Hey, I heard this for 8 years under President Bush and for the past six months under President Obama. If both political parties are calling our government a Nazi government perhaps we should look a little closer.
And when a sitting Senator says it then we should really pay attention.
LIDDY: But there’s something else that I remember because I’m a lot older than you are and it’s called national socialism and that’s where the government allows private people to continue to own industrial capacity and what have you but tells them what they may — must do with it. You know, you will make Messerschmidts, etc. That was national socialism. That seems to me the way we’re going.
DEMINT: You’re right we’ve got national socialism, national paternalism and our form of socialism seems more benign than the classical form that we noted in Europe.
Sigh. A seated Senator who thinks this is a Nazi government. Who elects these idiots? I know, I know. We do.
Even if Sen. Demint was using a rhetorical flourish, he should at least be mindful that he who calls the opposition “Nazi” has run out of arguments and has lost the debate. I hope he weeps in the Senate when he gives his apology to his colleagues like somebody else that we know. Oh, nuts, I really don’t care if he apologizes or not. He has already lost respect from me.
Did I miss something here? Your post refers to national socialism and Demint is quoted as saying it’s “benign” compared to the classic for noted in Europe..
Benign:
1. having a kindly disposition; gracious: a benign king.
2. showing or expressive of gentleness or kindness: a benign smile.
3. favorable; propitious: a series of benign omens and configurations in the heavens.
4. (of weather) salubrious; healthful; pleasant or beneficial.
5. Pathology. not malignant; self-limiting.
I personally think Demint is being rather kind to the Obama Admin. Many folks, including myself believe this socialism is far from benign and will have a lasting terrible economic effect on this nation that will do away with many of our liberties.
This is a far nicer depiction of the Obama Admin compared to the left actually calling Bush Hitler and even making a moving depicting his assassination.
As far as Demints analogy.. GM has been nationalized but not to the point of Messerschmidt. You will see GM start making small tin cans at the bidding of the government not based on market trends. What about the impending nationalization of health care?
How is his analogy wrong and exactly where is it referred to as Nazism.
National Socialism is the descriptive name of the ideology of the Nazi party in Hitler’s Germany. The Party’s proper name was National Socialist German Worker’s Party. I think when Demint said ‘benign’, he meant that the thuggishness of the Nazi Party is not evident in the Obama Administration, hence, benign.
In any case, I agree with you that the leftists that equated Bush with Hitler were deranged. That was kind of my point in this posting that after 8 years of extremists on the left calling Bush Hitler and, now, after 6 months we have rightwing extremists comparing the Obama Administration to National Socialists, perhaps we citizens should begin to wonder if both sides are correct. Perhaps we are descending into a fascist pool regardless of which party the President originates from. Or, at least, that characterization will be the mantra of the other party after the elections.
Obama had the opportunity to nationalize the banking system and he chose Capitalism. He had the opportunity to actually run the auto industry and he chose capitalism by having America take a fiduciary interest in the companies. How much more capitalistic can you get? He did not nationalize the company.He gave money for stock, for goodness’ sake.
Ownership and investment for the long term are capitalist approaches. True, it is not laissez-faire capitalism but it is capitalism nonetheless.
Now you have car manufacturers coming out of bankruptcy as a result of the government’s efforts. When the smoke and the emotion clears, you will find that we-the-taxpayers paid for the cost of GM bankruptcy from our national treasury instead of from GM’s coffers. We are eating the costs of GM’s failures in management. Why? Because our politician’s figured out that it was better to have the USA eat the cost rather than GM. Better to publicly blame the government than GM management on any actions that had to be taken.
On another note, I think that people don’t know the meaning of words anymore. The Obama Administration is NOTHING like the National Socialist Party. Neither was George Bush’s Administration.
I was snarky that both sides of the aisle appear to consider our government like Hitler’s Germany. It is nothing like that…yet. However, it does show that both Republican and Democrats whip out the Nazi comparison to anger-up their ‘base’.
I think that everyone should be very careful in throwing around words like ‘socialism’. The unknowing will use the word incorrectly and further propagate the ignorance in America. I have knowingly used the word incorrectly several times because it is convenient to use the popular expression instead of the accurate one. However, I have only used the words National Socialist to describe some very specific behaviors exhibited by some very specific people.
Sorry for the long reply. I hope that I have addressed everything in your comment.
Me thinks Zach doth protest too much…
He said “…we’ve got national socialism, national paternalism and our form of socialism seems more benign than the classical form that we noted in Europe”.
Are you saying that anyone who calls our “change” in government a “form of socialism” is really calling it nazism?
Why? Because it conveniently labels them a kook and distracts from their argument?
Dude, we can ride the name calling marry-go-round all day. just tell me how his argument is incorrect.
Hi, Rabbit
I think Sen. Demint is careless with his words as so many of us can be. As I said above, the Obama Administration is nothing like the National Socialist German Worker (Nazi) Party in Germany.
We all need to read up on the five types of capitalism and recognize that the change away from laissez-faire capitalism of the 1990s does not mean that we are moving towards socialism or Nazi-ism.
And you can blame President Clinton for signing the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, brought to him by a Republican Congress, for the financial services meltdown last year (my opinion).
We need change, for sure. And we need more of it.
Capitalism needs a bridle so the racehorse is under control.
Sorry for confusing you for Zach. Good post.
I don’t know what I protested, considering I didn’t write the original blog entry or the first response.
Sorry about the 2 comments… Feel free to delete one cause they both say about the same. Either your comments where goofy today or my computer:-)
Silent, for some reason your first comment got caught in our spam filter….I’ve deleted it though.