this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
38 points (93.2% liked)

World News

38987 readers
2079 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (4 children)

If socialists and liberals worked together in Germany, the Nazis would not have come to power. It's their bickering that led to liberals giving Hitler power in a coalition and socialists famously saying "after Hitler, us".

Even when there's a fascist takeover, it's enabled by the left of center arguing with itself.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Firstly, liberals are not left of centre, they are the original capitalists, the ideology that socialism was built in opposition to.

Secondly, Liberals will always side with fascists when push comes to shove. To liberals, Fascists are distasteful, bigots and extremists, however, fascism does not threaten the liberal system. It does not threaten the liberal ruling class, at least inherently, whereas socialism is an existential threat to that class. To a liberal economy, to a liberal nation.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

And to Germany's communist party, fascists were also distasteful, bigots, and extremists, and they would lead to the collapse of capitalism.

"As late as June 1933 the Central Committee of the [KPD] was proclaiming that the Hitler government would soon collapse under the weight of its internal contradictions, to be followed immediately by the victory of Bolshevism in Germany." - The Coming if the Third Reich, Richard Evans

I'm not going to make some ridiculous statement however that leftists will always side with fascists when push comes to shove. German liberals tolerated fascists to get political power, and German communists tolerated fascists to get political power. They were both fucking idiots for doing so.

You're correct that on the entire spectrum of political theory that liberals are on the right. However, on that grand spectrum, liberals are also authoritarian, and communists are also authoritarian -- because the entire notion of having a centralized government is authoritarian. It's pointless to look at the spectrum from an objective, academic position, because it's totally incongruous with the actual reality of things. When it comes to the scope of Western politics, liberals are left of center, and most tend towards positions of complete civil equality for everyone, which is libertarian in Western scope.

Arguing that liberals are actually on the right is like arguing that we never actually have negative temperatures in winters because Kelvin is always positive and it's impossible to have negative Kelvin. You're technically correct, but for realistic purposes it's utterly meaningless.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And to Germany's communist party, fascists were also distasteful, bigots, and extremists, and they would lead to the collapse of capitalism.

This would be a good mirroring response if it had any amount of truth to it. To the Communists in Germany, the fascists were their mortal enemy. The two parties were fighting in the streets. The Communists saw the fascists as a capitalist system, they certainly were not under the impression that fascism would bring about the end of capitalism.

A declaration by the Communists that the Fascists would collapse under their own contradictions is not evidence to the contrary, or evidence that the German communists tolerated the fascists.

Liberal and libertarian are not the same thing and cannot be conflated, and authoritarianism isn't anything with a state.

I swear, the political compass has rotted people's brains.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

But that's kind of part of the problem though... By resorting to violence they destroyed democracy in Germany by the legitimizing the authority of the state.

As cited by the University of Cambridge:

“Smash the Fascists…” German Communist Efforts to Counter the Nazis, 1930–31 Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2008

By James J. Ward

"For most historians in the West, the German Communist Party (KPD) belongs among the gravediggers of the Weimar Republic. Other culprits certainly abounded; still, the Communists are held to have made a major contribution to the fall of Weimar by preaching violence, promoting civil disorder and economic disruption, and deliberately trying to weaken the republic's chief supporters, the Social Democrats (SPD). With such policies, Western scholars have charged, the Communists in effect collaborated with the Nazis and their allies on the right to bring about the destruction of Germany's first parliamentary democracy."