Explain the weirdest political ideologies you have encountered so far!

Of course we all do not always agree with each other, and we often think other people are really silly in their views, or we simply don't understand where they are coming from. There are opinions we just think are morally wrong, but they are coherent and make sense when you consider your opponent has different moral values. That's one thing.

For example, I believe most liberals understand that conservative ideas about cutting spending make sense from a merely economic point of view, but have ethical objections and thus don't agree, or simply set different priorities. Likewise, probably most conservatives understand where liberals are coming from, when they say it's a moral obligation to support poor and needy people, they just think it gives the wrong incentives and/or is way too expensive -- so far, so good.

But then, there are also really extremely outlandish and weird political ideologies or philosophies that don't compute at all.

So I invite you to share your experienced with such really weird "WTF" moments.


I'll name two which have a certain degree of intersection: German neo-Nazis and certain conspiracy theorists.

I once met a German neo-Nazi who believes Germany is still controlled and dominated by the Allies since WW2, Germany has become not much more than a dependent vassal, and he identifies Jews as the dominant force behind the Allies and the German occupation regime (of which the establishment in modern Germany, media, politics and economy, is not much more than a puppet). Leftists who emphasize individual freedom and hedonism are their useful idiots -- "the Jews" who secretly pull the strings manipulated us into hating ourselves, to embrace the "misguided" idea that all humans are equal and even forced "political correctness" and "multiculturalism", which has led to mass immigration, to "breed us out", in order to commit a "biological genocide" on ethnic Germans, to destroy our biological basis.

(Note that you find some of these thought figures among islamophobic far-righters too: Like the idea that "political correctness" and "multiculturalism" are plots to make people blind for an attempt of immigrants to breed us out and destroy our culture.)

Depending on the degree of conspiracy theory, this attempt by "the Jews" to conquer the entire world is planned to some extent. A classic, of course, is the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", according to which "the Jews" allegedly laid out the plan in the 1910s already to reach world domination step by step -- first they created liberal democracy on one side, later communist bolshevism too. All with the plan to destroy the cultural vitality of all Western nations that allows them to survive as nations and peoples. First they got America, England and France, in WW2 they defeated Germany too and the next step is Russia and/or the Middle East.

Not few of the conspiracy theorists I met on my way through the net share some of these ideas. Just that it's not necessarily the Jews behind all that, but even less visible groups: Free Masons, Illuminati, the Rothschild family, the Bilderbergers, you name it.


After some time, I got used to such opinions. But when I first encountered them, it was a real "WTF!"-moment.

What about you? Have you encountered anything like that?

I was shocked to discover how many people truly believe that the CIA is out to get them and is responsible for all ills in their lives/community when I worked on Capitol Hill. It is not an organized movement per se but it is not as uncommon a belief as people would think. It did seem a common thread in the rhetoric of the poor blacks in DC though who felt the CIA put all the drugs and guns on the streets, but otherwise that same paranoia came in from all parts of the demographic spectrum on a routine basis.

Fisher said:

I was shocked to discover how many people truly believe that the CIA is out to get them and is responsible for all ills in their lives/community when I worked on Capitol Hill. It is not an organized movement per se but it is not as uncommon a belief as people would think. It did seem a common thread in the rhetoric of the poor blacks in DC though who felt the CIA put all the drugs and guns on the streets, but otherwise that same paranoia came in from all parts of the demographic spectrum on a routine basis.

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Do you think that in some cases, it was clinical paranoia in a medical sense?

One of the conspiracy theorists I met online (his nemesis were the Free Masons) once explained and said "they are even wiretapping me" and "installing bugs in my home" -- and "although I moved several times, into different cities, they always followed me" ... I was about telling the guy: "Then JUST TAKE YOUR MEDS!!! They will sure go away."

Since you mentioned the Nazis...

I heard a claim recently that public schools in Germany do not teach anything about the Holocaust, like it didn't happen at all. It's not that they refute claims for it, but that they don't even mention it happened during WWII.

German guy said:

Do you think that in some cases, it was clinical paranoia in a medical sense?

One of the conspiracy theorists I met online (his nemesis were the Free Masons) once explained and said "they are even wiretapping me" and "installing bugs in my home" -- and "although I moved several times, into different cities, they always followed me" ... I was about telling the guy: "Then JUST TAKE YOUR MEDS!!! They will sure go away."

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Yes I do think that was part of it, but then there are the others, and they were the ones who scared me more.....

Paralogic said:

Since you mentioned the Nazis...

I heard a claim recently that public schools in Germany do not teach anything about the Holocaust, like it didn't happen at all. It's not that they refute claims for it, but that they don't even mention it happened during WWII.

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I've also read articles that indicate the Japanese are taught little to nothing about WWII in their history books. Makes you wonder what isn't in ours....

