Who Has Killed More?

[phee]

I love to be amusing!

[Msterbeau]

I was amused once. It sucked.

[Paper Hearts]

Well, I may not be the most eloquent of people, but I'm not a maniac either; and I think you'd find that is a fair enough trade...and at any rate, a better way to begin speaking.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

I've always had the impression that Nazism was a type of fascism. Similar to how communism is a >type

But i think at any rate we probably could agree that its generally accepted (not that you, the reader feel this way) that Fascist/NS is considered to be a "right wing" concept and that communism/socialism is a "left wing" concept.

The more i research though the less useful right/left becomes. There is such a large spectrum of political thought that to simplify it as right/left seems to leave endless room for confusion.

But forced to "pick" and actually answer the topic post. I guess i'd have to say that so called "left wing liberal" thinking has tended to produce more violence. If everyone just remained state controlled single minded beings for long enough, eventually there would be no abrasiveness from the left to start any conflict.

Not sure thats a "good" thing.

You could also argue that if there was no attempt to "force" ideas from the top down (traditionally considered from "The right") that the "left" would have no reason to exist. A truly classless society wouldn't have right/left concepts.

You basically have to have a left for there to be a right and vice versa. They are sort of codependant for their existence. In that sense one side can be blamed for the others actions in a infinite mirror type fashion.

[Paper Hearts]

I've always had the impression that Nazism was a type of fascism. Similar to how communism is a >type< of socialism. Specific brands of a more generalized concept. Sort of like one is the genus the other is the species.

But i think at any rate we probably could agree that its generally accepted (not that you, the reader feel this way) that Fascist/NS is considered to be a "right wing" concept and that communism/socialism is a "left wing" concept.

The more i research though the less useful right/left becomes. There is such a large spectrum of political thought that to simplify it as right/left seems to leave endless room for confusion.

But forced to "pick" and actually answer the topic post. I guess i'd have to say that so called "left wing liberal" thinking has tended to produce more violence. If everyone just remained state controlled single minded beings for long enough, eventually there would be no abrasiveness from the left to start any conflict.

Not sure thats a "good" thing.

You could also argue that if there was no attempt to "force" ideas from the top down (traditionally considered from "The right") that the "left" would have no reason to exist. A truly classless society wouldn't have right/left concepts.

You basically have to have a left for there to be a right and vice versa. They are sort of codependant for their existence. In that sense one side can be blamed for the others actions in a infinite mirror type fashion.

I think you're pretty fair, but I want to just suggest that sometimes conservatives have or want revolutions over other conservatives. Not all conservatives agree with each other and some are actually quite hostile towards one another. Although it would be true that no matter the revolution, one group will always be further left and another group further right...it can happen where both sides in disagremment or even violence, are conservatives. The American Revolution could be one example of that and another might be the violence between opposed sects of Islam, In Iraq, today. The same can be true for progressives.

I'm sure though, that for each class uprising that has ever turned into war, you'll find five more wars began by elite classes. And between these two possibilities I'd estimate that fighting for what you feel is freedom...be that end Communism or whatever and no matter how it turns out...without trying to defend murderers...is a cause always more worthwhile than fighting for the private interests of your rulers. I'm not sure why our Conservatives would point to worker's struggles to try to demonstrate to people how Liberals are people who merely want to spill blood and steal freedom (as if to say to us that these people get so carried away in trying to defend themselves from us, they sometimes have murder sprees and afterwards don't know how to impose rule and sometimes even want to make everyone have an equal share)...but I suppose in a way it's the only ammunition they really have, if they do want to mislead people into believing that.

I also want to submit, in closing, that most conservatives identify the Nazis with the right wing--but here is an example of some conservatives thinking differently than other conservatives. It's just too ironic though, how after many years, a few of the most revolutionary American conservative thinkers...not even European conservatives, but Americans...suddenly perceive and disclose that Nazis and Fascists are not only leftists but ultra-left. Even though I'm sure that all but about ninetynine percent of people will begin to believe them...in general, they probably only discredit themselves.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

Im just going to delete the rude comentary rather than waste my time explaining the dgn conduct rules over and over to the same people. If my fingers get tired of pressing delete on posts ill just click on the user names that i see screwing up the civil conduct we have here. Most of us know when we are adding fuel to the fire and also know that two wrongs dont make a right. If your HONESTLY confused about what is civil and what isnt... then just dont post it.

If your going to post something rude... just stop. If your pissed off that somone else posted something rude, and you want to be rude in resposne... just dont. If you truely feel somone is being a jackass outside of the dgn conduct rules and you'd like to see it stop, and you absolutely cannot seem to PM a mod about it, the "calm down please dude" post should be calm and civil.

Having said that this forum isn not about teaching people to play nice, its about its stated subjects as all forums are.

Questions/comments about any of this? See the DGN rules or PM me or another mod with a specific link to what it is your not happy about. There is a "report" button under every post that will automaticly link the post and you can put your problem/issue right there with it.

