Those Nazi analogies
Yesterday there was a discussion in the comments about making any analogies to Nazism. Commenter “M J R” had this to say, for example:
I would agree with Stone [that the FBI has become Biden’s Gestapo], except I would not use Nazi-era language or allusions, as those allusions reek of hyperbole, and they tend to discredit otherwise salient points about what’s been happening in our USA.
I agree that it is always dangerous and sometimes counter-productive to make such comparisons. And yet, as I wrote in one of my replies to M J R, my attitude about Nazi comparisons is that they work insofar as they are comparisons to Nazis as an example of tyranny and how it works, including how it consolidates its power in the first place. Those comparisons are quite different from calling someone a Nazi. Nazism was one of the worst tyrannies, but some things about it were typical of and instructive about tyrannies in general, including lesser ones. Other things were particular to the particular awfulness of Nazism.
If we lose the ability to even refer to some of the techniques of the Nazis, we lose the ability to see some of the danger in going down certain roads.
So it is in that spirit that I offer the following information about the Gestapo, taken from its Wiki page. Make of it what you will:
Many of the Gestapo employees in the newly established offices were young and highly educated in a wide variety of academic fields and moreover, represented a new generation of National Socialist adherents, who were hard-working, efficient, and prepared to carry the Nazi state forward through the persecution of their political opponents…
The power of the Gestapo included the use of what was called, Schutzhaft—”protective custody”, a euphemism for the power to imprison people without judicial proceedings…
…[T]he Nazi regime sought to suppress any source of ideology other than its own, and set out to muzzle or crush the churches in the so-called Kirchenkampf. When Church leaders (clergy) voiced their misgiving about the euthanasia program and Nazi racial policies, Hitler intimated that he considered them “traitors to the people” and went so far as to call them “the destroyers of Germany”.
Demonizing whole groups of people makes it more and more possible to convince others that it’s fine to eliminate their rights and to ultimately go so far as to kill them without due process and even en masse.
I think also that many people have the misconception that the Gestapo worked to terrorize the people of German wholesale. But their aim was selective; they wanted to lull the rest into staying calm and relatively supportive [emphasis mine]:
While the total number of Gestapo officials was limited when contrasted against the represented populations, the average Volksgenosse (Nazi term for the “member of the German people”) was typically not under observation, so the statistical ratio between Gestapo officials and inhabitants is “largely worthless and of little significance” according to some recent scholars. As historian Eric Johnson remarked, “The Nazi terror was selective terror”, with its focus upon political opponents, ideological dissenters (clergy and religious organisations), career criminals, the Sinti and Roma population, handicapped persons, homosexuals and above all, upon the Jews. “Selective terror” by the Gestapo, as mentioned by Johnson, is also supported by historian Richard Evans who states that, “Violence and intimidation rarely touched the lives of most ordinary Germans. Denunciation was the exception, not the rule, as far as the behaviour of the vast majority of Germans was concerned.” The involvement of ordinary Germans in denunciations also needs to be put into perspective so as not to exonerate the Gestapo…The Gestapo’s effectiveness remained in the ability to “project” omnipotence…they co-opted the assistance of the German population by using denunciations to their advantage; proving in the end a powerful, ruthless and effective organ of terror under the Nazi regime that was seemingly everywhere. Lastly, the Gestapo’s effectiveness, while aided by denunciations and the watchful eye of ordinary Germans, was more the result of the co-ordination and co-operation amid the various police organs within Germany, the assistance of the SS, and the support provided by the various Nazi Party organisations; all of them together forming an organised persecution network.
Another interesting and depressing element was the cooperation of many citizens in occupied countries. For example:
In places like Denmark, there were some 550 uniformed Danes in Copenhagen working with the Gestapo, patrolling and terrorising the local population at the behest of their German overseers, many of whom were arrested after the war. Other Danish civilians, like in many places across Europe, acted as Gestapo informants but this should not be seen as wholehearted support for the Nazi program, as motives for cooperation varied. Whereas in France, the number of members in the Carlingue (French Gestapo) who worked on behalf of the Nazis was upwards of 30,000 to 32,000; they conducted operations nearly indistinguishable from their German equivalents.
It’s not that there was nothing unique about the Germans. There were indeed some characteristics peculiar to Germany. But every country has its uniqueness, and I believe that a great deal of what occurred in Germany during the Nazi era could have occurred in many other countries if accomplished with the same ruthless focus and attention to propaganda.
Is the United States immune? No. However, it does have certain characteristics that have so far made it less likely to happen here – such as the way our government and constitution are set up, for example, and certain highly individualistic cultural traditions here. But I think it’s very clear that we are not immune if those things are not robustly protected and defended.
Many think of only the holocaust and World War when the term ‘Nazi’ is used but they were in power for a lot longer than that so the early to mid 1930s Germany under the Nazis was much different than the later years.
The problem is terms like ‘authoritarian’ or ‘totalitarian’ don’t cut through like the term ‘nazi’ does so that is one reason why it is thrown around.
So someone who uses that comparison could be thinking of the Kristallnacht or Night of the Long Knives era of the Nazis and be on somewhat better comparative footing to our current times.
That being said it is still lazy rhetoric in my opinion.
Neo, I don’t disagree with your thesis that we are somewhat vulnerable to totalitarianism, and even perhaps much more so than we can imagine.
But, having read Schirer’s “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”, I reject the idea once pronounced to me in school, that the Germans were unwittingly seduced by Hitler! No, most of them were clearly looking for a good time, and for a while they enjoyed one!
My objection to the term “Nazi” is using the term in isolation.
It’s especially leftists that use the term “Nazi” to typify their opponents on the right. They get away with this because most people have come to incorrectly associate Nazism with right-wing tyranny.
Let’s call them what they are “National Socialists [Nazi]”. I know it’s takes longer to type, but the Nazi’s were the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartie (The National SOCIALIST German Worker Party).
Let’s start forcing the left to own that identity.
