Wagdog
25-03-2007, 18:32
First of all, Wagdog, I do grant that these missing people were not directly murdered, however, they were essentially murdered as Mao persued absolutely idiotic economic policies. Same with Stalin in the 1930s.
Also, I did research a couple of years ago in the Nazi German economy and found that followed policies that were far from Conservative. Back in the 1930s, Conservatives were generally opposed to any form of state intervention in the economy - they were the ones that criticised policies such as Roosevelt's New Deal. Yet, Hitler went beyond Roosevelt in his economic policies - he followed Keynesian economic policies with very strong vigour and would therefore not be economically Conservative.
Now that economic policies have been dealt with, why don't we look at Hitler's eugenics policy. Eugenics back in the early 20th Century were supported by none other than the
Progressives
The Progressives may have been founded by a Conservative, but it is very easy for people to use the mask of Conservatism to pursue some very left wing policies (take Muldoon in New Zealand and Nixon in America as some examples). A mere look at the party programme on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Party_%28United_States%2C_1912%29) will show that it was very left wing by the standards of their day.
A classic example of a left-wing eugenist was Margaret Sanger - in 1932 this is what she argued for
"A stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring"
Hitler praised this woman, in spite of the fact she was a socialist, as she said herself in What Every Girl Should Know.
Hitler's racial policies were not inspired by some French Conservative, but more likely, what was fashionable amongst the left during that time.
Now that we have discussed eugenics, how about Hitler's green streak. During his time in office, he was obsessed with creating national parks to protect Germany's "sacred forests." How about the fact that he made Germany the first nation to ban animal testing? How about his bans on smoking?
Hitler himself was an avid vegetarian and he was obsessed with homoepathic treatments. The Nazis were obsessed with organic farming and even Himmler was known to grow herbs on his organic farm to treat his troops.
This sounds far less Conservative to me and more like a modern day Green Party, less the peace cries.
Fact of the matter is that Hitler's policies went against everything that Conservatives stood for back in the 1930s and even today. Ultimately, it was probably one of the greatest Conservatives of them all, Sir Winston Churchill, that was the first to take a stand against Hitler
Now, I will close with a quote from Hitler himself
"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions"
Sounds rather socialist, would you not say? Even sounds like something from Marx, or Lenin.
Good rejoinder:), one that I shall be researching from my college texts a bit for my full reply to as you had the courtesy to do with me (generally speaking, not knowing the exact sources you used or how much time on that versus other NS or RL activities). Indeed, Hitler could sound (emphasis mine) "Socialist" if that's what one wanted to hear from him for whatever reason. However, as you had a preliminary question for me, so do I you. And it is this...
Traditional authority, founded in adherence to the will of Divinity, regard for the land and the traditions thereof, and the sanctity of inheritance and individual enterprise, mostly found its expression in feudalism until the rise of capitalism under Adam Smith et al. And in Genesis, God is stated as giving Man "dominion" over the earth, much as in that of an ancient chieftain or feudal lord. Could not these principles serve to inspire a "conservative" environmentalism, much like the enforced primitivism of the Amish and other willfully-traditional societies? Oh, and what of my distinction between small-c populist "low conservatism," and captial-c Tory or such "High Conservatism" of the Churchillian tradition? Do you deny that conservative populists exist at all?:confused: I'd think that Old World peasant revolts such as Bloody Sunday in 1905 should come to mind for an image of what "conservative populism" might resemble; for those Russian villagers and workers and their Orthodox priests (including Okhrana provocateur Father Gapon) carried pictures of their "Father" Tsar Nichoas II, revering him even as they protested the hardships his economic policies and war against the Japanese had caused. Or at least, they did until they learned what his real opinion of them was at gunpoint; and took revolutionary action accordingly once the old "Myth of the Good Tsar and the Evil Court" was smashed forever in their minds after that...
