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My Take On The Issue Of Left/Right

First of all, I find this love for "historians" a bit silly. If one writes a book on the issue of history, it simply needs to be on issues that actually took place, as in are valid and/or well documented, not how 'well respected' the historians are. That's really helping those who want to see this all as propaganda a lot more than it's hurting them. Also, education being part of the state, there are many de facto court historians; also it's not a minor point just how much of the theory of how history plays out in academia is often Marxist in nature, and so of course something like Nazism, or anything disliked, is going to be seen as distancing itself from Marxism. Also, please no just calling me "glenn beck" or whatever, it's just a fact, two of the biggest philosophers of history are Marx and Hegel, and either of those perspectives, since the respected version of Hegelianism is Marxism (as Marx is seen as the revised, "scientific" Hegelian) is going to get one a rather Marxist view of history, and that's going to give one a clouded view of the Nazis. In short, a historian is just as likely biased and patently wrong on an issue of history as is somebody not a "historian" who writes history (though I'm not sure how one who writes on the subject of history isn't a historian by definition in the first place, but no matter), and it is silly to pretend otherwise. In fact, I think the Nazis are a great case of this; how about those court historians for the Nazi Party, and academia under their reign; I'd much rather somebody without the PhD title of the court historian under the Nazi Germany were this circa 1940. Also I'm in a state such that I just got over a migraine, so if there are any silly typing mistakes like saying "against" when I mean "again" or something I do apologize.

Also, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Hannah Arendt are respected by any measure of the term. If The Origins of Totalitarianism or The Road to Serfdom or Omnipotent Government are not academic history, I'm not sure what is, and not sure why one would say they aren't aside from a dislike of its conclusions, those being that the Nazis were on the Left. It is also common for historians to not know a great deal of economics, so I find Mises and Hayek particularly insightful, to the contrary of their not being "historians" according to some posters. In my experience, Left and Right can mean one of two things. The first type of right wing means in the fashion of the French Revolution's seating arrangements, which I grant is where we get the terms in the first place, that the left is the revolutionary ideas while the right stands for the old status quo, for the privilege of the ancien regime and etc. Taking this to mean privilege and aristocracy it's all but a pointless idea since capitalism took root in the west where whatever is to come, I don't think we need to fear monarchy, because I don't hear anybody upholding it. Meaning simply one who upholds status quo, well then it shifts depending on what the status quo is, so it becomes a meaningless term, not to mention the Nazis were steadfastly against any status quo; if the Nazis were anything to the Germans, they were certainly different. Also, Frederic Bastiat sat on the left with Pierre Joseph Proudhon, and in modern discourse Bastiat is right and Proudhon left, so that brings me to the second meaning of Left/Right, and that's the economic dichotomy, left being communist and the right being capitalist. As the page says, and I hope the reader would grant, the Nazis despised capitalism, so they can't be "far right" by either definition. They also referred to themselves as a third way, between something like a Catholic Center Party and the International Communists. So, again, how one who is between two common ideologies can be on the fringe of the right is beyond me. Yes, they despised communism too, but it seems to be the case they hated communism the way a Christian may hate a Muslim or vice versa, ie infighting. The Communists were Marxist Socialists, who were of course hated by the Bakuninite Socialists and Lasallean Socialists, and the National Socialists. There is also the point of the Nazis not caring for economic interpretations of the world. This is true, in my reading the ways the Nazis differed from the Marxists were mainly on the issues of: 1) they believed in a recognition of private property (though, let it be qualified, not in any true sense of the term, just nominally, because they felt it produced more to give to the state; as in it was seen as the better way to get what somebody like a Lenin or Stalin would want done, not that Hitler was John Locke; also the Nazis could take over an industry at any time they wanted, and those industries certainly answered to them) as opposed to outright government ownership. 2) Nationalism as opposed to the internationalism of the Communists because they felt that solidarity needed for the socialist paradise was more common between nationality than between those who had the same economic status, as in the Communists felt the workers were cosmopolitans because all workers everywhere shared the same plight, the Nazis felt they were Germans because they could feel solidarity with other Germans, and so both of these are collectivist and ideas for a certain army of brethren to bring on socialism. 3) The Nazis preferred their own befuddled conception of a Nietzschean, or perhaps better understood for historian types, a Hegelian conception of history, that is great men drove history, not the economic forces. I say befuddled Nietzschean because they tended to also feel aesthetic good, beauty, is to be valued over moral good, virtue, and that Mussolini's whole ideology was rooted in an attempt of a dull Marxist trying to perfect Marxism by adding in Nietzsche as he saw fit with the poor interpretation one may expect from such a dull figure (as an intellectual, I mean) as Mussolini, or a Hitler, and one can say there is a fourth of the Nazis being a bit more militaristic, but that is debatable, and if so again the reasons for fascists loving the military was because of its coordinating function of society, it's just statist collectivism. I take this rather long digression to say, yes, indeed the Nazis did not like economic conceptions of history, but we are not Nazis, and obviously they were a state with an integrated economic ideology (it being the state's may already be such as to call them Left), and we're the ones using the left/right dichotomy which only makes any real sense economically. The vast majority of points of the 25 points of the Nazi Party on matters of economics, most of the points found in 10 through 25, are leftist in nature, and that's not to dodge the ones before 10, they're just rather simple nationalism/racism. Though, also, let it be noted what nationalism actually means, which is not just 'patriotism.' Nationalism is the opposite of states' rights, the "nationalist theory of the union" is the theory as to the nature of those United States, or any other nation, taken up by those like Abraham Lincoln, as well as Adolf Hitler(and hopefully nobody will be so weak as to try to claim I'm upholding slavery when I'm obviously against the Nazis and all enslavement by any serious reading of this text) which says the nation came before the states making it up, and that therefore, the power should be centralized, and for someone like Hitler, the states should be gotten rid of all together. This is also why they were National Socialists (a whole section of Mein Kampf is dedicated to states rights and Hitler's views against them), and I think we can agree the Communists centralized power, and in this sense of the word were just as much National Socialists. For contemporaneous texts placing the Nazis as left wing, see Nazi Sozi(written by Goebbels himself) and Hitler Over Europe by Ernst Henri. It was my understanding the Nazis saw the Communists as socialism corrupted by Jewry, one can still see this in the crazed rantings of somebody like William Pierce, and that we need a pure anti-jewish German socialism, which of course, it still socialism, and still the Left.

I do feel the wikipedia article is highly POV, and at the least should mention both sides of this argument, if not scrap the more opinionated, blurred opinions over the Nazis being "right wing" all together, or perhaps scrap any mentioning of whether or not this is left/right. Of course, any serious criticism of my points is fine and welcome, and I hope one can talk about these things without descending into the author of a history text not having enough letters after their name or into my perverse motives and how often I must watch fox news (which I dislike) or slavery (which I dislike a little more) or something. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.198.239.65 (talk) 10:32, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I think you completely miss the point of Wikipedia. This is not the place for _opinions_ without citations from reputable, academic, sources, preferably with the letters "P," "H," and "D" after the authors' names. Your theory of "Left=Communism" and "Right=Capitalism" is laughable, and not supported by any current or historical evidence. Also, the fact that you think that books of economic philosophy (like Hayek and von Mises) are "academic history," then you are woefully mistaken. They are as much "academic history" as are the works of Ann Coulter or Al Franken. Your perspective is quite OBVIOUSLY clouded by many hours of the "Glenn Beck Pseudo-History Hour," since everything you just wrote sounds exactly like a transcript of his show, and is what we call on Wikipedia "Original Research," and therefore unworthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia article. Also, next time: Write less. Bryonmorrigan (talk) 14:01, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Also, Mises, Hayek, Arendt and the Communist propaganda writer "Ernst Henri" (not his real name) did not actually make the claims you attribute. TFD (talk) 15:08, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Well I wish you hadn't done exactly what I took a rather long post to try and stop, but I can't say I didn't predict it, Bryon, all the very definition of ad hominem. Whether or not somebody is a "reputable historian" is a matter of whether or not the history they speak of is valid and well documented, not the title after their name; wrote that already, and you know this. Telling me I don't understand how history works when apparently the Nazis with the PhD title are better historians than Hannah Arendt; it just all seems very silly. Can you do something better than the ad hominem over somebody not having a PhD in history, and whether or not their history is valid or invalid? Can you do something better than slander somebody with Glenn Beck, who I tried to make quite clear I have nothing to do with, don't even own a tv to watch his crap if I wanted to do so. It's unnecessarily combative and it does not address anything. I also can't imagine somebody of Beck's intellect handling Mises or Nietzsche, not to mention the neoconservative movement loves Lincoln a nationalist theory of the union to justify war. Regardless, Mises and Hayek are reputable; if they are not, show their claims to be false, or point to where somebody did such. Also, yes they did make the claims of Nazism being of the left. Hayek and Mises both had the central claim of the Communists and the Nazis being part of the same movement, and Arendt's claim is the same. If you think otherwise, you have not read them. This was not simply armchair opinions nor was it original reserach either, this was my understanding of the history as written by sources such as Arendt and Hitler. I did not say copy and paste what I wrote into the article either, obviously, I was claiming the article should rethink its ideological bent in light of such information.

I felt i had quite a few respectable sources. Mises and Hayek and Arendt are respectable, I'm not aware of where their history is a fraud, and since whether or not the Nazis were a leftist philosophy or a rightist philosophy is of course a philosophical question, as long as the history is valid it seems valid for a philosopher to comment on the issue. Goebbels and Hitler themselves were also sources with Nazi Sozi and Mein Kampf respectively.

All but this paragraph is addressed to the lack of response that was Bryon's. Thanks for the interesting information TFD. Though, I must be a bit curious, what claims did I seem to be making about Henri other than Nazism having a leftist economic ideology in the book Hitler Over Europe? What you post is indeed interesting about Henri, but since the very origin of the idea of fascism as "right wing" is with the Soviets, it's interesting he did not categorize them as such, and explained the Nazi economic ideology as one of government intervention and nationalization (ie, socialism) to get the business owners against the workers and vice versa. It also addressed more his lust for drawing connections between people when one shouldn't have done so, than it does his economic analysis. Of course this might be wrong too and I can respect calling it into question, but still find it striking because it goes against the grain of Communist ideology where any opposition is evil capitalism, and since most opposition is going to be slightly to their right unless Bakunin came back it's superficially plausible as "right wing," but that gets overthrown when Stalin calls Trotsky a "fascist" for opposing him. It's also interesting you took on Henri, which if that claim of his is shown to be false fine by me, whatever to get closer to the truth, but that you dodged completely Nazi Sozi. Bryon's response was rather paltry, so thank you for something more tangible and that information about the writer, maybe there will be something there I hadn't noticed before.

I also explained quite well why left = communism and right = capitalism, calling it laughable is not saying anything about the claims. With fear of being a broken record, left/right either means radicals/old privilege and status quo, which is irrelevant to this discussion since status quo changes with the conditions, and the old nobles' privilege is dead, also the Nazis were certainly radicals, or it means something plainly economic. The most basic political spectrum test on the web will show you it's a common interpretation of left/right to be communism/capitalism for clarity's sake. Now maybe you feel it should be more muddled than this, but that's why I also said perhaps mentions of left/right should be scrapped in the article. Can you name me something the Nazis did which is "right wing" that the Communist governments of the world, no doubt on the left, didn't do also? If it's all based on their love of the German language or something it seems a weak claim.

It also seems interesting that there is all this obfuscation over left/right not being an economic ideology when the Nazis' left wing economic ideology is brought up. Perhaps I'm being foolhardy in judgement, but that seems to be granting the point of their left wing economic ideology, which would be cause to say, whatever the supplementary conditions one wishes to claim exist for being labeled left or right, that they can't be called "far right." It seems hard to believe that one can be on the edge while being the "middle way" of fascism simultaneously. These seem legitimate quandaries.