One further thought:
Isn’t it ironic that the worst insult that the left can come up with for right-wing opponents is to call them socialists? What does that really say about their ideology.
That being said it is still lazy rhetoric in my opinion.
It’s been used for awhile, though. I was called a Nazi on one occasion in grad school when a student in the Comp Lit department (not my department, thankfully) noticed that my last name is ethnically German. Never mind that my ancestors left what is now Germany for the United States in the 1840s– 30 years prior to Germany’s unification. Never mind that my dad fought the Wehrmacht in North Africa and Western Europe in WWII. Let’s just say that I corrected this guy’s ignorance of history as well as basic civility with verbal dry ice. He never tried it again.
Ray Van Dune:
I was surprised to learn many years ago that the Nazis didn’t get more than a little more than a third of the votes when elections were fair. That’s still a lot, and way way too many, but it was not a majority at that point. Hitler came to power in the “backroom deal” and the Nazis ruthlessly suppressed the opposition, including terror tactics and lawfare to silence and harm then. It is truly unknown how many of the German people agreed with the Nazis. The diaries of Victor Klemperer, which I’ve written about on the blog, are another source that indicated to me that a lot of Germans were unhappy about Hitler but frightened.
The Nazis got a lot of votes after they came to power, but that was partly because for a while they hid some of their pernicious nature at least somewhat, plus the terror and the crushing of any opposition.
Please read this if you’re interested in some of the details of how opposition was silenced.
Speaking as one whose father also fought the Nazis, I remember when he first told me that he felt no shame whatsoever about having sent a few of them onward to their just reward, since the war had only killed all “bad” Nazis, nobody having survived except the courageous secret anti-Nazis, virtually all of whom apparently did so!
I was not even in school when he first shared this (at the time) cryptic observation, so I almost certainly didn’t get what he was really saying. But as I recall he repeated it casually a few times on occasion, until the light bulb went on in my little head not long thereafter!
This is in reply to you, neo – my prior post was merely a recollection.
Yes, I am aware of the chicanery by which the Nazis seized and held power. I did not mean to imply that they were adored. But I DID mean that the Germanic society (as I recall from Schirer) lacked a revulsion against strongman heroes, and had a well-developed sense of grievance from the outcome of The Great War.
thats a bug going back to Stalin, he chose to target the Social Democrats, after the Second international, because he thought the Nazis would be the easiest to defeat, after the Catholic Center party, which was disqualified by the Depression,
yes they were a niche faction, but they managed to cancel all the others, there was a similar dynamic in Italy, in Portugal, and some Balkan countries like Romania and Bulgaria,
Ray Van Dune:
I have no doubt that some German people pled innocence and resistance postwar who were neither innocent nor resistant previously. But that does not change the fact that there were a lot of resisters, many of whom lost their lives. It required a great deal of bravery and most people in all countries don’t have that kind of bravery (I by no means am certain I would have had it under the circumstances). The German resistance was very real and a great many members were in the Wehrmacht, although there is a great deal of disagreement as to how large it was.
Klemperer’s diaries – he was a Jew married to a gentile, in Dresden – were contemporaneous with the Nazi era and the diaries make it clear that there were a lot of Germans who didn’t like what the Nazis were doing but who were afraid and just wanted to live their lives, and therefore just kept their heads down. I have no idea what proportion of the Germans that group consisted of, but my sense of human nature is that it was not small.
The Nazis also made enormous efforts to keep the death camps secret from the German people, although rumors snuck out and police involved with the shootings of Jews in eastern Europe wrote letters home about their activities, so some people must have known. Again, it’s very unclear how widespread the knowledge was among the ordinary Germans or what they would have thought had they known. But the Nazis didn’t place the death camps in Germany, although there were concentration camps there. The death camps were in other countries, closer to where more Jews live (Poland, for example), which made transport more convenient and also made it harder for the news to spread around Germany about what was actually happening in a place like Auschwitz.
I’m not in the business of exonerating the German people. Personally, I’ve never visited Germany and have no interest in going there, although half my family came from there (in the 1800s). But the more I’ve learned the more I have changed my view to believe that more Germans were not onboard with the Nazi program than I originally thought, although the vast majority of them did nothing about it.
2 movies to recommend on life under theb Gestapo
Sophie Scholl-te final days
https://youtu.be/nrbBlXqc1Is
A Hidden Life
I saw it on YouTube free but search isn’t finding full movie.
The government that was installed is using Leftist totalitarian tactics.
Both movies are fine for younger viewers, teenagers especially.
thats true, but that was the end point of mein kampf, now it took a skilled organizer like eichmann, to create the mechanism for his goal, of course he had help,
after the war, many of the worst figures, like general wolf, like klaus barbie like alois brunner, made it into the ranks of the gehlen org, the precursor of the bnd with full knowledge of American intelligence, some provided their talents to Nasser’s Egypt, to the Argentine generals, even to Pinochet,
The Gestapo infiltrates the confessional:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjzcBqz2Cpk
From “The Counterfeit Traitor” (1962). With William Holden and Lilli Palmer. Good movie.
I didn’t fully understand the scope of WWII until I lived in Germany. The influence of the war, and of the postwar reconstruction, was still very evident.
Example: I attended a talk given by one of the sons of Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg in July 1984, on the 40th anniversary of his father’s failed assassination attempt on Hitler. He described how his family was broken up by the Gestapo after his father’s arrest and execution and the children placed in foster homes around the country under the Sippenhaft (blood guilt) laws. Listening to him, I inwardly thanked Providence that I was an American and that nothing like that could ever happen in my country.
I have since learned that it can happen anywhere, even here. Collaborators: some people are willing to sell out for a uniform and a title. Others, for money or other benefits (an apartment, a car, a colleague’s wife). Still others go along because they have to. If you control a person’s paycheck and livelihood, you own that person. Which means that, in most cases, you can get that person to do or acquiesce to anything. The Left and other totalitarians understand that. Obama and his acolytes understood it well, and still do. Our side? Not so much.
