There are authoritarians in every country. I don’t get the appeal - you have to think less I guess? less responsibility? - but lots of people seem eager to give up their voice if they think the person getting the power will use it against the people they don’t like.
The key is to get them to realize that eventually someone who doesn’t like them is going to get the power - maybe? But I think I’ve also heard that some of these preferences are down to physical brain structure that determines sensitivity to fear and empathy
As someone who is fairly into ideologies I can tell you, that national-socialism or nazism, which is a sub-ideology of fascism isn’t called that for no reason. If you look at it closely it does take a lot home from nationalism, but socialisim as well. These are right-wing (with some exceptions) and left-wing ideologies respectively and both can take extremes. This is why a lot of people in the sphere call the fusion of these two the “Third Way”, meaning it’s between the extreme left and extreme right and opposite to Centrism, which is between the calmer ends of the two sides. This means that nazis are neither right nor left-wing, at least as seen in european politics, in the exteremely polarized american political climate they (or at least their grossly dumbed-down interpretation) could be considered extremly right wing, but I think american politics are stupid anyway. And now to answer the question (pretending I didn’t just saw a question where there wasn’t any) anyone who calls nazis leftists just has a politcal bias against them and tries to make them appear even worse by blending them with those goddamn liberals. Okay but seriously, people really shouldn’t dumb down “old enemies” because that just means that they didn’t learn anything.
Nazis are right wing in a European political context, that is not really a discussion in academia. This has nothing to do with current American politics, this is established history.
The only people claiming that they are left wing are right wing fascists who tries to distance themselves from the term (while doing everything in their power to emulate them), and that is done by both European and American fascists.
You’re “fairly into ideologies”, but you’re not well versed on political literacy. It seems like you got your idea of where Nazism sits on the political spectrum from the PoliticalCompassMemes subreddit (where “nAzIS ARe aUtHCENter” is the most commonly promoted talking point).
First and foremost, “third way” isn’t even the correct term to use here. You’re most likely referring to the term “third position”, which is an honest mistake in terminology, but that term refers to a different thing than third way entirely.
“Third way” refers to the more social liberal side of centrism. “Third position” is in reference to fascist tendencies to reject the binary notion of either standard socialist economics and/or laissez-faire free market capitalist economics. This comes with an important caveat: rejection of “typical socialism” and “typical capitalism” doesn’t mean you’re neither left-wing or right-wing, as we don’t really, in terminology, use your stance on socialism and capitalism as an inherent way of noting whether you’re left-wing or right-wing.
Some people might hear this reference to Nazism and assume this means it’ neither left-wing or right-wing, but this is a misinterpretation of definitions. Nazis most certainly were not free market capitalists, but they weren’t socialists either. However, the methods in which you run your economy are not necessarily the prime dictator of being left-wing and/or right-wing, like I said.
Nazis have historically been, and to this day still are, placed on the far-right end of the political spectrum due to upholding hierarchical doctrines within society because left and right are not “socialism vs. capitalism” as much as they are “egalitarianism vs hierarchy”. Nazis didn’t take hugely consistent economic positions, but they still were extremely hierarchical, and that serves as the basis of considering their ideology far-right.
Unless you want to argue that Nazis are not fans of rigid hierarchies (which would be foolish to do so), then you should, in some capacity, be able to acknowledge them sitting on the far-right end of the polspec.
Also, one more thing to mention. Leftists tend to be socialists because it’s an egalitarian mode of production. However, you can still support a less regulative corporatist economy like Nazis did while not being any degree of egalitarianism. Just stating this so people don’t misinterpret me as saying that “leftists aren’t inherently socialists”.
You are probably right about the third way/position thing, it’s just that I haven’t informed from english-speaking sources, so I’ve never been really sure of the correct translation. This might just have completly screwed up the meaning of my comment. As for the rest I don’t oppose the idea that nazis are more right than left, I just say they incorporate enough ideas of the left-wing, both cultural and economic to be called a blend of the two sides.
Nazis took nothing from the left wing other than some rhetoric they used to gain popular support from the working class. Their politics were more inspired by European colonialism than anything else. Lebensraum is basically just manifest destiny applied to Europe.
This is the real issue with troll communities (and subreddits). The_Donald started out as a troll community, and it was effectively overrun with nutjobs.
Yes, satirizing these people is hilarious, but they’re often too stupid to differentiate between ironic support and endorsement and actual agreement. These are the same people who routinely fall for The Onion articles.
Don’t be surprised at the level of stupidity people are willing to duck under to confirm their own beliefs. Lol
A wise man once said “Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they’re in good company.”
Makes me think of the “fake it 'til you make it” saying. Guess the “pretending to be an idiot” folk end up becoming idiots from all the faking they did.
When a small but dedicated group of vocal people started unironically and emphatically believing the planet was a pancake, I lost a significant portion of my lingering reserves of hope for the future of mankind.
Extremist politics and all the associated mindsets have long since jumped a row of sharks in my mind by comparison.
From my limited understanding, it mostly seems like misattribution of all the very obvious chaos and uncertainty about “grand” events like climate change, economical strife, etc.
It’s less that someone holds pancake planet as their sole belief but more a web of interconnected beliefs that would explain the true cause of these nebulous events if they were true.
Not that it makes the outcome any better that people choose a more palatable ideological narrative over reality but there is a part of me that recognizes ignorance would be more blissful.
Because people who can’t make their own discussions need an authority to follow. In the US, they turn to fox news, AM radio, or manosphere podcasts. Most of them have serious daddy issues.
In the US, they turn to fox news, AM radio, or manosphere podcasts.
In the US, the “opposite” side turns to CNN/BBC, toxic feminist Instagrammers and virtue signalling YouTubers. I cannot agree with that either.
There is a lot of adulteration in “leftism”, just as there are some correct things about “rightism”. I am no centrist, but I would rather take one step back from leftism, and be 10 steps away from rightism, than swing fully in any direction. I think contextual rationale, and not necessary a “centrist” 50-50 both sides bullshit, is the correct path to take. Forging your own path as a mindhacker with no like minded company is the hardest thing.
What do you really want to say? You’re trying very hard to say both sides are wrong without being labeled as a centrist.
“Toxic left wing” pundits haven’t gotten their followers to storm the capital building or fly a plane into an irs biulding. If you’re really mad someone has opinions on video games, install a 3rd party channel blocker for firefox. The things the toxic femists/pick-me types are up to pale in comparison to the manosphere are up to.
I cannot agree to just treating and branding men’s spaces like that. Manosphere may be doing a bad job, but its not all redpillers and Tateists. I hate this attack on and absolutist “shit on men constantly” trope in society. Its almost like the very thing feminists become they swear to destroy. Society and life is more complex than “shit on men and worship women”.
