Modern-day fascists are desperate to distance themselves from the nazis, despite the fact that the nazis are literally their idols.
Wait, do people really care if Nazis were left or right-wing?
Their leader was a racist mass murderer with superiority complex, who cares about his political views?
Let’s say they were left-wing… Does that make the left wing Nazis? Mmm no. If a dictator is right-wing, does that make the right-wing dictators? No.
Do people understand these are two unrelated things? Imagine seeing a dog owner cheating on his wife and assuming all dog owners are cheaters.
The caveat is that being a “racist mass murderer with a superiority complex” is a very right-wing thing. It wouldn’t be possible to fit that mold and be leftist because it’s entirely incompatible with leftist ideology.
I don’t understand why someone would bring up that being right-wing does not make one a nazi unless they were right-wing and felt like the type of person who is at risk of being called a nazi.
That being said, in reference to your commenr: in America it is as you say. Elsewhere in the world it’s a bit more complicated. Left and Right originally referred to the sides of the French National Assembly, who either supported the king or the revolution. In some uses it just means people who support liberal economics (more funding) or conservative economics (less debt).
Most people would agree that communism is a left-wing ideology, but there have been famous communist leaders that were racist, mass-murdering and/or with superiority complexes (the famous examples of Che Guevara, Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot all fit some of those criteria each).
So you’re saying that racism and mass murder did not exist under communist China?
What about Russification in the Soviet Union? Minorities were marginalized.
Why would it be a problem if the Nazis were actually left-wing? You’re not realizing you’re actually a victim of a fallacy. And even more concerning, you’re trying to use the same fallacy to attack back. It’s just flawed logic all over the place.
“I don’t like nazis”
“YEAH? Whatabout Commies?! Huh? HUH?”
What? I’m just saying that being racist or a murderer is totally unrelated to political views. Those can happen in both the left and right.
Guys, you’re smarter than this. For real.
The conversation is about nazis. You keep trying to talk about communists.
I said it doesn’t matter if the Nazis were right wing or left wing, what matters is that they were criminals. Then that person said that mass murder and racism is only aligned with the right, so I showed him/her that that is wrong, murder and racism can also happen on the left.
The point being that just because in the past there were rotten apples in the left/right, it doesn’t mean that being in the left/right makes you a rotten apple.
As I understand it the keystone between left and right is that:
The left belief is that all people are created equal and should have equal authority to point out wrong doing. The right belief is that people should be in a hierarchy with people at the top exerting control downward.I think they are actually just saying if you really believe everyone is equal you can’t pick a group to target for mass murder. But if you are at the top of a pyramid tge people below you naturally look expendable.
At least that is my reading of this debate.
And my point was that even in the left, murder, discrimination and racism can exist.
People just choose to think their position is ideal and the opposition is flawed. This type of brainwashing is disgusting.
Correct, and my point was that they can’t. If you view everyone as equal you can’t make yourself a dictator. You can lie to yourself about your value, most people do for better or worse. But if everyone is equal you can’t decide to boost one group over another. Or if you do decide that is better and you deserve to be in charge, then your views have shifted right. That is my understanding of left vs right in it’s most basic form.
Yeha, tell that to the North Korean God, Kim, who rises above everyone while keeping everyone else equal.
Hilarious how people who know exactly one “racist mass murderer with a superiority complex” assume that it is a right-wing thing. Try humanities most famous left-winger ever.
Im not saying that nazis and right-wing are unrelated, but you picked exactly those characteristics in Hitler that actually arent related to political views at all.
State enforced racism and industrialized government implemented mass murder are central to nazis’ political views.
Thats not the point, youre twisting the order. Every nazi is right-wing, by definition. Not every right-winger is a nazi and thats not what people are saying. A big part of nazi ideology is overlapping with general right-wing ideologies, they are separate but not unrelated at all.
You don’t understand. What I’m saying is that you shouldn’t care about it. Do you care if the North Korean dictator is left-wing? No? Good, you shouldn’t. The same way you shouldn’t care if Nazis were right-wing.
I’d argue that you should very much care about the political alignment of extremist leaders, because it show you where an ideology can ultimately lead to if left unchecked. As the poster above said, it doesn’t mean that all right-wing people are nazis, but knowing the nazis were right-wing shows you where a right-wing government can end up if the wrong set of conditions happen to come along. This is important information, as you can spot the warning signs as they appear and (hopefully) nip it in the bud before it gets to that point.