”protective custody”, a euphemism for the power to imprison people without judicial proceedings…
Since those time expanded by progressives to translate the word ‘protect’ into ‘seize control of’, for example with respect to private property whose owners must be denied their normal rights to it because of some environmental excuse.
neo,
I just returned for a visit to the blog, and lo! — here’s our discussion from yesterday. I am very pleased that you put the topic up for a discussion of its own.
I find these two sentences of your exposition of today *very* clarifying: “Nazism was one of the worst tyrannies, but some things about it were typical of and instructive about tyrannies in general, including lesser ones. Other things were particular to the particular awfulness of Nazism.”
And you go on, “If we lose the ability to even refer to some of the *techniques* of the Nazis, we lose the ability to see some of the danger in going down certain roads.”
The emphasis on techniques and the careful differentiating between the “other things” [above] and “the particular awfulness of Nazism” can go a long way towards defusing hyperbole and not discrediting otherwise salient points — depending on the listener.
If the listener is going to come back with “ohhh, now you’re accusing me of being a Nazi,” well, I/you/we may as well not even be bothering to engage that listener, who’s not even listening anyway. But when the listener is intelligently engaging, and/or when the listener is on our side, game’s on!
Finally, as a bonus, I now get to peruse the reactions of some of my co-commenters — in which I am very interested.
Thanks!
“But the more I’ve learned the more I have changed my view to believe that more Germans were not onboard with the Nazi program than I originally thought, although the vast majority of them did nothing about it.”
Even though I repeat my father’s anecdote with fondness, I am under no illusion that he and other GIs had a sophisticated understanding of the questions we have been discussing – but they were there, and this was the common wisdom of the time.
Would you believe it, but I just now for the first time juxtaposed this with the fact that he to some extent sponsored at least one German and one Romanian family to immigrate to the US after the war?! OMG, I had completely forgotten! I do not know by what means (we were not wealthy) but it may have been industry-related since he and the men of those families were accomplished machinists, and they ended up at the same firm.
And as I recall, they were not in the military, but in an industrial reserve due to their skills, apparently even at the bitter end. This lack of military service may have facilitated their immigration? But it is too late to ask all these questions now…
The Democrats want to eliminate the constitution. https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/08/down-with-the-constitution.php
“Apart from its sheer stupidity, we see here another example of the pervasive bad faith with which the Left operates. Frankly, it would be more honest and no less lawless to advocate taking over the U.S. Army, mobilizing tanks and howitzers and staging an old-fashioned coup, in order to install the Democratic Party permanently in power.”
I think most Democrats would be happy either way.
Note — Hinderaker is no bombthrower. He’s no fan of Trump. But he’s right to emphasize “the pervasive bad faith with which the Left operates”.
Several years ago on an Historical Tour we went to Dachau. I had a very hard time going in, knowing what it was and represented. The Nazis had not gotten around to full blown “death camp” but it was getting there. I read Rise and Fall while a Senior in HS. When I changed my major to History (failed engineer) I took a number of German History classes. The Prof was a young Lt in intelligence and mentioned that he interviewed a number of Nazis, he didn’t say much else but you could tell he was repulsed by them.
First 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 for me.
Dachau, likely the most famous forced-labor camp in post-war knowledge, had a death rate of 15%. My father’s division liberated Mittelbau-Dora where the death rate had been 35%
The camps for off the train and into the showers were in Poland and set up after the Wannsee Conference of Jan 42. There, Auschwitz had a death rate of 85%. Might have been more except for those prisoners kept on hand to do some of the dirty work and the last load not processed when the Red Army showed up.
Dachau was set up in 1933 both to punish supposed enemies of the party and the Reich and to get some cheap labor done. Publicly, it looked like a rough place to be but it wasn’t a death camp and it would have been easier to rationalize not complaining about it early on than if it had been an extermination camp and known to be so.
The Democrats want to eliminate the constitution. https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/08/down-with-the-constitution.php
stan:
I read that too. Horrifying.
Then I read the NY Times op-ed it linked and it was as whacked as Hinderaker said it was. It was written by two law profs from Harvard Law and Yale Law.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/19/opinion/liberals-constitution.html
I guess no one should be surprised. The Left and the Elites are showing their true totalitarian colors. They want what they want and no one and nothing, including the Constitution, should be able to get in their way.
By any means necessary.
Hold on to your hats. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
Thats where they built the v2 rockets under von brauns supervision michael chabons walter mittyesque tale moonglow compares the mittelwek to james bond sets
Without retaking the Senate, Democrats may get desperate and push statehood on DC and PR, which would very likely be all they need to consolidate their power, if they have the patience.
The left already own the major institutions– colleges, media and now multinational corporations that would much prefer Democrats, exchanging free trade for wokeness.
And if liberals get weak kneed, they always have the brown shirts of antifa and blm to remind voters how much worse it could be. I think this is a closer analogy to where the far left is, at this point. It’s amazing how breaking a few windows and a few heads can change people’s attitudes.
The judiciary is as corrupt as the DOJ is showing itself– where laws and convictions only need sufficient narrative (case in point rioters of J6 are still locked up without bail and apparently no recourse. So much for speedy trials.)
The left has made it known for some time that it’s a living constitution or a dead constitution. Once again, this is the reason the left is so unhinged. They thought the path was clear after Obama. Trump re-ignited a feeling of pride in the country. The left has to smother the embers of hope in the deplorables or smother Trump.
We would like to think that the horrors of Nazism can’t be duplicated here, and the left will certainly use more humane ways of treating their enemies than fatal showers, but once you’ve convinced your side that the enemy isn’t fully human, it’s a short trip to barbarism.
One of the neighbors in my building in south florida spent four years at dachau and when it was done she returmed and her remaining neighbors were surpriljust asking where she had been
Without retaking the Senate, Democrats may get desperate and push statehood on DC and PR, which would very likely be all they need to consolidate their power, if they have the patience.