When feminists say “all men bad” “kill all men” “men are dogs” “men are b***hes” “masculinity is fragile” and so on, the ignorance of men being oppressed throughout history is really telling, and the same strong “fragile” men have built this world. Putting the bourgeois royalties’ doings on “men” exclusively is incredibly fascistic of feminists, and is the reason why I have taken one step back from leftism, while maintaining 10 steps distance from rightism.
If you want to know how leftist I am, I have been a 1 year long dedicated member of Lemmygrad.
Manosphere is a very specific thing. They’re the Andrew Tate types. If it’s a legitimate form of mental health or self care thing, it isn’t Manosphere. Hell, if it’s mental health, it’s rarely branded as male orientated because it’s genderless advice.
You’re creating this weird narrative in your head. The feminists you have a problem with are a minority who are only visible because they’re gaming the algorithm. They have no effect on your daily life.
Most feminists and women brand men’s safe spaces as redpill, right wing, part of manosphere, horrible and so on. They absolutely have an effect on me, the way random transphobes have an effect on the existence of transgender people. Men are not treated like equal humans with compassion, just because 0.1% rich ultracapitalists or harassers or rapists have subjugated women in society. There is no desire for equity or equality, but gender superiority. Plenty women who distance themselves from feminist movement agree with this today.
Manosphere is a very vague term in itself, even though it started as simply redpillers and Tateists. Wikipedia defines it as a “collection of websites, blogs, and online forums promoting masculinity, misogyny, and opposition to feminism.[1] Communities within the manosphere include men’s rights activists,[2] incels (involuntary celibates),[3] Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW),[4] pick-up artists (PUA),[5] and fathers’ rights groups.[6]”
Its true that manosphere has misogyny, and that it has issues, but it provides an alternate point of view and is NOT all Tateists, even if there does exist misogyny, the same way misandry and vitriolic hatred for men exists in female safe spaces, which are abundant today. The world is not all black and white, and just as men treat women like a pair of breasts and a vagina, women treat men with the well known small dick hand gesture and other verbal slangs for degradingly equating us with penis. Women are more compassionate than men, and they have chosen to keep it all to themselves with their sisterhood. Men have no brotherhood today.
Every feminist I have met, no matter radical, communist or liberal, has always degraded and blamed all men, and downplayed issues with women while screaming “all men _____” the moment anything happens. And literally anything you say against this makes you a redpiller, woman hater, incel or any of the buzzwords they decide to cancel you with. I have a lot of grievances with it, and it affects all men, which includes me, so I will find solace in places that support men instead of supporting agendas aimed to hate men. Men have unheard grievances, and if feminists think they will win the battle against half the planet, their movement deserves to crash and doom. Feminism by the day is behaving less like a leftist movement for equality for both sexes, and more like a woman supremacist movement with right wing shades.
I think confusion comes in to play because at some point, socialism turns into authoritarianism, which isn’t far off from both totalitarianism and fascism. None of that is good.
I didn’t say that. Just that socialism, when taken to an extreme, is. Technically no form if government is inherently the evil three, but they can all become one of them.
Not the person you’re talking to but I have, in fact, talked to actual Kartoffel-Germans who’d straight up swallowed the American propaganda and insisted on the “Sozialisten” part being the important one. They’re few and far in between because our schools aren’t complete failures but they do exist.
Just ask them how come you can find plenty of swastikas at Trump rallies, plenty of merchants selling them too, but none of either at Democratic rallies?
Are the communists supporting the Republicans?
Are the Republicans communists?
Finally why is the person you’re talking to aligning themselves with communist sympathisers?
That doesn’t really hold water too well. Most european right wing parties, including those which are veiled neonazis, have close ties with Russia. The Russia, which has a leader cult around someone who claims to be stomping out Neonazis in the Ukraine.
Many of them also have ties with China, which officially is still communist and also is best friends with the leader-cult leader in Russia.
Most often international “friend groups” are determined by the “enemy-of-my-enemy” principle, and not by ideological similarities.
I have heard that the right wing party of my country are actually communists and the “left wing” party are actually conservatives so. Not just an American thing.
So like, from a subjective standpoint the United States is an Oligarchy. That can of course be debated and is by no means this irrefutable claim, although it certainly is up for discussion
Objectively however we are NOT a democracy, like literally by deffinition. We are a Republic. It’s a little nit picky I know but I just think it’s interesting that we as a people latch onto the term “democracy” despite it being, objectively, not our system of government
As a Greek speaker who also knows Latin and Ancient Greek, both words mean the same thing and come from the same roots in their respective language (demos = publius = people/community/population). I don’t know why political theorists try so hard to separate them. The only real use of separating them is for easily differentiating the Athenian Democracy from the Roman Republic, for historical purposes, but nowadays both democracies and republics are functionally the same thing (and linguistically should be the same too). The only difference is sometimes the functioning leader’s name (president vs prime minister). Every other difference between them are for the sake of local cultural/historical traditions.
In the classical sense, Parliamentary/Representative Republics/Democracies ARE oligarchies. A true democracy would give voting power not just for electing representatives but also for determining specific policies and laws (i.e. Referendums), which very rarely, if at all in many cases, actually happens.
This is such a stupid talking point I can’t believe it still gets parroted.
If you have elections for government officials chosen from the people, you are a democracy - there’s no real high bar for that.
If you are an independent nation not beholden to any foreign power, you are a Republic. The American head of state is the US President chosen by the American people, not a King or Queen from another nation.
Yes while they can be definitively left or right. It is not ultimately important to them which they are. As you said it’s all about maintaining control and power. And if they believe it would be better for them to maintain control and power. They would happily switch from capitalist to communist or vice versa. So I guess at least on an economic standpoint. Is probably most accurate to say that authoritarians are centrist. But boy won’t that piss off all the people who believe they’re centrists. It’s just that on social axis authoritarians are extreme.
The Political Compass shows that authoritarianism is on a completely different axis than the economic policy spectrum. You’re correct. I’m not sure of any true, long-lasting authoritarian left systems though, since they seem to quickly transition to cronyism oligarchies, enriching the people in power. Maybe the oligarchs don’t directly own the means of production, but using their seat of power to skim money off of the fruits of the productivity is just unfettered capitalism with extra steps.
Maybe in English it is not used as often. In Germany it is used as just Bundesrepublik in News etc to don’t repeat oneself too much or in historic context to differentiate from the German Democratic Republic (where the naming is again ironic, but it’s the Democratic party)
That depends, in Germany, the federal republic part is fairly regularly used in news when talking about international affairs, basically using it so they don’t have to say Germany as often.
Yeah, that’s literally their whole reasoning. I’ve had to deal with a number of those all the way back in 2014, “national sOcIaLiSm”
Of course, whenever I pointed to The Guardian’s interview with Hitler in 1923 (and republished in 1932), where he energetically complains about marxists (marxians, as he calls them) “stealing” the socialist term from “real germans” and actively calls for the end of bolshevism, I was completely ignored.
“Why,” I asked Hitler, “do you call yourself a National Socialist, since your party programme is the very antithesis of that commonly accredited to socialism?”