They are behaving like Nazis regardless of if the Nazis were right-wing or left-wing. Nazi behavior can happen in the left or the right. As I already said, discrimination, murder, superiority complex, racism and exploration has also happened in left-wing systems.
Of course bad things happen at the extremes of both sides, but I’m going to have to object to “regardless of if the Nazis were right-wing or left-wing.” I don’t think there’s really room to equivocate on that - nazism is right-wing.
It is. Just like fascism, these are terms associated with the right-wing. But that’s not my point… My point is that whatever affiliation the right or left had in the past does not necessarily represent the current affiliations. The fact that the US right-wing is turning to white supremacy is unrelated to Nazis being right wing. That is just a reflection of their systemic racism.
What I’m saying is that it is irrelevant if Republicans are trying to associate the left with Nazis, because even if such association existed, it is not a valid argument to say that the left today is ruled by Nazis, or that the right can’t behave like Nazis. That’s just a fallacy, the same fallacy that they use to point out that voting left will turn us into North Korea or an authoritarian left-wing dictatorship.
I can’t believe people aren’t getting this. It’s like they don’t understand I’m actually pro-left with this argument, somehow they think I’m protecting Nazis and Republicans because I’m not shouting “REPUBLICANS BAD!”
Going back and pointing out how Nazis were right-wing is something that will bite the left in the ass because there are plenty of examples of the left turning into shit too. So instead of comparing with past examples, just analyze their current positions. Is the right currently behaving like Nazis? Yes. Do you need WWII Nazis to be right wing for this to be a fact? No. So even if they convince people that Nazis were left wing, how does that disprove that RIGHT NOW they are the racists and white supremacists?
I’m just saying, don’t play their games.
You could literally replace all this with “left wing” and use “communism” incorrectly instead of fascism (which isn’t just dictatorship, it was also a set of economic and societal philosophies invented by the fascisti of Italy) because at the end of the day, both sides of the political aisle have the same tendency to go extremist authoritarian when allowed.
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Do you care if the North Korean dictator is left-wing?
Kim Jong-Un is right wing. So were Kim Jong Il, Kim Il Sung, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Xi, and Che Guevara. In fact, they were all moderate Republicans whose ideas are 100% in line with the current Republican Party platform. There’s no daylight at all between any of them and Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Before you respond, remember that you don’t care what their politics are because it doesn’t matter.
Dafuq, North Korea is left wing. OK, so was the Soviet Union also right wing when they marginalized minorities through Russification?
“if it is bad, it is right-wing”.
And yes, my whole point is that the fact North Korea has a left-wing dictatorship doesn’t mean that all left-wing parties will become dictatorships. You finally got my point, damn, it took you so long.
Now it matters. Now you care.
North Korea is 100% a right wing country, right wing policies and a dictator. You can’t argue with that fact.
Stalin claimed his government was left wing and Marx based but it was revealed that he was right leaning, a dictator and instilled right wing policies.
Ah ok, as I said, “everything that is left wing is good and paradise. Everything right wing is pure evil”.
In a left-wing state the state always holds the power… So once that state becomes corrupted and uses that power to keep all workers equally poor, then it is suddenly right wing? Show me what were the capitalist principles in the Soviet Union? Was there a free market, private incentive, private property, competition, minimal state intervention, entrepreneurship, individual rights and freedoms? NOOO THERE WEREN’T. It wasn’t a right-wing state.
You guys are insane. Lemmy became an echo chamber for your delusions. It’s really sad to see people this radicalized.
A dictator is a dictator, who the fuck cares if they are right or left wing? A racist is a racist. A murderer is a murderer. They can be found in any side of the political spectrum, but you’re too biased to believe the left can be corrupted… You are too blinded by what is right and what is left and are totally unable to see there can be combinations of ideologies.
You say dictators are right wing because they don’t follow some left-wing principles? Then I could argue that all dictators are left-wing because by definition the right strives to minimize government controls, and a dictatorship is authoritarian, which goes against right-wing policies… But I’m done arguing. This is my last Lemmy comment. You are so blinded by the left vs right argument you can’t see beyond that. This degree of fanatism can’t be healthy, I don’t want to become radicalized like you people. This self imposed blindness is sad and pathetic. Good bye.
I feel like you’re being deliberately obtuse. You’re right in that by itself trying to define the nazi party of the past in terms of present day left/right ideology is reductivist, and unproductive in discourse. But you’re ignoring two important facts in the present day right/left dynamic. First that literal modern day nazis have shown a distinct preference for right wing ideaology. Second is that fascism as an ideology is a chameleon that latches onto present day conflict to unite people through oppression of a weak other, which is the basis for present day right wing policy. As such the comparison becomes apt because the fascists of the past are a model for the fascists of the present.
