This is the second time in the past month that former Madison Mayor Paul Soglin has written something astonishingly ridiculous.
First, he compared Bill Ayers to someone who supported Newt Gingrich's Contract for America. Nail bombs and tax cuts, whatever.
But now he suggests - not metaphorically but literally - that Sarah Palin is a fascist - "a charismatic American political leader with a populist bent who can lead a viable political movement towards fascism."
He offers absolutely no support for this, seemingly basing his view on the fact that she is a social consrvative (the Nazis, incidentally, were not) and is, at least in style, a populist - what some have called a "Sam's Club conservative."
If I thought there was something close to a cogent argument there, I'd respond. But there isn't.
A commenter suggests that Paul get a grip. Some Lorazepam might help.
16 comments:
...social consrvative (the Nazis, incidentally, were not)...
I don't recall them legalizing gay marriage! If not conservative, then what? Not trying to be snarky, but seriously curious as to your thinking.
spice
Clearly, the left creates and lives a fantasy existences. Soglin should stick to hot dogs, biking and farmers markets where he seems to understand a little reality.
Spice
The nazis were actively hostile to Christianity trying to corrupt it by turning it into an extension of National Socialism. Hitler famously said that he wished to eradicate Christianity and repalce it with a religion grounded in nature and blood. They practiced eugenics. While they didn't want good Aryans to have abortions, they mandated them in occupied territories. They actively worked to undermine the authority of the family through compulsory membership in the Hitler Jugend or Bund Deutscher Madel. They were staunch advocates of gun control.
No they didn't legalize gay marriage but this doesn't look like the social conservatism to me.
♪♬ You won't believe me
All you will see is a girl you once knew
Although she's dressed up to the nines
At sixes and sevens with you
As for fortune, and as for fame
I never invited them in
Though it seemed to the world
they were all I desired
They are illusions
They are not the solutions
they promised to be
The answer was here all the time
I love you and hope you love me
Don't cry for me Matanuska-Susitna ♪♬
Rick-
While I don't agree with Soglin that Palin will push the GOP (or a splinter party) towards fascism, I do think that he has a point in the rest of the article. Maybe it will disappear after this election cycle, but there seems to be a split between the parts of the GOP that are fiscal conservatives first, and social moderates, and the part of the GOP that puts extreme social conservatism first, with fiscal conservatism on the backburner.
Then again, it may just seem this way in comparison to how united the republicans seemed for the past few election cycles.
Also, the social conservatism first crowd may actually seem bigger than it is, because of how more vocal they are. But who knows. Either way, it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
jimspice
Legalizing gay marriage wasn't an option - they killed gay people so there was nothing to legalize.
Solid point, anon 12:54
I'd add that I don't think the 3,000 Catholic Bishops, Priests and Deacons jailed at Dachau would agree that Hitler was over-friendly to Christians.
I gave two examples and surely you know how to Google.
So are you protecting all freedoms or just some that suit your purposes?
I'm not sure they killed gay people because some of Hitler’s top people were gay.
They killed Jews who were moral people, gypies, disabled and useless eaters.
The Nazi's were just the opposite of Judeo Christian people.
Tuerqas
What post and comments are Brian and Jimspice reading?
"Hitler famously said that he wished to eradicate Christianity and repalce it with a religion grounded in nature and blood."
WHO IS saying Hitler was friendly towards Christianity, Brian? Who are the Priests etc. not agreeing with?
They did not legalize gay marriage so Nazis were social conservatives? Stop smoking the spices Jim. Gay marriage was not even a topic in the 30s and 40s. They did not suppress the internet either, does that make them pro E-bay?
Lorazepam, eh?
What medication do we prescribe for commentators who find Obama Stalinesque? Or, rather, who find ways to mention Stalin when discussing Obama?
"A grip" might suffice, perhaps, if not for the suspicion that the grip is already a little too tight.
Hitler's platform, according to McIlheran (today's JSO)
He felt the government should alleviate poverty among the old, providing an adequate income when necessary. He wants the government to act to maintain a sound middle class, if necessary providing opportunities for work for those left unemployed. He believes large corporations should share their prosperity with their workers via profit-sharing plans. He supports universal access to higher education. The government should provide universal health care, especially for children, and it ought to provide them better opportunities for exercise, since they’re woefully unfit these days. It is time, he says, for the nation to unite, leave no citizen behind, to work as one and grant every member equal rights and duties.
Looks progressive to me!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum
This whole Nazi argument is pointless, and misses the more interesting argument that Soglin made.
-anon 12:45
I'm not sure they killed gay people because some of Hitler’s top people were gay.
"Only" about 15,000 of the 50k gay men they arrested and imprisoned were killed. Hitler's "top people" who were gay were all murdered after he became Führer, notably Ernst Röhm in 1934. Himmler singled them out for medical experiments.
The German government apologized to the "gay community" in 2002.
What medication do we prescribe for commentators who find Obama Stalinesque? Or, rather, who find ways to mention Stalin when discussing Obama?
None. People who understand the "positive/negative" rights issue have a clarity of vision and understanding. No clinical indicators for mental deficiency--as opposed to those who do not recognize what inverting the Constitution implies.
But it doesn't have to be Stalin. Nero, Elizabeth I, Louis XIV, and Pol Pot are sufficient examples of "positive rights" Governments.
heatherraddish -
The whole issue is still quite controversial and not clear-cut as was the extermination of Jews.
It is also believed that Hitler was homosexual and that homosexual charges where used against political opposition.
People who understand the "positive/negative" rights issue have a clarity of vision and understanding.
I had not heard, before now, that finding occasions to mention Stalin when discussing a presidential candidate was the normal means of communicating clarity regarding positive and negative rights.
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