“Socialism,” he retorted, putting down his cup of tea, pugnaciously, "is the science of dealing with the common weal. Communism is not Socialism. Marxism is not Socialism. The Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning. I shall take Socialism away from the Socialists.
Wait, but what did he even mean by “socialism” here? I get call what was happening in Russia not socialism, but what was the un-Marxist form of socialism Hitler was talking about? Also, wasn’t Marx also German, did Hitler see him as not a “real german”?
He didn’t mean anything at all. That was the brilliance of the Nazi propaganda machine. They stole words that referred to popular things and said them enough times in relation to themselves that they lost all meaning.
Its exactly the same as how the modern day right wing say anything that supports them is “patriotic” and anything that doesn’t is “anti-[country]”. If they say the word “patriotic” enough times, it loses all meaning & makes it impossible for opponents to argue against, because you can’t have a rational debate when language is meaningless.
Most Americans have no idea what socialism is. You’re not supposed to think about it here. They just hear that socialism is bad and it’s in the name of the nazi party which is also bad, so that tracks.
Most Americans think that “liberal” is someone on the left, while most European nations (as well as what little political theory I had) place them somewhere in the center, usually fiscally progressive but socially conservative.
Most Americans don’t know what capitalism is either. We’ve been so brainwashed into believing capitalism and simple commerce are the same thing that people think any system that isn’t capitalism is some authoritarian hellscape where the government forces you at gunpoint to share your toothbrush with everyone else in the neighborhood because personal property will be outlawed somehow.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
The caveat is that being a “racist mass murderer with a superiority complex” is a very right-wing thing. It wouldn’t be possible to fit that mold and be leftist because it’s entirely incompatible with leftist ideology.
So you’re saying that racism and mass murder did not exist under communist China?
What about Russification in the Soviet Union? Minorities were marginalized.
Why would it be a problem if the Nazis were actually left-wing? You’re not realizing you’re actually a victim of a fallacy. And even more concerning, you’re trying to use the same fallacy to attack back. It’s just flawed logic all over the place.
As I understand it the keystone between left and right is that:
The left belief is that all people are created equal and should have equal authority to point out wrong doing.
The right belief is that people should be in a hierarchy with people at the top exerting control downward.
I think they are actually just saying if you really believe everyone is equal you can’t pick a group to target for mass murder. But if you are at the top of a pyramid tge people below you naturally look expendable.
Correct, and my point was that they can’t. If you view everyone as equal you can’t make yourself a dictator. You can lie to yourself about your value, most people do for better or worse. But if everyone is equal you can’t decide to boost one group over another. Or if you do decide that is better and you deserve to be in charge, then your views have shifted right. That is my understanding of left vs right in it’s most basic form.
I said it doesn’t matter if the Nazis were right wing or left wing, what matters is that they were criminals. Then that person said that mass murder and racism is only aligned with the right, so I showed him/her that that is wrong, murder and racism can also happen on the left.
The point being that just because in the past there were rotten apples in the left/right, it doesn’t mean that being in the left/right makes you a rotten apple.
It’s not uncommon for fascists to adopt socialist rhetoric to try and gain mass appeal. However that falls away under the lightest scrutiny of their actions and ideology. “National Socialism” is the most obvious example. I’d include Pol Pot in that bucket as well.
The USSR under Stalin and PRC under Mao are a bit different. The government in either case made decisions that led to unnecessary death, but there’s no evidence to suggest any of their missteps were motivated by racial animus.
I don’t understand why someone would bring up that being right-wing does not make one a nazi unless they were right-wing and felt like the type of person who is at risk of being called a nazi.
That being said, in reference to your commenr: in America it is as you say. Elsewhere in the world it’s a bit more complicated. Left and Right originally referred to the sides of the French National Assembly, who either supported the king or the revolution. In some uses it just means people who support liberal economics (more funding) or conservative economics (less debt).
Most people would agree that communism is a left-wing ideology, but there have been famous communist leaders that were racist, mass-murdering and/or with superiority complexes (the famous examples of Che Guevara, Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot all fit some of those criteria each).
Hilarious how people who know exactly one “racist mass murderer with a superiority complex” assume that it is a right-wing thing. Try humanities most famous left-winger ever.
Im not saying that nazis and right-wing are unrelated, but you picked exactly those characteristics in Hitler that actually arent related to political views at all.
Thats not the point, youre twisting the order. Every nazi is right-wing, by definition. Not every right-winger is a nazi and thats not what people are saying. A big part of nazi ideology is overlapping with general right-wing ideologies, they are separate but not unrelated at all.
You don’t understand. What I’m saying is that you shouldn’t care about it. Do you care if the North Korean dictator is left-wing? No? Good, you shouldn’t. The same way you shouldn’t care if Nazis were right-wing.
I feel like you’re being deliberately obtuse. You’re right in that by itself trying to define the nazi party of the past in terms of present day left/right ideology is reductivist, and unproductive in discourse. But you’re ignoring two important facts in the present day right/left dynamic. First that literal modern day nazis have shown a distinct preference for right wing ideaology. Second is that fascism as an ideology is a chameleon that latches onto present day conflict to unite people through oppression of a weak other, which is the basis for present day right wing policy. As such the comparison becomes apt because the fascists of the past are a model for the fascists of the present.
OK, by that same logic the left-wing dictators and collapsed systems of the past are a model for the present. So is the right justified to push fear with those past examples to show how bad the left is?
Do you see that’s just the same flawed logic they use to scare people away from the left?
I’d argue that you should very much care about the political alignment of extremist leaders, because it show you where an ideology can ultimately lead to if left unchecked. As the poster above said, it doesn’t mean that all right-wing people are nazis, but knowing the nazis were right-wing shows you where a right-wing government can end up if the wrong set of conditions happen to come along. This is important information, as you can spot the warning signs as they appear and (hopefully) nip it in the bud before it gets to that point.
They are behaving like Nazis regardless of if the Nazis were right-wing or left-wing. Nazi behavior can happen in the left or the right. As I already said, discrimination, murder, superiority complex, racism and exploration has also happened in left-wing systems.
Of course bad things happen at the extremes of both sides, but I’m going to have to object to “regardless of if the Nazis were right-wing or left-wing.” I don’t think there’s really room to equivocate on that - nazism is right-wing.
It is. Just like fascism, these are terms associated with the right-wing. But that’s not my point… My point is that whatever affiliation the right or left had in the past does not necessarily represent the current affiliations. The fact that the US right-wing is turning to white supremacy is unrelated to Nazis being right wing. That is just a reflection of their systemic racism.
What I’m saying is that it is irrelevant if Republicans are trying to associate the left with Nazis, because even if such association existed, it is not a valid argument to say that the left today is ruled by Nazis, or that the right can’t behave like Nazis. That’s just a fallacy, the same fallacy that they use to point out that voting left will turn us into North Korea or an authoritarian left-wing dictatorship.