So please say why my claims are wrong, which I have no problems with, all for learning, not why I didn't cite enough court historians. A reputable historian only is reputable if his/her history is valid, seems obvious enough to me. Thanks for the reply. --132.198.239.65 (talk) 07:41, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Wow. For someone who types so much, you present so little information. As I pointed out before, Hayek and von Mises were NOT historians, nor did they claim to be. Both were economists and political theorists. It's amazing that you can't see this. Ann Coulter has a law degree...but her books are not "academic" in the slightest, nor would they be considered "reputable" sources for Wikipedia, particularly on the issue of history. Furthermore, Hayek, von Mises....and apparently you as well...concentrate solely upon economic issues, when the main goals of National Socialism were aimed at social, not economic, ones. Left and Right still mean the same thing as they always have...and trying to redefine the argument based on a "Capitalism v. Communism" is as false a dichotomy as ever existed. Under that ridiculous argument, Left-Wingers like John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Thomas Paine were all "secret Communists." Leftism has always been strongly in favor of Egalitarianism, a concept which was strongly opposed by the Nazis in every possible way. Say what you will about the Soviets, but they still promoted Egalitarianism, albeit through Totalitarianism. The Nazis hated everything to do with the "Jewish" concepts of Marxism and Communism, and any attempt to state otherwise is nothing but Revisionism and "original research." Your hatred of historians, academics, and reputable sources is duly noted. Once again, please try to be more succinct in your ramblings, rather than filling up the page with this nonsense. Bryonmorrigan (talk) 12:48, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

The IP still has not provided any sources that Mises, Hayek or Arendt considered fascism part of the Left, and in fact none of them claimed that it was. TFD (talk) 17:24, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

As I said before, a "historian" does not have a monopoly on history, and why you think historians are ones to interpret economic and philosophical questions about history any more than say, economists and philosophers, seems silly. Ann Coulter has nothing to do with anything, try refuting Mises or Hayek or Arendt, but bringing her up is my point her having a law degree doesn't give her a monopoly on truth. Matters of history depend on whether or not the history talked about happened, not who wrote them, this is kinda the whole point behind ad hominem being a term in the first place. Being "not historians" doesn't say anything, are they right or wrong. Already addressed all of this; yep, the Nazis didn't care for economic concepts of history, but we're not Nazis, and we're the ones trying to decide whether they were on the left or right, which has little coherence taken outside the economic sphere. Name me what the Nazis did that was "right wing" that the Soviets didn't, the list seems paltry. And nope again, how many strawmans are you going to build up, Bryon, what does "secret communist" have to do with anything, the point in the very first place is fascism was a movement of the left; that does not mean anybody who is on the left is a communist by definition, since they could be a fascist, or a myriad of whatever else, the point is that the communists are on the left and capitalists on the right, not that on the left are only communists, hur dur.; nope, for instance, they could be a fascist, for instance, or a. It's a gradient, and you know that, and lol at claiming Paine as left wing, you haven't read him either. And sorry but history and economics alike is a matter of cause and effect not hopes and intentions, to say the Soviets promote egalitarianism through a government with secret and special privileges over a starving population is quite sad. You're just repeating bromides, the Nazis had as much wish for egalitarianism, if you call egalitarianism the Marxist economic conceptions, which the Nazis had plenty of even if decrying the internationalism; for instance, the platform of the Nazi Party 11) That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished. or 18)18. We demand that ruthless war be waged against those who work to the injury of the common welfare. Traitors, usurers, profiteers, etc., are to be punished with death, regardless of creed or race. Those seem pretty "egalitarian." Please, bryon, quit with the strawmen, actually address the point. I do not "hate" historians, but slander the competition as you will, you "hate reputable sources" all the same since Hayek and Mises knew the economic ground where the Nazis took root, ie the German Historical School, quite well. Your whole post was 1) but those aren't historians! (addressed already), 2) But left and right aren't economic! (addressed, again) 3) you think everybody on the left is a communist! (simply no, the very essence of the point is fascists are on the left, and inb4 you try to claim i'm saying the left is all fascists and commies or something to bring the argument down further), 4) Well you're just a hater because you think history is about what happens not who says what happened (simply dumb). My posts are long because it's obvious you guys do this, bryon, because it's going to be down to attacking me and not the points made and/or questions raised, I have to qualify everything knowing it won't be people with spines, it will be people like you. Notice my posts are shorter when not trying to combat strawmen and lazy bromides. Already showed the whole point about viewing Marxist socialism as jewish, and their socialism as the German socialism, maybe the disdain over the length is because you won't read it.

Yes, I did provide a source for them each. The Road to Serfdom, Omnipotent Government, and The Origins Of Totalitarianism. Let's take it from wiki itself, on the Road to Serfdom, Hayek "analyzes Naziism's roots in socialism" and the whole of the website dedicated to Mises seems to be aware of these claims, eg http://mises.org/daily/1937 Arendt has Naziism and Soviets as both movements of totalitarianism, ie as part of the same movement. Mises and Hayek both felt that Naziism was an outgrowth of the German Historical School, with its Romanticism and volkisch law, the disdain for economics, and more positivist outlook of economics, and, surprise, its socialism. In fact, both point out how much of the origin of the hate of jews from their association with capitalism, and thus "the right" --132.198.239.65 (talk) 23:40, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Your need to show that Hayek, Mises or Arendt called fascism "left-wing" and so far you have failed to do so. Your belief that Nazism "was an outgrowth of the German Historical School" undercuts your theory, since the School was right-wing. TFD (talk) 00:52, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I've decided it's pointless trying to talk to this guy. He's confused as to the purpose of Wikipedia, does not understand the difference between political opinion pieces and reputable sources, and just responds with rambling, incoherent, arguments in giant wall-o-text format. Bryonmorrigan (talk) 13:55, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I will note that the funniest part of his manifesto is this sentence, "It's a gradient, and you know that, and lol at claiming Paine as left wing, you haven't read him either." LOL. Thomas Paine was actually a key figure in the French Revolution, having been elected to the National Convention, and the term "Left Wing" itself was coined during this period to refer to those who supported the Revolution. (He also advocated a kind of "proto-Socialism" in his treatise, Agrarian Justice...) Paine was probably the single MOST Left Wing figure in the entire American Revolution, and to say otherwise proves a complete lack of scholarship. Bryonmorrigan (talk) 17:10, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

According to the John Birch Society, we are mistaken about the French Revolution. The deputies who sat on the right and supported the king were actually left-wing, while the deputies who sat on the left were right-wing. So Thomas Paine was far right, while Louis XVI was far left. TFD (talk) 00:17, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

LOL. Robespierre was a Conservative? That's almost as funny as Jonah Goldberg's "scholarship!" Bryonmorrigan (talk) 11:40, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Are you kidding that haven't shown Hayek, Mises, and Arendt called it left wing? Hayek "analyzes Nazism's roots in socialism" - Wikipedia's own page on the Road to Serfdom. Is socialism not left wing? Mises - "Marxism and National Socialism, agree in opposing the Liberalism and reject the capitalist social order. Both desire a socialist form of society." - Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis (he echoes the same sentiments in the introduction, and there's a whole bloody chapter of "National Socialism and World Socialism" Omnipotent government is just more of a book on history as such, and traces the Nazis from its roots in Bismarck on, so I gave that one, and here's a quote from it to show it taking the same attitude "The essential ideas of Nazism were developed by the Pan-Germans and the socialists of the chair in the last thirty years of the nineteenth century," not to mention an entire chapter in the section of what led to Nazism is about the Social Democrats in Imperial Germany; if you don't think Mises or Hayek see Nazism as left wing and the German Historical School as left wing, again, you have not read them, or did a poor job of it. http://mises.org/etexts/mises/og.asp http://books.google.com/books?id=dPkB7AiURigC&printsec=frontcover&dq=socialism+an+economic+a&hl=en&ei=H4qnTZ7BBcidgQev4uXzBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=book-thumbnail&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6wEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

I said why I cited Arendt already as well, the Origins of Totalitarianism is showing Nazism and the Soviets being parts of the same movement. Since the Soviets are left wing, it seems to follow.

Obviously didn't read what I've written, since already noted where left wing comes from, that being the Revolution, and why it's not what it means today (and if it were what it meant at the convention, and to restate since apparently it wasn't read, as in left meaning simply opposing the Old Order, well then the Nazis are left wing by that definition too, but that's too context dependent of what the old order is/was). Frederic Bastiat ("The Bastiat Prize is a journalism award for politically right-wing, Libertarian commentators"http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Bastiat_Prize) sat on the left too (http://books.google.com/books?id=6sisXMv_AecC&pg=PA62&lpg=PA62&dq=bastiat+sat+on+the+left+of+national+assembly&source=bl&ots=BHzJz-S3r8&sig=VtLecDYwraUzmaO83TYNVlb_H44&hl=en&ei=UYunTZj3IMHVgQfp08HzBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=national%20assembly&f=false), and he'd be put on the right of today without question, as would Thomas Jefferson(inb4 'LOL he says Thomas Jefferson was at the National Convention' to dodge the rest of what is said, not saying that), and as would Thomas Paine. It's quite natural for somebody on what we today call the right as being part of the American Revolution, to be for the furthering of liberty against monarchy, and support the French Revolution as well, certainly before any derapage, and said people for the revolution would've sat on the left, that isn't at all confusing to me. Socialists like to call Paine part of the left because he wrote some things like the government should give people 50 dollars, that's not exactly public ownership of the means of production, the guy was for limited government in the American style all the same. To say Paine was the most left of the american revolution says nothing when they'd all be considered right wing for wishing to conserve British liberties and free trade. Also try not to brush aside the fact you said rather stupidly I think anybody on the left is a communist while I'm arguing that the non-communist fascists are on the left. A better question than Paine is if FDR is on the left, as per your labeling, which he was, why FDR praised Mussolini and vice versa? The only way to rebut seems to be some type of lame appeal to intentions instead of actual cause and effect, or to draw a harsh difference between social and economic spheres and say Mussolini was on the right socially but with FDR economically (which, nonetheless, being a mixture, means it doesn't make sense to say "far right"), and that still draws the challenge which has not been met; what did the Nazis (and fascists) do (lets put an emphasis on do, as in actually did) that was so "right wing" that the Soviets didn't do?

And don't try the "it's fruitless to talk to this guy," when it's obvious you did not read what was written, and have done nothing more but claim I'm wrong ex cathedra. Try harder.

Also never got a response as to whether this: http://www.archive.org/details/GoebbelsJoseph-DerNazi-sozi-FragenUndAntwortenFuerDen is a valid source http://www.archive.org/stream/NaziSozi/Nazi-Sozi#page/n11/mode/2up for the English --132.198.239.65 (talk) 23:24, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Again, this is original research. Hayek et al placed conservatism on the right and libertarianism in the center. See for example Hayek's "Why I am not a conservative". Certainly conservatives adopted policies that Hayek called socialism, e.g., State Socialism, Tory Socialism. Red Toryism. as did liberals. Bismarck was a right-wing conservative. Herbert Spencer called the Liberal Party's move to interventionism "The new Toryism". Ironically, the socialists were the last political group to accept this type of socialism, which they called "state capitalism". They saw the welfare state as an attempt by the establishment to concentrate power in the state and undercut the power of workers' organizations. And no, Goebbel's writings are not a reliable source. TFD (talk) 01:42, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

First off, it says my take, as in why I feel the legitimate queries are out there because it seems like those who bring this up often do not get any serious response outside of dismissal; secondly, it's not original research, I am not Mises or Hayek, or Goebbels, and there's a whole page on this very site about FDR and Mussolini, and Paine is not a matter of original research either. Where Hayek placed conservatism or libertarianism is not the matter, it's that to both Mises and Hayek fascism's roots were in socialism, and socialism is left wing. Not 'adopted policies' but their very roots, as says in wikipedia's own article citing Hayek's own text, and as Mises would say from what I linked, this should be emphasized. Also, as a side note Hayek is far more appeasing in his nature, he's the most Tory in Spencer's sense of the Austrian School, if you will; I doubt Mises had such a spectrum (Rothbard felt Hayek's Nobel Prize was for Mises, but they made sure to wait until he died to give it to somebody more palatable). Both Mises and Hayek call Nazism, economically and historically, socialism.