OK, by that same logic the left-wing dictators and collapsed systems of the past are a model for the present. So is the right justified to push fear with those past examples to show how bad the left is?
Do you see that’s just the same flawed logic they use to scare people away from the left?
Yeah, you’re a troll.
Their leader was a racist mass murderer with superiority complex, who cares about his political views?
People who know that his political views included “we should use the state to enforce racism” and “mass murder is ok.”
Let me clarify. To be crystal clear, we’re talking about “left” and right on the political compass. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s the most well known one. Overall, “left” and “right” are bizarre terminologies with aqueous meanings deeply embedded in history.
You are technically correct if you are talking about the political compass. we call “authoritarian left” “Stalinism” and we call “libertarian right” “anarcho-capitalism” or just “libertarianism” in the US.
The problem is that all philosophy founding “leftist ideology” has consistently been “libertarian left”, focusing on collapsing hierarchies, dividing power into many hands, and dismantling power structures (such as currency). Anarchism is basically the prime example.
With Marx’s communism, his end game is a system without any government, where people simply exchange services and collaborate to create only what they want or need (not to endlessly proliferate waste for profit). Even his “dictatorship of the proletariat”, one of the stepping stones to communism, is a democratic system. It is called a “dictatorship” because it revokes the voting rights of the rich.
To boot, the ideologies which exist in the “authoritarian left” and “libertarian right” are full of contradictions and mental gymnastics. They all swear they’re communist but make no attempts to actually disseminate power, or gear towards a more democratic system, directly going against Marx’s ideals.
Because of this, pretty much every leftist agrees that the “authoritarian left” are not leftist, because they directly betray the philosophy which founds leftist beliefs.
SO to conclude, there is literally no world where someone can genuinely believe the various philosophies within leftism while at the same time starting a campaign alienating minorities, appealing to the general population with populism and returning the state to a former glory, and embarking on a Nazi take-over. This is why Nazism and leftism are completely incompatible, and why literally no Authoritarian can be considered a leftist.
iTs In ThE nAmE.
Yeah, that’s literally their whole reasoning. I’ve had to deal with a number of those all the way back in 2014, “national sOcIaLiSm”
Of course, whenever I pointed to The Guardian’s interview with Hitler in 1923 (and republished in 1932), where he energetically complains about marxists (marxians, as he calls them) “stealing” the socialist term from “real germans” and actively calls for the end of bolshevism, I was completely ignored.
“Why,” I asked Hitler, “do you call yourself a National Socialist, since your party programme is the very antithesis of that commonly accredited to socialism?”
“Socialism,” he retorted, putting down his cup of tea, pugnaciously, "is the science of dealing with the common weal. Communism is not Socialism. Marxism is not Socialism. The Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning. I shall take Socialism away from the Socialists.
Most Americans have no idea what socialism is. You’re not supposed to think about it here. They just hear that socialism is bad and it’s in the name of the nazi party which is also bad, so that tracks.
Most Americans don’t know what capitalism is either. We’ve been so brainwashed into believing capitalism and simple commerce are the same thing that people think any system that isn’t capitalism is some authoritarian hellscape where the government forces you at gunpoint to share your toothbrush with everyone else in the neighborhood because personal property will be outlawed somehow.
Democracies and Republics are bad because Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is proof that it’s bad.
Reject Democracy! Back to Monarchy!
You jest, but there are a lot code people who would like to see the US become a monarchy.
Aee those people are emergency fertalizer for the joshua trees.
I pledge allegiance to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
The argument can at the very best be very loosely made about the early NAZI party before the Night of the Long Knives. There were some incredibly loose planks in the platform up to that point that could be described as progressive/socialist. Not that any of the leaders with the possible exception of Röhm actually believed it. It was just a tactic of throwing out anything that would garner support to the movement. In this case to bolster interest among poor workers that would have been more inclined to side with the parties on the left.
This. And of course one way to interpret “socialist” is the same way many fascist parties use “people’s” in their name now == “populist”
Some socialism can be populism, fascism can wrap itself in populism at the beginning, but there is no relationship between populism and socialism. Not unless you believe government, like corporations, should only serve wealthy shareholders and nothing that serves the people is both populist and socialist.
Case in point - look at the modern day US fascism distracting the plebes with juicy culture war while stealing from their plates and banks and dismantling the government.