I can’t believe people aren’t getting this. It’s like they don’t understand I’m actually pro-left with this argument, somehow they think I’m protecting Nazis and Republicans because I’m not shouting “REPUBLICANS BAD!”
Going back and pointing out how Nazis were right-wing is something that will bite the left in the ass because there are plenty of examples of the left turning into shit too. So instead of comparing with past examples, just analyze their current positions. Is the right currently behaving like Nazis? Yes. Do you need WWII Nazis to be right wing for this to be a fact? No. So even if they convince people that Nazis were left wing, how does that disprove that RIGHT NOW they are the racists and white supremacists?
You could literally replace all this with “left wing” and use “communism” incorrectly instead of fascism (which isn’t just dictatorship, it was also a set of economic and societal philosophies invented by the fascisti of Italy) because at the end of the day, both sides of the political aisle have the same tendency to go extremist authoritarian when allowed.
There has been no non-authoritarian state of existence of humans inside any civilisation. None. Liberals/centrists playing this bullshit trope of feudalism or anarchism or some dreamy impossible organisation of society with literally zero hierarchy, is impossible. Direct democracy works at best on a scale of a small village. If we go by Dunbar’s number, no bigger than a group of 148 people can have direct relations.
Do you care if the North Korean dictator is left-wing?
Kim Jong-Un is right wing. So were Kim Jong Il, Kim Il Sung, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Xi, and Che Guevara. In fact, they were all moderate Republicans whose ideas are 100% in line with the current Republican Party platform. There’s no daylight at all between any of them and Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Before you respond, remember that you don’t care what their politics are because it doesn’t matter.
Dafuq, North Korea is left wing. OK, so was the Soviet Union also right wing when they marginalized minorities through Russification?
“if it is bad, it is right-wing”.
And yes, my whole point is that the fact North Korea has a left-wing dictatorship doesn’t mean that all left-wing parties will become dictatorships. You finally got my point, damn, it took you so long.
North Korea is 100% a right wing country, right wing policies and a dictator. You can’t argue with that fact.
Stalin claimed his government was left wing and Marx based but it was revealed that he was right leaning, a dictator and instilled right wing policies.
Ah ok, as I said, “everything that is left wing is good and paradise. Everything right wing is pure evil”.
In a left-wing state the state always holds the power… So once that state becomes corrupted and uses that power to keep all workers equally poor, then it is suddenly right wing? Show me what were the capitalist principles in the Soviet Union? Was there a free market, private incentive, private property, competition, minimal state intervention, entrepreneurship, individual rights and freedoms? NOOO THERE WEREN’T. It wasn’t a right-wing state.
You guys are insane. Lemmy became an echo chamber for your delusions. It’s really sad to see people this radicalized.
A dictator is a dictator, who the fuck cares if they are right or left wing? A racist is a racist. A murderer is a murderer. They can be found in any side of the political spectrum, but you’re too biased to believe the left can be corrupted… You are too blinded by what is right and what is left and are totally unable to see there can be combinations of ideologies.
You say dictators are right wing because they don’t follow some left-wing principles? Then I could argue that all dictators are left-wing because by definition the right strives to minimize government controls, and a dictatorship is authoritarian, which goes against right-wing policies… But I’m done arguing. This is my last Lemmy comment. You are so blinded by the left vs right argument you can’t see beyond that. This degree of fanatism can’t be healthy, I don’t want to become radicalized like you people. This self imposed blindness is sad and pathetic. Good bye.
Let me clarify. To be crystal clear, we’re talking about “left” and right on the political compass. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s the most well known one. Overall, “left” and “right” are bizarre terminologies with aqueous meanings deeply embedded in history.
You are technically correct if you are talking about the political compass. we call “authoritarian left” “Stalinism” and we call “libertarian right” “anarcho-capitalism” or just “libertarianism” in the US.
The problem is that all philosophy founding “leftist ideology” has consistently been “libertarian left”, focusing on collapsing hierarchies, dividing power into many hands, and dismantling power structures (such as currency). Anarchism is basically the prime example.
With Marx’s communism, his end game is a system without any government, where people simply exchange services and collaborate to create only what they want or need (not to endlessly proliferate waste for profit). Even his “dictatorship of the proletariat”, one of the stepping stones to communism, is a democratic system. It is called a “dictatorship” because it revokes the voting rights of the rich.
To boot, the ideologies which exist in the “authoritarian left” and “libertarian right” are full of contradictions and mental gymnastics. They all swear they’re communist but make no attempts to actually disseminate power, or gear towards a more democratic system, directly going against Marx’s ideals.
Because of this, pretty much every leftist agrees that the “authoritarian left” are not leftist, because they directly betray the philosophy which founds leftist beliefs.
SO to conclude, there is literally no world where someone can genuinely believe the various philosophies within leftism while at the same time starting a campaign alienating minorities, appealing to the general population with populism and returning the state to a former glory, and embarking on a Nazi take-over. This is why Nazism and leftism are completely incompatible, and why literally no Authoritarian can be considered a leftist.
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Oh, simple counterpoint to anyone making that claim: is Democratic People’s Republic of Korea democratic?
The GDR (German Democratic Republic) wasn’t democratic as well. Namen sind Schall und Rauch.
Im baffled by the americans that want to live under a monarchy, they see themselves as peasants i guess
There are authoritarians in every country. I don’t get the appeal - you have to think less I guess? less responsibility? - but lots of people seem eager to give up their voice if they think the person getting the power will use it against the people they don’t like.
The key is to get them to realize that eventually someone who doesn’t like them is going to get the power - maybe? But I think I’ve also heard that some of these preferences are down to physical brain structure that determines sensitivity to fear and empathy
As someone who is fairly into ideologies I can tell you, that national-socialism or nazism, which is a sub-ideology of fascism isn’t called that for no reason. If you look at it closely it does take a lot home from nationalism, but socialisim as well. These are right-wing (with some exceptions) and left-wing ideologies respectively and both can take extremes. This is why a lot of people in the sphere call the fusion of these two the “Third Way”, meaning it’s between the extreme left and extreme right and opposite to Centrism, which is between the calmer ends of the two sides. This means that nazis are neither right nor left-wing, at least as seen in european politics, in the exteremely polarized american political climate they (or at least their grossly dumbed-down interpretation) could be considered extremly right wing, but I think american politics are stupid anyway. And now to answer the question (pretending I didn’t just saw a question where there wasn’t any) anyone who calls nazis leftists just has a politcal bias against them and tries to make them appear even worse by blending them with those goddamn liberals. Okay but seriously, people really shouldn’t dumb down “old enemies” because that just means that they didn’t learn anything.
Nazis are right wing in a European political context, that is not really a discussion in academia. This has nothing to do with current American politics, this is established history.
The only people claiming that they are left wing are right wing fascists who tries to distance themselves from the term (while doing everything in their power to emulate them), and that is done by both European and American fascists.