Brian E:
It’s even worse. The NY Times op-ed by the Yale and Harvard law profs recommends:
______________________________
To do this, Congress should pass legislation reducing the size of Washington, D.C., to an area encompassing only a few core federal buildings and then admit the rest of the District’s 127 neighborhoods as states. These states — which could be added with a simple congressional majority — would add enough votes in Congress to ratify four amendments: (1) a transfer of the Senate’s power to a body that represents citizens equally; (2) an expansion of the House so that all citizens are represented in equal-sized districts; (3) a replacement of the Electoral College with a popular vote; and (4) a modification of the Constitution’s amendment process that would ensure future amendments are ratified by states representing most Americans.
ttps://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/19/opinion/liberals-constitution.html
______________________________
Insane.
huxley:
I read those suggestions in 2020 or even earlier. That was the original plan when they thought the filibuster was going to be ended, and I have little doubt that will be the plan if they ever get 51 votes in the Senate to end the filibuster and pass the rest of it through a simple majority vote.
In other words, they plan to do an end run around the Constitution and amend it, utterly changing our form of government, without actually amending it and with the slimmest of slim majorities. Anything for the permanent power they desire. They don’t mind showing their tyranny cards because they think they can get away with it and they think that a lot of people now consider the right a dangerous enemy that MUST be stopped, and if it’s necessary to do it this way then so be it.
The only thing that could stop them is losing the Senate in November, which may or may not happen. The only other thing is perhaps the Supreme Court saying that they can’t make laws of this sort without amending the Constitution. But then, how many divisions does the Supreme Court have, to coin a phrase? And anyway, if the filibuster ends they’ll just pack the Court and get the rulings they want from the new hyper-left justices they’ll appoint.
It’s all very well thought out.
Now already they keep talking about civil war because they expect to provoke one and they are ready for it.
neo:
You’re right. In fact the passage I quoted was simply cut-and-pasted from this 2020 “Harvard Law Review” article:
____________________________
To do this, Congress should pass legislation reducing the size of Washington, D.C., to an area encompassing only a few core federal buildings and then admit the rest of the District’s 127 neighborhoods as states. These states — which could be added with a simple congressional majority — would add enough votes in Congress to ratify four amendments: (1) a transfer of the Senate’s power to a body that represents citizens equally; (2) an expansion of the House so that all citizens are represented in equal-sized districts; (3) a replacement of the Electoral College with a popular vote; and (4) a modification of the Constitution’s amendment process that would ensure future amendments are ratified by states representing most Americans.
–“Pack the Union: A Proposal to Admit New States for the Purpose of Amending the Constitution to Ensure Equal Representation”
https://harvardlawreview.org/2020/01/pack-the-union-a-proposal-to-admit-new-states-for-the-purpose-of-amending-the-constitution-to-ensure-equal-representation/
____________________________
No author attribution I can find.
Huxley,
I’m not sure the idea of accepting 127 states would be acceptable to many Democrats, since it would dilute the power of existing states.
But adding one or two states would be more palatable to most states.
Since it requires a vote by both houses, taking back the house is also critical.
Brian E:
Perhaps. The 127 states plan sounds like a reach to me too.
I was surprised when Obama openly recommended adding PR and DC as states plus abolishing the Electoral College and packing the Supreme Court after Biden became Prez.
My point is that this is seriously and openly being discussed at elite levels. This adds a whole ‘nother side to Biden’s ambition to outdo FDR and Obama as a transformative president. Apparently he wasn’t as delusional as I thought.
The civil war the left would love to provoke is a justification for attacking and neutralizing militias– which no doubt the FBI has already infiltrated.
I saw a movie once where a sustainable separation came from a substantial number of states forming a mutual defense pact and telling the federal government to pound sand. The majority of US military bases were located in red states. The movie’s tension was whether the allegiance of the armed forces would go to the new union or the dead constitution? The success hinged on the answer.
How many barrios does Puerto Rico have? At least 127? If you are pulling it out of your arse, go all the way. F around and find out.
@ Neo > “[The United States] does have certain characteristics that have so far made it less likely to happen here – such as the way our government and [C]onstitution are set up, for example, and certain highly individualistic cultural traditions here. But I think it’s very clear that we are not immune if those things are not robustly protected and defended.”
Case in point as cited by stan & huxley & om.
Obama only wanted 57 states; now the Democrats are after 127 – who knew inflation was so powerful!
I wonder how they think they’ll sell the “neighborhood-state” plan, although I have seen suggestions for creating “city-states” out of the mega-metropolises to keep them from making rules for the rest of their (usually conservative) states.
My counterproposal would be to make every county in Texas a state as well — except for the ones including Austin, Houston, and Dallas (and possibly a few more). The residents in those cities, which pretty much dominate their counties, should be put in ”protective custody” for the good of the Nation.
The beauty of the op-ed idiot writers’ plan is that all their new Congresscritters already live in DC.
Scale that up for the entire 50 (even if by counties or cities; how many neighborhoods do you suppose there are in total??), and give each of the new states 2 Senators and some Representatives, and there is no way Washington DC can hold them all.
Actually, I’m for mandating that the existing crew live at home and reside in group hostels when they come to town for anything that can’t be done with phones and Zoom meetings.
@ Neo > I have changed my view to believe that more Germans were not onboard with the Nazi program than I originally thought, although the vast majority of them did nothing about it.”
From the quoted text, with some up-to-date revisions:
@ Richard Aubrey > “Publicly, it looked like a rough place to be but it wasn’t a death camp and it would have been easier to rationalize not complaining about it early on than if it had been an extermination camp and known to be so.”
Something like these?
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/08/26/australia-has-begun-building-covid-concentration-camps-n2594763
This seems an appropriate place to drop this link.
https://notthebee.com/article/sad-nearly-half-of-college-students-wouldnt-room-with-someone-who-voted-for-the-opposing-candidate-in-2020
Discrimination is Step III.
https://www.genocidewatch.com/tenstages
“Demonization” and Step IV “Dehumanization” seem to me to be the same thing, and it’s not a big step from III.
