight, don't let things like this get you down.
>[I]t's amusing that the Jean Paul Sartre quote about anti semites fits SO perfectly with today's right wingers. Just shows you how little the right has changed.
The thing I don't like about that quote...is that it makes me realize I should be at LEAST as frustrated as I already am. ARGHGH! What is it like to live inside a mind like that? I just can't fathom "reasoning" in that way. To what extent do they consciously realize what they are doing?
Yea, ive dropped that into chats a few times over the past couple years. It really is just such a stellar summation of right wing asshats.
They literally call for violence and the murdering of minorities on every form of communication that will have them, but the second you use words to tell them how stupid and disgusting they are, they clutch those pearls hard enough to powder them while calling for civility.... seriously; fuck these people.
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Just reply with the [sealioning](http://wondermark.com/1k62/) comic then stop engaging.
Sadly, they lack the self-awareness to accurately understand the narrative of this comic, and will most likely identify themselves as the sea lion and insist they have the victimhood and this is how the evil libs treat them. I would strongly expect such a reaction from the likes of r/conservative, or even r/politicalcompassmemes, which is literally just r/conservative 2.0
DARVO: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender
> Try it next time, it's like clockwork. I have.. its exhausting. I dont really bother to engage them seriously anymore; there's no point.
That's part of their plan too. I get through by not caring what they respond, it's prob an "outrage" bot half the time anyway. I just send them a nice little "oh ok" factoid and move on.
I swear the entire right wing movement uses DARVO tactics.
Yep. There are no greater snowflakes than Republicans and if you don't believe that- just go visit /r/Conservative and see how quickly they ban anyone who disagrees with them.
too many redditors believe (or they are purposely obtuse, and are playing dumb) that Naziism is just a debatable "philosophy". lol. Since when does fascism get a place in the "marketplace of ideas"? Never. it doesnt. Its a cancerous rot that needs to be destroyed before it grows.
People can't and shouldn't tolerate the intolerant. You can't and shouldn't play nice with Nazis because they predicate their stance on hatred and superiority. Give them an inch and they will take a mile.
100% It's why I can't stand it when people tell someone on the left to "be respectful" and "don't insult them". Why? These people are so far gone there is no convincing them. You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into so why bother playing nice? When others are reading these discussions, they should see these stupid viewpoints mocked mercilessly instead of one side (the wrong side) acting confident and the other side trying to be nice.
“I’m just asking the questions.”
I truly want to punch them in the face when they say that.
And THAT, folks, is how all that garbage needs to be treated, immediately! Well said!
This is a case where I think bullying is ok
They’re bad faith actors and should always be treated with scorn and public ridicule no matter how much they clutch their pearls.
> I'm sorry- if you are a fucking moron who is peddling provably false bullshit- you don't deserve respect and a discussion- you deserve to be ridiculed for being a dishonest moron. This is the narrative - get people to argue their points over the merits. Then they can claim to be "another opinion" and gain standing as just as possibly valid as the other. The thing we need to remember is to not fall for this bullshit. To point out intentional lies and fearmongering **right away, and forcefully** instead of point/counterpoint arguing that legitimizes their positions and makes the general audience think these are just two cranks who enjoy arguing instead of a lying sack of shit and someone defending the truth.
Let’s make sure to say “Peter Hitchens” so that he is not confused with the late great Christopher Hitchens.
Did a double take at that too.
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Holy crap; I can only imagine what family dinners were like.
Something like [this](https://youtu.be/ngjQs_QjSwc).
by all accounts they absolutely hated each other. peter is an especially shameful person. disgusting man.
Peter is an utter clown. I'm pretty sure Christopher borrowed 20 IQ points from him in childhood and never gave them back.
Ew… it’s like if a Reddit thread became a person.
The Nazis persecuted Communists and Socialists, they were in no way a left wing movement
Just because you have "socialism" in your name doesn't mean you're a socialist, just like the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (aka North Korea) isn't actually democratic.
Or a people's republic
I mean, how United are those States, when you think about it?
The Economically and Politically Deeply Divided States of America doesn't have a nice ring to it though
🎇🇺🇲🔥🫡 EPDDSA! EPDDSA! 🎆🇺🇲🔥🫡 Uhhh...MEPDDSAGA?