Calling Bismarck right wing seems more a case of psychologizing, what he actually did was appease the socialists and invent the first welfare state, 1883 introduced state run healthcare, so it seems reductionist to call him "right wing," and nonetheless I was just trying to encapsulate Mises' work without copying and pasting the entire book, not say anything about Bismarck as such. I said from Bismarck on is the chronology of the work, not that Bismarck was a social democrat or anything, but that within that chronology Mises shows Nazism's roots in socialism, one can follow the link and see how the chapters of Mises' work are set up. Herbert Spencer and Murray Rothbard both have great essays about how left and right have switched meanings and become convoluted, essentially by, at first, one using the means of the other, it's one of the reasons to me it seems vacuous to count left and right as anything but economic divisions when that's mostly what they've become if one wishes to make any sense of them. Regardless, Spencer's point was that the liberals (meaning classical liberal, think Bastiat or Jefferson or etc) had moved toward socialism, probably shown best in someone like John Stuart Mill, so, yes those that called themselves "liberals" are now statists, or to use a Misesian term Etatists. That strikes me as a point for fascists being on the left, as left came to mean not "radical" but "interventionist." To say it wasn't left wing enough for those furthest to the left doesn't make it any less a part of the left; and yes it's common for those on the left to call their leftist opponents capitalists, Stalin did it with the fascists, and with Trotsky. And it seems like one could make a pretty good argument that, even taking the older meanings of the word left, if Germany had a national convention in Weimar the Nazis would've sat to the left; that is to say "far right" is at best foolhardy. "undercut the power of workers' organizations" has a superficial plausibility as anti-left, but the Soviet Union just as much undermined those for nationalization's sake (as did the Nazis), so I don't see that as in itself particularly right wing. At least, it requires clarification.

I feel a bit at loss why Goebbel's writings aren't primary sources of Nazi thought, this was before he was propaganda minister. Surely Mein Kampf is a source of Nazi doctrine, this seems just the same; at worst it shows how the Nazis sold themselves, and it's a dialogue with such things as (paraphrasing) "So your answer to the failings of the Marxian socialism is a new, German socialism? Exactly!' which certainly shows the Nazis selling themselves as socialists, again, at worst (as a source). It seems also pretty telling to me, of course, maybe I'm all wrong, but it's striking, that so much of fascist doctrine comes out of syndicalists (who are certainly left wing), Sorel probably being the most obvious. If the document (Nazi Sozi) is indeed genuine, which was more my question, seems to follow it tells us something, no?

Also, I'd be interested in how you guys feel about Wolfgang Schivelbusch as a source, since FDR has been granted as left wing, a historian who sees the New Deal as fascism, and thanks for the response, Four Deuces

--132.198.239.65 (talk) 09:29, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

You still need sources that support your conclusions, otherwise it is synthesis. Rothbard and others btw use a similar analysis as yours but see modern socialism as developing out of conservatism and therefore arguably right-wing. "Most Socialists (Fabians, Lassalleans, even Marxists) turned sharply rightward, completely abandoned the old libertarian goals and ideals of revolution and the withering away of the State, and became cozy Conservatives...."[1] And yes, Goebbels may be used as a primary source, but there are limits on how those sources may be used. Wolfgang Schivelbusch's writings may be used as a source, but WP:WEIGHT applies when describing his opinions. And no FDR has not been granted as left-wing, he was a centrist if on the left of the mainstream American spectrum and is described in a recent biography by Conrad Black as a conservative. TFD (talk) 11:58, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Leftist use of the term before nazism

Why is there no mention of the use of the term National Socialism before the Nazis, especially by socialists. Examples include the National Socialist party of the UK from 1916 to 1918, Robert Blatchford's Britain For The British and Merrie England and the writings of the utopian socialist Edward Bellamy in the US.

Obviously this has nothing to do with the later fascist and racist uses of the term, but I think it is well worth mentioning. Jamesmcm (talk) 07:32, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

It has no connection with the NSDAP. In fact many parties have attached the term "national" to their name. It usually means the party is organized throughout the nation. In the same sense we do not mention all the parties throughout the world that have been called republican in the article about the U.S. Republican Party. TFD (talk) 22:50, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Sure but National Socialism redirects to this page, whereas Republicanism does not redirect to the US Republican party. Jamesmcm (talk) 07:32, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

You would need to show that reliable sources writing about the NSDAP find this trivia relevant. 11:45, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

[2] appears to be an RS indicating whay the term was used (tracing it to the Austrian party pre WW I (1913), and to Rudolf Jung et al). Decidedly antedates the NSDAP name change and I wonder if Hitler was well aware of the movement while living in Austria. At least it appears reasonable that he would have been familiar with the small party. Collect (talk) 12:04, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I was more thinking that perhaps the history of National Socialism as an ideology should have a separate page to the NSDAP party itself, covering the history of the term and it's usage by other parties, etc. Jamesmcm (talk) 21:31, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I suspect the Austrian usage was very close to what Hitler knew - does anyone have cites for him being versed in politics of other nations in Europe? Collect (talk) 21:47, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I could be wrong, since I don't know much about these earlier groups you mention (other than what I see on their Wiki pages), but I think there is a distinct difference between "National Socialism" and a "National" organization composed of "Socialists" where the words come together in the title. National Socialism is not really "Socialism" at all, as the primary word is "National," relating to "Nationalism." (Technically, in German, the words are not even separated, as in "Nationalsozialismus.") This is quite different from an earlier English organization that called itself the "National Socialist Party," as it appears that Nationalism had nothing to do with the party's platform. Really, since the "Socialist" part of Nationalsozialismus is directed at the People supporting the State, rather than the State supporting the People, (as in "regular" Socialism), it really has nothing at all to do with "Socialism" per se. As I like to point out, National Socialism had as much to do with "Socialism" as the German Democratic Republic had to do with "Democracy" or "Republicanism." (In other words: Nada.) Another example is the Far-Right (and somewhat Neo-Nazi) German National Democratic Party, or Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands. There's a distinct difference between what they call "National Democratism" and say, the "National Democratic Party" of the USA or "Democratic National Convention." Linking some Left-Wing group that had nothing to do with the Nazis to this page, simply because of the name similarity (in English no less, but not German)...is like linking the Jains to this page because the Jain flag also has a swastika on it...and I question the motives of anyone stating otherwise. Bryonmorrigan (talk) 23:30, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Well I agree with you, Edward Bellamy's "Nationalism" movement referred to nationalisation, not xenophobia, as he saw socialism as simply being the necessary role of government to truly protect life and liberty. I'm not trying to link them to the Nazi party but I think the other usage of the term should be mentioned, just as National Communism has its own page. My point is more that National Socialism is broader than just Nazism, and this should be mentioned, so that people reading Edward Bellamy's books, etc. can understand that with the archaic use of the term. Jamesmcm (talk) 11:10, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Add a link for Bellamy then, possibly with a note as to "earlier, unrelated use of term 'national socialism.'" Collect (talk) 13:39, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

The Austrian group mentioned appears fairly close to the Hitler version. I doubt he knew anything about any British parties, but he pretty much had to have heard of the Austrian one. And it did, indeed, pay some lip sevice to socialism in each case. Collect (talk) 00:03, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

This source shows that the term "national socialist" was used in pre-war Austria. The National Socialist Party (UK) adopted its name during the war (after Nazis had begun using the term), but it is unlikely they would have heard about the small Austrian party or would have knowingly copied their name, since Britain was at war with Austria. While a comparison between the two groups would be interesting (socialism, nationalism, anti-Semitism, militarism, marches), we would need a source for the comparison. TFD (talk) 14:00, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for repeating the precise cite I already gave. Collect (talk) 14:07, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

link to parasitism

Is that link a joke? The article the link connects to is a ecological article, while the intended meaning is a derogatory term towards flexibility. The Nazi claim has nothing to do with ecological parasitism, as Judaism in no way harms anything it supports. 173.183.79.81 (talk) 03:25, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

German-English translator needed

As you can see here: A-Z category of Nazi Party members on German wikipedia

the coverage of the Nazi party and its members is a great deal more comprehensive on the German Wikipedia than the English one. It would be great if we could find a fluent German-English speaker who could translate pages for some of these historical figures. For instance, it is rather embarrassing that the English Wikipedia does not have pages for some of the leading members, such as Karl Steibel, or some of the Commandants of concentration camps, such as Franz Reichleitner.

If one or two Wikipedia users could approach the translation process as a specialized task, that would be ideal.Hoops gza (talk) 02:57, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Expert Categorizers

Why is there no mention of the fact that Nazis were particularly great categorizers? They excelled in identifying various things and writing about them and putting them in their proper places. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.190.195.15 (talk) 03:23, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I am not sue if you are joking but I am certainly not aware of any reliable sources to support what you say, or indeed whether "categorizers" is even a real word. As for "putting things in their proper places", if anything I think the allies deserve most credit for that as they sure put the Nazis in their proper place! --DanielRigal (talk) 22:44, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

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Edit request from WTSherman1864, 23 February 2011

{{edit semi-protected}} I would like to edit this sentence from the original article to make it accurate: "Nazism presented itself as politically syncretic, incorporating policies, tactics and philosophies from right- and left-wing ideologies; in practice, Nazism was a far right form of politics.[11]"

My edit: Nazism presented itself politically syncretic, incorporating policies, tactics and philosophies from left-wing ideologies; in practice, Nazism was a far left form of politics.

Reason: Nazism was a thing solely of the left-wing. It is a common modern error to state that Nazism was a far right form of government. A far right form of government, as an example, would be the one established under Franco in Spain. Franco was a dictator but he did not micro-manage the economy of Spain. As long as one did not defy the government in political protest, one was relatively free to manage one`s own affairs. Not so with Hitler and the Nazis extreme socialist and statist methods. Again, Franco was a harsh dictator but Spain under Franco WAS NOT statist. Note that that the Nazi Party was a SOCIALIST party devoted to state control and genocide. Note also that it was Mussolini who founded Fascism and it was Hitler who adopted this idea of Fascism as the base for the Nazi socialist form of government. Note also that the Nazis had much more in common with Communism in the Soviet Union under Stalin. It is a disservice to the internet community to provide what is indeed misleading information. And my edit above is the result. What I have presented above is the truth. Verifiable, but not as easily as one would like. The truth is neutral by nature. And in this case there are no gray areas. Black is black and white is white.

WTSherman1864 (talk) 00:26, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

You would need a source that says that scholars generally consider Nazism to have been far left. Articles must reflect scholarly opinion, not the opinions of editors. TFD (talk) 00:51, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. WTSherman1864's unsourced, non-academic, "historical" revisionism has no place on Wikipedia. Bryonmorrigan (talk) 13:47, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

You also need a mix of sources from across the political spectrum. Is a book like "Liberal Fascism" considered academic or historical? Considering that a few people on this board seem to have argued against dictionary definitions as valid authorities, I'm going to guess there will be some cherry picking, inevitably. Why there's such drive to include diffuse and controversial terms like 'right' or 'left,' despite the inevitable disagreements is beyond me.--Ryan W (talk) 05:57, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

A book like "Liberal Fascism," written by a journalist with no historical credentials, and completely debunked by many of the most well-respected authorities on the histories of Fascism, Nazism, and WW2, has no place as a "source" of scholarly information. Here are some articles by REAL historians, showing why the book is nothing but "pseudo-historical" propaganda, with no basis in fact: [3]; [4]; [5]. Bryonmorrigan (talk) 14:39, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for those links, BTW. Good reading and they will, I'm afraid, probably fall on deaf ears for some on this thread. "Credentials"? "Scholars"? Don't you know those are code words for far-left liberalism (i.e. Nazism/Fascism) that seeks to obfuscate the truth? Oh well. I will track down the books written by the actual experts in this field provided in those links. freshacconci talktalk 17:56, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Not at all, though I've been slow in responding since I seriously injured my foot and am behind in my work. You can leave the poor strawman alone, sir. First source has an interesting point regarding lack of sources on certain key assertions, though he makes some rather horrendous gaffes. He seems confused by the notion that FDR put people in internment camps. I know of people with High School diplomas who would not make that mistake. I had a point by point about a third of the way written for one of the articles about what seemed reasonable and what was falacious. I'll finish it up after I attend to the work I'm personally responsible for. Though your response seems to begrudge what should be an obvious point; if you don't provide sources from scholars across the political spectrum, the result will inevitably be POV. --75.83.82.224 (talk) 01:07, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

The Socialist Party of the United States opposed the internment of the Japanese and the New Deal, and compared both of them to Nazism and fascism. TFD (talk) 04:38, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Quite so. And FDR was considered to be a "leftist" by many today. A good taxonomy is [Monophyletic monophylectic] and predictive. The political spectrum, as typically applied, is not. You make the point that the terms "left" and "right" are used in a very non-objective fashion in most political discussions, both now and 50 years ago. All the more reason we should shy away from them here, if we want this page to be clear and objective.