“such as the way our government and constitution are ( currently) set up”
Do not doubt that the left will, if they gain the power, completely overthrow the constitution in the name of “democracy”. Ultimately this will be done for the same reasons the Nazi’s changed the German constitution, to give them unfettered power to do what they want. At that point only the lord knows how far they will go but there are plenty of potential Gestapo in both parties so moderation is, likely, not an avenue to be traveled once the left is firmly in control.
Add this one.
https://notthebee.com/article/uc-berkley-off-campus-housing-bans-white-students-from-common-areas-to-avoid-white-violence
“There used to be a term for people who banned people from places based entirely on the color of their skin.”
Or their religious/ethnic/family heritage.
Of course, the Nazis made their entire country into a “safe space” for Germans of Aryan descent, because they wanted to avoid the Jewish presence.
Notes:
(1) The quoted post contains sad messages from POC who are light-skinned and are themselves being accused of the sin of being white, and it’s probably their parents & family members referred to by the last rule.
(2) The last rule doesn’t indicate how people are supposed to assure their co-residents that their white family members are not bigots; it’s just assumed that all of them are.
(3) POC encompasses several ethnicities that have dark skins; some of the most racially bigoted people around, who often don’t hesitate to “express” it, are black people referring to Asians, Hispanics referring to blacks, and Indigenous referring to all of the rest.
(4) How did Queer people become POC?
After quoting one of the school spokes-persons (I don’t want to assume…) about the reasons for the anti-white rules that don’t actually exist except you can find the list on the internet, the NTB author observers:
Does “blood libel” come to mind?
@ CultivatingMan > “there are plenty of potential Gestapo in both parties”
Sadly true, but the ones currently running the show are mostly on the Left.
Even the ones who claim to be part of the Right.
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/10/13/the-hilarious-infighting-of-the-never-trump-folks-n456201
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/07/guest-post-lucretia-asks-can-kristol-be-built-back-better.php
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/never-bush-cheney-never-trump
by W. James Antle III, August 20, 2022 07:04 AM
Looking into the history of the “blood libel” and similar anti-Jewish tropes, I found an instance which emphasizes the moral necessity of waiting until an alleged crime, especially an atrocity, is investigated before deciding on the guilt of the accused — not a defining feature of the huge majority of cases.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel
We don’t seem to have progressed much since then.
Art Deco posted a link to this story a couple of days ago, but high-lighted a different aspect of it there.
This part is relevant here.
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2020/08/my-firing-at-knkx.html
A number of comment concurred with Mast; many were articulated along the same lines as Neo & most of us here.
This one was particularly appropriate.
Richard Aubrey said this on another thread (The Drumming up of Hatred), but it echoes some of Mast’s commenters who disagreed with his assessment of the “mostly peaceful protests” being parallel to the violence in Germany against the Jews.
“To the extent conservatives are considered evil, is there a cohort on the left which thinks conservatives may/must be physically assaulted? It’s okay to punch a Nazi, right?”
The depiction of the Right as being the real Nazis is endemic among Democrats, despite the fact that there have been no actions from Republicans at the Federal level that parallel Hitler’s (at least in my lifetime).
Some actions are mis-interpreted by either flat-out lying or through the 2D moral myopia of the Progressives that Haidt examined (see stan’s link at The Political Divide to https://theindependentwhig.com/). Policies to restrict illegal immigration is one of the major ones.
It’s hard to see how we get past these polar opposite beliefs over which side is genuinely channeling the bad guys.
Aesopfan
I used to think better of the Aussies.
But, once Covid started, I noted something I should have seen with regard to AGW. Some folks want to be made to do stupid stuff because it gives them a thrill to see themselves–and be seen–as complying. With anything. It also gives them the moral high ground from which to condemn those who think for themselves.
Years ago, a historian noted that during the various revolutions in Europe starting with the English Civil War, the folks of the ancien regime left, or went to their country estates or otherwise mostly managed to survive. The French dancing teacher is a fixture in old romance novels set in England in the late eighteenth century.
Having survived, the more or less big shots returned, which is why there are still references to dukes and princes and barons and whatnot in Europe even today, even though it means nothing politically.
Which, said the historian, tends to moderate the revolutionary thrust of the nation in question.
Didn’t happen here. The Loyalists went to Canada, the UK, Bermuda, and didn’t return. No moderation here. Which might explain the lack of response to various oppressions in Canada, Australia, the UK.
One other thing about Germany is that it was divided religiously–Catholic and Protestant areas. This may have given Nazi propagandists ways to push their program. It would also make Jews seem more like outsiders. When my husband was in school (in a Catholic area, they didn’t play with the Protestant students in the same school. My husband’s uncle (almost 100) wanted to join the Hitler Youth as a kid, but his family wouldn’t let him.
Things have changed since those days. There is more religious tolerance, but I don’t know whether that has more to do with weakening religious beliefs.
My hometown was started by Germans, but I never experienced religious intolerance. We had people who attended many different churches on my block, but we didn’t talk about it. Jews seemed to keep more to themselves, but I never heard anyone mention that a store owner was Jewish. The only thing I remember mentioned about Jews in my Catholic school was that Jesus was a Jew. You could obviously tell the Mennonites by their clothing and the black painted fenders on their cars, but no one ever talked about them.It was quite different from how my husband grew up in Germany.
Re: hatred
I have a classmate from Davidson who went on to a career in the army as a chaplain. I think the denomination is Methodist (IIRC), but really not sure. On a Facebook thread on a post by a fellow DC alum a few years ago he asserted as fact that all Republicans are white supremacists. (He’s white. We had very, very few black students at DC in the 70s other than my teammates in football and basketball. One non-athlete was my physics lab partner for a couple of courses. Another, a woman, would be my law school trial partner at Vandy Law. She was one of only two black women in our law class of about 175-180.)
