Democratic members have raised a novel argument under the Fourteenth Amendment that the refusal to raise the debt ceiling is unconstitutional. For full disclosure, I was asked about this argument weeks ago by members who believe that forcing the country to default would be not just catastrophic but unconstitutional. I will be discussing this topic today on CNN and tonight on Countdown.
The relevant language of the Fourteenth Amendment states:
The argument goes that Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment declares:
“The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.”
The argument goes that, by not lifting the debt limit, Congress is “questioning” “the validity of the public debt of the United States.” Under this logic, advocates are encouraging President Obama to simply pay the debts in accordance with the Constitution. That would be an extreme step that would add a constitutional crisis to an economic crisis.
The “authorized by law” clause could present an interesting debate since the debt ceiling is part of a federal statute — though conversely so is the obligation to pay things like social security.
The language is certainly written in absolute terms but it is not likely that a court would rule that it makes a failure to lift the debt ceiling unconstitutional. Congress can argue that it fully intends to pay its debts, but that there is a political dispute over how and when. They can argue that they were not challenging the “validity” of the debt but the priority in the payment. The United States will still be fully liable for the debt and the interest.
Of course, as with the Libyan War, the Administration could trigger the constitutional fight on the belief that no one will be able to get standing to challenge its payment of the debt.
Jonathan Turley
@kderosa: “Our government does a fine job controlling the governed, perhaps too fine a job in some cases. […] What our government has a difficult job doing is controlling itself.”
Perhaps you missed the point, the point is that these are the same thing. What the smart, aspiring criminal with resources will do is exactly what you complain about: Co-opt the machinery of government to control others (your “too fine a job” complaint), and also to prevent, as much as possible, any prosecution or retribution for their evil criminal activity (the “can’t control itself” part). The result is like a cancer, a runaway totalitarian government where the common people have no rights and the rich have no restraints, and the politicians are kept as token pets, fed well as long as they do the bidding of their criminal masters. That is where the USA is heading.
My point is that the ills you see are a result of failing to account for the 1% of 1% of people, about half a million of them in the world and 30,000 Americans, that are both highly intelligent and really WILL stop at NOTHING to gain power. The founding father’s relied too heavily on their culture of honor, and oaths, and personal integrity. It has failed and produced the government you see today, because their “governmental immune system” can no longer handle the exceptions; it relied on a culture that no longer exists, and probably never will again.
@TonyC —
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. Federalist 51.
Our government does a fine job controlling the governed, perhaps too fine a job in some cases. No one is suggesting that that goverment should be “weakened’ so that it cannot control the giverned.
What our government has a difficult job doing is controlling itself. It tries tp ameliorate what it perceives to be social and economic ills, and in doing so has gotten itself in the business of favoring some people over others and increasing its own power to handle a series of manufactured crises. In doing so it has distorted market forces, created many perverse incentives, trampled on property and liberty rights and has given us a host of unintended (though certainly not unforeseen) consequences which it then rushes to correct. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Tony C:
you throw that sociopath handle around too much, you must be deflecting. As far as government goes, some is necessary, anarchy is not a good thing. But then neither is a government trying to control its people. We have seen that in Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. The dictators and their minions in those states were truly sociopathic.
So you see, rebellion against tyranny is not sociopathic but desiring to control other people is sociopathic. From your posts, you and others seem to be more about control than freedom.
I find it funny that you call people like me and kderosa sociopaths when in reality people who desire control over others are the true malignancy in a society.
Tony C:
“@Roco: Newton did not really invent calculus; the true inventor was Leibniz was. In fact, in mathematics the most common form of a derivative, dy/dx, is due to Leibniz; the idea in calculus of a variable “approaching” a value (like zero or infinity or some other variable or value) is due to Leibniz as well, Leibniz invented the basic rules and did all the work of formalizing the rules of calculus.”
I heard that it was pretty much simultaneous and neither man knew what the other was doing.
@kderosa: “Capitalists/businessmen generally don’t like competition. They have no problem cozying up to government for favors.”
True, but you don’t go far enough. The proper formulation is that capitalists and businessmen and the wealthy in general hate competition so much they will seize upon any form of power to eliminate it, including government, but if government is weak, they abandon it for more direct means, like burning down their competitors factories, beating their employees, enslaving others, etc.
Making government weak doesn’t solve the problem, eliminating laws and regulations does not solve the problem. And I will also say that to my knowledge every form of government on Earth has fallen susceptible to corruption and control by the wealthy, the strong and the wealthy have been oppressing and exploiting the weak for at least 10,000 years and probably 50,000 years, from the days of true anarchy to our current Democracy, it has happened in Communism, socialism, monarchies, fascism, everything.