Hitler centralized government, nationalized banks and industry, regulated pay, controlled media, controlled firearms, opposed individual rights in favor of collective welfare, promoted national parks and environmentalism, favored euthanasia, created laws based on race etc. Many of these things are associated with the left today. My point is not to try and argue that Hitler was a leftist, but that such labels as 'left' and 'right' should be replaced with actual (objectively verifiable and non-controversial) policies so that people can make their own decision about things. --Ryan W (talk) 22:01, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Ryan has his the nail on the head. Left and Right are RELATIVE tems. In the context of 1930's Germany, the NAZI party was right-wing cf. the active communist movements. These same policies would be almost universally characterized as left-wing in modern US politics, because in that context, they are left-of-center. The use of these terms is further muddled by the confounding of economic policies with social policies that fall at different points on the political spectrum. It is just not possible to use relative terms to generalize the complex aspects of the NAZI party. Use of these terms is like saying the house is on the left side of the street - everyone knows that may be true, but depends entirely on what direction or reference point you are using. It is an unencyclopaedic approach and these relative terms should be removed. 70.245.209.94 (talk) 03:58, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Since the Communists opposed all the Nazi policies then I suppose they should be called right-wing, following this logic. In any case, you need a source to back up your views. TFD (talk) 04:08, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

And furthermore, many of Ryan's assertions are myths. The idea that the Nazis were in favor of "gun control" is a myth created by modern, pro-NRA types, and has been debunked by scholars. [6] Also, he and "The IP" above are using definitions of Left and Right that were created in the last few years...by Conservatives...in order to demonize anyone on the Left. As long as editors like this can't even understand basic ideas of what makes the Left, "The Left," and what makes the Right, "The Right," and can't do it without saying, "The Right is all about Liberty and Awesomeness...and Liberals hate America and love terrorism," then such people cannot be taken seriously, and their un-sourced edits must be reverted. Bryonmorrigan (talk) 13:24, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

That's absurd. Your assertion that we must, "provide sources from scholars across the political spectrum," when those "sources" are nothing but opinion by people who have no education or training in the subject...is like adding sources who are Holocaust Deniers to the page on the Holocaust as "credible" sources. What you are trying to do is called "Newspeak," and is a deliberate distortion of the historical record, solely for propaganda purposes...and is most certainly NOT "scholarship." Bryonmorrigan (talk) 15:16, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. As per The Four Deuces, all information in Wikipedia must be verified by reliable sources. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:32, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Bryonmorrigan - You could try looking for conservatives with education or training in the subject. Or is anyone who disagrees with you disqualified from having a viewpoint? That's a pretty extreme assertion, and not really amenable to wiki authorship. Your comparison is simply out to lunch. My statement had not the least thing to do with holocaust denial, or even the repudiation of any established historical fact. If you're capable of leaving these wild and unscholarly accusations at the doorstep, we may be able to have an intelligent discussion. What you are trying to do is the very definition of POV, and it's against Wikipedia's policies. It doesn't matter how strongly you believe in a particular taxonomy. Other people use it differently than you do. I'd be happy to see this article stick to objective statements of fact rather than become a platform for various individual's political viewpoints. --Ryan W (talk) 21:38, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Gottbegnadeten list

Maybe someone could also mention the Gottbegnadeten list, which was of vital importance in the period after the war with the Allied denazification targeting those on it? --Anonymous

political spectrum confusion

After reading through three archives and the current discussions, perhaps this page should be modified slightly in order to include a link to a discussion of the political spectrum; in particular the one used by the sources cited in order to classify nazism in practice as "far right."

People would benefit from realizing that there's really no objective, overall authoritative standard that everyone accepts to define right/left - it might help to stop nonconstructive discussion over the right/left issue by people unaware of the nature of the topic.

Even if the way the way the current wording is setup -

"in practice, Nazism was a far right form of politics.[11]"

Is not, by wikipedia's definition, "Weasel words," it pointlessly causes conflict. You have to delve several pages and citations deep to realize that "far right" may not necessarily be what you think it is; and even the linked page of "far right." Prima facie it exudes a blunt arrogance that it might not be meant to have; and I don't think wiki is about that sort of thing. Perhaps the contributor who worded it that way did not realize how it would be received?

For that matter, simply linking to the right wing politics page @ [[7]] might help people to realize the fluidity of the political spectrum and come to the conclusion that they ought to do some reading on the topic before fighting over it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dds667 (talk • contribs) 03:10, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Um, pretty much every book ever written on the Nazis that mentions the political spectrum refers to them as "Right Wing," or "Far Right." It would be original research and revisionism to claim otherwise, as the only "sources" who do so are conspiracy theorists and debunked cranks like Jonah Goldberg or Glenn Beck. And heck, even the modern Neo-Nazis self-identify as "Far Right." It's only a relatively recent, American phenomenon to try to pretend that Fascism, Nazism, support for slavery, and opposition to Civil Rights, etc., are not examples of historical Right-Wing movements. In Germany, for example, no one even entertains the idea that the Nazis were anything but Right-Wing. Google "rechtsextremismus" (Right-Extremism). Bryonmorrigan (talk) 03:58, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Good point. And WP:WEIGHT requires us to give little or no coverage to fringe theories, except in articles about fringe theories. TFD (talk) 04:23, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

@ bryan m - you aren't even arguing against what I said. You're wasting electrons.

Four Deuces: I didn't in any way say nor mean nor intend nor insinuate "give coverage to fringe theories." Did you even bother to read my post? I'd also like to have an objective and clear definition of what you'd call "fringe," because what I posted only references to published stuff inside of wikipedia - this very site acknowledges "The terms far right and radical right have been used by different people in conflicting ways.[22]" - at the link I gave above.

Unless, of course, everyone here *Likes* having arguments on this topic, adnauseum.--Dds667 (talk) 04:48, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

The "conflicting ways" is that it may be applied exclusively to fascist, neofascist and racist groups, or it may be applied more broadly to include radical right and right-wing populist groups as well. But usually it means the former. No mainstream usage would exclude Nazism. TFD (talk) 05:14, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Source?

Besides which, It still makes sense to point people towards the issue of political spectrum's - if just to preempt endless edit wars from conservatives who (rightly) know that nazism has nothing to do with what is called "right wing conservatism" by those who practice said.--Dds667 (talk) 05:21, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

You should read the sources provided for the passage you presented. What the Nazis had in common with the rw conservatives is that they came to power with conservative support and the conservative party was absorbed into the Nazi Party. After the war, both parties were banned. TFD (talk) 05:49, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I am reading them (even though the citation is horribly crappy and doesn't list the books, much less chapter and page) - and so far, have not seen what you're alluding to. I'd like to see what "rw conservative" in the late 30's germany actually meant in content beyond just sharing a similar name... It's a lot of reading from those authors with almost no hope of finding specifics. Shame on the lazy contributor who gave that reference!--Dds667 (talk) 05:57, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Clive Webb's book Rabble rousers explains the use of terminology on p. 10. You used the term rw conservative and I assumed you meant parties like the German National People's Party rather than parties like the British Conservatives. TFD (talk) 06:21, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

...and the same could be said in regards to the fact that American Liberals have nothing to do with Stalinism or Communism...but that doesn't mean that those ideologies are not "Left Wing." All Fascism is Right-Wing, just as all Communism is Left-Wing. Just ask the Oxford Dictionary [8]:

Fascism: n authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. (in general use) extreme right-wing, authoritarian, or intolerant views or practices. Bryonmorrigan (talk) 11:49, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Having seen this discussion occur time and again in many contexts, it seems clear what the motivation for it is. Nobody wants their political views associated with Nazism. Thus, people on both the political Right and the Left today each have reason to dissociate their own movement from Nazism ... and, in moments of weakness, to smear their opponents as being close to Nazis or soft on Nazism.

For instance, many in the political center-right in the Cold War found use for the term "totalitarianism", which associates Nazism with Soviet Communism — both as a way of pushing Nazism far from the center-right, but also by implication accusing leftists (who were "soft on Communism") of leaning towards Nazism, too. Among conservatives and right-libertarians today, the idea that Nazism is a cousin to Marxism — making much of the word "Socialism" in "National Socialism", and of Nazism's opposition to finance capitalism — is not uncommon. Meanwhile, on the left, the use of the expression "Far Right", and the use of "Fascist" as a slur for conservatives, and the description of radical Nazism as a "conservative" ideology, serve the same purpose: to smear the right with the Nazi label.

Wikipedia should by all means describe this tendency to try to glue Nazism onto one's political opponents, but should not take part in it. Wikipedia should document which sources discuss traditionalist, nationalist roots of Nazism; the alliance of the NSDAP with the conservative DNVP in the Harzburg Front; Nazism's deep anticommunism (and the association of antisemitism with anticommunism); but also document what sources discuss aspects of political organization Nazism took from socialist movements: its mass nature, its deliberate appeal to the industrial working class, its subsuming of labor unions, and so on.

Of course if you use a certain rubric for what counts as "right wing", Nazism was "right wing". (Especially if you look at who their allies and enemies were.) And of course if you use a certain rubric for what counts as "socialist", Nazism was "socialist". (Especially if you use a right-libertarian view in which all Big Government is "socialism".) But this just means that if you define your terms in a convenient way, you can get whatever results you like. But doing so doesn't produce a better, more accurate picture of what Nazism was; it just shifts labels around. —FOo (talk) 15:54, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Since the terms left and right entered the language there has been opposition to their use, or attempts to redefine them, especially from the center and the Right. But the term used is "far right". We could ask whether they are really far right, but we could also ask whether conservatives, liberals, socialists etc. are properly described. The Nazism = socialism = left-wing btw is misleading. TFD (talk) 17:39, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

"Especially if you use a right-libertarian view in which all Big Government is "socialism"." And since it is mainly the fringe right-libertarian view that claims this, it would certainly be undue weight to include it in this article. --Saddhiyama (talk) 18:45, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

The model used to describe the left-right spectrum was based on empirical research in the post-war period of political parties whose place on the political spectrum had already been established, and therefore there is not a rigid correlation. It is certainly perverse to compare historical political groups to modern ones, which makes all major political parties before 1975 left-wing, while the same parties map to the right in the years following. TFD (talk) 01:31, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Why is this page incorrectly listed in the category box as Fascism? It wasn't. It was a socialist ideology, & it even termed itself National Socialism to promote its anti-capitalistic philosophy. It had the red flag of socialism & the twisted, intertwined s symbols for socialism. It even was able briefly to ally with the other major socialist power, the USSR, briefly, in the form of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, aka, the All-Socialists Pact. Hitler took over Germany as head of a socialist party. He was not a general at the head of an army , marching on Rome, as Mussolini was.

Mussolini hated the National Socialists initially, & his fascist puppet state in Austria persecuted the national socialists till they, the Austrian Fascists, were sold out by Mussolini as part of a land swap whereby Hitler got Austria & Mussolini got his empire in Africa with Hitler's aid.

Franco never joined Hitler's alliance.