Fascism is not a political ideology, it is a system of oppression to the dry, where a person or a chosen elite dictates the rules for the rest of the population, eliminating personal rights and discrepancies, this is what is defined as dictatorship. It is irrelevant which political label is put on. Communism under these conditions is not communism, nor would a real democracy be, in both, by definition sovereignty resides in the population and never in a small elite or a single person. In the western world we have the illusion of living in a democracy, but this is an illusion, since it is not the people who dictate the rules, but the interests of capital for the benefit of a few. This is why a capitalist system always promotes fascism and fights and maligns communism, democracy and human rights…
How would a true democracy differ from the one we’re living in now? What is a country like Norway or Germany then if not a democracy?
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But if nazis aren’t socialist, what does the S in NSDAP mean? Checkmate liberuls!
/s <- obviously
National Sarkastische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei?
It’s like when US calls itself a democracy. :)
This is why I try to use authoritarian -ism when I’m not being lazy. The reality is it’s nothing to do with left or right, it’s about control.
Yes while they can be definitively left or right. It is not ultimately important to them which they are. As you said it’s all about maintaining control and power. And if they believe it would be better for them to maintain control and power. They would happily switch from capitalist to communist or vice versa. So I guess at least on an economic standpoint. Is probably most accurate to say that authoritarians are centrist. But boy won’t that piss off all the people who believe they’re centrists. It’s just that on social axis authoritarians are extreme.
The Political Compass shows that authoritarianism is on a completely different axis than the economic policy spectrum. You’re correct. I’m not sure of any true, long-lasting authoritarian left systems though, since they seem to quickly transition to cronyism oligarchies, enriching the people in power. Maybe the oligarchs don’t directly own the means of production, but using their seat of power to skim money off of the fruits of the productivity is just unfettered capitalism with extra steps.
Because people who can’t make their own discussions need an authority to follow. In the US, they turn to fox news, AM radio, or manosphere podcasts. Most of them have serious daddy issues.
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What do you really want to say? You’re trying very hard to say both sides are wrong without being labeled as a centrist.
“Toxic left wing” pundits haven’t gotten their followers to storm the capital building or fly a plane into an irs biulding. If you’re really mad someone has opinions on video games, install a 3rd party channel blocker for firefox. The things the toxic femists/pick-me types are up to pale in comparison to the manosphere are up to.
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Manosphere is a very specific thing. They’re the Andrew Tate types. If it’s a legitimate form of mental health or self care thing, it isn’t Manosphere. Hell, if it’s mental health, it’s rarely branded as male orientated because it’s genderless advice.
You’re creating this weird narrative in your head. The feminists you have a problem with are a minority who are only visible because they’re gaming the algorithm. They have no effect on your daily life.
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Im baffled by the americans that want to live under a monarchy, they see themselves as peasants i guess
There are authoritarians in every country. I don’t get the appeal - you have to think less I guess? less responsibility? - but lots of people seem eager to give up their voice if they think the person getting the power will use it against the people they don’t like.
The key is to get them to realize that eventually someone who doesn’t like them is going to get the power - maybe? But I think I’ve also heard that some of these preferences are down to physical brain structure that determines sensitivity to fear and empathy
Good point but id back it up a bit and ask first if they are prepared to change their mind, no point “debating” someone if they are narrow minded and adamant they know their shit. Kinda why i stopped doin the whole religious debate debacle, im not gonna change their mind.
When a small but dedicated group of vocal people started unironically and emphatically believing the planet was a pancake, I lost a significant portion of my lingering reserves of hope for the future of mankind.
Extremist politics and all the associated mindsets have long since jumped a row of sharks in my mind by comparison.
From my limited understanding, it mostly seems like misattribution of all the very obvious chaos and uncertainty about “grand” events like climate change, economical strife, etc.
It’s less that someone holds pancake planet as their sole belief but more a web of interconnected beliefs that would explain the true cause of these nebulous events if they were true.
Not that it makes the outcome any better that people choose a more palatable ideological narrative over reality but there is a part of me that recognizes ignorance would be more blissful.
Authoritarians and fascists often lie about what they are to make themselves more attractive to morons. The Nazis had nothing to do with “socialism.”
For example, North Korea calls itself the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.” It’s not Democratic. It’s not “the people’s.” And it’s definitely not a Republic.
I saw a video from Ronnie-boy who equated Fascism with the left because Fascism is government control and the left wants government control. I’ve found with the most far right, any “-ism” is a leftist idea, except for conservatism. That one’s all about freedom.
First they came for the Communists …
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You know what else is Red?
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1984, just change the definition