If you make the government big, the sociopaths will go into government to get their unfair share (Communism proved that). If you make the government weak, like eighteenth century United States, or 2000-era Afghanistan, the sociopath strong-men do whatever the fuck they want because nobody is there to stop them; they recruit their own armies.
Government isn’t the problem. Sociopaths are the problem, and you are focused on the wrong thing, because your view is too narrow. You may think our corrupted government is the problem, but the truth is the sociopaths will relentlessly try to oppress others by the most effective means available, and today what that means in America is buying up the government. If tomorrow it means buying guns or hiring mercenaries, so be it. If the next day they can get away with slavery, they will do that. If they can trick (or usurp) a government into literally waging a war on their competitors, they will do that.
Sociopaths are like water, if there is a crack in the system they will find it. It really has nothing to do with how big government is, or how high taxes are, or anything else. The truth is that we humans really have not yet found an effective means of stopping the power-mad from gaining the power. Get rid of government, and you have modern-day northern Pakistan, or Yemen, or Somalia, just basically rule by physical force. Government is not inherently bad, if it isn’t formed by a sociopath to consolidate power, it is usually some attempt to band together and stop the sociopaths. It is sociopaths that are inherently bad, and they are the ones that tirelessly work to subvert and corrupt any form of control we try to exert over them.
“Fascists have often presented their ideology as that of an economically trans-class movement that promotes resolving economic class conflict. Just like you do when you say your anti-regulation/absolute property rights stance is about individual rights. Oddly enough, you always forget to mention that includes the right to abuse others rights in enjoying your property rights because the right to abuse stems naturally from there being no consequences for abuse. A lack of regulation and absolute property rights means no consequences.”
Now this is just stupid.
“Far right politics support segregation; the separation of groups deemed to be superior from groups deemed to be inferior – the übermensch and the untermensch. The Nazis did this based primarily on race. You do this based on wealth as you advocate superior rights for property holders (both private and corporate) by advocating they neither be regulated in their business practices nor be required to pay an equitable proportionate share of taxes.”
The far right in America did not support segregation. The Southern Democrats supported degregation.
The rest of the paragraph is just a entire mischracterization/fabrication.
“No, it’s not, but fascist ideologies are inherently nationalistic. Conversely, that’s also what makes von Mises post-national fascism by default. The country in question isn’t post-national. The corporations are post-national. They are trans-national now. But throwing aside the limitations of nationalism to deal in having to deal with a single nationalistic body as defined by their once limited geographic location, multi-national corporations are now free to screw with any government that will let them get away with it.”
So, nationalism means internationalism. The complete opposite. And something the NAzis were opposed to the communists at the time since they were internationalist. Do you realize how silly your arguments sound. This one contradicts itself about three times.
And then we slip into ad hominem territory again.
This is why I didn’t want to waste any time arguing this issue with you. You are so wrong, you’re not even wrong anymore. It’s just a confused contradictory mess wrapped up by a few correct historic statements.
“Similarly, many modern American conservatives have a version of a mythological American past in which this is a Christian nation instead of the secular nation as very specifically and with much deliberation set forth by the Founders in the 1st Amendment. ”
Tell that to the Puritans.
Obviously you haven’t read the 1st amendment in awhile. Let me help.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …”
It was drafted this way so that some of the states could retain their state-run religions, nitwit. Originally, the First Amendment applied only to the federal government. A number of the states effectively had established churches when the First Amendment was ratified, with some remaining into the early nineteenth century. Before the 14th amendment the 1st amendment didn’t applyto the states.
This is just too easy.
“Why . . . that sounds a lot like letting industry and corporations write the laws that regulate them which naturally led to no practical regulation at all. That sounds a lot like you, you von Mises Dupe.”
Yeah, because Hitler was a power-sharing kind of guy. You are looney. Apparently, hardly no regulation at all, means complete control by the nazis. The nazis told you what to produce and you produced it. No pesky competition.
“The bottom line in either state was that industry got to do whatever the Hell they wanted as long as they provided the goods and services government wanted and could make a profit.”
And, you are calling this arrangement capitalism? It’s a command economy, nitwit. The only difference in practice between this arrangement and what the communists were doing was that the plant owner retained ownership of his plant while he took marching orders from the Nazis and took his agreed-upon profits instead of the plant supervisor collecting wages. And if you didn;t perform, you’d have the business nationalized and transferred.
“He was quite interested in preserving traditional German values. ”
Yeah, the pre-Christian ones.