Anyway, this particular slander hadn’t become all that common at the time except from the most extreme lefties. I was stunned. Stunned because this wasn’t a Dem Underground or NY Times comment section. The FB page was of a woman who is a Republican although pretty moderate. Stunned because his career as an army officer (not in a typical lefty work ghetto). Stunned because he was living in North Carolina (where I think he grew up). Not SF or NYC or other provincial lefty ghetto. Stunned because he was a minister.
He knew he was slandering. Had to. He simply knows too many people, has too many personal friends, too many neighbors who have given no evidence or reason to justify that kind of smear.
How does that happen? What could explain that kind of intense hatred? Dr. Robert Malone described the Covidiots’ intense need to conform as “mass psychosis”. I have to wonder if there isn’t something similar at work currently to explain the psychology that allows intelligent people to descend to such ugly depths.
Over the course of my life I have become convinced that very few people are really moral. I suspect that a lot of people who pride themselves as moral (e.g. having not committed adultery) have, in reality, never likely faced any serious temptation. Jordan Peterson told one of his classes that 99% of them would have gone along with what happened in Germany in the Hitler years. I assume most people are familiar with the experiments that showed people will agree to torture innocents if they think everyone around them agrees.
So I wonder if this is a situation where people in a liberal bubble (self-imposed) are getting pep talks and cheerleading to think and believe really extreme and ugly smears of people they don’t like. Even Krauthmmer’s axiom doesn’t explain the fervor and intensity of the hatred.
The two minute hate was not a figment.
Stan:
I think it’s a form of virtue-signaling, plus conforming to the mores of the supposedly virtuous group. But there’s also this sort of reasoning often involved: the person believe there are SOME outright white supremacists on the right, and that all other people on the right support the right, therefore they support the white supremacists among them, therefore they are enabling and empowering white supremacists, therefore all people on the right (Republicans) are white supremacists. I have heard that explicitly stated as the reason for the accusation.
Of course its an idiotic claim just like master luce, one year older and hes behaving like a five year old (his elaboration was even more insane)
Does he find western civilization or christianity objectionable the rule of law the standards of evidence. As for violence how much time is he willing to debate.
Wouldnt it be right and proper, master luce
https://mobile.twitter.com/EdwardGLuce/status/1561368460382306304?cxt=HHwWgICwyfOVjKsrAAAA
We could avoid the Nazi connection and just compare them to the Stasi. In fact, the commie-connection even helps the accuracy. Marx->Lenin->Gramsci->Alinsky->Obama->now.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justice/russiagate-binder-messages-peter-strzok-lisa-page
https://www.rebelnews.com/animal_rebellion_says_milk_is_racist
@ Neo [edited by AF] > “the person believe[s] there are SOME outright white supremacists on the right [which there seem to be], and that all other people on the right support the [entire] right,* therefore they support the white supremacists among them, therefore they are enabling and empowering white supremacists, therefore all people on the right (Republicans) are white supremacists.”
You may be onto something there, if only to point out the flawed reasoning involved.
*It’s hard for some people to accept that, with only two viable political parties in the USA, you have to go with the one that hits most of your wish-list, even if some other people in the same “big tent” advocate things you disagree with – often vehemently so – because the other side is IYO worse on more.
Democrats used to understand that, but they have been purging their ranks of heretics for a couple of decades now, and project that action onto the Republicans as well, which is how they get that “all” and “entire” factors into their chain.
Group guilt is a very old human custom – in fact, some of the Articles in the Constitution specifically take “justice” aka vengeance OUT of the hands of the dominant families, clans, and/or political tribes in order to protect the innocent.
We have not eradicated that propensity, just reined it in from time to time by enforcing orderly, openly-legislated statutes; once those reins are gone, we have what was rampant in Nazi Germany and elsewhere, and what we are experiencing here.
I try, when speaking of the outrages and depredations of the Leftist activists and Democrat leadership, to explicitly use those modifiers, so as not to get into the habit of imputing guilt to those not technically or actually guilty by their own words and actions.
Too many of my friends and extended family are “enablers and empowerers” of those who are doing evil on the Left, but I don’t think they are themselves bad people.
Yet.
Fooling himself
https://mobile.twitter.com/JeremyRedfernFL/status/1561520271303098370?cxt=HHwWhIC-ibua0asrAAAA
From huxley on August 20, 2022 at 11:45 pm:
“would add enough votes in Congress to ratify four amendments”
I must be missing something from this discussion/ presentation: while Congress can propose constitutional amendments, it cannot (yet anyway) ratify them. That still requires 3/4 state legislatures and/or state conventions.
What I am missing in the scheme presented above?
R2L:
I believe with all those extra Democratic states, either 2/3 of the newly-padded Congress would propose the amendments and 3/4 of the states (including of course the extra states) would ratify them, or 2/3 of the states (including of course the extra states) would propose a convention and 3/4 of the states (including of course the extra states) would ratify them.
It would basically be Washington DC taking control of the entire country and dictating what it would be doing. Sort of analogous to the Enabling Act (since we’re talking about Nazi analogies, right?) only with a DC-dominated legislature doing the dictating rather than the Fuhrer.
Left wing logic?
Antifa is violent. The Black Panthers are violent. Democrats all. In fact, Democrats are far more likely to murder, far more likely to rape, and far more likely to commit crime. Democrats are far more likely to spy for other countries against the US.
Obviously, all Democrats are murderers. All Democrats are traitors.
Sort of analogous to the Enabling Act (since we’re talking about Nazi analogies, right?) only with a DC-dominated legislature doing the dictating rather than the Fuhrer.
neo:
Exactly.