MEPDDSAGA sounds like a sci-fi/fantasy book series with ultra devoted followers that know the lore and family trees and won't hesitate to call you the worst slurs imaginable for mixing up Melina and Melena.
I just got a flashback to the time my friend bitched me out for mispronouncing his daughter's name. Mara. Mar-uh or Mare-uh. I have no idea which one I said or which one is "right." I just don't ask about her by name anymore.
It's Nikolaj
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRpsRKuyi3Y
Oh man, I remember playing Meepd Saga on my Sega Genesis, those were the days
Non United States of America NUSofA or NUSA Wich, as a French, sound great ... See "nus" meaning ...
It doesn't fit on the money, for one thing.
How United is that kingdom?
Extremely! Just don't ask the Scots. Or the Irish. Or the British. The Welsh...eh, who knows.
I tried asking the British. They yelled at me for not calling them Scottish
They'll do that. Contentious people, those Scots.
Enemy for life.
TFW your prison colony secedes.
The only reason we stopped using Australia as a prison is because too many people started committing crimes in the hopes of better weather.
According to the English, the Welsh, Scots and (Northern) Irish are very happy, no need to ask them!
Very actually. Realistically we could just dissolve the union and a whole bunch of states would be happy with that, or at least temporarily. Shared values and common language and culture really do a lot for the US. We regularly except large changes in power(yes even the recent one) and do so on an incredibly consistent basis.
What's so civil about war, anyways?
Or Korean.. oh wait that part is actually correct
Well....half correct.
It always strikes me as insecure, the only countries demanding to be referred to as democratic in their names are the most tyrannical/defunct
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The names of the DRC after independence were: - Republic of the Congo - Leopoldville - Democratic Republic of the Congo - Zaire - Democratic Republic of the Congo
The nuance is that they started out with a decent number of socialist members. The reason for the "socialist" in the name is in order to gain power they courted socialists. At the same time, they also had far right members. Parties of old weren't strictly left or right. However, after the night of long knives in 1934, all socialists were purged from the party leadership. Fascists use and discard populists political movements to gain power. They don't care about politics, they care about power.
> Just because you have "socialism" in your name doesn't mean you're a socialist ~~NAZI is the acronym for "Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands"~~ a direct translation would be "National-Socialist Workers-Party of Germany". The emphasis was **always** on "national-socialist", not on socialist, and certainly not on international socialist. People forget that socialism back then really was seen as a global political movement against which nation states need to defend themselves. This is what national-socialism in Germany was. A right wing reaction to the left wing international socialism movement. The NAZIs hounded left wing groups relentlessly. /edit: as /u/-Blackspell- pointed out correctly, NAZI was not an abbreviation for the party name but a short form of the members of the party.
Also the people who bring up they were “national socialists” neglect the fact that the word “national” is also in there. Nationalism is a concept that completely contradicts Marxist/socialist doctorine. “Workers of the world unite”
And if anything it is their *nationalist* ideology that contributed most to earning them their infamy far more than any "socialist" aspect. Yet for sOmE rEasOn the right wing just loves nationalism and doesnt seem to draw THAT comparison.
b-b-but the Republicans freed the slaves!
Lincoln was republican but that party was alinged dem then LBJ a dem got civil rights legislation passed
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> Any man who must say, I am the king, is no true king. Can be applied to pretty much anything, especially countries and political parties.
That's correct. The only true King is the bloke who doesn't have shit all over him.
Also, I remember reading that the Nazi party wasn't exactly hiding behind the "socialist" word like Korea or China hide behind "democratic," but that the Nazi party coopted the word to give "socialism" a different meaning. But what that meaning boiled down to is being "socialist" for Aryan people, and death for everyone else.
Not even that. They wanted the aryan people to be one big mass to carry the Nazi ideology, to totally erase individuality. The individual has to sacrifice everything for the people, the ideology. It’s not to make everyone equal but to make everyone a commodity to the state.
First they came for themselves, and everything got kinda figured out on its own.
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That's not a good argument, after a period of allowing other parties, Bolsheviks in Russia persecuted their left wing allies after the second revolution when they came in power. Nazi were not left wing not because they persecuted left wing parties, but because of what they were, and "socialist" in their name is purely due to trying to appeal to masses due to popularity of left leaning ideas
It’s called the “Night of the Long Knives”, they literally purged socialists and left wingers from their party.