“Authoritarian command economies like Communism in Stalin’s Russia don’t need capitalism because they already control all the means of production. In socialist blended economies or capitalist economies, fascism requires and caters to the desires of industry. That’s why Mussolini’s preferred term for his baby wasn’t fascism, but rather corporatism.”
Here’s the source of your confusion.
Communist economies failed because they threw out all the people who knew how to run industries when they seized the “means of production.”
The nazis/fascism, they didn’t seize the “means of produuction” they just let the industriaists run their business, but gave them their marching orders. They controlled exactly what the corporations would do and produce adn what profit they would make. The industrialists didn’t think this was such a bad bargain. Give up control for reduced/eliminated competition.
In the US we have a more benign version of this. Businesses lobby for increased regulation to gain advantages over the competition, especially smaller upstarts. They also lobby to decrease competition whenever possible.
You two lefties continue to be confused.
Capitalists/businessmen generally don’t like competition. They have no problem cozying up to government for favors. Not even to the Nazis with their anti-capitalist rhetoric and propensity of sending people to the gas chamber when they didn’t go along. They didn’t even mind giving up control of their businesses to the Nazis if it meant they could reap profits and eliminate competition. But to say that the corporations somehow were the ones in control and running the government with the nazis/fascists is ridiculous. Even Wikipedia gets it mostlly right.
Fascists promoted their ideology as a “Third Position” between capitalism and Bolshevism. Italian Fascism involved corporatism, a political system in which the economy is collectively managed by employers, workers, and state officials by formal mechanisms at the national level. Fascists advocated a new national class-based economic system, variously termed “national corporatism”, “national socialism” or “national syndicalism”.The common aim of all fascist movements was elimination of the autonomy or, in some cases, the existence of large-scale capitalism.
Fascist governments exercised control over private property but did not nationalize it. They pursued economic policies to strengthen state power and spread ideology, such as consolidating trade unions to be state- or party-controlled.
Fascism blamed capitalist liberal democracies for creating class conflict and communists for exploiting it. In Italy, the Fascist period presided over the creation of the largest number of state-owned enterprises in Western Europe, such as the nationalisation of petroleum companies into a single state enterprise called the Italian General Agency for Petroleum (Azienda Generale Italiani Petroli, AGIP). Fascists made populist appeals to the middle class, especially the lower middle class, by promising to protect small businesses and property owners from communism, and by promising an economy based on competition and profit while pledging to oppose big business.
Thus Mussolini claimed that Italy under Fascist rule was not capitalist in the contemporary use of the term, which referred to supercapitalism. Mussolini denounced supercapitalism for causing the “standardization of humankind” and for causing excessive consumption. Mussolini claimed that at the stage of supercapitalism, “a capitalist enterprise, when difficulties arise, throws itself like a dead weight into the state’s arms. It is then that state intervention begins and becomes more necessary. It is then that those who once ignored the state now seek it out anxiously.” He saw Fascism as the next logical step to solve the problems of supercapitalism and claimed that this step could be seen as a form of earlier capitalism which involved state intervention, saying “our path would lead inexorably into state capitalism, which is nothing more nor less than state socialism turned on its head. In either event, the result is the bureaucratization of the economic activities of the nation.”
Other fascist regimes were indifferent or hostile to corporatism. The Nazis initially attempted to form a corporatist economic system like that of Fascist Italy, creating the National Socialist Institute for Corporatism in May 1933, which included many major economists who argued that corporatism was consistent with National Socialism.
Fascists opposed the laissez-faire economic policies that were dominant in the era prior to the Great Depression. After the Great Depression began, many people from across the political spectrum blamed laissez-faire capitalism, and fascists promoted their ideology as a “third way” between capitalism and communism.
Fascists declared their opposition to finance capitalism, interest charging, and profiteering. Nazis and other anti-Semitic fascists considered finance capitalism a “parasitic” “Jewish conspiracy”. Fascist governments introduced price controls, wage controls and other types of economic interventionist measures.
Fascists thought that private property should be regulated to ensure that “benefit to the community precedes benefit to the individual.” Private property rights were supported but were contingent upon service to the state. For example, “an owner of agricultural land may be compelled to raise wheat instead of sheep and employ more labour than he would find profitable.” However, they promoted the interests of successful small businesses. Mussolini wrote approvingly of the notion that profits should not be taken away from those who produced them by their own labour, saying “I do not respect — I even hate — those men that leech a tenth of the riches produced by others”.