Fisher said:

I've also read articles that indicate the Japanese are taught little to nothing about WWII in their history books. Makes you wonder what isn't in ours....

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I've witnessed huge inexcusable gaps in US History textbooks in Kindergarten thru 8th Grade (K-8) levels. I don't know what's going on in Middle or High School levels.

As far as Germany and Japan is concerned, we have a German poster here, I hope he/she can enlighten us with his comments. Hopefully we can have a Japanese poster too.

Paralogic said:

Since you mentioned the Nazis...

I heard a claim recently that public schools in Germany do not teach anything about the Holocaust, like it didn't happen at all. It's not that they refute claims for it, but that they don't even mention it happened during WWII.

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That is definitely wrong. It even takes such a big part of the curriculum that some say it's way too much.

In my school career (in the 1990s), it started in 6th grade in elementary school, when we read a youth book in German class written from the perspective of a Jewish kid in Nazi Germany. It was part of high school history lessons in 7th grade, 10th grade and again in the senior classes, each time for several months. Add to that the according literature we read about the topic in German and religious education classes (i.e. "Diary of Anne Frank").

Maybe the information you heard was based on a long outdated report: My parents' generation told me that in the 1950s and early 60s, it was almost a taboo in the West-German society that was still dominated by old low-rank Nazis. The Holocaust was hardly ever mentioned in schools or public, and WW2 was often regarded as if the fate of the Germans was much worse than anything else about it.

Some witnesses said they perceived that time as a very authoritarian kind of "Nazi restauration" -- many important officials were old low-rank Nazis who had exchanged their anti-Semitic slogans with Catholic religious slogans and continued the same kind of propaganda against the Soviets, who still were enemies. Even a Chancellor of West-Germany at that time had been a Nazi Party member until 1945: Kurt-Georg Kiesinger (1966-69).

But the first post-war generation rebelled against their parent generation in 1968 and brought all the German crimes in WW2 on the table: We call them "die 68er". Especially students at the universities were very engaged at that time. They were part of the general youth movement at that time in other countries, such as the civil rights movement in the US, hippies and "new left" anti-authoritarians. They experimented with far-left ideas, anti-authoritarianism and probably often took it too far -- it was a true generational conflict.

This also was a contributing factor that in 1969, the first post-war left-leaning government was elected, under Chancellor Willy Brandt (some compare him to Kennedy) who officially acknowledged the German crimes and fell on his knees at the Warsaw memorial.

This post-war generation then became new teachers, politicians and "marched through the institutions", making sure that the Holocaust and German WW2 crimes became a major topic in school curricula -- from ca. the mid 70s on.

Today, it's totally mainstream to know about the German crimes and the Holocaust and nobody in his right mind wants to be associated with Nazis. This goes so far that the career of a politician will immediately over when he even makes a gaffe that can be misinterpreted to justify or resemble Nazi ideology.

Of course, you always have fringe nuts who don't believe the mainstream and denounce this as "political correctness" or "Auschwitz sledghammer", but as far as I can see, they are a small minority. Especially in east Germany, these nuts appear to be more numerous than in the west. But the neo-Nazi party NPD never managed to win more than 1.6% of the votes in the last few elections on national level.

German guy said:

That is definitely wrong.

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Thank you so much for this.

I had no doubt that modern German education was not hiding the facts of WWII, but your post will help me deal with the persistent claims of some ignorants that keep on claiming false things.

Thanks!

first time i heard this classic liberal argument against the 2nd amendment i laughed my pants wet:

step 1) make guns illegal
step 2) criminals obey the law
step 3) less crime

The Jesus Party. A preacher probably in the south wanted all the people on his site to vote for Jesus and not the Dems or Repzs

Fisher said:

I've also read articles that indicate the Japanese are taught little to nothing about WWII in their history books. Makes you wonder what isn't in ours....

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This is a true statement. My niece was over there teaching Japanese kids (rich) to speak English and when she talked about what they knew they looked at her like she had horns in her head.

The 'God appointed me' concept - they all know it's bull**** (I'm thinking back to the Pharaohs, etc)

roflpublican said:

first time i heard this classic liberal argument against the 2nd amendment i laughed my pants wet:

step 1) make guns illegal
step 2) criminals obey the law
step 3) less crime

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You can laugh, but that much is true in all the rest of the world. Look up gun violence statistics for the past 100 years in the US vs the rest of the world.

Unless you think there is something in the water in the US that makes people more violent, you'll have to agree with that "classic liberal argument".

Paralogic said:

You can laugh, but that much is true in all the rest of the world. Look up gun violence statistics for the past 100 years in the US vs the rest of the world.

Unless you think there is something in the water in the US that makes people more violent, you'll have to agree with that "classic liberal argument".

