Political "pet peeves"

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

-I really had to restrain myself in my philosophy class today when my professor compared nazism to socialism. Talk about unfounded assertions. Then he brought up the classic Hayek argument that ultimately even if Hitler oppressed socialists and hated their values, they're still similar because they believe in social planning. The entirety of the right-libertarian thread of thought makes me incredibly angry. If I had to interact with these people on a regular basis, I'd off myself.

Note: I'm not necessarily talking about libertarians but those who subscribe to Ayn Rand/Lew Rockwell's philosophy and see no purpose for any sort of governmental social policy and don't really support the concept of popular sovereignty. They have the tendency towards extreme revisionism to the point where I can't agree with one of their extremist interpretations of passages in famous works like the Wealth of Nations .

-"America isn't ready for a female president." - shut up, idiot!

-"Rich people vote for Republicans, poor people for Democrats." - I'm on your team but you're a moron.

Post yours here.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

-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.
  

Screw off. You weren't present in the classroom and you haven't been in any classrooms with this professor. I actually like him and his teaching style, I just disagree with most of his points. This one was particularly odious and slanted.

He's not a historian or poli sci professor and he was trying to make a specific point about the historical trends that created fascism and nazism. He was out of his field here. Yet again: screw off. I don't need your lecture on a situation you know nothing about.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

This is one of those great perspective questions. I comment here not on your situation with your professor, or on angus's assertion, but in general, because this is an assertion that libertarians make a lot, isn't it? I can see why a libertarian might ignore the entire weight of historical evidence to posit a relationship. The libertarian sees everything from the lens of the singular variable that libertarian-ism deems important. The orange and the pear may be different fruits, but they are both un-banana-like, and in that sense very similar to one another. They are similar in their un-banana-ism. After all, the stars in the constellations look close to each other.

This is basically what I was alluding towards (that and the historical ignorance of those who would like to posit such claims). It's not that I have a problem with libertarianism; it's more that I have a problem with their analytical process that is so far removed from mine and that oftentimes is nonsensical. The way they view policy quandaries makes me want to bash my head against the wall.