So, more or less, you two are completely wrong on your understanding of economics in general and fascist/nazi economic policy in particular. In fact, it’s clear that you two lefties are enamored of nazi/fascist economic policies but for the genocide part, just like progressives of yore. You just moved a few inches to the left, but retained the policy outlook. Too bad about all that and being on the wrong side of history and still not recognizing it even today.
@Buddha: I think the number one scientist of all time (seriously) is Darwin.
Newton believed in magic (literally) and was an alchemist. He abandoned science altogether for his Mint stint,
After winning the Nobel prize, Einstein really contributed very little. He spent the last 20 or 30 years of his life pursuing a pretty pointless exercise in unification and trying to refute quantum mechanics. I’ve gone down a gopher hole or two myself, but to waste decades on that was just unscientific; and nothing came of it.
Darwin, on the other hand, really DID unify everything, and produced the first really compelling alternative to creationism. His work is impeccable, even his speculations in his work and letters are still proving accurate 150 years later, and the scientific insights of adaptation in biology are still leading to new discoveries, still bringing light to new puzzles, still helping to find cures for new diseases and explaining the origins of man and beast.
To my mind, Einstein and Newton did a great job of approximately explaining some mechanisms, but that was it, and both of them were, in a technical sense, wrong about gravity. (Einstein proved Newton wrong, and most physicists believe Einstein’s theory of relativity is, like Newton’s, only a better approximation of how gravity really works: Quantum physics rules out Einsteinian relativity as a final answer.)
I am not sure how to fairly compare the impact of physics versus the impact of revolutionizing basically all of biology, medicine, anthropology, and even psychology (and indirectly even sociology and religion). But in terms of doing great science, I think Darwin did the better job with his life.
Thanks again for providing a cite that proves my point, nitwit.
******************
Perhaps that passsge proves your point that the industrialists were “repulsed” by Hitler to those non-English speakers, or those who haven’t run across the phrase “enthusiastic and invaluable cooperation.”
The rest of us don’t see those two ideas as congruent.
@FF LEO: I think Newton was a genius, and I do think he is solely responsible for his optics, physics, and gravitational work. Newton was, in many ways, the first real USER of calculus for practical purposes. But Newton was a childish, vindictive jerk, and Leibniz was not his first victim.
The following bolded text is an excerpt from this article by James Gleick, an authority on Newton:
Newton had, in fact, invented most of the mathematical machinery we now call the calculus. He accomplished this in the 1660s, as a very young man alone in a farmhouse during the plague years, and revealed it to no one. Meanwhile, in Germany, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz also invented the calculus—which is to say, much of the same mathematics, though with a different emphasis and a different form of notation. Leibniz’s form is the one we use today. Leibniz was entirely happy to publicize his discovery, and by 1712, when they were both old men, he and Newton were embroiled in an ugly international dispute, each accusing the other of outright theft.
The Royal Society of London, with Sir Isaac presiding, appointed a committee of scholars to adjudicate the matter. Their report found no doubt whatsoever. It vindicated Newton and condemned Leibniz. In addition to the report itself, the Royal Society published an anonymous review of the report, and this, too, righteously denounced Leibniz. “It lies upon him, in point of Candor,” it declared, “to make us understand that he pretended to this Antiquity of his Invention with some other Design than to rival and supplant Mr. Newton.”
Candor indeed! We now understand, from the surviving handwritten drafts, that the author of the report and the author of the review were the same man—Newton—writing about himself in the third person.
In short, Newton was a liar. IMO, based on other writings of Newton about his “fluxions” and “infinitesimals,” I think, as I said earlier, that Leibniz invented the solid logic of the calculus we use today, and Newton jealously minimized the importance of Leibniz’s proofs, logic, and reasoning, and claimed the credit.
That word you keep using. “Prove”. It does not mean what you think it means.
“Buddha, you are confused by Hitler’s lies. The most effective lies are the ones sprinkled with the most actual truths.”
You would know, Mr. Half Truth. But the confusion here is entirely yours.
“Corporations in Germany, like their counterparts today, tended to be opportunistic, not ideological.Corporations in Germany, like their counterparts today, tended to be opportunistic, not ideological.”
The cozy nature of fascism to corporations comes from corporations opportunistic nature. They will cozy up to anyone who can make them money. Since fascist or Nazi political regimes are militaristic that means they naturally cozy up with arms manufactures. Like Krupp and Mauser. Since they need to clothe their troops, they cozy up with clothiers. Like Hugo Boss. Since an Army can’t really get far walking everywhere, they cozy up with vehicle and aircraft manufactures like Mercedes and BMW. And if they find a company that doesn’t want to play their war games, they bully them into cooperation. Like Porsche. Fascism requires capitalism. Fascism cannot work in a command economy. Authoritarian command economies like Communism in Stalin’s Russia don’t need capitalism because they already control all the means of production. In socialist blended economies or capitalist economies, fascism requires and caters to the desires of industry. That’s why Mussolini’s preferred term for his baby wasn’t fascism, but rather corporatism.