Why is no source quoted for this incorrect assertion? Why is there no attempt at footnoting references? ~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ameliacenan (talk • contribs)

Oh, for Pete's sake! Read a book some time...maybe one or two of the many scholarly references on the page. I'm getting really tired of this uneducated, POV nonsense showing up weekly on this talk page like you guys think you know what you're talking about. Bryonmorrigan (talk) 12:38, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

@Bryonmorrigan ... Did you actually read what was written? Where's the footnote citation numeral or numerals to any reference source for the false description of national Socialism as being part of Italian Fascism in the category box, the Part Of Series On Italian Fascism category box, on the right hand side of the page? You say that you are going to start reading books, Pete. Good, you might wish to learn a bit about the the decade of the 1930s & socialism. Good luck.~~

Actually, this article is sourced quite well. Just because it doesn't say what you (Ameliacenan) want it to say doesn't change that fact no matter how many times you say it. (I love these Glen Beck tactics and the above is just a variation on "I may be right, I may be wrong, but there's no way of knowing for sure"). As for your "facts", well, Franco was of course an ally of Hitler, just not part of the Axis. Y'know, German involvement in the Spanish Civil War, Guernica and all that. The nonsense about Mussolini and Austria, I have no idea what to say about that. I'd say nice try, but I'd be lying. freshacconci talktalk 12:59, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

@Freshacconi ... You say that the box Part Of The Series On Italian Socialism is sourced quite well, your very words, quite well, but there is no footnoting, no numeral or numerals whatsoever in the category box. It's an unreferenced opinion with no footnoting whatsoever. You say that your source is an historian named Glenn Beck. I've never heard of her, but if she is your source for your claim in the category box Part Of A Series On Italian Fascism, then why don't you place a footnote referencing numeral in the category box on the right hand side of the page & reference at the bottom of the page the book's title & the relevant pages. I have already read seventy or eighty books about the 1930s, but I could spare the time to make it four score & seven. You say that Franco was part of the Axis as an ally. But he wasn't. When did Franco declare war On France? When did Franco declare war on the United Kingdom? When did Franco declare war on the United States? He didn't. Molotov-Ribbentrop, 1939-1941, was real. You brag, you actually brag, that you are completely unacquainted with the history of Austria. You brag, you actually brag, that you are unacquainted with the biography of Mussolini. What's the the point to your commenting here if you have no interest in the 1930s whatsoever? The original request was for a defending reference citation for the incorrect category box, Part Of A Series On Italian Fascism, accompanying the article!~~

Try reading my comments with more care. I said the article is sourced quite well. I also said that Franco was an ally but not part of the axis. Germany bombed Republican forces in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, but Spain was neutral during WWII. And where exactly do I "brag" that I am "unacquainted with the biography of Mussolini"? Where is that exactly? I say that I am too dumbfounded by your comments to respond to the "nonsense about Mussolini and Austria" but if you can't understand sarcasm, that isn't my problem. freshacconci talktalk 13:09, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

@Freshacconcci ... Box ... B ... o ... x ... The original question in the 1st line of the 1st comment was ... Why is this page incorrectly listed in the category box as Fascism? It wasn't. It was a socialist ideology, & it even termed itself National Socialism to promote its anti-capitalistic philosophy. ... The final sentence in the final comment was ... The original request was for a defending reference citation for the incorrect category box, Part Of A Series On Italian Fascism, accompanying the article! ... So, the incorrect box does not interest you? If you do not want to defend the box, then that should be the end to this discussion. You apparently feel uncomfortable hearing Stalin, Hitler, & Mao Tse-Tung being referred to as far-left & socialist & extremist. But in your Orwellian, 1984, Brave New World, Alice In Wonderland, politically correct, New-Speak universe, who would qualify as extremist & far-left & socialist, if not Hitler & Stalin & Mao Tse-Tung? Who would be far left? Sir Winston Churchill? ~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ameliacenan (talk • contribs) 16:46, 9 August 2011

freshaconci probably would consider Benny Hill far left and his angels a conspiracy!17:31, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

(UTC)

Actually, Chief...It's YOU who is doing the "Newspeak." Every reputable historian or political scientist on the planet...from the 1930s onward...understands that Nazism has nothing to do with the "Far Left." That's why you won't find any RS backing up your opinions. It's funny that you'd mention Stalin and Mao...since no modern Leftists deny that they were Far Left. Most modern Liberals are as disgusted with them as you, and most modern Conservatives, are with Hitler...but we don't pretend that they weren't Leftists. "National Socialism" had as much to do with "Socialism" as the "German Democratic Republic" (DDR) had to do with being a "Democratic Republic." (The DDR was the official name of Communist East Germany...) Furthermore, you should really refrain from using Orwell to back up your points, as he was a self-described Democratic Socialist, and a Far Leftist himself. I see that you didn't really understand 1984 at all, did you? Anyways, you are obviously completely unqualified to edit anything on Wikipedia, particularly in reference to politics and history, so please don't get all upset when you see your edits reverted by people more educated than you. Have a nice day! Bryonmorrigan (talk) 18:31, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

@Bryonmorrigan ... You are hysterically funny, though it is not apparent to you. I'm reading your comment at the moment & can't stop laughing at your temper tantrum & the avoidance of any reference whatsoever to the incorrect category side-bar box b ... o ... x. ... What is this nonsense about me being a member of the Conservative Party? I didn't know that you were British, but I can translate it for you on your side of the Pond. I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the Conservative Party. You were engaging in pure McCarthyism there. If you must know, on your side of the Atlantic, I supported the Liberal Party for the entire extent of the party's existence. When the Libs merged with the SDP, I was an independent. On this side of the Pond, I'm an independent. I marched against the Vietnam War in every march near to me. My lib creds were impeccable. ... What is this silliness about my articles for Wikipedia? All of my dozen or thirteen contributions from 6 years ago are still there. All of the original material is there plus some updates from some nice people. They may be very old at 6 years ago, 2 computers ago, 2 moves ago, & even 1 country ago, but they are all there, detailing agronomic related matters you would not be interested in with your alternative virtual reality universe fascination. ... Why do you denigrate Orwell? Is it because he caricatured your type of New-Speak? It is ironic that the best critic of the most extreme forms of socialism, including Soviet Communism & German National Socialism was himself a Socialist. Do you not understand what irony signifies? Did you not grasp that 1984's Eurasia was analogous to Soviet style socialism? Orwell has been described as a libertarian socialist. You should read him. ... You ironically help prove my point when you evoked the memory of socialist East Germany. Both East Germany & National Socialist Germany were Socialist. Did East Germany have a socialist control command economy? Yes. Did National Socialist Germany have a socialist party control command economy? Yes. Was East Germany a one party state with the monopoly party supreme for all societal functions, including the military? Yes. National Socialist Germany? Yes. Anti-capitalist? East Germany? Yes. National Socialist Germany? Yes. Nobody was more anti-capitalistic & far Left than Hitler. Think of 1944. 3 fronts. France, Italy, the East. Yet he depletes his military in order to continue his mass murder of the Jews. Why? Because for Hitler the capitalists & the Jews were synonymous. ... You condemn both Stalin & Mao. Good. You are not completely beyond the pale. You set about to condemn H but then waffle, dither, wander, stray. Why? You should unreservedly condemn ALL forms of the most extreme left-wing socialisms, including not merely Stalin's Soviet Socialism & Mao's Cultural Revolution Socialism, but also Hitler's National Socialism. Could it be that your obstinate unwillingness to respond to, or even merely acknowledge the existence of, my query about why National Socialism is not labelled correctly in the side-bar category box is due to the fact that there could be profound consequences for you in terms of acknowledging that strong central government socialism, when amalgamated with identity politics & racial pride promotion, can be blended into a murderous, toxic, poisonous, noxious brew? Is that it? Is that why you declined to answer, or even acknowledge, my ? about why National Socialism is listed as Italian Fascism in the side-bar category box when, in fact, it was a form of socialism? The box cites no reference. You're afraid to acknowledge the existence of racism in the Left? Orwell & I are not impressed by your New-Speak. ... Having made my point, & since the incorrect category box in the Wikipedia article is not being discussed, I'm abandoning this subject at this point. Signing out. :) bye for now! ~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ameliacenan (talk • contribs) 09:44, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Someone edited the Nazism page

For the longest time, Nazism was considered a far right form of politics. Someone just recently wanted to edit it and put down a far left form of politics when it is not. And they don't provide any click-able sources. I feel it should be changed to what it used to be. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jcicone1 (talk • contribs) 08:01, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Another editor has reverted it. TFD (talk) 16:14, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

What is considered "Far Right" in Europe is different than what is considered "Far Right" in America. The problem is that the use of the political spectrum on this page tends to be strongly POV. For example; One of Hitler's "Far Right" policies was to prevent farmers from changing their occupation. The policy was called "far right" because it was resistant to change. But in America, the belief that climate change is harmful is considered predominantly leftist. This is one illustration of how the use of the term is not consistent across cultures and time. To become non POV, the article needs to be demonstrate that the modern American Right agrees with the terms of the political spectrum as used here. Disqualifying all sources which disagree with one's viewpoint is POV. Considering how much debate this topic has generated, the article would be best relying on objective statements rather than controversial and unhelpful labels. As it now stands, the definitions of the terms contrast strongly with those presented by dictionary sources and as used by American Conservatives.--Ryan W (talk) 21:09, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

This isn't a US vs Europe thing at all!

US academics and historians pretty much all use the normal, standard definitions of left and right which you mistakenly call "European". They gripe about the nuances and ambiguities of the terminology in more or less the same way as European academics and historians but there is a broad consensus on what these words mean which stretches across the whole English speaking world. That is the mainstream terminology which any responsible English language encyclopaedia has to work with.

Sure there are a load of people with loud voices and axes to grind who have found it expedient to redefine words in radically different ways in order to make their arguments easier to advance (and those of their opponents harder) but we are not here to endorse such Newspeak. If they can get their terminology accepted by the academics and historians then we will have to swallow it but we must follow the consensus, however it may change, not join the vanguard of a campaign of language change.

Personally I see no chance that many serious thinkers will adopt the proposed new definitions. They pretty much encode "right=good" and "left=bad" within their definitions of left and right. The very thing that makes them so attractive to the propagandist and the sloppy thinker is the same thing that renders them sterile and useless to those requiring objective terminology suitable for the clear and honest examination of ideas. --DanielRigal (talk) 22:05, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

This issue comes up all the time. We follow what reliable sources say. TFD (talk) 22:38, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Lets say that 90% of academics were religious and 10% were atheists. Would those religious academics be allowed to define the beliefs of their opponents? Or would the majority terms as well as a group's own self-definitions both be relevant? Is it really that difficult for you to grasp why using the views of only one group to define another to which they are opposed might be POV? You would probably understand it pretty quickly if an authority you didn't agree with was used. Of course, things are much more even keel here, but hopefully the point is made.

Okay, lets go through the history and taxonomy step by step, shall we? The term "Right Wing" originally referred to those allied either with the Monarchy or the Church around the time of the French Revolution. Prior to that time, the left side of things were associated with bad luck or evil. In other words, the "left side" was associated with a disagreement with conventional rights and responsibilities. And politics being complex, _any_ attempt at a strictly 2 dimensional political spectrum must be organized this way, with one chosen orthodoxy on the Right and _all_ heresies opposed to it in a kind of grab bag on the other side of the see-saw (even if they conflict.) So rather than indulge in a circular argument (a policy is left wing because a particular academic says it is left wing and the academic says it is left wing because it is left wing) take a step back for a moment and try to understand the original basis of the terms. An academic needs to associate the "Right wing" either with the royalist Ancien Régime, change in general, or some portion of the established church (or some other moral tradition.) The first isn't really applicable to American politics though such usage is common to European politics. The second isn't really used, despite being a dictionary definition ( we don't hear about Communist conservatives or Right Wing communists.) The third is very often used in America by actual conservatives.

From Conservapedia;

The original definition referred to Church and state issues from the late 18th century Enlightenment period. At its root was faith vs. rationalism, or the Church vs. secularism. The so-called "right", defined as "traditional interests" referred to the Church & monarchy who ruled by the divine right of kings, and the so-called "left" constituted secular elements challenging the Church's long-held influence over civil government. These definitions have always been problematic when attempting to assign western notions of "left and right" to societies which traditionally have no conception of separation of church and states, such as in Islam or Czarist Russia.

The monarchy and titled nobility became known as the "right"; this idea however has been disabused in the United States where a landlord class of titled nobles never existed, and in fact is specifically prohibited by the U.S. Constitution. Hence Europeans today, based upon their own cultural idioms and history, have an extremely discolored view of what the "American right" is.

Another common misperception is, while the "right" has become identified with defending and advocating Judeo-Christian values, secular atheist mass movements such as National Socialism are often either mistakenly or deliberately labeled as right-wing. This fallacy has been particularly well illustrated in our own time by examining the modern fascist Ba'athist regimes of Iraq and Syria. Both have their roots in the anti-clerical influences of Western socialism against fundamentalist Islam, and inherently promote "change" against oppressive religious theocracy.

[Conservapedia Political Spectrum

If you'd like to take issue with this source and provide a different source by an American who self-identifies as "Right Wing", I'd be happy to read it.