For my part, I find your implied idea that certain categories of argument (enviromentalist, socialist, &c) are inherently liberal and can be nought else unconvincing; although I grant you the right not to consider the Nazis a burden on your leanings (as your arguments seem to indicate them to me, and no more) as much as I have to deny them as a burden on mine (again, insofar as my arguments should make very clear to you). I also can't say I'm impressed that you refuse to countenance a distinction between negligent homicide and willful murder with that "essentially murdered" bit.:rolleyes: There is a difference in terms of legal culpability between one causing starvation through inept economic policy on the one hand, and one lining up political "subversives" for summary mass execution and pulling the trigger themselves on the other; regardless of questions regarding which way of killing is more "honorable" or whatnot. And with that difference in degree, should logically come difference in penalty whether physical or philosophical.
To argue that all the "missing" deaths were "essential murders," and that communism/socialism should "die" in payment for these, strikes me as these authors (and you by extension) 'padding the docket' to maximize the number of proverbial executions once the verdict is in; in fact, a doctrine ironically resembling Lenin's infamous Hanging Order (http://en.wikipedia.org/Lenin%27s_Hanging_Order) regarding the August 1918 rebellions around Penza. Just as that order aimed to incite the masses to "know and scream out: 'let's choke and strangle those bloodsucking kulaks!'" by the Bolsheviks summarily starting the process along themselves, the line of research you seem to follow crosses the proverbial Rubicon from rememberance and caution against Bolshevik/Maoist-style extremism to more general anti-socialist agitation and (if taken far enough) persecution; by lumping all deaths caused by arch-socialist/"communist" regimes as being "essential murders" and passing sentence of death in retaliation upon the philosophies behind the regimes (and thus, by implication, non-extremist adherents of said philosophies) as much as upon the murderers themselves.:headbang:
More will come later, but that will take some time of mine to rummage through my texts on Hitler and Nazism's documented relationship to reactionary thought as much as to supposed "socialism" (you may note the small-s, for it is significant). I have some choice sallies to make against the old saw you seem to champion: that everything wrong with last century is the Left's fault, which I can assure you I have encountered before.;) But they will take time to prepare to the same quality as the counterarguments you have graced this exchange with towards me. You deserve no less, in regard of the sport you have given me in this thread, and I shall give you no less in honor of that.
Also, I did research a couple of years ago in the Nazi German economy and found that followed policies that were far from Conservative. Back in the 1930s, Conservatives were generally opposed to any form of state intervention in the economy - they were the ones that criticised policies such as Roosevelt's New Deal. Yet, Hitler went beyond Roosevelt in his economic policies - he followed Keynesian economic policies with very strong vigour and would therefore not be economically Conservative.
Now that economic policies have been dealt with, why don't we look at Hitler's eugenics policy. Eugenics back in the early 20th Century were supported by none other than the
Progressives
The Progressives may have been founded by a Conservative, but it is very easy for people to use the mask of Conservatism to pursue some very left wing policies (take Muldoon in New Zealand and Nixon in America as some examples). A mere look at the party programme on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Party_%28United_States%2C_1912%29) will show that it was very left wing by the standards of their day.
A classic example of a left-wing eugenist was Margaret Sanger - in 1932 this is what she argued for
"A stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring"
Hitler praised this woman, in spite of the fact she was a socialist, as she said herself in What Every Girl Should Know.
Hitler's racial policies were not inspired by some French Conservative, but more likely, what was fashionable amongst the left during that time.
Now that we have discussed eugenics, how about Hitler's green streak. During his time in office, he was obsessed with creating national parks to protect Germany's "sacred forests." How about the fact that he made Germany the first nation to ban animal testing? How about his bans on smoking?
Hitler himself was an avid vegetarian and he was obsessed with homoepathic treatments. The Nazis were obsessed with organic farming and even Himmler was known to grow herbs on his organic farm to treat his troops.
This sounds far less Conservative to me and more like a modern day Green Party, less the peace cries.
Fact of the matter is that Hitler's policies went against everything that Conservatives stood for back in the 1930s and even today. Ultimately, it was probably one of the greatest Conservatives of them all, Sir Winston Churchill, that was the first to take a stand against Hitler
Now, I will close with a quote from Hitler himself
"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions"
Sounds rather socialist, would you not say? Even sounds like something from Marx, or Lenin.