“Hitler was in no way a conservative in any sense related to American conservatism. American conservatives seek to preserve both traditional values and the classical liberal creed enshrined in the Constitution.”
Really. The statement “As a result he believed Germany needed to rediscover his pre-Christian authenticity” contradicts that Hitler wasn’t interested in preserving traditional German values. He was quite interested in preserving traditional German values. Traditional German values were a cornerstone of the sales pitch he was making. However, the traditional German values he was interested in preserving were a mythologized version of those values, not the actual values themselves. Hitler had a well known fascination with both Wagner and the myth of Siegfreid. Hitler’s was a mythology about a German past that only existed in the mind as informed by Nazi ideology and ancient tales of Germanic Aryan greatness. Similarly, many modern American conservatives have a version of a mythological American past in which this is a Christian nation instead of the secular nation as very specifically and with much deliberation set forth by the Founders in the 1st Amendment. Why . . . that sounds a lot like you, Mr. “Godless lefties”. Was Hitler a traditional conservative? No, he wasn’t. But then again, neither are you. You’re more like a neoconservative disguising himself as a Libertarian.
Hitler also wasn’t a traditional liberal or any kind of liberal in practice either. As noted, he used whatever idea he needed to sell the crowds into putting him in power. Left. Right. He didn’t care about anything other than whatever it took to gain totalitarian authoritarian power. Nazi fascism is defined as anti-liberal, anti-democratic, anti-communist, anti-conservative and anti-parliamentary. As an anti-liberal, anti-conservative, anti-communist, Hitler promoted Nazism as a “third way”. Strangely enough, that is exactly how Italian fascism promoted itself as well. Did you know that the Nazis’ rise to power was financially subsidized by the Fascist government of Italy starting in 1928? It’s true. Hitler was a long time admirer of the corporatist state Mussolini installed in Italy. After Mussolini’s March on Rome in 1922, Hitler presented the Nazi Party as a German version of Italian Fascist Party. Mussolini was thrilled and they swore to be BFF’s.
One of the salient features of Italian fascism (and German fascism as detailed above) is in how they expressed their economic policies by fostering a close relationship of industry and the state regarding the setting of policy. The Italians even went so far as to form formal employer/employee corporate syndicates to represent industrial market segments and work alongside the state to set national economic policy. Why . . . that sounds a lot like letting industry and corporations write the laws that regulate them which naturally led to no practical regulation at all. That sounds a lot like you, you von Mises Dupe.
Political ideology will follow economic ideology or they will evolve hand in hand. In Italy, the political ideology followed the economic. In Germany, adopting the Italian model they found compatible with their existent political ideology, the evolution was cojoined. The bottom line in either state was that industry got to do whatever the Hell they wanted as long as they provided the goods and services government wanted and could make a profit. Fascist economics zealously supports the existence of private property, the existence of a market economy, and the use of the profit motive. That industry is amoral – by your own admission – simply aids in the development of the worst part of fascism, the political ideology.
Fascism is an authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists advocate the creation of a totalitarian single-party state. Much like the GOP and their perpetual talk of forcing a “permanent majority”. A traditional fascist is anti-communist, anti-conservative, anti-democratic, anti-individualist, anti-liberal, anti-parliamentary, anti-bourgeois, and anti-proletarian. Fascists have often presented their ideology as that of an economically trans-class movement that promotes resolving economic class conflict. Just like you do when you say your anti-regulation/absolute property rights stance is about individual rights. Oddly enough, you always forget to mention that includes the right to abuse others rights in enjoying your property rights because the right to abuse stems naturally from there being no consequences for abuse. A lack of regulation and absolute property rights means no consequences.
Speaking of your lies and Nazi lies, Hitler wasn’t a traditional conservative, but he sure wasn’t a socialist either. Sure, he sold the idea of revolution under the guise of socialism. It was this sales job that resulted in the Night of the Long Knives once the SA – recruited from the working class – realized Hitler was lying about his socialist intentions. He had to take out Rohm and their other leaders in favor of true socialism before they could rebel against the Nazi party who was leading Germany into economic fascism. I’ll grant you Hitler wasn’t a traditional conservative, traditional liberal, traditional socialist or a traditional anything. He was a new creature under the political and economic sun. He was a Nazi fascist.
