Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
And when Hitler self-identifies as a socialist he must be wrong too. Wikipedia says so.
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Hitler, or at least the Nazi party, were strongly anti-communist as well. People can self-identify however they want but it doesn't mean they represent it well. Again though the problem with the Nazi party was not a belief in nationalisation or workers rights. It was the genocide of a race of people and their desire to conquer a lot of Europe. These weren't liberal or socialist policies taken to their extreme conclusion, they were an extreme form of totalitarianism and anti-Semitism. I am not really sure that if Hitler had a more nuanced view of the limitations of the state in public life they he wouldn't have committed the Holocaust. Frankly when people have reached the stage where they're systematically killing millions of people then they have long past any relevance when talking about moderate left/right politics. No one on the left that I know wants to set up concentration camps and I can't see which policy is a natural precursor to that.
I don't think authoritarianism/totalitarianism are limited to left or right. I think they exist on a different spectrum which people on either the left or right can veer towards or away from.