Add these to the discussion on authoritarianism & totalitarianism & socialism as foundations for Nazi-ism, and on display today in the Democrat Party & its allies (or controllers, take your pick).
https://threadreaderapp.com/user/Doc_0
(there may be more above these by the time you click the link, but this is the home page right now and all of them are worth the time to read)
Aug 18 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
A key idea underlying totalitarianism, spread aggressively by academia, is that EVERYTHING is inherently political. Even refusing to engage in politics is a political statement. ALL art, commerce, and speech is political. Totalitarians merely recognize this “truth” openly. This is one reason for the tedious insistence of left-wingers to read political messages into every scrap of art, writing, and music, even when it’s studiously non-political or whimsical. From there, it’s easy for them to justify clumsily injecting their politics into everything.
Aug 18 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
The Left’s favorite trick is displacing cultural aggression. They attack our common culture with some extremist ideological crusade – then attack anyone who resists as if THEY were the “extremists” obsessed with fighting a “culture war.” Right now, we’re in a gibbering lunatic Wonderland where sexually indoctrinating other people’s children is not extreme – but resisting it, or even merely NOTICING it, is treated like “extremism” by left-wingers, social media censors, and captive government agencies.
Aug 17 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
For all the howling about Trump’s “authoritarian tendencies,” there is no question whatsoever that Americans were more free during his term, and it’s a safe bet they would become more free if he runs and defeats Joe Biden in 2024. This is one reason the NeverTrumpers can’t connect with any significant portion of the Republican electorate. They’re getting real authoritarianism shoved down their throats right now. The Dems just stole another trillion dollars from them with a fraud “inflation reduction” bill.
Aug 15 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
Weakness is always provocative, including weakness in defense of free speech. When you open the door to politicized censorship, no matter how high-minded your ideals supposedly are, eventually people with knives, guns, and bombs will kick that door all the way open. Once you signal free speech is on the political bargaining table,
“I have changed my view to believe that more Germans were not onboard with the Nazi program than I originally thought, although the vast majority of them did nothing about it.”
This is consistent with what I have thought for a long time, that most people in most places for most of human history just go along with whoever is in power. Because if you don’t really bad things are liable to happen to you and your family. I hope we don’t get to that point in the US.
During President Trump’s administration, the Democrat – Left – Media Pundits – Social Influencers circus continually caterwauled about him being the latest reincarnation of Hitler (following in the steps of Bushitler, but apparently All is Now Forgiven for Dubya).
The response on the Right was usually along the lines of “If Trump were really Hitler, you would be dead or in jail. You aren’t, so he isn’t.”
Since the DLMPSI enforcement arm, aka the DOJ / FBI, is now actively seeking to put Trump and all his supporters in jail, at the least, I think the question of “Which party is the Nazis?” has been answered.
J. E. Dyer’s latest post is the fifth in her series on the Mar-a-lago raid, beginning here.
https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2022/08/09/world-crisis-raiders-of-the-lost-files/
The first four posts are very data-rich, connection-intensive deep dives into the depths of the Deep State; although most of the information she cites isn’t new, her analysis and conclusions seem to me to be more innovative than the regular media pundits manage.
The most recent one is more of an overview, tying things together without all of the supporting detail (although there is still quite a bit), and fisking a recent hyperventilating post from Newsweek in the process.
https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2022/08/20/pinglet-on-new-theme-that-trump-was-hoarding-documents-about-russiagate/
If I’ve followed her arguments correctly (in all 5 posts), the short version is as follows:
The DOJ and FBI know what materials Trump had sent to Mar-a-lago: the Archives has a list, and the sudden claim that he retained “nuclear secrets” is total baloney.
The Archives is perfectly capable of getting its own copies of anything Trump has or had, because there is never only one paper copy and it’s doubtful Trump ever had any originals. There is some possible interest in having a copy of anything with his hand-written notes, but there are machines that do that sort of thing.
If there had really been anything critical in Trump’s boxes, the Archives would have taken it in their earlier acquisitions in January and on 3 June 2022.
The goal of the August raid was to retrieve Trump’s copies of the unredacted proof that the Obama’s officials, and the agents of the Intelligence Community during Trump’s administration, were surveilling his campaign, transition, and administration.
There aren’t any national intelligence secrets in the Crossfire Hurricane material (Spygate + Russiagate) that have to remain classified, because there was no intelligence product or methods that could be revealed – it was all made up.
TIMELINE
Trump filed a lawsuit under the RICO act in March 2022 against specific individuals in government positions (including Comey, McCabe, Strzok, (Lisa) Page, and Clinesmith), alleging much of the things we already know they did because of prior reporting. Unless DOJ could somehow stop it, that would result in the exposure of all that declassified Russiagate/Spygate material. (The wonders of discovery.)
The grand jury subpoena issued to Trump on 12 May 2022 requested “material the government believed to be in Trump’s possession even after he turned over the prior material” (i.e., material turned over in January 2022).
Trump filed his amended suit on 21 June, the day before the (later) warrant-issuing Judge Reinhart recused himself from that case (as did 4 others), adding hundreds of new facts and assertions, and some new defendants, that had not been in the prior claims, based on Durham’s investigation results; again, most are already out in the public, but there were also connections and observations that haven’t been in the news. And lots and lots and lots of names that didn’t appear in the first filing.
On 14 July, the DOJ requested, and received, an amendment to remove those individuals as defendants and substitute itself (“United States”), thus pitting Trump against the entire resources and pocketbook of the country (paid for by guess who) IF the lawsuit were to go forward; the court did not grant their simultaneous motion to dismiss.
With the DOJ (technically the USA) formally a party to Trump’s civil suit, the conspirators had the means available to bottle up his evidence, namely the documents he declassified at the end of his term, because they would now be part of an “ongoing investigation” and thus off-limits to the RICO court.
On 4 August, Trump filed in opposition to the judge’s decision to substitute the USA and dismiss the complaint against the FISA Five.
The warrant for the Mar-a-Lago raid was requested and issued the next day, 5 August 2022.
“Okay, you’re not wearing a swastifka armband. But everything else you’re doing and saying is a technique or strategy the Nazis used. So I’m calling you a Nazi anyway.”