Also and again for what seems like the hundredth time – NAZISM IS A SYNCRETIC POLITICAL FORM THAT DRAWS FROM BOTH RIGHT AND LEFT BUT IS FAR RIGHT IN PRACTICE.
syncretism \ˈsiŋ-krə-ˌti-zəm, ˈsin-\, n.,
1: the combination of different forms of belief or practice
2: the fusion of two or more originally different inflectional forms
Do you simply ignore words you don’t know the meaning of in addition to making up terms to suit your own right wing needs? Apparently so. Syncretic applies to the formulation of the political ideology, not its application.
Far right politics support segregation; the separation of groups deemed to be superior from groups deemed to be inferior – the übermensch and the untermensch. The Nazis did this based primarily on race. You do this based on wealth as you advocate superior rights for property holders (both private and corporate) by advocating they neither be regulated in their business practices nor be required to pay an equitable proportionate share of taxes. You do give some lip service for not harming others with your property one minute, but the next your trying to claim property rights are absolute. Talk about of both sides of your mouth much, Janus?
“Nationalism isn’t inherently right wing”.
No, it’s not, but fascist ideologies are inherently nationalistic. Conversely, that’s also what makes von Mises post-national fascism by default. The country in question isn’t post-national. The corporations are post-national. They are trans-national now. But throwing aside the limitations of nationalism to deal in having to deal with a single nationalistic body as defined by their once limited geographic location, multi-national corporations are now free to screw with any government that will let them get away with it. Not being confined to a single country does not stop them from wanting to dictate national policy. Not in the slightest. They want no regulations and no taxes and repercussions for their crimes and the crimes of their corporate officers wherever possible. Like good lil’ fascists, they want to make as much money as possible and if they get caught using slave labor to not have to pay for their bad actions.
In your zeal to paint me as some kind of Nazi – when in fact I have more in common with modern Norway than Nazi Germany on economic matters and more in common with Thomas Jefferson than I do with Hitler on political matters – you’ve only succeeding showing only that
1) you really don’t know the meanings of the political science terms you use or you are misusing them on purpose (the more likely option),
2) that once again your knowledge of history is woefully and seemingly purposefully distorted and/or incomplete in furtherance of your political and economic agenda, and
3) that you and your constant pimping of von Mises, traditional values against the Godless lefties and that businesses deserve special exemption from the laws designed to protect citizens from their abuses have a Hell of a lot more in common with Nazi fascism than I do.
If anyone is curious as to who has the more accurate definitions and arguments here, I invite them to do even a cursory search concerning any of the terms used. Like I said earlier, your definition of fascism – let alone Nazism – doesn’t even come close to either the dictionary or encyclopedia definitions let alone a more nuanced understanding the formal study of law and/or political science provides. Your arguments are the purposefully distorted arguments of a propagandist. Not only that, but of a dim witted propagandist. It won’t take readers long to discern not only that fact, but get a glimpse of what your true agenda leads to as well.
If any of this displeases you, propaganda monkey, remember that you brought the petard.
Me and mespo only gave you a leg up.
AS I said, dimwit, the industrialists were opportunistic and Hitler needed them for the war effort. They both hated each other. The industrialists went along with the Nazi plan because they had no other choice and would profit by doing so. The nazis called all the shots. So it was a deal with the devil.
The same could be said for Hitler and the Christians. He spouted all kinds of pro-christian rhetoric in his speeches even though he was a neopaganist and hated the atheistic communists. He needed the christians and the churches because he couldn’t eradicate them without losing popular support.
Thanks again for providing a cite that proves my point, nitwit.
kdertroll to Buddha: “Buddha, you are confused by Hitler’s lies. The most effective lies are the ones sprinkled with the most actual truths. You have bought into the Nazi propaganda. Either that or you are merely cherry-picking some facts to form a caricature of what the Third Reich was actually about.
In Germany the aristocracy and business elite were generally repulsed by Hitler and the Nazis”
*****************************
I’ll take this debunking Buddha if you don’t mind:
Yep, here’s some incontrovertible proof of that “revulsion” by the cream of Germany’s right wing business elite:
From:
Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression
Volume I Chapter VIII
The Economic Aspects of the Conspiracy:
“Although the Nazi government officials provided the leadership in preparing Germany for war, they received also the enthusiastic and invaluable cooperation of the German industrialists.