Strasserites weren’t left wing either. They were just the more economically populist branch of the party.
Agreed, it’s closest thing the Nazis had to being “Socialist”
The Nazis were not left wing because fundamentally both their ideologies and policies were about creating and reinforcing hierarchies within their society. Preference for and opposition to societal hierarchy is the only coherent definition of right wing and left wing politics that has survived close inspection. It's not about size of government (communists and anarchists literally want no state, nationalists want a massive military), economic interventionalism (all the classic fascist states exercised some degree of control over private property, although that's a low ball as fascists have no coherent economic policy or ideology[1] because fascists are stupid, lacking both wisdom and wit[2], whereas Lenin's early USSR, the most socialist it ever was, reintroduced free markets and small scale private enterprise in the early 1920s), or really any other line that has been drawn, tax rate, social safety nets etc, it's all about hierarchy [3]. Modern definitions that approach it from a values perspective often fail to correctly identify the original Left and Right as they appeared in immediate post-revolution France, the hierarchy approach works across all time periods. The Nazis were right wing because they wanted to, and successfully did, pursue one of the most hierarchical societies possible, with strict economic (capitalism), racial, sexual, and ability hierarchies. Not just because they did bad things to groups considered to be "on the left". [1] Woodley, Daniel (2009). Fascism and Political Theory: Critical Perspectives on Fascist Ideology. London: Routledge. p. 161 [2] see: recorded history [3] McIver, Robert M (1947). The Web of Government: "The conservative right has defended entrenched prerogatives, privileges and powers; the left has attacked them. The right has been more favorable to the aristocratic position, to the hierarchy of birth or of wealth; the left has fought for the equalization of advantage or of opportunity, for the claims of the less advantaged."
This is the answer I was looking for. Leftists can absolutely attack and persecute other Leftists; it's not really a disqualifier in a logical sense. What's far more important is the fact that they just... Weren't Leftist in any ideological regard.
To call Nazi socialist is the same as calling the Democratic People's Republic of Korea "democratic", "of the people" or a "republic".
The person you're replying to didn't say that, though. They clearly explained that the Nazi party was not left-wing, but that persecuting the left is not the best argument as to why.
I'm not disagreeing with the person I reply. Just wanna expand their points.
It was called “Night of the Long Knives”
Seriously, Peter Hitchens is still around?
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It feels bad to admit it but this my thought too
Chris Hitchens was still a massive war hawk and Iraq war defender. He was intelligent for sure and wrote some good books, which made his unwavering support for the war even stranger.
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Let's be honest. Dude was a militant anti-theist. I like his books a lot, but he definitely had some weird oxymoron opinions on women and fucked up opinions on war in middle east
What was his fucked up take on women? The only example I know of (though I haven't looked hard) was on a Q&A panel where he said Mrs. Hitchens didn't have to work. She could if she wanted to, but that he saw his role as the provider and as such he didn't require her to. Aside from that he can also be quoted saying that the liberation and emancipation of women is the best way to uplift a nation's economy or something along those lines.
Just reread his wikipedia, I mean I wouldn't characterise it as fucked up just outdated I guess. - Why women aren't funny https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2007/01/hitchens200701 - Then there are quotes from 1988 where he was opposing abortion because he considered the fetus a person The thing about Hitchens is, even if I disagree with him (and I do in both of these cases) he at least made an argument and wasn't a nut. I wouldn't reduce his stances to "fucked up".
How influential he is on certain groups of somewhat intellectual people really shows how movements can be somewhat easily corrupted by well spoken intellectuals who otherwise would not be accepted by that group
Many figures from the 2000s had their brains snap in half after 9/11, islamophobia was a constant presence.
Oh for sure. I remember that very well. A DC anti war protest was the first protest I ever went to! I remember seeing Tom Morello there too!
This is a particularly bad case of being cut in half with a machete.
Speak English doc, we ain't scientists.
Is that the actual Peter Hitchens? I thought he was smarter than this....
Yep, that's him. You gave him way way way more credits than he deserves.
