The Observation Deck

It is ok to disagree with people, but I don't think that anyone should turn this into a series of acerbic one liners meant solely to insult others and not make salient points on the topic

you mean like these...

Didn't you take history in high school? Or were you not paying attention

Or you know, people could pick up a book and read themselves...Roy works in a library right? Can't be THAT hard

not sure what you're feeding that high horse you're riding but sure smells bad down here.

I am not sure of your intention, but I hope it was just a poor choice of words rather than baiting.

let me clarify, i was baiting. this is a forum after all and i tend to answer condescension with, well, condescension. with that said, i hope you do keep posting, becker, your voice is important even if i have to strain to hear it.

If this is a discussion of political philosophies, how is the Nolan Chart not the point? The Nolan Chart is means to graphing a political philosophy.
Most Nolan Charts I've seen which try to graph historic leaders of their political parties place Hitler and his Nazis very close to Stalin and the Communists.

I don't see you explaining your position very well.

I am seeing some evidence about Hitler hating the socialists, but I also see references to a 'Social Democracy' party, so are we so sure its not this party?

Many of the positions the Nazis took are in line, if not lockstep, with socialism and communism. I will grant you that some are not, but I believe they are more alike than they are different.

You mentioned Vatican recognition of nazism. I'm reading up on that right now. Anti-communism was an issue, however that still doesn't serve as adequate proof that Nazism isn't close to socialism. It appears a primary contributor to the decision was keeping the Catholic church relatively safe in Germany. That didn't exactly work out. This is part of why I don't believe in Papal Infallibility.
It only took a few years before the Vatican had serious second thoughts about what it had done, but they continued to honor the Concordat they had signed.

kate e parker wrote:let me clarify, i was baiting. this is a forum after all and i tend to answer condescension with, well, condescension. with that said, i hope you do keep posting, becker, your voice is important even if i have to strain to hear it.

Good to know, since your baiting sounds like everything else you say, which is combative, sadly. And even from my "high horse" or whatever, you were close to crossing a line in suggesting that someone was apologizing for Nazis. That's not a joke and certainly did not come off as a flip "condescending" response.

And yes, to be honest, I was getting a bit frustrated with how you and Roy are misinterpreting what the Nazis are politically and was sarcastic. It was not the most elegant response, however, you weren't any better, Kate, in taking every little opportunity, including my gender for god's sake, to try and put me down. That's a tad too far. And since you are far away from where I am and cannot see your face, I interpret what you write literally.

And of course you can't hear me, I'm in MA right now. Kinda far away.

Roy, reading back through my posts, I agree that I could provide more links to sources. I don't agree with you, but I will better support my position in another post. Again, this is just such a "no duh" issue to me that to hear people suggesting they are socialists sounds like an insane invalidation of many of things I learned in school and that my parents learned in school, so I was not careful.

As to the Nolan chart, I think that a chart is not comprehensive enough to explain this. A table would be better. More detail.

My position, in short, is that the Nazis are fascists, and that fascists don't have a lot in common with socialists or communists to be called either term. And just because they have the name "Socialist" in their party does not preclude that being an accurate description of them. For instance, did the US Whig party actually have wigs throughout their existence? By what you said in an earlier post, they must because it was in their name and wigs and natural hair are the same thing. Are the green party people actually green? That is the logic I question.

Now, if you intend to make broader comparisons between these three varied political systems, that is a bit different, but I don't think that labeling the Nazis as socialists is a good start.

The Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea just might show up as a democracy
in a search 50 years from now.

russell dunn wrote:The Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea just might show up as a democracy
in a search 50 years from now.

And along with them will come "The People's Republic of China" as a republic, not a communist state.

I really hope that never happens.

'Socialism' meant something different in europe in the early 20th century than it means to our American contemporaries today. back then it meant largely something to appeal to Europeans under the yoke of a thousand years of european Landlords, who had just fed them into the meatgrinder of World War One. and had been getting letters from relatives who had gone to America for the past 100 years or so, where land and food were cheap, and business and leadership were not so cluttered with Europes accumulation of landlords and clergy-partners and population density. So, there were a lot of europeans into socialism in the early 19th century europe. it doesn't mean anything compared to American issues today, and the various marketing of modern american issues to americans today.

ryan costa wrote:'Socialism' meant something different in europe in the early 20th century than it means to our American contemporaries today. back then it meant largely something to appeal to Europeans under the yoke of a thousand years of european Landlords, who had just fed them into the meatgrinder of World War One. and had been getting letters from relatives who had gone to America for the past 100 years or so, where land and food were cheap, and business and leadership were not so cluttered with Europes accumulation of landlords and clergy-partners and population density. So, there were a lot of europeans into socialism in the early 19th century europe. it doesn't mean anything compared to American issues today, and the various marketing of modern american issues to americans today.

You may have a point here, because the goals and platforms of political movements have a tendancy to change over time. Just look at the Republican party, hardly the same as they were 50 years ago. Same could be said for the Democrats.

But I think what you are saying hits at the root of this discussion. We are trying to compare things that might be comparable, or we might all be using different definitions of these things.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/23/world/mea ... ml?c=world

A Pakistan government minister has personally offered a $100,000 reward for anyone who kills the man who made the anti-Islam movie

Asked whether he was concerned about committing or condoning a crime as a government official, Bilour said, "I am a Muslim first, then a government representative"

Wow.

that is very entertaining. to laugh about people in foreign countries rioting over some stupid youtube video. but, progress and development are slow. I'm sure they will learn to make stupid youtube videos of their own some day.



are any of our candidates in the election running on a platform of Officially-Not-Liking Pakistan and/or "The Muslims"?