On the invitation of Goering, approximately 25 of the leading industrialists of Germany, together with Schacht, attended a meeting in Berlin on 20 February 1933. This was shortly before the German election of 5 March 1933. At this meeting Hitler announced the conspirators’ aim to seize totalitarian control over Germany, to destroy the parliamentary system, to crush all opposition by force, and to restore the power of the Wehrmacht. Among those present at that meeting were Gustav Krupp, head of the munitions firm, Alfried Krupp, A.G.; four leading officials of the I. G. Farben Works, one of the world’s largest chemical concerns; Albert Vogler, head of United Steel Works of Germany; and other leading industrialists.”
(…)
In April 1933, after Hitler had entrenched himself in power, Gustav Krupp, as Chairman of the Reich Association of German Industry, which was the largest association of German industrialists, submitted to Hitler the plan of that association for the reorganization of German industry. In connection therewith Krupp undertook to bring the association into line with the aims of the conspirators, and to make it an effective instrument
for the execution of their policies. In a letter of transmittal (D-157), Krupp stated that the plan of reorganization which he submitted on behalf of the association of industrialists, was characterized by the desire to coordinate economic measures and political necessity, adopting the Fuehrer conception of the new German state. In the plan of reorganization itself, Krupp stated:
“The turn of political events is in line with the wishes which I myself and the board of directors have cherished for a long time. In reorganizing the Reich Association of German Industry, I shall be guided by the idea of bringing the new organization into agreement with the political aims of the Reich Government.” (D-157)
The ideas of Krupp were subsequently adopted.
Under the decree introducing the leadership principle into industry, each group of industry was required to have a leader who was to serve without compensation. The leaders were to be appointed and could be removed at the discretion of the Minister of Economics. The charter of each group was to be created by the leader, who was obligated to lead his group in accordance with the principles of the National Socialist State (Reichsgesetzblatt, 1934, Part I, 1194, Sec. 11, 12, 16). The introduction of the leadership principle into the organizations of business centralized authority and guaranteed the efficient execution of orders, which the government issued to business, in the effort to promote a war economy.
The overwhelming support given by the German industrialists to the Nazi war program is described in a speech prepared by Gustav Krupp in January 1944, for delivery at the University of Berlin:
‘War material is life-saving for one’s own people, and whoever works and performs in those spheres can be proud of it. Here, enterprise as a whole, finds its highest justification of existence. This justification, I may inject this here, crystallized especially during the time of interregnum between 1919 and 1933, when Germany was lying down disarmed. *******
‘It is the one great merit of the entire German war economy that it did not remain idle during those bad years, even though its activity could not be brought to light for obvious reasons. Through years of secret work, scientific and basic groundwork was laid in order to be ready again to work for the German armed forces at the appointed hour without loss of time or experience.'”
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/imt/nca/nca-01/nca-01-08-economic-mobilization-02.html
Whew, they really hated that guy!
Buddha, you are confused by Hitler’s lies. The most effective lies are the ones sprinkled with the most actual truths. You have bought into the Nazi propaganda. Either that or you are merely cherry-picking some facts to form a caricature of what the Third Reich was actually about.
In Germany the aristocracy and business elite were generally repulsed by Hitler and the Nazis. But, when Hitler demonstrated that he wasn’t going away, these same elites decided it would be wise to put down some insurance money on the upstarts. This may have been reprehensible, but these decisions weren’t driven by anything like an ideological alliance between capitalism and Nazism. Corporations in Germany, like their counterparts today, tended to be opportunistic, not ideological.
The Nazis rose to power exploiting anticapitalist rhetoric they indisputably believed. The Nazi rank and file saw themselves as mounting a revolutionary assault on the forces of capitalism.
Hitler was a revolutionary. He despised the bourgeoise, traditionalists, aristocrats, monarchists, and all believers of the established order. A man of the left. A notion that the Marxist left resisted because it was they that were the force of good. Otherwise, revolutionaries would be bad.
Hitler viewed the bourgeoise like Lenin did. Hitler said “Our bourgeoise is already worthless for any human endeavor.”
Hitler was a reactionary insofar as he was trying to overthrow the entire millennium-of judeo-christian order to restore the paganism of antiquity–a mission shared by some on the left but none on the right today.
In Mein Kampf Hitler declares that he is a nationalist but not a patriot. Patriots revere the ideas, institutions, and traditions of a particular country and its government. The watchwords for nationalists are blood, soil, race, volk and so on. As a revolutionary nationalist, Hitler believed the entire beourgeois ediface of modern German culture was hollowed out by political and cultural corruption. As a result he believed Germany needed to rediscover his pre-Christian authenticity.