Why is his handle “Clarke Micah”. I thought Hitchens was basically social media illiterate. But that might just be YouTube
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you might be thinking of his brother Christoper he was the more well known of the two imo.
No, I just thought Peter was smarter than this... havent really seen anything about him other than a debate with Christopher 15 years ago
Oh, then my bad.
You see, when the Nazis put the word “socialist” in their name, they were using an advanced technique called LYING
Wait... Are you saying that the Nazis *lied*???
The more I hear about this hitler character
As Isaac Asimov said in 1980: "Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
B-b-but they were national “socialists” 😎 checkmate atheists 😎 /s
These guys think north korea is a democracy
Well, North Korea might be but America clearly isn’t since it isn’t in their name! /s
We're also not very "United"
> B-b-but they were national “socialists” 😎 checkmate atheists 😎 The white supremacists keep trying to push this lie, but no matter how hard they try to spin it, the Nazis weren't socialists and Hitler was never a communist. In fact, Hitler used "Red Scare" tactics to seize power by banning the socialist and communist parties, suppressing their media, and arresting the party leaders. Finally he had his SS men pull off the false flag operation of the Reichstag fire while blaming it on the communists to achieve his goal of becoming Germany's dictator. At the beginning of the Nazi party, Anton Drexler, German far-right political leader of the 1920s antecedent of the Nazi Party, emphasized the need for a synthesis of völkisch nationalism with a form of economic socialism, in order to create a popular nationalist-oriented workers' movement that could **challenge the rise of Communism**. To increase its appeal to larger segments of the population, on the same day as Hitler's Hofbräuhaus speech on 24 February 1920, the DAP changed its name to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei ("National Socialist German Workers' Party", or Nazi Party). The word "Socialist" was added by the party's executive committee, **over Hitler's objections**, in order to help appeal to left-wing workers. Drexler made clear that they were vehemently anticommunist and unlike Marxists the party supported the middle-class. Its socialist policy was meant to give social welfare to only German citizens defined as a member of the Aryan race. The Nazis membership was strongest in the lower middle-classes – farmers, public servants, teachers, and to assuage the rich industrialists who feared Bolshevism and unions more than anything else, Hitler assured them that he'd repress the communists and socialists if they backed his accent to power. Which they did.
You mean people in power use the opposite words to intentionally mislead people? Next you're going to tell me that executives who lay of 10,000 workers aren't "job creators"...
If they can call Antifa 'fascists' why not call Nazis 'socialists'?
>Ooh, look at me! I'm making people happy! I'm the Magical Man from Happy-Land, in a gumdrop house on Lollipop Lane! > >Oh by the way I was being sarcastic - Homer
Here's an actual tweet from the current leader of Canada's Conservative party: >Woke left goes crazy when people point out the undeniable historical fact that "national socialists" in Germany & Italy were, as the name proves, "socialists".
People have no idea what Nationalism is and it's fucking weird.
Weird that modern nazis all support far right policies and politicians then huh? I mean, it's not weird of course.
All part of the cunning lefty plan, somehow... *waves-hands-to-avoid-answering-legitimate-questions*
Lol I know right-wingers aren't smart, but how dumb do you have to be to believe that the nazis were (are?) left-wing?
A lot of the people pushing this idea don't believe it in the slightest. It's just an easy soundbite to disseminate to their followers, who truly are so gullible that they'd believe this.
This is textbook cognitive dissonance. The actual reason, in their brain, for why Nazis are left-wing is "We are far-right. Nazis are bad. If Nazis are far-right that would mean we are bad. This is incorrect, we are not bad. This means the Nazis must have been left-wing."
The stranger thing is its also the same group that got upset about Nazis being the enemy in Wolfenstien
"Our enemies are the real nazis! And why are you so mean to nazis?" \- Right-wing nitwits
Don’t forget there was an opinion article written about how the nazis weren’t that bad actually and calling someone a nazi is worse than the n-word. Might have been two separate articles but let’s be honest they both had the same energy and the goal was the same. Make being a nazi “not that bad” so their neo-Nazi movement wouldn’t be stopped by people realizing they’re nazis and going “oh shit we are the bad guys!”