You’re “fairly into ideologies”, but you’re not well versed on political literacy. It seems like you got your idea of where Nazism sits on the political spectrum from the PoliticalCompassMemes subreddit (where “nAzIS ARe aUtHCENter” is the most commonly promoted talking point).
First and foremost, “third way” isn’t even the correct term to use here. You’re most likely referring to the term “third position”, which is an honest mistake in terminology, but that term refers to a different thing than third way entirely.
“Third way” refers to the more social liberal side of centrism. “Third position” is in reference to fascist tendencies to reject the binary notion of either standard socialist economics and/or laissez-faire free market capitalist economics. This comes with an important caveat: rejection of “typical socialism” and “typical capitalism” doesn’t mean you’re neither left-wing or right-wing, as we don’t really, in terminology, use your stance on socialism and capitalism as an inherent way of noting whether you’re left-wing or right-wing.
Some people might hear this reference to Nazism and assume this means it’ neither left-wing or right-wing, but this is a misinterpretation of definitions. Nazis most certainly were not free market capitalists, but they weren’t socialists either. However, the methods in which you run your economy are not necessarily the prime dictator of being left-wing and/or right-wing, like I said.
Nazis have historically been, and to this day still are, placed on the far-right end of the political spectrum due to upholding hierarchical doctrines within society because left and right are not “socialism vs. capitalism” as much as they are “egalitarianism vs hierarchy”. Nazis didn’t take hugely consistent economic positions, but they still were extremely hierarchical, and that serves as the basis of considering their ideology far-right.
Unless you want to argue that Nazis are not fans of rigid hierarchies (which would be foolish to do so), then you should, in some capacity, be able to acknowledge them sitting on the far-right end of the polspec.
Also, one more thing to mention. Leftists tend to be socialists because it’s an egalitarian mode of production. However, you can still support a less regulative corporatist economy like Nazis did while not being any degree of egalitarianism. Just stating this so people don’t misinterpret me as saying that “leftists aren’t inherently socialists”.
You are probably right about the third way/position thing, it’s just that I haven’t informed from english-speaking sources, so I’ve never been really sure of the correct translation. This might just have completly screwed up the meaning of my comment. As for the rest I don’t oppose the idea that nazis are more right than left, I just say they incorporate enough ideas of the left-wing, both cultural and economic to be called a blend of the two sides.
Nazis took nothing from the left wing other than some rhetoric they used to gain popular support from the working class. Their politics were more inspired by European colonialism than anything else. Lebensraum is basically just manifest destiny applied to Europe.
This is the real issue with troll communities (and subreddits). The_Donald started out as a troll community, and it was effectively overrun with nutjobs.
Yes, satirizing these people is hilarious, but they’re often too stupid to differentiate between ironic support and endorsement and actual agreement. These are the same people who routinely fall for The Onion articles.
Don’t be surprised at the level of stupidity people are willing to duck under to confirm their own beliefs. Lol
LoveForLandchads is getting there
A wise man once said “Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they’re in good company.”
Makes me think of the “fake it 'til you make it” saying. Guess the “pretending to be an idiot” folk end up becoming idiots from all the faking they did.
When a small but dedicated group of vocal people started unironically and emphatically believing the planet was a pancake, I lost a significant portion of my lingering reserves of hope for the future of mankind.
Extremist politics and all the associated mindsets have long since jumped a row of sharks in my mind by comparison.
From my limited understanding, it mostly seems like misattribution of all the very obvious chaos and uncertainty about “grand” events like climate change, economical strife, etc.
It’s less that someone holds pancake planet as their sole belief but more a web of interconnected beliefs that would explain the true cause of these nebulous events if they were true.
Not that it makes the outcome any better that people choose a more palatable ideological narrative over reality but there is a part of me that recognizes ignorance would be more blissful.
Because people who can’t make their own discussions need an authority to follow. In the US, they turn to fox news, AM radio, or manosphere podcasts. Most of them have serious daddy issues.
In the US, the “opposite” side turns to CNN/BBC, toxic feminist Instagrammers and virtue signalling YouTubers. I cannot agree with that either.
There is a lot of adulteration in “leftism”, just as there are some correct things about “rightism”. I am no centrist, but I would rather take one step back from leftism, and be 10 steps away from rightism, than swing fully in any direction. I think contextual rationale, and not necessary a “centrist” 50-50 both sides bullshit, is the correct path to take. Forging your own path as a mindhacker with no like minded company is the hardest thing.
What do you really want to say? You’re trying very hard to say both sides are wrong without being labeled as a centrist.
“Toxic left wing” pundits haven’t gotten their followers to storm the capital building or fly a plane into an irs biulding. If you’re really mad someone has opinions on video games, install a 3rd party channel blocker for firefox. The things the toxic femists/pick-me types are up to pale in comparison to the manosphere are up to.
I cannot agree to just treating and branding men’s spaces like that. Manosphere may be doing a bad job, but its not all redpillers and Tateists. I hate this attack on and absolutist “shit on men constantly” trope in society. Its almost like the very thing feminists become they swear to destroy. Society and life is more complex than “shit on men and worship women”.
When feminists say “all men bad” “kill all men” “men are dogs” “men are b***hes” “masculinity is fragile” and so on, the ignorance of men being oppressed throughout history is really telling, and the same
strong“fragile” men have built this world. Putting the bourgeois royalties’ doings on “men” exclusively is incredibly fascistic of feminists, and is the reason why I have taken one step back from leftism, while maintaining 10 steps distance from rightism.If you want to know how leftist I am, I have been a 1 year long dedicated member of Lemmygrad.
Manosphere is a very specific thing. They’re the Andrew Tate types. If it’s a legitimate form of mental health or self care thing, it isn’t Manosphere. Hell, if it’s mental health, it’s rarely branded as male orientated because it’s genderless advice.
You’re creating this weird narrative in your head. The feminists you have a problem with are a minority who are only visible because they’re gaming the algorithm. They have no effect on your daily life.
Most feminists and women brand men’s safe spaces as redpill, right wing, part of manosphere, horrible and so on. They absolutely have an effect on me, the way random transphobes have an effect on the existence of transgender people. Men are not treated like equal humans with compassion, just because 0.1% rich ultracapitalists or harassers or rapists have subjugated women in society. There is no desire for equity or equality, but gender superiority. Plenty women who distance themselves from feminist movement agree with this today.
Manosphere is a very vague term in itself, even though it started as simply redpillers and Tateists. Wikipedia defines it as a “collection of websites, blogs, and online forums promoting masculinity, misogyny, and opposition to feminism.[1] Communities within the manosphere include men’s rights activists,[2] incels (involuntary celibates),[3] Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW),[4] pick-up artists (PUA),[5] and fathers’ rights groups.[6]”
Its true that manosphere has misogyny, and that it has issues, but it provides an alternate point of view and is NOT all Tateists, even if there does exist misogyny, the same way misandry and vitriolic hatred for men exists in female safe spaces, which are abundant today. The world is not all black and white, and just as men treat women like a pair of breasts and a vagina, women treat men with the well known small dick hand gesture and other verbal slangs for degradingly equating us with penis. Women are more compassionate than men, and they have chosen to keep it all to themselves with their sisterhood. Men have no brotherhood today.