Hitler was in no way a conservative in any sense related to American conservatism. American conservatives seek to preserve both traditional values and the classical liberal creed enshrined in the Constitution. Hitler despised both of these.
While in Vienna, as a young man, he was introduced to National Socialism. Vienna at the turn of the century was the center of the universe for Aryan mumbo jumbo, the mystical power of the Hindu Swastica, etc. He wrote plays about pagan Bavarians bravely fighting off invading Christian priests trying to impose foreign beliefs on Teutonic civilizations. He spent his days wandering the poorer sections of the city, only to come home to work on grandiose city plans that included progressive housing for the working class. Then he would rail against the unearthed wealth of the aristocrats and the need for social justice.
The leading intellectual in Vienna touting “Teutonomania” was the neo-romantic “discovery” of German exceptionalism– was George Ritter von Schneider, who Hitler followed closely and called a “profound thinker.” He was an anti-semite and anti-Catholic.
After WWW, Hitler went to a meeting of the German Worker’s Party ready to dismiss it as just another left-wing fringe group. But one of the speakers was Gorrfried Feder, who impressed Hitler. The speech was “How and by What Means Is Capitalism to be Eliminated?” Feder was a populist who was obsessed with the distinction between exploitative and productive finance. Hitler recognized the power of Feder’s ideas and how they would appeal to the little guy. They were perfect for a party seeking to exploit resentment of national elites and, particularly, jews.
Hitler was also influenced by Anton Drexler who gave him a copy of the German Worker’s Party pamphlet, “My Political Awakening.” These views were nationalism, populism, anti-semiticsm, and non-Marxist socialism. Mussolini’s facsism did not play a discernible part in this early ideology of Hitlers. Hitler was the salesman of this prepackaged ideology, not the creator.
The 1920 Nazi platform was co-written by Hitler and Drexler and dedicated to the principle that “common good must come before self-interest.” The platform was in favor of universal education, guaranteed employment, increased entitlements for the aged, the expropriation of land without compensation, the nationalization on industry, the abolition of market based lending, the expansion of health services, and the abolition of child labor. Sounds more like the Buddha platform than a right wing one.
The nazis pursued a form of anticapitalist, antiliberal, and anticonservative communitarianism.. All the Nazi propaganda, law and literature insisted that none of the “conservative” or “bourgeois” categories should hold back any German from reaching their full potential. The tectonic divide between the National Socialists and the communists wasn’t over economics — though there were some doctrinal differences — but over the question of Nationalism. The Nazis were fighting over the social space of the left. They aimed to destroy the left first then go after the traditional right. They did this because they could appeal to the same left social base as their lefty opponents. Ultimately they would defeat both left and right and pursue a “third way.” In the real world the Nazis seized control of the country by dividing, conquering, and then replacing the left.
This is the part that has been airbrushed from history. The nazis campaigned as socialists. They were nationalist, but at the time the Soviets were internationalists. And the Soviets defined all nationalists as right wing. Hence your confusion. Nationalism isn’t inherently right wing unless you want to call Stalin, Castro, Arafat, Chavez, Guevara, pol pot, wilson Roosevelt and Kennedy right wing. Historically, nationalism was a liberal left phenomenon. At best the Nazis were right wing socialists. And right wing socialists are still socialists. Most of the Bolshevik revolutionaries that Stalin executed were right wing socialists and we have merely adopted that convention. Hitler borrowed whole sections from the communist playbook, the red flag, comrade nomenclature, appeals to class conscious proletarians.
Even after Hitler seized power and became more receptive to please from businessmen–the demands of the war machine demanded no less==party propaganda was still at aimed at workers. Hitler called himself an ex-worker.
Nazism also adopted another lefty fashion — identity politics. Hitler hated the communists not because of economic theory but because he saw them as a foreign Jewish conspiracy. He says this over and over in Mein Kamps. Otherwise Feder and Strasser produced doctrine right out of the Marxist playbook.
mespo,
Although I’m fully prepared if kdetroll wants to say Hitler wasn’t a vegetarian either, I’ll try to restrain myself. I wouldn’t want the facts to hurt anybody’s feelings.
Buddha:
Enough of your fact-laden “ad hominen” attacks on poor kde-troll-rosa. He is insulted beyond belief, feels that you have refuted his oxymoronic arguments not even one iota, and decries your historical analysis as simplistic and contrary to the reality that Hitler was neither fuhrer, nor fascist, nor even anti-semitic.
Buddha,
Yes, trying to place one scientist in the Number 1 position is almost equivalent to all of the world’s men—encompassing those myriad of cultural biases—attempting to vote for the Number 1 most beautiful woman in the world.