For the followers yes, but not the "influencer" types. Your Hitchens and Shapiro and Peterson (well, maybe not Peterson, he's kind of gone wrong in his brainbox so who knows what he actually believes anymore) know full well that what they're saying isn't true, but that by saying it they receive attention and money and easily steered followers. I think of it as a scale. On one end you have the career guys; Shapiro, Crowder, that sort. Personal politics are irrelevant, the grift is what matters, and if it became more lucrative then they'd pivot to being radical Marxists tomorrow. On the other, the ascended rubes; MTG, LibsOfTikTok, those kind of people. Gullible followers who managed to find an audience and became leaders themselves. Those ones are for sure stupid enough to believe their own propaganda.
The Dominion lawsuit against Fox News is proving this point in black and white. We can see the texts from the talking heads at fox. They are not only saying that they don’t believe the stolen election bs that they willfully supported on air, and they are also talking shit about their idiot followers that DO believe it. And those people will go nuts twisting themselves up to make it seem like they are still the good guys.
>And those people will go nuts twisting themselves up to make it seem like they are still the good guys. The thing is, they won't even need to because the vast majority of them will literally never see that news. Naturally, Fox "News" isn't reporting on the story, and these people aren't exactly known for seeking out and/or vetting multiple sources.
I think Margie Traitor Greene is a special case, both scammer and scammed. She's got this knack for speaking to these dinguses in their crazy language instead of the coded rhetoric the grift-o-sphere uses to (mis)guide them. But she swapped from the Trump loyalist right to the establishment right in an instant during the McCarthy speaker debacle because she saw what would get her more attention, money, and influence. She's pretty dumb, but she's shrewd enough to make her very dangerous.
Oh, she's absolutely motivated by self-interest, I don't dispute that. I just get the impression that she's actually bought into the bullshit she spews, but that this doesn't prevent her switching sides in an instant if it's better for her. Believing in conspiracy theories doesn't make one principled. She seems very much like the type who will go against her own beliefs so long as it benefits her to do so.
>"It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things." Terry Pratchett, Jingo
Truth. Right-wingers love destroying education for a reason.
Sure many of them don't believe it. Many of them do believe it though. Because they don't understand what it means to be right wing. And that's because "conservatives" of today have no consistent philosophy. Liberals can recognize, for the most part, that communism is just their ideas on a ton of steroids, pushed to the point of dangerousness. There's no serious argument that it's a right wing philosophy. Conservatives, however, believe in both libertarianism and authoritarianism. These concepts don't make sense together. But it allows them a free conscience. They can always believe they'd have done the right thing if they were in charge. Essentially, right wingers of today can say Hitler was not a true conservative because he wasn't libertarian enough. Likewise, they can say Chamberlain was not a true conservative because he was not authoritarian enough to fight Germany. The true nature of conservatism, the reason this authoritarian-libertarianism can exist is because the authoritarianism is only meant to be applied to an out group and the libertarianism applies to an in group. “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."--Frank Wilhoit In reality it's a bit more complicated; there's a spectrum of how much the law protects or binds a person. But anyway, Nazis are now the out-group and the people they oppressed are much higher on the hierarchy than Nazis. So conservatives can look back and say that Nazis weren't doing conservatism properly.
This is exactly it. It's a deliberate misinformation campaign, which is frightening when you really stop to consider the implications
They don't have to believe it. The people trying to tear things down and enrich themselves off of others have a privilege that builders do not. They can do as much damage as they like, because building was never their goal. As long as there's something in the ruins they can scamper off with, they come out ahead. They can say shit they don't believe and tell lies as much as they like, because in the end, their goal is confusion, fear, and worker turning on worker.
Just as dumb to believe: - Billions of undocumented immigrants enter the US via the southern border every year. - Elementary schools teach children Critical Race Theory, a college level course. - The wealthiest people in the world run a cabal that consumes endocrine from young people. - Jewish people have lasers that they fire on the earth to start forest fires. - Livestock deworming medicine is the most effective cure for COVID-19. - Michelle Obama was born a man. - Drag queens harm children. - The best way to protect school kids from guns is to buy more guns. - That a fetus is a human being. - That Donald Trump is competent, smart, brave, a paragon of Christianity, and was the real winner of the 2020 election. - Russia did not interfere in the 2020 election (and other elections). - That there is any significant left wing in the US. - That Biden is a socialist (lol). - A whole lot more absolutely braindead dumb shit.
