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Were the Nazis Right or Left Wing?

Were the Nazis...

  • Predominantly Right Wing

    Votes: 66 51.2%

  • Predominantly Left Wing

    Votes: 27 20.9%

  • Largely in the center

    Votes: 10 7.8%

  • Don't know/unsure/no opinion/none of the above

    Votes: 26 20.2%
  • Total voters
    129
Thunder said:
see, that's the problem.

Right-wing/Left-wing in the USA is VERY different than Right-wing/Left-wing in Europe.

But many Conservatives dishonestly ignore this.

The best image of American & European politics, is a square, divided into four. Up is authoritarian, down is Libertarian. Left is socially-liberal....Right is socially-conservative.

One can be a right-wing Libertatian, a right-wing Authoritarian, a left-wing Libertarian, and a right-wing Libertarian.

what were the Nazis? they were right-wing Authoritarians. The Soviets were left-wing Authoritarians.

today's American Conservatives are mostly right-wing Libertarians, except on issues of drugs, abortion, crime, and terrorism.

American Liberal/Progressives are mostly left-wing Authoritarians, except on drugs, crime, death penalty, free-speech, religion, and press, and abortion.
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Actually late 19th century and early 20th century progressives are the closest American equivalent to type of fascism practiced by the Nazis.
There ideologies shared the most similar beliefs.
 
Harry Guerrilla said:
Actually late 19th century and early 20th century progressives are the closest American equivalent to type of fascism practiced by the Nazis.
There ideologies shared the most similar beliefs.
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20th century American Progressives believed in a dictatorship, police-state, scapegoating of minorities and foreigners, anti-Semitism, and homophobia??????

evidence please.

and no, Madison Grant was NOT a "Progressive".
 
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Thunder said:
20th century American Progressives believed in a dictatorship, police-state, scapegoating of minorities and foreigners, anti-Semitism, and homophobia??????

evidence please.
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Late 19th century and early 20th century progressives.
Pay attention.

Both held the views of scientific racism, a separation of the classes and state management of the economy and the people.

The Nazis drew a lot of their beliefs from the principles set out my the German monarchy, which was very popular during the Progressive era and which is were we drew a lot of ideas from, like the creation of the state mandated education.
 
apdst said:
Based on what?
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How about "The New American Century" and our previous conquerors of Iraq. Is it from the Edison Institute or something like that?
 
Did we come to a conclusion yet?

Left, right, center, north, south, east, or west?

Nazi = crazy birds.
 
Harry Guerrilla said:
And you know very well, at least now, that not all products from China are inferior.
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True, they make some of the very best table tennis gear. I use "friendship 729-5 on my forehand and 802 on my backhand and my son uses a "blue thunder" bat with "gambler" pre tuned 2.1 Outlaw on his forehand and "four kings" 1.8 on his backhand. All Chinese made. a third the cost of the Butterfly (Japan) or DONIC (Germany) gear I used to compete with and just as good
 
TurtleDude said:
True, they make some of the very best table tennis gear. I use "friendship 729-5 on my forehand and 802 on my backhand and my son uses a "blue thunder" bat with "gambler" pre tuned 2.1 Outlaw on his forehand and "four kings" 1.8 on his backhand. All Chinese made. a third the cost of the Butterfly (Japan) or DONIC (Germany) gear I used to compete with and just as good
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The vast majority of people are completely ignorant on where a lot of the components of the stuff in their homes come from.
Even stuff that says "made in America" likely has parts that were made in China, India, somewhere else.

But that little deceptive tag, tricks them into comfort and they assume that their favorite "made in America" items are superior to all else.
Total ridiculous crap.
 
Harry Guerrilla said:
Late 19th century and early 20th century progressives.
Pay attention.

Both held the views of scientific racism, a separation of the classes and state management of the economy and the people.
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By scientific racism, are you talking about the National Parks System?

And those child labor laws, evil state management, eh??

In all seriousness, you haven't got a clue about turn of the century progressives. Why not do some research before running your mouth again....
 
hazlnut said:
By scientific racism, are you talking about the National Parks System?

And those child labor laws, evil state management, eh??

In all seriousness, you haven't got a clue about turn of the century progressives. Why not do some research before running your mouth again....
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Abolotionists, women's suffragists, etc etc.
 
Tucker Case said:
From what I've read on the subject, Stalin actually put in place some things that generally increased the standard of living for many people (Russia's literacy levels shot way up under Stalin, for example).

During the war, the standards of living plummetted pretty much for everyone (but this is true of Germany as well).

Obviously, for some, the standards of living were attrocious throughout due to persecution. But again, this wa strue of germany as well.

As far as Germany goes, only a certain population saw increases in the standard of living. Generally, there was an overall decline.
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There was a war on it's hard to know. My parents had it pretty tough from what I've been told, but it wasn't all hell.
 
hazlnut said:
By scientific racism, are you talking about the National Parks System?

And those child labor laws, evil state management, eh??

In all seriousness, you haven't got a clue about turn of the century progressives. Why not do some research before running your mouth again....
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I've done quite a bit of research.
You should move on from high school text books, to actual history. ;)

Child labor laws weren't meant to protect children, but were meant to falsely create full employment and higher wages, by removing competition from the employee market.
If child labor laws were repealed tomorrow, do you really think all these parents would pull their kids out of school and send them to work?