Every feminist I have met, no matter radical, communist or liberal, has always degraded and blamed all men, and downplayed issues with women while screaming “all men _____” the moment anything happens. And literally anything you say against this makes you a redpiller, woman hater, incel or any of the buzzwords they decide to cancel you with. I have a lot of grievances with it, and it affects all men, which includes me, so I will find solace in places that support men instead of supporting agendas aimed to hate men. Men have unheard grievances, and if feminists think they will win the battle against half the planet, their movement deserves to crash and doom. Feminism by the day is behaving less like a leftist movement for equality for both sexes, and more like a woman supremacist movement with right wing shades.
I think confusion comes in to play because at some point, socialism turns into authoritarianism, which isn’t far off from both totalitarianism and fascism. None of that is good.
Socialism is not inherently authoritarian.
I didn’t say that. Just that socialism, when taken to an extreme, is. Technically no form if government is inherently the evil three, but they can all become one of them.
Interestingly enough that is an American thing I believe. In Germany no one thinks the Nazis were socialists.
Oh boy, we have met different people
Are you talking about Germans or Americans with your comment?
Not the person you’re talking to but I have, in fact, talked to actual Kartoffel-Germans who’d straight up swallowed the American propaganda and insisted on the “Sozialisten” part being the important one. They’re few and far in between because our schools aren’t complete failures but they do exist.
Especially the new far right is pushing this narrative.
I was talking about germans, and those are exactly the people I meant
Just ask them how come you can find plenty of swastikas at Trump rallies, plenty of merchants selling them too, but none of either at Democratic rallies?
Are the communists supporting the Republicans?
Are the Republicans communists?
Finally why is the person you’re talking to aligning themselves with communist sympathisers?
That doesn’t really hold water too well. Most european right wing parties, including those which are veiled neonazis, have close ties with Russia. The Russia, which has a leader cult around someone who claims to be stomping out Neonazis in the Ukraine.
Many of them also have ties with China, which officially is still communist and also is best friends with the leader-cult leader in Russia.
Most often international “friend groups” are determined by the “enemy-of-my-enemy” principle, and not by ideological similarities.
I have heard that the right wing party of my country are actually communists and the “left wing” party are actually conservatives so. Not just an American thing.
Think! They all believed in an unison solution. Like Covid. Baaah.
But if nazis aren’t socialist, what does the S in NSDAP mean? Checkmate liberuls!
/s <- obviously
National Sarkastische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei?
Damn, it was a long con joke all along! 🤯
It’s like when US calls itself a democracy. :)
So like, from a subjective standpoint the United States is an Oligarchy. That can of course be debated and is by no means this irrefutable claim, although it certainly is up for discussion
Objectively however we are NOT a democracy, like literally by deffinition. We are a Republic. It’s a little nit picky I know but I just think it’s interesting that we as a people latch onto the term “democracy” despite it being, objectively, not our system of government
As a Greek speaker who also knows Latin and Ancient Greek, both words mean the same thing and come from the same roots in their respective language (demos = publius = people/community/population). I don’t know why political theorists try so hard to separate them. The only real use of separating them is for easily differentiating the Athenian Democracy from the Roman Republic, for historical purposes, but nowadays both democracies and republics are functionally the same thing (and linguistically should be the same too). The only difference is sometimes the functioning leader’s name (president vs prime minister). Every other difference between them are for the sake of local cultural/historical traditions.
In the classical sense, Parliamentary/Representative Republics/Democracies ARE oligarchies. A true democracy would give voting power not just for electing representatives but also for determining specific policies and laws (i.e. Referendums), which very rarely, if at all in many cases, actually happens.
Demos-kratos = government of the people
Res-publica = thing of the people, as in government of the people
This is such a stupid talking point I can’t believe it still gets parroted.
If you have elections for government officials chosen from the people, you are a democracy - there’s no real high bar for that.
If you are an independent nation not beholden to any foreign power, you are a Republic. The American head of state is the US President chosen by the American people, not a King or Queen from another nation.
One does not exclude the other.
This is why I try to use authoritarian -ism when I’m not being lazy. Three reality is it’s nothing to do with left or right, it’s about control.
Yes while they can be definitively left or right. It is not ultimately important to them which they are. As you said it’s all about maintaining control and power. And if they believe it would be better for them to maintain control and power. They would happily switch from capitalist to communist or vice versa. So I guess at least on an economic standpoint. Is probably most accurate to say that authoritarians are centrist. But boy won’t that piss off all the people who believe they’re centrists. It’s just that on social axis authoritarians are extreme.
The Political Compass shows that authoritarianism is on a completely different axis than the economic policy spectrum. You’re correct. I’m not sure of any true, long-lasting authoritarian left systems though, since they seem to quickly transition to cronyism oligarchies, enriching the people in power. Maybe the oligarchs don’t directly own the means of production, but using their seat of power to skim money off of the fruits of the productivity is just unfettered capitalism with extra steps.
1984, just change the definition
Nazis, Fascists and Socialists fall under Totalitarianism. They are all shitty.
Socialism is not inherently authoritarian. Yes, 20th century socialism following Lenin’s example was. But it’s not inherent.
Socialism is about workers controlling economic production - at it’s core. That’s a democratic, anti-authoritarian idea.
Libertarian socialist like me are extremely salty at the leninists and others like them for giving the rest of us a bad name.
iTs In ThE nAmE.
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea entered the chat
A country with republic and/or democratic in its official name is usually neither.
Most republics afaik have “Republic” in their name. I don’t think that’s the problem.
they don’t tend to actually use that name, no one says “the republic of finland”
Yes they do.
Source: Am Irish.
That’s true, though in that case it’s to disambiguate from northern ireland or the whole island.
Same deal as the Kingdom of Denmark, you only ever say that to emphasize that you mean greenland as well.
Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal republic of Germany)
Which is basically never used, everyone just says germany.
It is used in Germany though lol
Maybe in English it is not used as often. In Germany it is used as just Bundesrepublik in News etc to don’t repeat oneself too much or in historic context to differentiate from the German Democratic Republic (where the naming is again ironic, but it’s the Democratic party)
That depends, in Germany, the federal republic part is fairly regularly used in news when talking about international affairs, basically using it so they don’t have to say Germany as often.
I thought us Americans had egos, but I’m not going to tell people they’re referencing their own countries by the wrong name.
Yeah, that’s literally their whole reasoning. I’ve had to deal with a number of those all the way back in 2014, “national sOcIaLiSm”
Of course, whenever I pointed to The Guardian’s interview with Hitler in 1923 (and republished in 1932), where he energetically complains about marxists (marxians, as he calls them) “stealing” the socialist term from “real germans” and actively calls for the end of bolshevism, I was completely ignored.