"The rise of fascism and communism illustrated vividly the fallacies of the linear conception of Right and Left. In certain basic respects - a totalitarian state structure, a single party, a leader, a secret police, a hatred of political, cultural and intellectual freedom - fascism and communism are clearly more like each other than they are like anything in between. "

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

"This issue comes up all the time. We follow what reliable sources say." -The Four Deuces

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. thought that the notion of a political spectrum was outdated in the 20th century.

Care to state why you disagree with him? Or why he's not reliable? Or perhaps people keep bringing this issue up because there's actually considerable disagreement on this point among 'reliable sources' and you're unwilling to acknowledge that disagreement. --Ryan W (talk) 23:14, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

You really need to learn what the terms "Reliable Source" and "Original Research" mean. Also, "Conservapedia" is about as much of a legitimate "Reliable Source" as if I were to use Media Matters or MoveOn.org. Also, stop spamming up the page with absurd wall-o-texts, and learn how to properly engage in talk page discussion. Bryonmorrigan (talk) 02:59, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh yeah...and if you want an example of a modern American who self-identifies as "Right Wing," who understands that Nazism was a Far Right ideology...just ask any Neo-Nazi. They're quite proud of being "Far Right," and would scoff at being associated with the Liberals, Tree-Huggers, Anti-Racists, LGBT Rights Activists, Communists and Hippies on the Left. The modern, and fairly recent, attempt to dissassociate Nazism from the Right is nothing but Orwellian Newspeak, and an attempt to recast modern American Conservatism (which has as much to do with Far Right Nazism...as modern American Liberalism has to do with Far Left Communism...IOW: Nothing!), in order to pretend that all the "villains" of history are on the "other side." It's just as ludicrous as if American Liberals were trying to say that Marx was _really_ a Right-Winger. It's not worth debating, and the fact that someone even brings it up proves that that person is extremely uneducated in regards to history, and should not be editing on Wikipedia at all. Bryonmorrigan (talk) 03:11, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

This old fallacy? The 'left wing' is defined in opposition to the 'right wing.' This means that the 'left wing' will include groups that disagree with one another, in the same way that "heresy" is not a unified body of thought, but defined by the rejection of some orthodoxy. Saying that two heretical ideas disagree does nothing to demonstrate whether those ideas are on different parts of the political spectrum. The Chinese Communists conflicted with the USSR. That doesn't make either "right wing." I seriously doubt that you'd accept assertions from Neo-Nazis in regards to their views of themselves (and would fairly reject it as "original research" on my part when it comes to inclusion on this page, even after your assertion that I should rely on such sources), since you've ignored those statements made by Hitler so far. But I'll try taking you at your word and see whether you'll actually accept the type of evidence you claim should be used. I've spent a few minutes dredging the garbage of Stormfront's forums. There are a few pro-capitalist posters, but the majority favor a collective, racially homogenous, anti-religious form of socialism. A few posts;

A free-market capitalist democracy is easy to corrupt; look at how far the Jew has gotten in the United States! I also blame greedy owners of corporations with the decline of culture and values; many of them Jewish. The free market helps the Jew thrive, If it was regulated like in NS Germany (and they were also kicked out of the country) no Jews or corrupt gentiles could try to overrun the country in sake of their own profit! [http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t809507/ Stormfront Forums]

I think that, in America, the United states is too big for national Socialism (or any socialism) to work without corruption. A socialist state-unit (i.e. an area of land and population where the economy is governed socialistically) should be no bigger than a township if it is to thrive in a morally positive way, so that is the only form of socialism I support. [http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t809507-2/ Stormfront Forums]

Under NS there would be no nonwhites so how the hell are you going to be forced to hire them. That statement you made is quite ridiculous. Also as for people just sitting at home getting free money again ridiculous. NS had at its core the concept of protecting its kin if they fell on hard times if they were starving or dying in hospital. Of course you would let them die or starve. I see this more and more from the Americans on this site that money not their folk are their driving passion in life.

As for national socialism having a chance of success in America its close to zero due to history media and Americans hatred for any kind of Socialism( even if it is to help their own folk). In Europe it is a very different story. A lot of the social programs introduced by NS have been in use in Scandinavian Country's for the last 70 years with great success. The Nordic Country's having the highest standard of living in the world along with universal healthcare etc. So yes you can get rich(as the above poster wants) and also have some level of Socialism. Of course the Scandinavian Country's are falling apart now due to the increased burden of nonwhites(25% of Sweden). So we can see that NS works when a homogeneous society exists but not otherwise.

[http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t809507-2/ Stormfront Forums] --Ryan W (talk) 05:03, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Their views have a lot in common with the right-wing German Conservative Party which governed Germany in coalition with the Nazis. TFD (talk) 05:06, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

See the previous note on how "conservatives" in the United States are not counterparts to the right wing in Europe. American conservatives may be right-wing in the Judeo-Christian religious sense but there's no self-proclaimed desire to preserve a monarchy. Then you have folks like Bryonmorrigan who seem to believe that "the left" is the orthodoxy and "the right" is a reaction to them. This is a precise inversion of the original definition, which is plenty ironic given his incessant rants against "Orwellianism."--184.189.234.78 (talk) 07:45, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Again, you have no clue what you are talking about, nor do you appear to be able to understand what I've written. European Conservatives no longer want to preserve Monarchy either. The "goalposts" always change, but the basic philosophies never do. "The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them." -- Mark Twain In the 1800s, American Conservatives fought against Abolitionism. In the 1960s, they fought against Civil Rights. In the 2000s, they fight against LGBT Rights. The social goals of the NSDAP were "Reactionary," aka "Far Right," and aimed at turning the clock back on Germany to make it become some fictitious "Utopia" they believed existed in the past...which was allegedly destroyed by the appearance of Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, modern art, Left-Wingers, non-Christians, etc. This is very similar, I might add, to the modern American Conservative position of trying to bring America "back" to the fictitious "Utopia" of a "Christian Nation," which like the Nazi's ideal, never existed in the first place. Either way, you still haven't presented any reliable sources. This page is well-documented, and will not be changed simply due to your opinion. Bryonmorrigan (talk) 12:30, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I understand the viewpoint that you're arguing for. That's precisely why I disagree with it. It is the same one that I was taught in school. Regarding; "The radical invents the views, when he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them." The notion of a conservative as opposed to any kind of change doesn't seem to be currently in use by any party on the political spectrum. Defenders of Communism in the USSR were not called "Communist Conservatives." Neither would such a descriptor even be useful, since it would prevent comparison of diverse groups across time. I'll agree that the American Right wing tends to be opposed to, say, same sex marriage. They are Judeo-Christian conservatives. But this definition isn't applied consistently to every form of change. There are plenty of elements in modern environmentalism, for example, which are "reactionary" and resistant to change. At least for the present, they are labeled "Left Wing." Re: Civil Rights, you're back to circular definitions. A greater proportion of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights act than Democrats, contrary to popular assertion. And as predicted you've suggested I present the views of actual neo-nazis and then ignored them when they were presented. If you're not willing to address evidence presented, what's the point of discussion? On what terms would you be willing to change your opinion and stick with it. Or even address the evidence presented. As mentioned, during the French Revolution the "Right Wing" included those who supported the monarchy and the church. If you're interested in being NPOV you would benefit from looking at how the political spectrum is used by those Americans affiliated with the Judeo-Christian faith. Here's one more source. I suspect that it's disagreement with your beliefs will invalidate it in your view. But here it is, all the same. If you'd like more religiously affiliated posts who have a dissenting or critical view on the political spectrum, they can be provided. [9]--Ryan W (talk) 17:01, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

The mere fact that you would attempt to claim that the primarily LIBERAL Republicans of the 1960s who voted in favor of Civil Rights, (against primarily CONSERVATIVE Democrats), were in some way "Conservative," shows again that you are extremely uneducated in regards to American political history. And I looked at your "evidence," which consisted of nothing but Neo-Nazis arguing with racists who are not Neo-Nazis about whether Nazism was a good thing...and it was completely irrelevant, as well as being mischaracterized by your selective quotations. (You quoted the posts that agreed with you, while ignoring those that did not...) Either way, they aren't RS, nor are any of the other absurd things you've linked. And if you think "Catholicnews.com" is a reliable source for a Wikipedia article on Nazism, then there really is no hope of you ever understanding what a "reliable source" actually consists of... Bryonmorrigan (talk) 18:52, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I searched for terms and posted posts as I came across them, including those Neo Nazis detailing why they believed socialism wouldn't work in the US. You've already essentially admitted that the historical definition of "right wing" as preserving the monarchy has been abandoned. You've made no argument to support "Right Wing" as being resistant to any kind of change. In short, you're siding explicitly with the goalpost movers. Others in this thread have acknowledge that the terms "left" and "right" are used differently in the United States. Words being defined by their definition, if a large enough group of people is doing something wrong that, at the very least, makes the use of the term questionable if not contestable. You need to take a good long look at your own views before you accuse others of revisionism, "Orwelianism", and similar perjoratives. Your arguments at this point consist primarily of circular arguments "they were conservative because they were conservative" without stopping to define what those words mean. Hitler was anti-monarchist, socialist, opposed to individual rights, opposed to the Church (though certainly courting their support.) In private, Hitler cited nations like Sparta as supporting his eugenics programs, said that Christianity had made Germans weak and believed that it would pass away vis a vis his philosophical basis/abuse of Nietzche. At the time of Naziism, eugenics was associated strongly with the left. Note that since the left is defined in contrast to the right this does not imply that all leftists supported eugenics. --24.171.130.2 (talk) 01:15, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Nicely put. I would just like to expand a little and add a point that might help our anonymous friend to understand:

• As you say conservatism is about wanting to lock in the changes of the past while avoiding the changes of the future. To expand on that a bit, conservatism is not really right or left wing in itself, nor is it monarchist or republican. British and Spanish conservatives want to keep their existing monarchies but no French or German conservative would want to ditch their existing republics for new monarchies. Even the old style Communists who opposed Gorbachev's reforms were rightly termed "conservatives". That's right, conservative Communists. Strange but true.
• From the outside, the American "Conservatives" seem to be one of those strange misnomers to be filed along with "National Socialism" (not socialism), German Democratic Republic (not democratic), Glorious Revolution (neither a revolution nor particularly glorious, essentially the UK was invaded by the Dutch) and the Holy Roman Empire (not especially holy, not Roman, not much of an empire by the end). The values of the American "Conservatives" could (arguably) be termed conservative but their politics certainly can't. Call them radical, reactionary, or possibly even both, the sweeping changes they propose are anything but conservatism. It is understandable that an American who hears the terms "conservative" misused all around him would be confused as to its real meaning. Wikipedia can help clarify the situation best when it sticks to the actual accepted meanings of words. Adopting a flawed regional terminology would not aid understanding at all. --DanielRigal (talk) 13:57, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Re: "Conservative Communists" While such a usage would be consistent with one dictionary definition and has some historical support I'd suggest two problems here; First, google returns almost no hits for "Communist Conservative" so the term doesn't seem to be commonly used that way. Second, such a relativistic descriptor makes it impossible to compare groups across time and is opposed by some on those grounds. It assumes a uni-directional flow to history which many believe is not present. Such flexibility in definitions is often used to re-write history after the fact. The ideal spectrum, (in my personal view, presented here for clarity only, and not for page inclusion), would qualify which value system was being conserved. A Judeo-Christian conservative is not a Hindi, Muslim or Communist conservative. Hitler was something of a pagan conservative, idolizing the morality of pre-Christian civilizations like Sparta and arguing privately (while publicly calling himself a Catholic) that Christianity had made people weak. This is in direct distinction to the Church-conserving right wing of the French Revolution. There are plenty of legitimate academic dissenters to the use of the political spectrum. I've presented them. In most other wiki contexts, their views would be considered. --Ryan W (talk) 17:16, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Americans confuse ideological terms and use the term conservatism incorrectly. Conservatism is anchored in respect for medieval institutions, never developed in the U.S., and is disappearing in the rest of the world. But no one is calling the Nazis conservative. TFD (talk) 17:28, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

The bottom line is that all of this is actually covered in the article, the shifting uses of terms, the difficulty of placing Nazism in one part of the traditional political spectrum. What this disagreement appears to be about, however, is an attempt to change the basic definition of Nazism and label it as left-wing. This is based on some ill-considered attempts to rewrite history. No one is saying that any of this is cut-and-dried, nor is anyone even remotely saying that the Nazis are somehow the equivalent of the US Republican party. The article is actually pretty good in presenting the dissenting opinions towards the mainstream academic view that Nazism is far-right. freshacconci talktalk 17:34, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Of course people disagree with labeling Nazi-ism as left wing. It's not like the Nazis dropped their eugenics program after the night of the long knives, or de-nationalized their industries at that point. The associations between opposition to the JudeoChristian tradition in the 1900s-1960s, eugenics and support for socialism are well documented in the academic literature. See criticism of Peter Singer or Margaret Sanger, both eugenicists and leftists. [10]

On Francis Galton, often considered the father of eugenics.

