Superficially, there is a resemblance between the complaints of the Nazis and contemporary conservatives that “culture” is under attack, that the nation is becoming decadent.
Similarly, there is a superficial resemblance between the glorification of Nation by the Nazis and contemporary conservatives.
But these similarities exists at the level of words only. They “exist”, to the extent they exist, only in the minds capable of classing, as one example, the mass execution of political criminals by the Cheka as similar in kind, as a form of “justice”, to that of asking a jury of someone’s peers to reach a fair and appropriate verdict. Both can be called justice, but only one represents, for the sane, anything of the sort.
The Nazis placed no value on human life. Early on, they started gassing, with carbon monoxide or possibly carbon dioxide, children with birth defects, the insane and the feeble. Why? Such people did not serve their aims.
Americans, in contrast, historically, place value on all human life, or try to. Margaret Sanger was absolutely connected ideologically, in harmony with, the culture of the Nazis which saw some humans as inferior. This is the “culture” the Nazis were extolling. This was the concrete content.
Thus, when she says “We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.”, her aim and ideal are absolutely culturally connected to Nazi notions of culture, but not traditional American, traditional Christian, notions of culture.
The “culture” which conservatives want to protect is not a fixed set of idea, but a fixed set of ideals, such as the notions of genuine tolerance, the willingness to listen, civic mindedness in the sense of being willing always to lend a helping hand where needed, a passion for the impartial application of the law, and the notion that everyone deserves a fighting chance in life.
These are American ideals. This IS our culture. This is what conservatives want to defend. This is what we see when we see the flag. This is what we see when we say America is great. None of us are claiming America is perfect, but few of us are so stupid that we do not see that the aim of the left wing propagandists is to damage our healthy self respect and self esteem in such a way that we can be weakened, perhaps to the point of collapse, or perhaps to the point of granting power to lunatics who share none of these ideals.
When we say culture, we mean things like “listen before you speak”, “tell the truth”, “give everyone a chance”, as well as “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me”, and “you can’t make a good deal with a bad person”. Common sense, tempered with a genuinely humanitarian spirit. Goodness. These obviously are not our omnipresent realities, but long have been our very widely dispersed ideals, which a great many of us have long attempted to live up to. It is our very willingness to assume responsibility which has been ABUSED by propagandists to push many of us far too far into self loathing, into lies about our history and that of the world, and into idiotic, anti-humanitarian, devastating, and horrifying political idea.
It’s all very confusing to me how so many smart people can be so fucking stupid. Can remain stupid, across lifetimes, across careers, across countless pieces of countervailing evidence which at every juncture should have sufficed.
I am proud of our culture. Unlike the Left, I do not believe people should be judged as groups. I do not believe that human life is unimportant. I believe everyone should receive fairness and justice, and that sometimes fairness and justice to all of us shows people getting kicked in their asses, kicked out of this country, jailed, and perhaps in some cases executed, although I am no hawk on capital punishment. I believe fairness and justice sometimes means war, although in recent years I think most of the wars we have fought have been instigated by power elites for money and power.
I do not understand the feebleness of mind which animates so much of the Left. My on-going hypothesis is that most of them are animated by extraordinary levels of fear, and highly unstable personalities. By the sorts of traits, in other words, custom made for Nazism and its many cousins.
Americans, acting as traditional Americans, are absolutely immune to authoritarianism. Our culture makes inroads impossible. It is for this reason that our culture is under attack by those who would subvert our system and our liberty.
But it is precisely the culture of our opponents which is filled with death, disease, vanity, mental illness, and horror. This has become very, very easy to see in recent years, although it has long been clear to those with eyes.
What do I want? Honest debate. MORE free speech. Less intrusive government. That anyone old enough to have completed grade school could confuse this with Nazism is a testament to the naivete which remains possible in our system because it works so well. We have children everywhere parading around in 30-40-50-60-70 year old bodies. It is pathetic. Ludicrous. Something which should be impossible.
I will comment finally that I found Hitler’s obsession with Karl May interesting. May wrote books about people’s and places he had never visited, about whom he knew nothing but what he read. Hitler took this to mean that you could know everything you needed to know about a people simply by using your imagination.
If one looks to the Left, and its relationship with Trump presently, you see an embodiment of this particular (and inexcusable, in an educated person) delusion. They don’t need to talk to Trump supporters. They don’t need to watch his speeches. They don’t need this antiquated artifact “evidence”. He is what they insist he is, because that is how they have imagined him. They are walking in Hitler’s bootsteps in their determined ignorance and bigotry. That is literally how bad it is. Again, I can’t but shake my head at the mindboggling stupidity of this, particularly as mouthed in naked lies about tolerance, openness, and compassion.