Wait, but what did he even mean by “socialism” here? I get call what was happening in Russia not socialism, but what was the un-Marxist form of socialism Hitler was talking about? Also, wasn’t Marx also German, did Hitler see him as not a “real german”?
He’s opportunistcally envokning it as socialism is popular, but cares for nothing other than the political clout the label may bring.
Fascism exists to capture popular revolutionary sentiment, while preserving the old power structure.
He didn’t mean anything at all. That was the brilliance of the Nazi propaganda machine. They stole words that referred to popular things and said them enough times in relation to themselves that they lost all meaning.
Its exactly the same as how the modern day right wing say anything that supports them is “patriotic” and anything that doesn’t is “anti-[country]”. If they say the word “patriotic” enough times, it loses all meaning & makes it impossible for opponents to argue against, because you can’t have a rational debate when language is meaningless.
Ah, oh… why did I expect the answer to not be kinda scary…
Marx was famously also Jewish.
Ah, yeah, that’ll do it.
Most Americans have no idea what socialism is. You’re not supposed to think about it here. They just hear that socialism is bad and it’s in the name of the nazi party which is also bad, so that tracks.
Most Americans think that “liberal” is someone on the left, while most European nations (as well as what little political theory I had) place them somewhere in the center, usually fiscally progressive but socially conservative.
yup, exactly
Most Americans don’t know what capitalism is either. We’ve been so brainwashed into believing capitalism and simple commerce are the same thing that people think any system that isn’t capitalism is some authoritarian hellscape where the government forces you at gunpoint to share your toothbrush with everyone else in the neighborhood because personal property will be outlawed somehow.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Modern-day fascists are desperate to distance themselves from the nazis, despite the fact that the nazis are literally their idols.
Wait, do people really care if Nazis were left or right-wing?
Their leader was a racist mass murderer with superiority complex, who cares about his political views?
Let’s say they were left-wing… Does that make the left wing Nazis? Mmm no. If a dictator is right-wing, does that make the right-wing dictators? No.
Do people understand these are two unrelated things? Imagine seeing a dog owner cheating on his wife and assuming all dog owners are cheaters.
The caveat is that being a “racist mass murderer with a superiority complex” is a very right-wing thing. It wouldn’t be possible to fit that mold and be leftist because it’s entirely incompatible with leftist ideology.
So you’re saying that racism and mass murder did not exist under communist China?
What about Russification in the Soviet Union? Minorities were marginalized.
Why would it be a problem if the Nazis were actually left-wing? You’re not realizing you’re actually a victim of a fallacy. And even more concerning, you’re trying to use the same fallacy to attack back. It’s just flawed logic all over the place.
As I understand it the keystone between left and right is that:
The left belief is that all people are created equal and should have equal authority to point out wrong doing. The right belief is that people should be in a hierarchy with people at the top exerting control downward.
I think they are actually just saying if you really believe everyone is equal you can’t pick a group to target for mass murder. But if you are at the top of a pyramid tge people below you naturally look expendable.
At least that is my reading of this debate.
And my point was that even in the left, murder, discrimination and racism can exist.
People just choose to think their position is ideal and the opposition is flawed. This type of brainwashing is disgusting.
Correct, and my point was that they can’t. If you view everyone as equal you can’t make yourself a dictator. You can lie to yourself about your value, most people do for better or worse. But if everyone is equal you can’t decide to boost one group over another. Or if you do decide that is better and you deserve to be in charge, then your views have shifted right. That is my understanding of left vs right in it’s most basic form.
Yeha, tell that to the North Korean God, Kim, who rises above everyone while keeping everyone else equal.
“I don’t like nazis”
“YEAH? Whatabout Commies?! Huh? HUH?”
What? I’m just saying that being racist or a murderer is totally unrelated to political views. Those can happen in both the left and right.
Guys, you’re smarter than this. For real.
The conversation is about nazis. You keep trying to talk about communists.
I said it doesn’t matter if the Nazis were right wing or left wing, what matters is that they were criminals. Then that person said that mass murder and racism is only aligned with the right, so I showed him/her that that is wrong, murder and racism can also happen on the left.
The point being that just because in the past there were rotten apples in the left/right, it doesn’t mean that being in the left/right makes you a rotten apple.
Did you just seriously say that there has never been a left wing racist mass murderer with a superiority complex?
There hasn’t been.
Certainly been a few waving the flag of socialism/communism that have lead to those consequences.
It’s not uncommon for fascists to adopt socialist rhetoric to try and gain mass appeal. However that falls away under the lightest scrutiny of their actions and ideology. “National Socialism” is the most obvious example. I’d include Pol Pot in that bucket as well.
The USSR under Stalin and PRC under Mao are a bit different. The government in either case made decisions that led to unnecessary death, but there’s no evidence to suggest any of their missteps were motivated by racial animus.
Mao’s Great Leap Forward was him trying to push Communist ideology onto nature. He had one hammer in his tool box and tried using it on everything.
Like who?
Pol Pot should be a uncontroversial pick.
I don’t understand why someone would bring up that being right-wing does not make one a nazi unless they were right-wing and felt like the type of person who is at risk of being called a nazi.
That being said, in reference to your commenr: in America it is as you say. Elsewhere in the world it’s a bit more complicated. Left and Right originally referred to the sides of the French National Assembly, who either supported the king or the revolution. In some uses it just means people who support liberal economics (more funding) or conservative economics (less debt).
Most people would agree that communism is a left-wing ideology, but there have been famous communist leaders that were racist, mass-murdering and/or with superiority complexes (the famous examples of Che Guevara, Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot all fit some of those criteria each).
Hilarious how people who know exactly one “racist mass murderer with a superiority complex” assume that it is a right-wing thing. Try humanities most famous left-winger ever.
Im not saying that nazis and right-wing are unrelated, but you picked exactly those characteristics in Hitler that actually arent related to political views at all.
State enforced racism and industrialized government implemented mass murder are central to nazis’ political views.
Who, exactly?
Thats not the point, youre twisting the order. Every nazi is right-wing, by definition. Not every right-winger is a nazi and thats not what people are saying. A big part of nazi ideology is overlapping with general right-wing ideologies, they are separate but not unrelated at all.
You don’t understand. What I’m saying is that you shouldn’t care about it. Do you care if the North Korean dictator is left-wing? No? Good, you shouldn’t. The same way you shouldn’t care if Nazis were right-wing.
I feel like you’re being deliberately obtuse. You’re right in that by itself trying to define the nazi party of the past in terms of present day left/right ideology is reductivist, and unproductive in discourse. But you’re ignoring two important facts in the present day right/left dynamic. First that literal modern day nazis have shown a distinct preference for right wing ideaology. Second is that fascism as an ideology is a chameleon that latches onto present day conflict to unite people through oppression of a weak other, which is the basis for present day right wing policy. As such the comparison becomes apt because the fascists of the past are a model for the fascists of the present.