Scientific racism aka eugenics.
It was quite popular at the time, which is no surprise that most eugenic laws in the U.S. were crafted in the same time period.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States
 
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how in God's name could anyone consider the Nazis to have been Left-wing?

did they believe in breaking down international borders?

did they believe in the brotherhood of mankind?

did they support gay-rights, abortion-rights, Jewish-rights, minority-rights, rights for immigrants?
 
The question is idiotic in and of itself. Especially when right and left are ridiculously subjective terms. And generally the only reason folks ever talk about it is to link it with liberals and conservatives. Why the **** are we so obsessed with socialist this, socialist that, Nazi this, Nazi that? They are all distinct ideologies.
 
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Harry Guerrilla said:
I've done quite a bit of research.
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Then why do you continue to display a total lack of knowledge about the progressive era. Someone has really done a number on you. Sounds like too much Beck.

Maybe you should get yourself over to a PUBLIC LIBRARY (Thank you Progressives) and read some real books and stop listening to RW radio rewrite history.

Eugenics? Seriously? Yeah, Theodore Roosevelt was big into that... Save the Beck smear and spin history for the rubes who watched that idiotic show.
 
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hazlnut said:
Then why do you continue to display a total lack of knowledge about the progressive era. Someone has really done a number on you. Sounds like too much Beck.

Maybe you should get yourself over to a PUBLIC LIBRARY (Thank you Progressives) and read some real books and stop listening to RW radio rewrite history.

Eugenics? Seriously? Yeah, Theodore Roosevelt was big into that... Save the Beck smear and spin history for the rubes who watched that idiotic show.
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I'm sorry I don't listen to talk radio or watch Beck.
Truth hurts, but no ideology has clean hands.

Stop with the god like admiration of early progressives, they are human too.
 
Harry Guerrilla said:
I'm sorry I don't listen to talk radio or watch Beck.
Truth hurts, but no ideology has clean hands.

Stop with the god like admiration of early progressives, they are human too.
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I'm sorry, I'm just getting caught up on all those links to your sources... Oops.
 
hazlnut said:
I'm sorry, I'm just getting caught up on all those links to your sources... Oops.
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I gave you a link for wiki that talks about Eugenics and how it was especially popular around the turn of the century, which also drew its support from women's voter groups and talks about how the work on eugenics here spread to Nazi Germany.
Not only that but progressives were particularly resistant to immigration during that time, deeming those people as "unfit."

Progressive Era - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Harry Guerrilla said:
The vast majority of people are completely ignorant on where a lot of the components of the stuff in their homes come from.
Even stuff that says "made in America" likely has parts that were made in China, India, somewhere else.

But that little deceptive tag, tricks them into comfort and they assume that their favorite "made in America" items are superior to all else.
Total ridiculous crap.
Click to expand...

Yeah I saw this today

Designed in America

Made in China
 
From a purely economic standpoint (the most efficient way to define left and right) the Nazis were very close to the center. Although the Nazis did not have any definite economic policies, the de facto economics of the Nazi party were largely Keynesian. The real extremity of the Nazis lied in their authoritarianism, which is most efficiently defined apart from the left-right spectrum, in a mutually exclusive manner. The relentless persecution of groups of people, for the so-called purpose of 'advancing the state,' meant that the Nazis were perhaps one of the most authoritarian governments around at the time (this is debatable, though).

When left and right are defined in traditional terms, the Nazis could be called 'far-right', although I personally prefer defining left-right on economic terms. By 'traditional terms', I mean:

Left-wing: Support for an egalitarian society
Right-wing: Support for a hierarchal society
​

By these definitions, the far-rightness of the Nazis is apparent, given the extreme race supremacy, e.g. Hitler making a list stating which races were better and which were worse. This definitely implies support for a hierarchal society.


A problem that many people encounter when judging something as left or right is that they often use a mix of the two definitions, instead of just one or the other. I would recommend just using one or the other. This is why I voted that they were in the center; I was using the economic definition of left-right, because I felt that this definition is more efficient and productive than the traditional one.

Linked below is further reading from a non-partisan source; I find it to be highly accurate:

The Political Compass
 
Thunder said:
how in God's name could anyone consider the Nazis to have been Left-wing?
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Let's have a look...

Thunder said:
did they believe in breaking down international borders?
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Yes they did, even with force if necessary.

Thunder said:
did they believe in the brotherhood of mankind?
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Yes. The Aryan brotherhood of man.

Thunder said:
did they support gay-rights, abortion-rights, Jewish-rights, minority-rights, rights for immigrants?
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Absolutely. They had the full support of the Nazi Party. Free transportation even.
 
Blackdog said:
Let's have a look...

Yes they did, even with force if necessary.

Yes. The Aryan brotherhood of man.

Absolutely. They had the full support of the Nazi Party. Free transportation even.
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ok.

let us know when you want to be taken seriously.
 
Thunder said:
ok.

let us know when you want to be taken seriously.
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Lighten up Thunder, it was a joke man. The Nazi party is nothing like our political party's today,
 
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