Objections to my account of Hitler as a Leftist can however be framed in more Anglocentric terms than the ones I have covered so far. In particular, my pointing to Hitler's subjugation of the individual to the State as an indication of his Leftism could be challenged on the grounds that conservatives too do on some occasions use government to impose restrictions on individuals -- particularly on moral issues. The simple answer to that, of course, is that conservatism is not anarchism. Conservatives do believe in SOME rules.
The simple answer to this is that Anarchism is a left wing philosophy too, see the writings of Mikhail Bakunin. But, as demonstrated elsewhere, Govt size is NOT a determiner for left and right.
At any rate even if we were to somehow concede that "traditional Anglo-Saxon conservatism is libertarian in that it supports freedom against the government." contentious though that notion may be to some. How does this change the fact that traditional German conservatism was not? and that it was in-fact authoritarian; it traditionally supports obedience towards the government."
"The crucial sociological determinants of German conservative ideology are to be found in the absence until 1870 of a centralized state; in the Lutheran heritage of the reformation, which fostered a submissive attitude towards authority; in the absence of a politically conscious middle class, and in the militaristic mentality of the Junker class, produced by it's need to hold down the conquered Slav peoples of eastern Europe whose land it possessed. There is in addition, the fact that Napoleon's liberal reforms set the pattern for the whole subsequent history of political and social reform in Germany to date. That tradition is a tradition of reform from above. The only system of govt ever created by the Germans for themselves, A J P Taylor acidly remarks, Was Hitler's Third Reich. Although that system was founded in Terror, and was unworkable without the secret police and the concentration Camps, it was also the only truly national one which Germany had created, since it offered something to every class of the population, whatever reservations particular groups might have had about the barbarianism it entailed. The old empire 'had been imposed by the armies of France and Austria; the German confederation had been imposed by Russia and Prussia, the Weimar republic by the Victories of the Allies. But the "Third Reich" rested solely on German force and German impulse; it owed nothing to alien forces. It was a tyranny imposed upon the German People by themselves." - Noël O'Sullivan, "Conservatism" p80-81.
"It is not too much to talk of a progressive bureaucratization of Germany in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and a concomitant growth among the inhabitants of the German states of habits of deference toward authority that seemed excessive to foreign observers. These last may have had ancient roots--it was a medieval pope who called Germany the terra obedientiae--but there is little doubt that they were encouraged by the traumatic effects of the [Thirty Years] war. The daily presence of death, the constant Angst of which Gryphius speaks in his poems, made the survivors willing to submit to any authority that seemed strong enough to prevent a recurrence of those terrors." - Gordon Craig, "The Germans", p22.
"Every nation has its principal motive. In Germany, it is obedience; in England, freedom; in Holland, trade: in France, the honor of the King." - Karl Friedrich Moser, writing in 1758, Quoted in Craig, "ibid", p23.
Here's the thing. Hitler himself may not have been a conservative in the strictest sense but the Nazis certainly had some conservative backing as their interests certainly overlapped. But that doesn't matter, because im not arguing that Hitler was conservative. While there are other factors involved such as that Prussian militarism, extreme nationalism, and the subservience of the social structure to an economic and social elite, the political economy question is the main determiner for left and Right. And this alone puts the Nazis squarely on the Right, for they, despite their early talk which was only propaganda, had a capitalist economy that was geared to support and give more power to the wealthy.
As with so much in life, it is all a matter of degree and in the centrist politics that characterize the Anglo-Saxon democracies, the degree of difference between the major parties can be small. But to compare things like opposition to homosexual "marriage" with the bloodthirsty tyranny exercised by Hitler, Stalin and all the other extreme Leftists is laughable indeed.
Demonology is demonology. But do you know what i find laughable? This...
And this
And all the other Stupid Tea-Party Obama-Hitler references, and the Bush-Hitler references of the Left too which were equally laughable. The Reductio ad Hitlerum is a laughable piece of logic, Period.
And it is the extremists who show the real nature of the beast as far as Leftism is concerned. Once Leftists throw off the shackles of democracy and are free to do as they please we see where their values really lie. Extreme conservatism (i.e. libertarianism), by contrast, exists only in theory (i.e. it has never gained political power anywhere in its own right)
You may as well say that Communism, by the same type of thinking, "exists only in theory (i.e. it has never gained political power anywhere in its own right)". And Extreme conservativism is NOT libertarianism. Irving Kristol has this "interesting" take on Neoconservatives
"Neoconservatives are not libertarian in any sense. A conservative welfare state is perfectly consistent with the neoconservative perspective" - Irving Kristol, "Reflections of a Neoconservative", p77.And an Extreme German Conservative in i guess it's traditional sense wouldn't be a libertarian minded person either would he? Afterall different places produce different Conservativms don't they? So his point about "Extreme conservativism" is nonsense. As to the part about Extremism, well when we see the Extreme Right throw off the Shackles of democracy we see where their values really lie don't we?
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