OK, by that same logic the left-wing dictators and collapsed systems of the past are a model for the present. So is the right justified to push fear with those past examples to show how bad the left is?
Do you see that’s just the same flawed logic they use to scare people away from the left?
Yeah, you’re a troll.
I’d argue that you should very much care about the political alignment of extremist leaders, because it show you where an ideology can ultimately lead to if left unchecked. As the poster above said, it doesn’t mean that all right-wing people are nazis, but knowing the nazis were right-wing shows you where a right-wing government can end up if the wrong set of conditions happen to come along. This is important information, as you can spot the warning signs as they appear and (hopefully) nip it in the bud before it gets to that point.
They are behaving like Nazis regardless of if the Nazis were right-wing or left-wing. Nazi behavior can happen in the left or the right. As I already said, discrimination, murder, superiority complex, racism and exploration has also happened in left-wing systems.
Of course bad things happen at the extremes of both sides, but I’m going to have to object to “regardless of if the Nazis were right-wing or left-wing.” I don’t think there’s really room to equivocate on that - nazism is right-wing.
It is. Just like fascism, these are terms associated with the right-wing. But that’s not my point… My point is that whatever affiliation the right or left had in the past does not necessarily represent the current affiliations. The fact that the US right-wing is turning to white supremacy is unrelated to Nazis being right wing. That is just a reflection of their systemic racism.
What I’m saying is that it is irrelevant if Republicans are trying to associate the left with Nazis, because even if such association existed, it is not a valid argument to say that the left today is ruled by Nazis, or that the right can’t behave like Nazis. That’s just a fallacy, the same fallacy that they use to point out that voting left will turn us into North Korea or an authoritarian left-wing dictatorship.
I can’t believe people aren’t getting this. It’s like they don’t understand I’m actually pro-left with this argument, somehow they think I’m protecting Nazis and Republicans because I’m not shouting “REPUBLICANS BAD!”
Going back and pointing out how Nazis were right-wing is something that will bite the left in the ass because there are plenty of examples of the left turning into shit too. So instead of comparing with past examples, just analyze their current positions. Is the right currently behaving like Nazis? Yes. Do you need WWII Nazis to be right wing for this to be a fact? No. So even if they convince people that Nazis were left wing, how does that disprove that RIGHT NOW they are the racists and white supremacists?
I’m just saying, don’t play their games.
You could literally replace all this with “left wing” and use “communism” incorrectly instead of fascism (which isn’t just dictatorship, it was also a set of economic and societal philosophies invented by the fascisti of Italy) because at the end of the day, both sides of the political aisle have the same tendency to go extremist authoritarian when allowed.
There has been no non-authoritarian state of existence of humans inside any civilisation. None. Liberals/centrists playing this bullshit trope of feudalism or anarchism or some dreamy impossible organisation of society with literally zero hierarchy, is impossible. Direct democracy works at best on a scale of a small village. If we go by Dunbar’s number, no bigger than a group of 148 people can have direct relations.
Kim Jong-Un is right wing. So were Kim Jong Il, Kim Il Sung, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Xi, and Che Guevara. In fact, they were all moderate Republicans whose ideas are 100% in line with the current Republican Party platform. There’s no daylight at all between any of them and Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Before you respond, remember that you don’t care what their politics are because it doesn’t matter.
Dafuq, North Korea is left wing. OK, so was the Soviet Union also right wing when they marginalized minorities through Russification?
“if it is bad, it is right-wing”.
And yes, my whole point is that the fact North Korea has a left-wing dictatorship doesn’t mean that all left-wing parties will become dictatorships. You finally got my point, damn, it took you so long.
Now it matters. Now you care.
North Korea is 100% a right wing country, right wing policies and a dictator. You can’t argue with that fact.
Stalin claimed his government was left wing and Marx based but it was revealed that he was right leaning, a dictator and instilled right wing policies.
https://www.salon.com/2021/08/14/republicans-claim-to-fear-left-wing-authoritarianism--but-theres-no-such-thing/
Ah ok, as I said, “everything that is left wing is good and paradise. Everything right wing is pure evil”.
In a left-wing state the state always holds the power… So once that state becomes corrupted and uses that power to keep all workers equally poor, then it is suddenly right wing? Show me what were the capitalist principles in the Soviet Union? Was there a free market, private incentive, private property, competition, minimal state intervention, entrepreneurship, individual rights and freedoms? NOOO THERE WEREN’T. It wasn’t a right-wing state.
You guys are insane. Lemmy became an echo chamber for your delusions. It’s really sad to see people this radicalized.
A dictator is a dictator, who the fuck cares if they are right or left wing? A racist is a racist. A murderer is a murderer. They can be found in any side of the political spectrum, but you’re too biased to believe the left can be corrupted… You are too blinded by what is right and what is left and are totally unable to see there can be combinations of ideologies.
You say dictators are right wing because they don’t follow some left-wing principles? Then I could argue that all dictators are left-wing because by definition the right strives to minimize government controls, and a dictatorship is authoritarian, which goes against right-wing policies… But I’m done arguing. This is my last Lemmy comment. You are so blinded by the left vs right argument you can’t see beyond that. This degree of fanatism can’t be healthy, I don’t want to become radicalized like you people. This self imposed blindness is sad and pathetic. Good bye.
Let me clarify. To be crystal clear, we’re talking about “left” and right on the political compass. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s the most well known one. Overall, “left” and “right” are bizarre terminologies with aqueous meanings deeply embedded in history.
You are technically correct if you are talking about the political compass. we call “authoritarian left” “Stalinism” and we call “libertarian right” “anarcho-capitalism” or just “libertarianism” in the US.
The problem is that all philosophy founding “leftist ideology” has consistently been “libertarian left”, focusing on collapsing hierarchies, dividing power into many hands, and dismantling power structures (such as currency). Anarchism is basically the prime example.
With Marx’s communism, his end game is a system without any government, where people simply exchange services and collaborate to create only what they want or need (not to endlessly proliferate waste for profit). Even his “dictatorship of the proletariat”, one of the stepping stones to communism, is a democratic system. It is called a “dictatorship” because it revokes the voting rights of the rich.
To boot, the ideologies which exist in the “authoritarian left” and “libertarian right” are full of contradictions and mental gymnastics. They all swear they’re communist but make no attempts to actually disseminate power, or gear towards a more democratic system, directly going against Marx’s ideals.
Because of this, pretty much every leftist agrees that the “authoritarian left” are not leftist, because they directly betray the philosophy which founds leftist beliefs.
SO to conclude, there is literally no world where someone can genuinely believe the various philosophies within leftism while at the same time starting a campaign alienating minorities, appealing to the general population with populism and returning the state to a former glory, and embarking on a Nazi take-over. This is why Nazism and leftism are completely incompatible, and why literally no Authoritarian can be considered a leftist.
People who know that his political views included “we should use the state to enforce racism” and “mass murder is ok.”