More on (moron) Political Schools of thought...

In my last post, in addition to lamenting the decaying state of political discourse (in-box politics, bumper-sticker politics and beagle politics), I also tried to make the case that the hard-Right Wing has co-opted the word “conservative” to mean what “right-wing radical” used to, and sufficiently demonized the word “liberal” to the point where most people would rather be set on fire than be labeled one.  In other words, they’ve pulled the whole not notion of Left, Center and Right… to the Right. WAY to the right. I’ve argued this before, but something came to me recently that got me thinking…

There are a couple bits of revisionist history that have become rather fashionable for the Right lately. (And let's face it: After the eight year cavalcade of failure that was the George W. Bush administration, some revisionist history is deperately needed by them!)  The first is that George W. Bush wasn’t really a Conservative at all! Apparently the fact that he had huge deficits and huge federal budgets somehow makes him a liberal. And somehow if he were only MORE like Ronald Regan everything would have worked out. The problem with that? Bush was decidedly MORE Conservative that Reagan in just about every way imaginable. Reagan cuts taxes, Bush cut them MORE. And Regan eventually raised some taxes (six times in eight years, in fact) while Bush never did. Reagan waged a Cold War, while Bush waged a decidedly hot war - two, in fact; which for the first six years of his administration accounts for the bulk of his increased spending. Forget detent: he went for Regime Change!  And while both had huge deficits, the only budget cutting Bush did was to the budgets of federal regulatory agencies. (That worked out really well, huh?) What's more, Reagan practically INVENTED the culture of deficit spending, but that's outside the scope of this post.  And finally while Reagan appointed Sandra Day O’Connor - a famous swing-vote - to the Supreme Court, Bush replaced her with Samuel Alito, a hard-Right Wing Reactionary. So seriously folks, don’t make me laugh: Bush’43 was not only to the Right of Reagan and Bush’41, he was WELL to the Right of them.

And with that in mind, I have to ask:

How far to the Right does one need to be for George W. Bush to look like a Lefty?

I mean… where the hell do you put the center if George W. Bush is supposed to be a liberal?

But the other thing we hear a lot lately, especially with all this “Obama is a Nazi” bullshit going around, is that HITLER was really a Liberal, or a Leftist. Now… as absurd as it is call BUSH’43 a liberal, where the fuck can one get that idea about ADOLPH FUCKING HITLER?! OK… to be fair, there is SOME evidence for it, assuming that you look at it VERY simplistically; almost stupidly, really.

First – The Nazi’s were originally called the “National Socialist Party.” So there’s that word, “Socialist.” That means liberal, right? Well, no, not at all really. (Morons.) But even putting that aside, in the 1930’s, “Socialist” wasn’t quite the epithet that it is now. Back then, it was the kind of label (like, “Conservative” today) that could actually be adopted as a selling point. But in many cases, it really meant absolutely nothing at all. It was just marketing ploy. There was nothing “Socialist” about them. It’s no more meaningful than when Kim Jong Ill calls his country the “Democratic Republic of North Korea.” (Or how Communist East Germany was called the “Democratic Republic of Germany.”) There’s nothing Democratic about ‘em, and there was nothing Socialist about the Nazi’s. It’s a LABEL and nothing more.

Second – It’s been argued that you can’t really place Fascism on a Left-Right spectrum. And that’s sort of true, if you put Communism on the far Left and Capitalism on the Right, since Fascism actually rejects BOTH. Now… to the Righties in this country, with their binary mode of thinking, any rejection of Capitalism MUST therefore be an full embrace of Communism, thus Fascism = Communism. Now… 20 Million dead Russians, felled by Nazi Bullets in WWII might argue otherwise, but… there dead. So I’ll have to.

Here’s why that particular Right-Left analogy is flawed, putting aside the fact that Fascists generally HATE liberals, HATE minorities, HATE dissent, HATE Academia, Intellectualism, etc… While Communism can be viewed as both a Political System and an Economic System, CAPITALISM can not be. Capitalism is primarily ONLY an Economic System. And likewise, Fascism can also not be: It’s not an Economic System at all. It goes so far as to reject economics as the primary driver of human behavior – an idea that lies at the heart of both Communism and Capitalism. It’s purely a Political system. So when we’re talking about ECONOMIC systems, you can certainly put Communism / Socialism on the Left and Capitalism on the Right, while Fascism doesn’t really fit in ANYWHERE. (And “Capitalism” itself can vary in its own level of regulation as well, and yet still remain on the Right!) But, if we’re limiting ourselves to discussion Political Systems, Communism ends up on the far left, Liberal Democracy lies near the Center and Fascism represents the Right. The FAR Right, fine, but if you can accept that, I have to ask…

…How far to the Right do you need to be to look to your Left and see Adolph Hitler?

(I’m looking at YOU, Glenn Beck!)