Does this apply more accurately to the left or to the right?
https://mobile.twitter.com/politicalmath/status/1560830997805113350
Certifiable
https://www.risk.net/our-take/7953576/net-zero-pledges-bring-big-unknown-for-credit-risk
By the director of “The Life of Others”, a fine mostly post-WW II movie is “Never Look Away” about an art student born in Germany, young for the War, living thru and after the War among commies, and his romance with another art student whose ex-Nazi, ex-Commie famous Professor father adds huge plot complications & drama to the story.
https://www.movieguide.org/reviews/never-look-away.html (a guide to movies for Christians, noting especially the sex scenes, violence, and vulgar obscenities.)
I have Holocaust fatigue – too much against Hitler, not enough against Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, the Muslim Turks murdering Christian Armenians, black Hutus murdering black Tutsis.
There’s only 100% space in a mind, or a thread, to talk about stuff. If Hitler, and almost only Hitler, is “evil”, that leaves no space or time for other evil.
Which is why Reagan, no, Bush, no Trump is literally Hitler!!!!!
Today’s Democratic Socialists are all too similar to the early German National Socialists in many ideas and willingness to act.
Not mentioned enough in this thread is the 20s & 30s reality in Germany of Stalinist Communism not so far to the East. Many “Hitler supporters” were actually Never Communist types, as I was a Never Hillary voter in 2016. Communism is, and was, really bad, in practice.
Since Hitler, 90% (or 99%?) of the demonization in US public talk and commentary is against Hitler, not the other dictators, nor even other fascists like Franco or Mussolini – neither of which set up death camps nor gulags like Stalin.
Republicans should certainly be focusing more on how the Democratic tactics today are similar to Nazi tactics of the 20s & 30s. Only against Republicans & Trump supporters rather than against Jews.
The demonization of Trump is designed to make it easy for uncertain Dems to go along with illegal gov’t actions because “stopping Hitler is worth it”. Those voting Democrat are supporting leftist Democrat violence & law breaking.
And all pundits should call out the problems as Democrat problems, not “the Left”, because it’s D – Democrats on the ballot that some 81 million voters (supposedly) voted for for President.
If it’s stopped before it’s too late, it needs to be stopped by voters who stop voting Democrat. Too bad so few of them read here with Neo.
Unless there is Civil War II, the USA is finished, It will become the United Socialist States of America (USSA), little different in operation from Putin’s Russia with a few elite billionaires running the show and the rest of us trying to stay warm (New England, you deserve that!) and live on cabbage soup.
Interesting in all the Nazi chatter above no one mentioned Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor and theologian, who deliberately chose to return to Germany from Manhattan, into the Nazi jaws in about 1938.
Germany, Bavaria aside, has always been Lutheran, since Luther. You may recall the Thirty Years War, 1618-1648 was between Protestant and Catholic countries, fought mostly on German soil.
Bonhoeffer and a few other Christ-like figures tried to keep the church alive, but the Nazis removed all pastors, replaced them with “good” Nazis and redefined the Lutheran Church as the German Lutheran Church.
Bonhoeffer was long imprisoned, and was executed in April 1945. A truly Satanic murder.
nor even other fascists like Franco or Mussolini –
The Nationalist coalition included the Falange, which was adjacent to the Fascist movement, but it had a number of other components. The movement as a whole lacked the revanchism and vainglory crucial to fascism. The use of the term ‘fascist’ to refer to Franco is a misnomer.
Germany, Bavaria aside, has always been Lutheran, since Luther.
Baden, Rhenish Prussia, much of Westphalia, and much of Wurttemburg had a Catholic majority. The German Hapsburg territories did as well.
Miranda Devine sees it. https://nypost.com/2022/08/21/the-lefts-mask-slips-on-brazen-trump-bias/
“It has progressed to the next stage, of stigmatizing and dehumanizing Trump’s supporters, which has echoes in some of the darkest periods of 20th-century history. The dozens of Trump supporters held in a DC jail without trial for months and even years over Jan. 6 offenses, many nonviolent, would be recognized immediately as political prisoners by Amnesty International if they were detained in a country like Russia.”
I do think that we should get in the faces of Democrats and make them justify their tyrannical behavior. Don’t let them look away. Don’t let them ignore the ugliness or pretend it isn’t happening. Make them own it. Make them enbrace the argument that they have to destroy the republic in order to save it.
Cicero:
Actually, Bonhoeffer was mentioned already in this very thread, in this previous comment.
Also, in this previous post, I mentioned that quite a few members of the German Nazi resistance were religious people and that played a part in their resistance.
stan, that article by Miranda Devine (always a good read) was great. But they should have asked Harris one more question:
“If Trump is so evil that it’s ok to suppress the news and lie in order to keep him from power then would it be ok to stuff ballot boxes and miscount votes for the same purpose?”
FOAF,
They don’t realize it, but every time they violate norms, trash the rule of law and shred the constitution, they are providing indirect evidence that the 2020 election was crooked. The more they demonstrate their willingness, even eagerness, to lie, steal and cheat, the more reasonable people can conclude that they are very capable of stealing an election.
Of course, people with an understanding of history know this has always been the case. The evidence is just overwhelming.
But there are far too many people who are desperate to show that they aren’t “extremists”. Or simply too fearful of what it means if they acknowledge reality. Once you acknowledge that one party is relentlessly shredding the constitution and law, a decent person recognizes a moral obligation to do something about it. Cowardice is all around us.
J. E. Dyer > “Something changed – at a minimum, a decision was made – between 24 March and 21 June 2022, and with the amended complaint, Trump came out swinging.”
Just the News > On May 10, Acting National Archivist Debra Steidel Wall sent Trump’s lawyers a letter that detailed the White House’s involvement.
… the letter “revealed Biden empowered the National Archives and Records Administration to waive any claims to executive privilege that Trump might wage to block DOJ from gaining access to the documents.”
I think that’s probably the inflection point.
(h/t om at Neo’s post the-end-of-the-constitution-at-the-hands-of-the-left)