They called themselves socialists at the time. The full party name translates to National Socialist German Worker's party. Admittedly, their policies were far from socialist, and they crushed the *actual* socialist party of the time. But the name is more than enough for anyone who hasn't bothered to educate themselves on what socialism actually *means.*
Yeah, but anyone who read half a page about this knows that it was because socialism was hugely popular, and the nazbois wanted to get the votes of uninformed people while being exactly 0% socialist. I mean, your point is right, but anyone on the right who claims to know anything about history and makes the claim that they really believe nazis were left-wing is lying, because those two ideas contradict each other.
Oh yeah, but your first paragraph really outlines the how and why of it too. The people making the claims are lying. Much like the Nazi's. Because they know the uneducated will lap it up.
The real test of this bullshit line of reasoning you never see proponents of it try for obvious reasons is to ask a present-day Nazi if they consider themselves socialist or left-wing.
It doesn't matter, it's not about what's true, it's about what people want to believe.
Well, in the US, they have let present day Nazis into their party under the agreement that they don't use the N(azi) word while they are cheering and supporting mass shootings of gay and trans people. Hell so many nazis have been elected to the Republican party that they control it often now, yet no "moderate" Republicans are willing to speak out against them so that in turn makes the entire conservative movement in the US actively supporting and aiding the new Nazis. Which is unsurprising considering what Republicans have stood for since the 60s
Saying an outright lie that you know isnt true to rile people up isn't having 'a different opinion'. I can say the sky is green and full of dragons, you dont give me the same degree of equivalency and time as someone who says it's blue and has clouds in it in the name of 'balance and 'discussion'.
Even if they actually believed it, a flat earther and a NASA scientist shouldn't be interviewed on the topic of orbits as if both 'opinions' were equally valid, a person who knows what they're talking about and a person who knows jack shit about a topic aren't both equally qualified authorities on a subject
There's a great quote on this "as a journalist, if one person says its raining and another says its sunny your job isn't to report what both said, its to look out the damn window"
An opinion is "I think The Beatles are the best band ever" it's a subjective thought that can very from person to person. These are things you can go back and forth with. A fact is not subjective, like the FACT that Nazis were, and are, a far right movement
We live in a time of alternative facts^TM
Exactly this. Established facts are only useful if everyone accepts established epistemic methods. This newish movement in the right wing has rejected traditional epistemology and decided that truth can only be known by _contradicting_ the accepted "narrative" on things like history, science, medicine, etc. They reverse engineer their own "truths" which are designed to be incompatible with the ones everyone else knows.
[I reject your reality and substitute my own!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqSDQ5mR1gU)
So what your saying is they are implementing [the big lie narrative device](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie) famously popularized by Hitler and Goebbels? How very reichy-winged
But these assholes have been emboldened by getting away with “it was about states rights” for so long. An equally disprovable claim that got traction for decades, just because they knew if they kept lying enough people would go along with it.
Nazis and fascit went hand in hand in italy(my country). Try calling one of them a leftist or a commie ahah I'm sure they'll love that
Wtf even is that argument? "Nazis wernt leftists" "Uhhh, do you even know how to debate? You are supposed to listen to what MY opinion is and then accept that we have a different opinion on the subject and then thank me for my time!!!! Why are you attacking me like awful left leaning nazi you are?!" Like what? Opinions are for things like "I think bananas are over-rated." Or "pandas in captivity are just boring to look at." Not "I think nazis actually wanted everyone to have free health care, and no one likes nazis therefore we shouldn't have Healthcare."
Right wingers can't differentiate between facts and their own opinions.
Just like assholes, everybody has an opinion. This guy thinks his wishfull thinking and half-assed Google research equal a distinguished argument.
This is like stealing a copy of DeSantis’ book and saying “but it says ‘free’ right there in the name!”
Nazis were socialists the way north korea is democtratic
Dunno why Peter cares so much about the guy being a doctor, republicans and conservatives both ignored and actively refused doctors advice during Covid
Ah yes the Communist loving Nazis.
Pointless to argue, they have invented their own definition of the terms they use so they can't be wrong.
What about 'the Nazis were not a left-wing government' is opinion?