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i've seen those statistics, and i pity those poor disarmed souls, because when another hitler comes along they'll be left helpless. if a higher murder rate is the price we pay for our liberty, i'll be happy to be one of those statistics.

step 1) criminals obey the law

that's where liberals get it wrong. criminals don't care about the law, they never have, and they never will. no set of statistics will ever show otherwise.

roflpublican said:

i've seen those statistics, and i pity those poor disarmed souls, because when another hitler comes along they'll be left helpless.

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That makes no sense whatsoever.

If anyone starts rounding up people for concentration camps in the US, that will be the Republicans, and most gun worshipers are conservative, so they'll go along with it.

if a higher murder rate is the price we pay for our liberty, i'll be happy to be one of those statistics.

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It's not.

Check out the statistics of gun violence of the US vs the rest of the world for the past 100 years. That is, if you can.

step 1) criminals obey the law

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They don't. But if guns are readily available then the criminals will use them. If they are not readily available the criminals will not use them. It's that simple, but difficult to comprehend for the NRA crowd.

Personally I think Anarchism is the most bizarre political ideology I've ever encountered. After debating some anarchists about this and that, I set out to study up on the subject and become "expert" on anarchism.

Oh, holy moley, I did NOT know what I was getting into. There are a gazillion different flavors of Anarchism, and some of them are very bizarre indeed. Most of them make assumptions about human nature that just don't hold up to history and reality either.

A close second would be Christian Israel/British Israel/Christian Identity/White Israel types. They think European caucasians are the "Lost Tribes" of Israel, the Chosen of God, and the rightful rulers of the world and lords over the "mud peoples" (everyone not pure cauc). They also think Jews are "fake Jews" and Israel isn't really Israel and so on, and those are some of their less bizarre beliefs. It might sound like this is more of a religion than a political ideology, but in fact it is both and often more political than religious. I can only be thankful they are rare and few in number.

Paralogic said:

That makes no sense whatsoever.

If anyone starts rounding up people for concentration camps in the US, that will be the Republicans, and most gun worshipers are conservative, so they'll go along with it.





It's not.

Check out the statistics of gun violence of the US vs the rest of the world for the past 100 years. That is, if you can.



They don't. But if guns are readily available then the criminals will use them. If they are not readily available the criminals will not use them. It's that simple, but difficult to comprehend for the NRA crowd.

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no one is taking me to a camp unless i'm dead. if that's a republican or a democrat coming to take me, they bleed the same.

roflpublican said:

no one is taking me to a camp unless i'm dead. if that's a republican or a democrat coming to take me, they bleed the same.

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Settle down Rambo.

Nobody is coming after you.

Societies and economies have changed since the 1700's. Your worth is measured in $$ and corporations will get it from you in a myriad ways without you even knowing.

Your weapons are ineffective.

Paralogic said:

You can laugh, but that much is true in all the rest of the world. Look up gun violence statistics for the past 100 years in the US vs the rest of the world.

Unless you think there is something in the water in the US that makes people more violent, you'll have to agree with that "classic liberal argument".

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Actually there are dozens of nations around the world with stricter gun laws than the US, but far higher murder rates. Honduras, for example, has a murder rate more than 20 times higher than the USA.

Paralogic said:

If anyone starts rounding up people for concentration camps in the US, that will be the Republicans, and most gun worshipers are conservative, so they'll go along with it.

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.. FDR called...he'd like a word with you.

roflpublican said:

i've seen those statistics, and i pity those poor disarmed souls, because when another hitler comes along they'll be left helpless. if a higher murder rate is the price we pay for our liberty, i'll be happy to be one of those statistics.

step 1) criminals obey the law

that's where liberals get it wrong. criminals don't care about the law, they never have, and they never will. no set of statistics will ever show otherwise.

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Our murder rates are not that high. The top-dozen nations for murder per capita ALL have several times the US rate... and some of those nations include Eastern European countries.

Then there's the UK, with a far lower murder rate but around four times as much non-fatal violent crime than the US.

Some people act like there's blood in the streets in the USA, but compared to much of the world we're pretty peaceful.

Goshin said:

Our murder rates are not that high. The top-dozen nations for murder per capita ALL have several times the US rate... and some of those nations include Eastern European countries.

Then there's the UK, with a far lower murder rate but around four times as much lesser violent crime than the US.

Some people act like there's blood in the streets in the USA, but compared to much of the world we're pretty peaceful.

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well i'm happy to report that i recently completed a cross country road trip and didnt see any blood. but i did see some feral cats, and a good few more zaxbys than i'd seen on my last trip north.

Thrilla said:

.. FDR called...he'd like a word with you.

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Rephrasing...

"If anyone starts rounding up people for concentration camps in the US -- in our times --, that would be the Republicans. "

Paralogic said:

Rephrasing...

"If anyone starts rounding up people for concentration camps in the US -- in our times --, that would be the Republicans. "

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historical precedent called... he thinks you are making things up.