"He found in eugenics a scientific substitute for church orthodoxies, a secular faith, a defensible religious obligation. "Daniel J. Kevles - In the Name of Eugenics [11]

Check this link for Julian Huxley's support of Eugenics and its association with socialism and progressivism.

[12]

On Sweden's eugenics program, from the Guardian (considered a leftist journal by European standards);

"What has shocked most observers is that all this was committed not by some vile fascistic regime, but by a string of welfare-minded, Social Democratic governments. Indeed, the few voices of opposition came from Swedish conservatives." [13]

See page 105 for Linus Pauling's political support of socialist, Upton Sinclair

[14]

Linus Pauling: a life in science and politics By Ted Goertzel, Ben Goertzel

Beginning in 1962, about four years after Pauling's initial statements on genetic counseling, he promoted his first eugenics agenda. It was straightforward and got attention. His ultimate goal was to decrease human suffering by eliminating the factors that caused it; to this end, Pauling stated that molecular diseases, like sickle cell anemia, warranted legal intervention. He suggested two criteria. First, a law should require testing for sickle cell hemoglobin in African-Americans. Secondly, in an effort to eliminate sickle cell hemoglobin from the human population, marriage and procreation restrictions should be invoked. Accordingly, if one heterozygote and one homozygous dominant (i.e. a person with normal hemoglobin) marry, then there should be a limit on how many children they can have. If two heterozygotes marry then they should not be allowed to have children because there is a twenty-five percent chance that they will have a baby with sickle cell anemia. Coupling chance with concern for human suffering, Pauling advocated intervention from authorities: "This percentage [25%] is much too high to let private enterprise in love combined with ignorance take care of the matter." In addition to outlining the laws that he thought should be put into effect for carriers of sickle cell anemia, Pauling stated that similar rules should be invoked for carriers of hereditary molecular diseases, including phenylketonuria, and fibrocystic disease. By 1968, Pauling got more radical and advocated two new tactics to reduce suffering from sickle cell hemoglobin: forehead tattoos and abortion. [15]

There certainly has been a strong Orwellian trend on this topic, but it involves an attempt to disassociate the early eugenics movement from its "progressive" roots.

--24.171.130.2 (talk) 01:15, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

"By the middle decades of the twentieth century, eugenics had become widely accepted throughout the whole of the economically developed world, with the exception of the Soviet Union where genetics was proscribed for ideological reasons" (Richard Lynn, Eugenics: a reassessment, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001, p. 18)[16] TFD (talk) 23:01, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Right-wing extremists today want to distance themselves from their past. TFD (talk) 03:52, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

National Socialist Council of Nagaland

The NSCN does not adhere to the Nazi ideology despite the similarity in the name. It is a separatist religio-socialist organization. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.57.29.154 (talk) 21:11, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Hermann Rauschning? LOL.

I'm flabbergasted that it took the recent removal of a paragraph of nonsense "cited" by Hermann Rauschning's mid-WW2 propaganda literature (...which has since been debunked, and is not considered "authentic" by any reputable historians of ANY stripe...), for me to realize how much this article needs a good once-over by experts. I mostly watch this page for the partisan hacks that try to laughably claim that the Nazis were "Leftists," which is of course, patently ludicrous, and not supported by any historian on the planet...but the fact that this Rauschning nonsense was able to sit in here for so long speaks of a serious need for some reference checking. Bryonmorrigan (talk) 15:19, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

There is nothing stopping you from checking the sources used. TFD (talk) 15:49, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

were nazis capitalist or socialist, or neither? who owned the means of production?

"private ownership of the means of production existed in name only under the Nazis and that the actual substance of ownership of the means of production resided in the German government. For it was the German government and not the nominal private owners that exercised all of the substantive powers of ownership: it, not the nominal private owners, decided what was to be produced, in what quantity, by what methods, and to whom it was to be distributed, as well as what prices would be charged and what wages would be paid, and what dividends or other income the nominal private owners would be permitted to receive. The position of the alleged private owners, Mises showed, was reduced essentially to that of government pensioners."

"The Nazi regime inflated the money supply as the means of financing the vast increase in government spending required by its programs of public works, subsidies, and rearmament. The price and wage controls were imposed in response to the rise in prices that began to result from the inflation." von mises http://mises.org/daily/1937 Darkstar1st (talk) 18:08, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

You should not make arguments based on unreliable sources. However Mises did not say the Nazis were left-wing. He identifies their brand of "socialism" with German conservatism, i.e., Bismarck's "State Socialism. TFD (talk) 19:03, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

either the nazis controlled production or they did not, i'll put you down as a "no" however, ill put you down as a yes for socialism given your agreement nazis were state socialist. Darkstar1st (talk) 19:10, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

What does that have to do with their position on the political spectrum? BTW instead of reading essays from the Mises institute, yoyu should read his books yourself. TFD (talk) 19:18, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

you should read sir walter scott, i am 3 chapters deep into ivanhoe, its like lord of the rings, but real. Darkstar1st (talk) 21:28, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

apologies, i forgot to make my suggestion. if state socialism is part of the socialism portal, and nazi are state socialist, should we add the socialism portal here as is on the state socialism article? Darkstar1st (talk) 19:38, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

No, seeing as it was a mixed economy, it has no business on this article. --Saddhiyama (talk) 20:00, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Saddhiyama, did you have a specific wp:policy in mind for excluding the socialism portal from the national socialist article, if so which? Darkstar1st (talk) 20:12, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

What does this have to do with the article? TFD (talk) 20:57, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

since the article has multiple portals already, and an additional portal is excluded that shares a common term, what policy would prevent us from adding the portal on socialism? Darkstar1st (talk) 21:08, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

That would be original research. As many editors have demonstrated time and again, scholarly consensus tends to favour identifying Nazism as right-wing, not left-wing. The fact that the term "socialism" is in the German name does not make Nazism socialist. As others have pointed out, the German Democratic Republic was hardly democratic. Authoritarian regimes use language to obfuscate. freshacconci talktalk 21:15, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

which source stated national socialism was not socialism? Darkstar1st (talk) 21:23, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

No reliable source says that it is. TFD (talk) 21:38, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Exactly, it's not up to this article to prove Nazism wasn't a form of socialism. If there were reliable sources that made that explicit claim, we would need to deal with it more than it already is. As it is, no credible source makes the claim that Nazism was a form of socialism. freshacconci talktalk 21:45, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

actually the article does claim national socialism is socialism, however this is an odd requirement like asking for proof a hound dog is actually a dog, or a pickup truck is a truck, or a airport is actually a port: National Socialism was a form of state socialism that rejected the "idea of boundless freedom" Darkstar1st (talk) 15:33, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

You are never going to convince scholars and educated individuals...that all historians are "wrong" and that your personal "Original Research (OR)" and opinions are better than all of the sources stating otherwise. Essentially, the Nazis were "Right-Wing Statists," (and if you think that's an oxymoron, then you really need to read up on what "Right-Wing" actually means), and were much more favorable towards Capitalism than Socialists or Communists. Find a reliable source to back you up...or move along. (And no, Ludwig von Mises is not a "reliable source," any more than would be Michael Moore or Ann Coulter.) You are wasting your time here. Bryonmorrigan (talk) 15:55, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Bernd-Rüdiger Hüppauf. War, violence, and the modern condition. Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1997. Pp. 92., would this qualify as a rs? Darkstar1st (talk) 16:13, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't say what you claim it does. Hüppauf is talking about the theories of a German Jewish guy named Walter Rathenau, who was declared to be a member of the "Jewish-Communist Conspiracy" by the Nazis, who hated him and made his assassins into "national heroes." Furthermore, the entire section of the book that mentions him is in reference to the late 1910s (Rathenau was assassinated in 1922...), long before the Nazi Party had become what it is known for today. (This often happens with political parties...such as the American major political parties, like the Republican Party, which was very Liberal originally...while the Democratic Party had a large faction of Right-Wing Extremists up until the 1960s...) You should really read more than a single sentence in a book before claiming it as a "source." Bryonmorrigan (talk) 16:32, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, that source is used in the right-wing socialism article. I think the point is, there's an attempt to rewrite history by placing Nazism within the left side of the spectrum by calling it socialism and equating all left-wing ideologies from liberalism to Pol Pot as basically the same thing. Puts it all into a neat little package that the current centre-right and far-right in the US (for the most part) can position itself against. Nazism is not socialism under the usual definition of that term. As has been pointed out, Nazism was a mixed economy and what makes it right-wing are its other attributes. A government "financing the vast increase in government spending required by its programs of ... rearmament" sounds a great deal like Reagan (well, okay, not rearmament but rather increased military spending, but you get my point). There are few governments in history that had not 'rejected the "idea of boundless freedom"'. Most governments control the economy in some way. But there was private enterprise under Nazism. It wasn't the same system as under the Soviets. The fact that companies such as Krupps happily collaborated with the regime in order to turn a profit makes Nazi Germany closer to an oligarchy, with power resting in the government, the military, the wealthy elite and to a lesser extent the church. Not socialism by any definition. freshacconci talktalk 16:41, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

re the reagan point: wow. that's thought-provoking. good point really. Cramyourspam (talk) 03:16, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

you either need to prove my source is unreliable, or provide a conflicting source, or cite the wp:policy for not including the socialism portal here, none of which has been supplied so far. Darkstar1st (talk) 16:46, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Bryonmorrigan just did. Your reading of that source is incorrect. It doesn't place Nazism under the socialist banner and adding the socialism portal here violates WP:OR. As for "conflicting" sources, well, that would be all of them. freshacconci talktalk 16:56, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

the source says national socialist are state socialist, do you have a source saying they are not? Darkstar1st (talk) 16:58, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

No. It does not. You fail "Reading Comprehension 101." The source says no such thing. Bryonmorrigan (talk) 19:43, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

yes, it does, page 92, 2nd paragraph, line 5, word for word. Darkstar1st (talk) 19:49, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Again...No, it doesn't. It's discussing a specific theorist's views from the 1910s...NOT the Nazis of the 1930-1940s. You have to read the entire section, rather than simply taking things out of context. And yes, pretty much every RS on the planet disagrees with your assertions, which are nothing but modern revisionist pseudo-history, created as a kind of "Newspeak" to pretend that somehow...the greatest villains that the Right ever produced were somehow Left. No reputable historian believes such nonsense...(and frankly, you'd be hard-pressed to find a dis-reputable historian to say that. I doubt even David Irving would be so bold.) Furthermore, all of these wacky wingnut theories are based on the idea that all political doctrines are defined by economics...when such is not now, and has never been historically, the case. Bryonmorrigan (talk) 20:36, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

The article btw is by Frank Trommler not Hueppauf. I agree that the author is quoting a source not stating a fact. Notice too that "state socialism" is in quotation marks. It is a reference to State Socialism, which was the name given by liberals to the policies of the German Conservative Party. TFD (talk) 22:12, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

tdf, are you suggesting state socialism is not socialism, do you have a source? what is the specific wp:policy you are employing to prohibit text from book published by a rs used in other wp articles? Darkstar1st (talk) 16:43, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of what the Nazis officially stated, their economy was a mix of mercantilism and state capitalism. The Nazis never took over private enterprise, it flourished under them. Just look at Mercedes Benz, the Nazis promoted the automobile maker with Hitler always riding in one, advertisements for Mercedes-Benz being found in some Nazi books, and I even ran across a picture of a small Mercedes-Benz flag attached to a trumpet that was being played by a Nazi trumpet player alongside another trumpet player with a small Nazi flag attached to the trumpet.--R-41 (talk) 11:44, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Human Action: A Treatise on Economics

would this text be considered a rs here? if so, i would like to include some or all of the following: There are two patterns for the realization of socialism. The first pattern (we may call it the Lenin or Russian pattern) . . . . the second pattern (we may call it the Hindenburg or German Pattern) nominally and seemingly preserves private ownership of the means of production and keeps the appearance of ordinary markets, prices, wages, and interest rates. There are, however, no longer entrepreneurs, but only shop managers … bound to obey unconditionally the orders issued by government. Darkstar1st (talk) 09:46, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

