There is something strange occurring in the United States at the moment. No, it’s not how men are turning into women and how universities are suppressing free speech. It’s the paucity of common sense and an ignorance pertaining to history.
In today’s political landscape, if you are right of Senator Bernie Sanders or even Karl Marx, then you are a Nazi, homophobic, xenophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, fascist. We’re probably missing a few more inane descriptors by the wacky left.
Legendary political commentator Tom Woods recently sent out a newsletter this week in which he explained how a libertarian follower of his has been called a Nazi because he posted a libertarian video. Another friend of his was called a Nazi because he opposed urban planning, even though Adolf Hitler supported urban planning.
It is arguments like this, usually purported by Antifa, Black Lives Matter, the mainstream media and even the average leftist, that suggest government education has failed, these people have never picked up a book related to the Second World War and/or they are just stupid.
There are white supremacists in the United States today. Just like there are black supremacists. They are idiots and bigots. Nobody takes them seriously. Well, the Democrats seem to take BLM seriously for whatever reason. The nincompoops in Charlottesville should be condemned; it was nauseating to witness a bunch of grown-ups trying to be like the Ku Klux Klan, a vile entity. These are actually neo-Nazis.
A libertarian advocating free speech, liberty for all and limited government is not. A conservative opposing the abortion of children with Down Syndrome is not. A black college student who dons a Young Americans for Liberty hat to oppose white supremacy is not.
Antifa, a group that has been emboldened by the likes of CNN and Esquire, are the real fascists and should be condemned as much as the neo-Nazis. But perhaps people don’t understand history. Let’s take a brief lesson.
Here are five Nazi facts that the left, Antifa and the mainstream media tend to forget:
The Nazis Were Socialists
For whatever reason, the left does not understand that the Nazis were socialist. It was even in the political party’s name: The National Socialist German Workers’ Party.
Here are just a few quotes from Hitler:
“In socialism of the future…what counts is the whole, the community of the Volk. The individual and his life play only a subsidiary role. He can be sacrificed—he is prepared to sacrifice himself should the whole demand it.”
“The party is all-embracing. It rules our lives in all their breadth and depth… There will be no license, no free space, in which the individual belongs to himself. This is Socialism… Let them then own land or factories as much as they please. The decisive factor is that the State, through the party, is supreme over them, regardless whether they are owners or workers.”
“After all, that’s exactly why we call ourselves National Socialists! We want to start by implementing socialism in our nation among our Volk! It is not until the individual nations are socialist that they can address themselves to international socialism.”
Throughout the Third Reich, the likes of Hermann Goering, Joseph Goebbels and countless officers within the Nazi Party discussed the benefits of socialism, the disintegration of individualism and the importance of the collective. Socialism was the party’s primary ideology. Goering regularly mused how important it was to destroy the individualist spirit among Germans. To suggest Nazis were not socialist is foolish.
Of course, Hitler regularly denounced capitalism:
“We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions.”
Even if you want to avoid their words and focus on their actions, the Nazis implemented socialist policies: price controls, production quotas, rationing, the nationalization of industry – yes, there were private enterprises at the beginning of the Hitler regime, but even they were given orders by the state, and many businesses were subjected to the Reich’s anti-Semitism.
Adolf Hitler Advocated Universal Healthcare
Germany already had a universal healthcare system and a social insurance program long before Hitler arrived on the scene. Under the Bismarck government in the 1880s, the government adopted these mechanisms as a social safety net for the public. And it was immensely supported by Hitler.
Unfortunately, he took national healthcare a step too far: the implementation of euthanasia laws, something that was widespread elsewhere in Europe and in North America, and eugenics programs.
Like in the marketplace, there were private practices, but they were also highly regulated by the government and the Nazi regime regularly gave them orders to abide by, otherwise they would risked being shut down.
Nazis Wanted Free College Education
Nazi Germany had a massive welfare state, particularly in the field of education. The government had been spending about a billion reichsmarks a year on education, including early childhood education. Once he became chancellor, Hitler demanded “maximum education opportunities” for every German, which occurred even during the war.
The government pledged that once the war was over then it would be installing a universal education system.
In a statement to a newspaper at the time, Fritz Reinhardt said:
“Soon after the conclusion of the war, the next step towards redistribution of family burdens will be the eradication of school fees, tuitions and costs of educational materials for all children and all types of schools, including trade schools and universities.”
This, he noted, would make Germany “the first truly social state on earth.”
Corporate Taxes Were the First to be Hiked
One of the first acts of the Nazi government was to hike corporate taxes. Between 1936 and 1939, the corporate tax rate doubled from 20 percent to 40 percent. The Nazi leadership argued it was about time German corporations paid their fair share after profiting from the nation’s rearmament initiative.
The Nazis adopted an official stance on stock market profits: in 1941, earnings from stock transactions were subjected to a windfall profits tax; annual dividends were capped at six percent. When things got really bad, the government forced stockholders, both Aryan and Jewish, to exchange their stocks for government bonds to fund the war efforts.
Although high-income couples did not face high levels of taxation at the beginning of the Third Reich, the government eventually increased taxes on the wealthy to sustain its funding of the war.
Doesn’t that sound familiar?
Eventually, the Nazis expropriated the personal wealth of certain segments of the population, particularly the Jews. They used the assets of Germany jews, which were then converted into government bonds, to help cover the Reich’s war chest.
The Welfare State Was Immense – Even at the Height of the War
Germany’s welfare state was generous to say the least. Everyone in Germany, and the Germans who lived in occupied territory, who were of the Aryan race, received welfare benefits – and they were the beneficiaries of the plundering of Jews.
For instance, governments were mandated to extend financial support to children born of German soldiers and the local women. When homes were destroyed because of bombs, the government intervened by giving them brand new furniture, which were usually first extracted from the Jews.
When goods became scarce in Berlin, the government encouraged soldiers to plunder the invaded nations and to bring them back home. Everything from cheese to champagne, from furniture to jewelry, Goering told the soldiers to steal these goods – he even eliminated an order that required soldiers to stand straight and tall in an upright position just so they can take even more goods from other nations.
A couple of years before the war ended, the welfare office requested that the federal government reduce its welfare benefits because of budgetary concerns. The Nazi leadership demanded that they continue to keep up morale of the German people, and the Germans didn’t care as long as they got theirs.
Final Thoughts
There are so many socialist aspects of the Nazis, and these policies are shared by the left today: Hitler opposed states rights, supported a block similar to the European Union (but under Nazi rule), approved of urban planning and used racial tensions to achieve his goals.
Many within the Nazi party regularly exclaimed that they “could not live in a world without socialism.”
Everything from high corporate taxes to a generous welfare system, from a universal healthcare system to a universal education system, the Nazis adopted and maintained many of the socialist policies that most of today’s left advocate.
Does that mean Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are LITERALLY HITLER? No.
But when the media, Antifa, BLM, the Democrats and leftists start saying that Dave Rubin, a gay Jew, is a Nazi because he defends free speech or that anyone who questions the government’s refugee program is a Nazi, then perhaps it’s time to look in the mirror. A guy like Paul Joseph Watson or Stephen Miller has far less in common with Nazis than the average Antifa member.
Unfortunately, Antifa has been emboldened by the endorsements from the mainstream media. CNN’s Chris Cuomo had the temerity to compare these thugs to the brave men who stormed the beaches of Normandy to fight the Nazis. He forgot to mention that Antifa attacks unconscious people, old men and young women and suppresses free speech.
Perhaps it’s better to compare Antifa to Nazi fascists then the average Donald Trump supporter or Republican voter.
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