Good rejoinder:), one that I shall be researching from my college texts a bit for my full reply to as you had the courtesy to do with me (generally speaking, not knowing the exact sources you used or how much time on that versus other NS or RL activities). Indeed, Hitler could sound (emphasis mine) "Socialist" if that's what one wanted to hear from him for whatever reason. However, as you had a preliminary question for me, so do I you. And it is this...
Traditional authority, founded in adherence to the will of Divinity, regard for the land and the traditions thereof, and the sanctity of inheritance and individual enterprise, mostly found its expression in feudalism until the rise of capitalism under Adam Smith et al. And in Genesis, God is stated as giving Man "dominion" over the earth, much as in that of an ancient chieftain or feudal lord. Could not these principles serve to inspire a "conservative" environmentalism, much like the enforced primitivism of the Amish and other willfully-traditional societies? Oh, and what of my distinction between small-c populist "low conservatism," and captial-c Tory or such "High Conservatism" of the Churchillian tradition? Do you deny that conservative populists exist at all?:confused: I'd think that Old World peasant revolts such as Bloody Sunday in 1905 should come to mind for an image of what "conservative populism" might resemble; for those Russian villagers and workers and their Orthodox priests (including Okhrana provocateur Father Gapon) carried pictures of their "Father" Tsar Nichoas II, revering him even as they protested the hardships his economic policies and war against the Japanese had caused. Or at least, they did until they learned what his real opinion of them was at gunpoint; and took revolutionary action accordingly once the old "Myth of the Good Tsar and the Evil Court" was smashed forever in their minds after that...
For my part, I find your implied idea that certain categories of argument (enviromentalist, socialist, &c) are inherently liberal and can be nought else unconvincing; although I grant you the right not to consider the Nazis a burden on your leanings (as your arguments seem to indicate them to me, and no more) as much as I have to deny them as a burden on mine (again, insofar as my arguments should make very clear to you). I also can't say I'm impressed that you refuse to countenance a distinction between negligent homicide and willful murder with that "essentially murdered" bit.:rolleyes: There is a difference in terms of legal culpability between one causing starvation through inept economic policy on the one hand, and one lining up political "subversives" for summary mass execution and pulling the trigger themselves on the other; regardless of questions regarding which way of killing is more "honorable" or whatnot. And with that difference in degree, should logically come difference in penalty whether physical or philosophical.
To argue that all the "missing" deaths were "essential murders," and that communism/socialism should "die" in payment for these, strikes me as these authors (and you by extension) 'padding the docket' to maximize the number of proverbial executions once the verdict is in; in fact, a doctrine ironically resembling Lenin's infamous Hanging Order (http://en.wikipedia.org/Lenin%27s_Hanging_Order) regarding the August 1918 rebellions around Penza. Just as that order aimed to incite the masses to "know and scream out: 'let's choke and strangle those bloodsucking kulaks!'" by the Bolsheviks summarily starting the process along themselves, the line of research you seem to follow crosses the proverbial Rubicon from rememberance and caution against Bolshevik/Maoist-style extremism to more general anti-socialist agitation and (if taken far enough) persecution; by lumping all deaths caused by arch-socialist/"communist" regimes as being "essential murders" and passing sentence of death in retaliation upon the philosophies behind the regimes (and thus, by implication, non-extremist adherents of said philosophies) as much as upon the murderers themselves.:headbang:
More will come later, but that will take some time of mine to rummage through my texts on Hitler and Nazism's documented relationship to reactionary thought as much as to supposed "socialism" (you may note the small-s, for it is significant). I have some choice sallies to make against the old saw you seem to champion: that everything wrong with last century is the Left's fault, which I can assure you I have encountered before.;) But they will take time to prepare to the same quality as the counterarguments you have graced this exchange with towards me. You deserve no less, in regard of the sport you have given me in this thread, and I shall give you no less in honor of that.