No, first of all it is not a reliable source for this. Mises' aim in that book is to present his case for laissez-faire economics, not to provide an objective academical historical or political theoretical evaluation of the Nazi ideology (or any other ideology for that matter). Secondly your quotation does not even mention Nazism or the Nazi era. --Saddhiyama (talk) 16:33, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

actually it does in the same paragraph on page 713. "no longer entrepreneurs, but only shop owners. Betriebsfuhrer...Nazi" do you have a source to support your claim mises did not write his book for the use of objective academical historical evaluation? are you even reading the sources you keep excluding? Darkstar1st (talk) 16:52, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

are there any other objections to this RS? if so please state the specific policy as the above objection does not mention any policy preventing the use. if not i will include text from this source. Darkstar1st (talk) 05:04, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

You have disruptively set up multiple discussion threads about sources wasting everyone's time. TFD (talk) 18:19, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Concur; you do not have agreement to include the material --Snowded ^TALK 18:23, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

i do not seek agreement, i was asking if there were any objections based on wp:policy. have you any such objections, plz include policy. Darkstar1st (talk) 18:28, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Saddhiyama made the point and you did not fully answer it. You might not seek agreement, but you do need it. You still owe me a "eaten hat" by the way  :-} --Snowded ^TALK 18:30, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

actually i did, page 713. see my homepage for a picture of hat eating, i am not afraid to admit i was witness to the sole time in your life which you were right. Darkstar1st (talk) 18:34, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I see a hat, I see you, I see a symbolic building but no eating. --Snowded ^TALK 18:38, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Johann Plenge

would he be considered a rs,, if so, i would like to add:

under the necessity of war socialist ideas have been driven into German economic life, its organisation has grown together into a new spirit, and so the assertion of our nation for mankind has given birth to the idea of 1914, the idea of German organisation, the national unity of state socialism. 1789 und 1914: Die symbolischen Jahre in der Geschichte des politischen Geistes, translated here: http://www.oup.co.uk/pdf/0-19-820877-4.pdf Darkstar1st (talk) 10:09, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

You are aware that Nazism first gained power in Germany in 1933, right? --Saddhiyama (talk) 16:28, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

indeed, however there is already an article about the nazi germany, this article is about national socialism. Darkstar1st (talk) 17:21, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

This article is about Nazism. Nationalsocialism was a fringe political movement before the rise of the NSDAP by Hitler in the late 20s early 30s. The term was not in use in this particular definition (the article subject) before 1919. Hindenburg and Imperial Germany can not in any way be called a nazi government. --Saddhiyama (talk) 20:09, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

so national socialist are not nazis? Darkstar1st (talk) 20:17, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

People have to bear in mind the kind of political situation in the late 1910s where conservative monarchists like Oswald Spengler would call themselves "socialists". The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 sent a political shockwave across Europe, every country was threatened with communist revolution, both soldiers and workers were agitated - there were mutinies in France and Bolshevik groups forming in Germany. From 1917 to the early 1920s, being conservative or reactionary was becoming taboo. Right-wing nationalists created "national socialism" as an alternative to the growing support for communism. But bear in mind the sorts of people who supported Hitler and the Nazis in the early 1920s - Erich Ludendorff - an aristocrat and a supporter of the Kaiser during the war, Hermann Goering - another aristocrat, Freikorps members - reactionary nationalists who fought against communist uprisings and who were anti-communist and anti-socialist (blaming the moderate social democratic government of Friedrich Ebert of treason). The basis of the Nazi "socialism" was state direction of the economy, while free enterprise and private profit motive remained, and unlike mainstream socialism - no egalitarian objectives were within Nazism. So if state direction of the economy supposedly representing the "control of the German people" over the economy as Nazi propaganda would have it, satisfies it being "socialist" then it is. But if we are refering socialism in its mainstream form, as a left-wing ideology officially dedicated to the Enlightenment principle of equality, then Nazism does not apply, it is then a movement with the outer trappings of socialist rhetoric for political purposes (most likely to challenge communists' control over working-class support). Hitler and many Nazis despised capitalism, but the Nazi vision of the economy in practice was close to mercantilism.--R-41 (talk) 00:32, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

R-41, given you comment: The ideology of the authoritarian "National Socialism" associated with the Nazis had its origins with Johann Plenge who developed the idea during World War I...--R-41 (talk) 00:27, 30 August 2011 (UTC), does this mean you support using Plenge as a RS in the above source? Darkstar1st (talk) 20:19, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Modern Times, Paul Johnson

would this author who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom be considered a rs here? if so, this is the passage i would like to include:

It might be recalled that the Germans had used slave-labour and working-to-exhaustion in 1916-18; it was a national response to war, a salient part of the war socialism Lenin so much admired. Darkstar1st (talk) 14:48, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with nazism. --Saddhiyama (talk) 13:56, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

trying to point out socialism was a part of germany between ww1 and ww2 including national socialism. Darkstar1st (talk) 20:10, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

It was a unique variety of fascism

this article appears to be primarily about adolf hitler ignoring much of what came before him, and almost all after. the article speaks of national socialism in the past tense, when several parties still employ the term. it is almost as if this article is about the nazi and national socialism has been sidelined. perhaps modern day national socialist are using the term incorrectly, perhaps hitler did as well, if so, has anyone ever correctly used the term to describe a nationalist government with socialist goals? or a socialist country that is also nationalist? Darkstar1st (talk) 22:39, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Neocleous, Mark. Fascism. Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA: University of Minnesota Press, 1997 p. 23. is the source supporting the section title, yet when i read page 23 i had a different opinion of the text. could someone paste the actual text supporting the passage here? Darkstar1st (talk) 23:01, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

• The title and topic of this article is clearly Nazism, so it makes perfect sense that that the article would be about Nazism.Spylab (talk) 23:28, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Post-war Nazism, such as the World Union of Free Enterprise National Socialists, comes under neo-nazism. TFD (talk) 23:35, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Spylab, the article is also about National Socialism, Hitlerism, and Hitlerismus. other articles deal with specific versions of national socialism, such as : Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany. i suggest we may have too many like terms on the same article, perhaps we should add a disambiguation page? Darkstar1st (talk) 00:41, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Stormtroopers and Crisis in the Nazi Movement: activism, ideology and dissolution.

this source is listed for 2nd paragraph of the lead, yet after reading the pages listed, i did not find the exact text supporting the statement. could someone please list the text here? Darkstar1st (talk) 00:52, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

It's called "paraphrasing". The sentence paraphrases what is written on pp. 30-34, 44.[17] TFD (talk) 02:41, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

i have challenged the source does not support the passage. according to wp:policy, the supporting text is to be re-produced here or the passage removed. Darkstar1st (talk) 08:44, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Please reproduce the text that supports your understanding of policy. TFD (talk) 15:26, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Template:Failed_verification i read the pages listed and found the text did not support the edit. Darkstar1st (talk) 18:25, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Could you explain what you believe it says if not what is in the text? TFD (talk) 18:31, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

sure, the text in the article is not supported by the text in the source:) Darkstar1st (talk) 19:53, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

No one agrees with you. TFD (talk) 20:01, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

correct and irrelevant, i am not seeking consensus, rather validation of the text i challenged in the article. unless someone can produce text supporting the claim, it will be removed. Darkstar1st (talk) 20:21, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

...and then your POV edit will be removed... Bryonmorrigan (talk) 20:49, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Re "It's called "paraphrasing"." You should also familiarize yourself with the controversy regarding the article Grace Sherwood. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 20:46, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

tdf, i still maintain having read the text listed it does not support the claim. perhaps a different source could be provided, or simply post a relevant paragraph or two from the current source you feel supports the claim. Darkstar1st (talk) 20:50, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I think you have wasted enough people's time already without asking us to type out text that you can easily read yourself. TFD (talk) 21:01, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Dispute Resolution Notice!

Due to the severe abuses of both this article and this talk page by Darkstar1st, I have reported this issue to the Dispute Resolution board [18], where hopefully someone can put an end to this absolute nonsense. Bryonmorrigan (talk) 20:12, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

That DRN entry isn't helpful, as it claims that Darkstar1st is soapboxing by claiming something that is a generally accepted historical and ideological fact, which indeed is already correctly stated in the article already. As such I suspect the dispute is in fact something completely different than what is stated. I think DRN probably should be about only specific issues, while this looks more like a broadside attack on Darkstar1st. --OpenFuture (talk) 02:38, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

"claiming something that is a generally accepted historical and ideological fact, "

It's very far from that. Andy Dingley (talk) 08:56, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

So the current article is in your opinion completely false and misrepresents national socialist ideology, as well as describe a history that is a complete falsification? My first recommendation in this dispute is to forget all personal issues here and let everybody first write up a point by point list of everything they think is wrong in the current article. Then discuss these points, one by one. When you reach an impasse, ask for a third opinion on each of those issues. If this doesn't work, then do a DRN. As it is now this discussion seems to be abunch of people going "Yes it is!" - "Nuhuh it isn't". Of course you won't get anywhere that way. --OpenFuture (talk) 09:31, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

the author of national socialism

i added Fichte and provided a rs, it was removed as "undue weight" or somehow pov, with no further explanation, yet a brief discussion did take place on the editors talk page. as of now the history section begins in 1919, however even the "most ignorant fool", a name assigned me by a different editor here, knows national socialism was conceived well before.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte was declared "the true author of National Socialism" by Robert Nisbet. In his 1800 work, The Closed Commercial State, he envisioned the state as socialistic. without explanation, or further objection, i will re add the material. Darkstar1st (talk) 23:26, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Considering the Dispute Resolution issue above, you really ought to stop destroying this page with your quack theories. You're just proving that we're correct about your abuse of Wikipedia. Bryonmorrigan (talk) 23:39, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Darkstar1st is now adding this garbage to the Johann Gottlieb Fichte article.[19] TFD (talk) 01:05, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Don't dismiss other peoples theories if you don't know about what you are talking about. Fichte's influence on Nazism is well known among scholars. For example Hans Sluga in "Heidegger's crisis: philosophy and politics in Nazi Germany" published by Harvard University Press when talking about why Fichte had a special attraction for the Nazis says: "What appealed to them first of all, of course, was his nationalism, his elevation of Germanness to a metaphysical essence, and then his concern with the well-being of the whole nation, his nationally oriented form of socialism." and "It was natural, then, that German philosophers should turn back to Fichte in their search for historical models. As they stood up to declare their allegiance to the Nazis, they found in Fichte's Address a template." -- Vision Thing -- 10:24, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think anyone objects to him being an influence on national socialism, but there is a far cry from being an influence and being "the true author" of it, a position usually reserved for Hitler, since he basically wrote the rules and changed the original ideology according to his needs as soon as he gained power. --Saddhiyama (talk) 10:26, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely. Note that this does not mean that you can ignore non-Hitlerite versions of National Socialism. National Socialism did not start and end with Hitler, just as socialism does not start and end with Marx. I agree that after Hitler took power there was very little socialism in NSDAP, but that does not make National Socialism as a whole non-socialist. --OpenFuture (talk) 10:34, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree it is an unfortunate formulation but there is no need for personal attacks for what is basically a good faith edit. -- Vision Thing -- 10:37, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree, but TFD has on different noticeboards tested out what is acceptable levels of personal attacks on Wikipedia, and this is clearly withing such limits. He should stop it, but he won't. Nothing we can do anything about. --OpenFuture (talk) 10:40, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Historians have looked to numerous intellectual sources for Nazism from Martin Luther to Charles Darwin. We do not go to all these articles and say that they were influences on Nazism. TFD (talk) 13:13, 21 August 2011 (UTC)