Political "pet peeves"

[angus]

-I really had to restrain myself in my philosophy class today when my professor compared nazism to socialism. Talk about unfounded assertions....

This is a problem for you?  Idealism is idealism whether it is comes from the right or from the left.  There are many ways in which fascists and socialists are alike.  Your instructor made a comparison on a very narrow scope, and my guess is that he probably backed the comparison up logically and specifically, in order to make a point, but at that point you were too high on your indignation to pay attention to anything that he was saying.

I guess I have no political pet peeves, but I do admire the fact that all 20-year-olds seem to know everything about everything, even more than people who have dedicated their lives to studying and understanding a subject well enough to try to teach it to others.
  

[angus]

screw off.

LOL!  I do sound like a crusty old fart, don't I?  But I have an excuse.  I recently turned 45, so I'm allowed to be a little crusty.  What's your excuse for taking yourself so seriously?  Man, if you're already so uptight at your tender age, I'm frightened to imagine what a stonebreaker you'll be at my age.

[angus]

comparing the two as you began to smells very strongly of the right-libertarian's favorite inane activity, arguing that fascism was left-wing.  it rightfully will draw a visceral reaction out of those with a leftish sympathy.

No doubt.  Nevertheless, logic trumps viscera.  First, you cannot lump all fascists together in a little box.  The Japanese brand of fascism of the 1930s smelled very different than the Italian version.  (One smelled fishy, I suppose, while the other smelled a bit like oregano.)  Moreover, outside the insulated little world of this forum, no one ever claims that fascism was "left wing."  Oh, it comes up quite a bit here, the way Santorum refers to frothy excrement, but out in the real world folks don't really do that much.  At least my teachers always referred to fascism as "ultra conservative" or some such.  Still, they reasonably and aptly made a number of distinct comparisons between fascism and socialism, and between the respective governments of German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentropp and Soviet foreign minister Molotov, who were the signatories of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact.  The non-agression pact was farce, of course, and neither side intended to keep it, and Communists and Nazis are filled with mutual hate, but to fail to see striking and well-documented practical similarities between them amounts to willful ignorance.

Then again, there is a point of development in which all teenagers and twenty-something boys (especially boys) seem to know more than their teachers, their parents, and everyone else, and no one can tell them otherwise.  I know because I was there once as well.  
 

[angus]

Hitler stamped out the SA for a reason.

Hitler stamped out the SA, and a bunch of other troublemakers on the Night of the Long Knives, because Ernst Röhm was the only credible threat to his domination.  Sure, the SA often sided with workers during strikes, but Hitler wanted to be rid of them because they were getting too big for their breeches, becoming larger in number than the Reichswehr and threatening to win the sympathies of von Hindenburg.  

Sound familiar?  It should.  It's the sort of thing that the Soviets do as well.  The NKVD and the Gestapo were really not so different in their tactics.  They even had joint conferences during 1939 and 40 when the non-agression pact was still in effect, sharing "information gathering" techniques.  The slave labor camps, removal of children from their parents, dictatorship, information control, the control of populations by indoctrination and propaganda.  These are all techniques used by Nazis and the Soviets.

I've never claimed that fascists were "left wing" and I really don't think such claims are very common outside this forum, but we cannot overlook the similarities between fascists and socialists.  This sort of argument is like those I encounter when I walk into a roomful of oenophiles.  Some are drinkers of Pinot Grigio while others prefer Pinot Noir, and and they never seem to see eye to eye.  I walk into the room and say, "Well they really do have a lot in common."  And they look at me as if I'm mad.  "What?  How dare you compare the golden floral crispness of a pinot grigio to the edgy punch of a black pinot noir.  Screw off!"  And I say, "For starters, they're more like each other than either of them is like a tuna fish sandwich, and they're both from delicate stock.  And they're both are medium in body and in acidity..."  But by the time reality sets in the respective combatants are so entrenched in their stubborn arguments over how very different these two grapes are that there can be no turning back.  Then someone says, "Well, it's actually common among non-oenophiles to call a pinot grigio a red grape."  And I"m thinking, "WTF?  I have never called a pinot grigio a red grape.  Clearly it's a white grape.  Actually, light green.  When have I ever called a pinot grigio a red grape?!  Outside this forum I don't think I've ever heard anyone call a pinot grigio a red grape.  I simply said that pinot grigio and pinot noir have a great deal in common and the comparisons that your professors have made are apt and reasonable."  But it becomes such a matter of great pride for oenophiles to defend the indefensible statement that Pinot Grigio and Pinot Noir have absolutely nothing in common that no further intelligent discussion is possible.

[angus]

That's not really relevant to what we're talking about though.

That's exactly what we're talking about.  Or at least it's what I'm talking about.

Except those arguments are very common. It's a favorite tactic of american libertarians and many self-IDing conservatives (of the talk radio variety - see Beck, Savage, etc.) to claim Nazi Germany was leftist in character. Virtually all the big time libertarians have made arguments to that effect, just look at Hayek or Von Mises or a good chunk of Lew Rockwell. It should be noted though that people aren't necessarily disputing that socialists can be fascist, just that Nazism was left wing.

Dude wasn't talking about some talking heads, he was talking about an academic.  And he didn't say anything about Glen Beck calling Nazis "left wing" he said his prof was comparing socialists and fascists.  Such comparisons are apt, as you readily admit.  Beyond that, you're going pretty far astray with this, and certainly taking my comments out of context, which is what I suspect the OP was doing with his professor.