Anyhow:

I also want to submit, in closing, that most conservatives identify the Nazis with the right wing--but here is an example of some conservatives thinking differently than other conservatives. It's just too ironic though, how after many years, a few of the most revolutionary American conservative thinkers...not even European conservatives, but Americans...suddenly perceive and disclose that Nazis and Fascists are not only leftists but ultra-left. Even though I'm sure that all but about ninetynine percent of people will begin to believe them...in general, they probably only discredit themselves.

I guess this too , could be argued. I think its widely accepted by people who actually care about such things enough to ponder them for more than 10 seconds that nasism is best viewed as "right wing".

But i guess you could from a historical perspective consider nazism as "left wing" if you put a lazer beam on certain aspects of it. But the same could be said for just about anything level of complexity. I really feel like a lot of polarized viewpoints , are just a lack of perspective and willingnesss to change ones position in light of new information. It was considered a "working class/working poor" movement at least in its retorhic and recrutiment.

Rapidly became our man hitler & pals became a statist regime once they came to power (thus the common "right wing" view of it). The fact that they replaced a what was considered to be at the time a fairly recently liberalized government also makes it a quick contrast.

Im really suprized your saying that it is viewed as leftist by what i assume is a decently large number of people. Really seems like a easily dispitued viewpoint that i'd not really heard anywhere publicly. I think most would agree you view something by what its fruits are, not nessiarily what its stated retorhic is. Hrmm.. guess that could be argued against pretty easily as well.. damnit. I need to close my mind a bit.

Too often i think people start out with some entrenched idea and then say "ok leme go find some stuff to prove this" rather than starting with the information and seeing what they can glean from it.

"Ok here is all the shit i know.. what conclusions can we make?"

Is better i think than:

"Ok i've decided i like X .. what shit can i find to prove it?"

Im not saying that you, paper hearts are not being fair im just running my mouth about the concept.

This coloring of everything that is "good" by people that consider themselves leftists is painted as being "left" and the same for the right in that "good" things are almost always painted as as "right wing" is a mistake.

I think im being fairly honest with myself in saying that life is not so clearly black & white. Im not sure how intelligent, well-meaning people can come to such polarized views if they really are trying to honestly find whatever the truth is of a situation.

I think its important to just let things set in our minds for awhile and come up with the best view of reality we can. To be open to the idea that it might be incorrect no matter how long we spent thinking about it if new information comes along. Rather than starting from a premise that we "know for sure" that something is, and just stack our mental house of cards in favor of whatever that happens to be.

...damn i should just make a macro with the last two paragraphs.

[Paper Hearts]

^Oh no, the "left" are capable of a lot of bad, but the left didn't start the topic...and in order that I stay on topic, associating myself more with the left I've chosen a defensive position. That said, I'm actually not so confident in the left-right scale that we use, and in the first...I'm not sure what the absolute extremes at either ends are, I suppose different people could consider different things the extremes...and I'm not confident that the American political scene shows or represents a very central point by which to mark a middle. If anarchy is at one of the extremes of the scale (because I'm not sure what lies beyond that), I'm sure that it's possible to both progress to anarchy and to revert to it. So what I'm inclined to believe is that our scale is not so much a line with equal lengths from the middle, but rather a circle, without a true center. That is, progressive and conservative are situational terms and actually can literally fluctuate. Also, associations that we generalize as necessarily left, as in Communism, or right, as in Fascism, are really only based on the present.

But when I talk about popular views on political groups like the Nazis or the Fascists, I'm speaking of those views held by a majority of prominent scholars. And those people are looking back on situations with a birds-eye view and never basing their decisions on what is "tradition". Interestingly though, recently there have been a couple of Libertarian scholars, who hold views unpopular with most Libertarians, yet who are prominent enough, who have placed the Fascists and Nazis as ultra-leftists. And Ironically, they also place themselves (Libertarians) as left-wing on the spectrum...although the nation puts them on the right, and the world puts them on the right and although the nation and world puts Fascism and Nazism on right. But lo and behold they've had some influence on modern conservative thought rather than leftist thought and begining (convieniently) and ending with the NeoCon...who are even more ironically...at hostile odds with Libertarian thought mongers like the people who dreamt the notion up.

[Paper Hearts]

It's just hit me that if Hitler is a hippy and Jesus a Republican we should at least switch their hairstyles. Is anyone willing to use their image editor to show us what that would look like?

[BrassFusion]

I feel it's my civic duty.

[Paper Hearts]

I feel it's my civic duty.

Now that shit is funny!

And it's just occured to me that if we combined the two of them, we'd have Mel Gibson.

[BrassFusion]

Now that shit is funny!

And it's just occured to me that if we combined the two of them, we'd have Mel Gibson.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

Heh... went from "who killed more" to we know how many they killed we just arent sure"who is who."

[BrassFusion]

To "Mel Gibson is both the Antichrist and the Christ."

This is like one of those awesome videogames where the villain isn't really necessarily the villain and you can identify with him and at the end when you beat it you can choose to worship him and rule alongside him as master of the cosmos. Except it's Mel Gibson.

SOMEONE NEEDS TO MAKE THIS GAME.

[sass_in_the_pants]

What if I'm ambidextrous?

Does that put me on the right or the left?