I found this on the web and have included my hasty response.
They Were Socialist Monsters (by Thomas Colton Ruthford)
During the past several months in the American press, the Democrats have frequently denounced the Republicans as Nazis due to their attempts to control runaway federal spending. How very ironic. I remember the Nazis. Let me share a little about them and recall some of their exploits.
First of all, "Nazi" was gutter slang for the verb "to nationalize." The Bider-Mienhoff gang gave themselves this moniker during their early struggles. The official title of the Nazi Party was "The National Socialist Workers Party of Germany." Hitler and the Brownshirts advocated the nationalization of education, health care, transportation, national resources, manufacturing, distribution, and law enforcement.
Hitler came to power by turning the working class, unemployed, and academic elite against the conservative republic. After Der Fuhrer's election ceased being a political conspiracy and was transformed into a fashionable social phenomenon, party membership was especially popular with educators, bureaucrats, and the press.
Being a Nazi was "politically correct." They called themselves "The Children of the New Age of World Order" and looked down their noses at everyone else. As Hitler acquired more power, he referred to his critics as "The Dark Forces of Anarchy and Hatred." Anyone who questioned Nazi high-handedness in the German press was branded a "Conservative Reactionary." Joseph Goebbels, minister of communications, proclaimed a "New World Order."
The Nazi reign of terror began with false news reports on the Jews, Bohemians, and Gypsies who were said to be arming themselves to overthrow the "New World Order," and Hitler demanded that all good people register their guns so that they wouldn't fall into the hands of "terrorists and madmen." Right-wing fanatics of the "Old Order" who protested firearms registration were arrested by the S.S. and put in jail for "fomenting hatred against the Government of the German people."
Then the Reichstag (government building) was blown up, and Hitler ram-rodded an "Emergency Anti-Terrorist Act" through Parliament that gave the Gestapo extraordinary powers. The leader then declared that for the well-being of the German people, all private firearms were to be confiscated by the Gestapo and the Wermotten (federal law enforcement and military). German citizens who refused to surrender their guns, when the "jack-boots" (Gestapo) came calling, were murdered in their homes. By the way, the Gestapo were the federal marshals' service of the Third Reich. The S.W.A.T. team was invented and perfected by the Gestapo to break into the homes of the enemies of the German people.
"This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!"
Adolf Hitler, 1935
<Snip>
Continue:
http://home.eol.ca/~smithda/exeden/acn.html:puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke:
I wrote a quick reply to this and mailed it to him:
I am writing you since I read the short article "They Were Socialist
Monsters" (by Thomas Colton Ruthford) on your website.
http://home.eol.ca/~smithda/exeden/acn.htmlThe article has many major falsehoods that need to be addressed.
The first falsehood is the 1935 quote on Gun control. This quote is fake.
The only Gun control law passed in Germany was in 1928 by the Weimar
Republic in response to attempted coups from the left and right. This law
was re-enacted in 1938 by the Nazis. But in 1935, no gun legislation was
acted on at all in the Reichstag. This is a solid fact.
Second: Nazis does not mean "to nationalize," for it is an acronym of the
German name of the party :Nationalsozialismus. Notice the NA, ZI, ISM.
That is the true origin.
Next, the claim of socialism is not supported by the facts despite the name.
The Nazis came to power because they were seen as the last defense of
capitalism from the communists.
Excerpt from Wikipedia:
Because Nazism is an abbreviation for "National Socialism", and Nazi leaders
sometimes described their ideology as a form of socialism, some people
believe that Nazism was a form of socialism, or that there are similarities
between Nazism and socialism. It has also been argued that the Nazi use of
economic intervention, including central planning and some limited public
ownership, is indicative of socialism.
Nazi leaders were opposed to the Marxist idea of class conflict and opposed
the idea that capitalism should be abolished and that workers should control
the means of production. For those who consider class conflict and the
abolition of capitalism as essential components of socialist progress, these
factors alone are sufficient to categorize "National Socialism" as
non-socialist.
Nazi leaders made statements describing their views as socialist, while at
the same time opposing the idea of class conflict espoused by the Social
Democrats (SPD) and Communists (KPD). Established socialist movements did
not view the Nazis as socialists and argued that the Nazis were thinly
disguised reactionaries. Historians such as Ian Kershaw also note the links
between the Nazis and the German political and economic establishment and
the significance of the Night of the Long Knives in which Hitler purged what
were at the time seen as "leftist" elements in the Nazi Party and how this
was done at the urging of the military and conservatives.
Many of the traditional center and right political parties of the Weimar
Republic accused the Nazis of being socialists citing planks in the Nazis'
party program which called for nationalization of trusts and other socialist
measures. However, the German National People's Party (DNVP), the most
important party on the mainstream right, usually treated the Nazis as a
respected potential member of coalition cabinet.
The Nazis came to power through an alliance with traditional conservative
forces. Franz von Papen, a very conservative former German Chancellor and
former member of the Catholic Centre Party supported Hitler for the position
of Chancellor and later became an important Nazi official. The Enabling Act
which gave the Nazis dictatorial powers passed only because of the support
of conservative and centrist deputies in the Reichstag, over the opposition
of Social Democrats and Communists.
Continue reading and we learn that the Nazis abandoned most anti-big
business views when they took power. Not very Marxist, are they?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NaziThe claims of calling the Press reactionary? Just plain made up. The same
is said of the Clergy who were persecuted. They were not attacked for being
Christians, for unlike today, Christians Followed the command to treat the
least of us as they would Jesus. Catholics and Protestants opposed the
treatment of Jews and other Human Beings and later the rush to war. This is
solidly Christian, but sadly, called leftist today.
The writers claims of redistribution did not happen. The solid fact is the
Nazis were supported because they opposed this.
I wrote you because I want you to properly argue your point without using
this obviously factually challenged work of literature. I consider myself a
liberal Democrat, and my take is that the Nazis were a Right-Center party of
Germany that had its greatist skill in Propoganda. After taking power, they became an ultra-rightwing authoritarian regime and the rest is history. I see claims that they were Pure socialists or leftists. The fact is that
the Nazis were not Progressives or Conservatives. They were a category of
their own. Neither fully Capitalist or Socialist, they used the name to
fool those wanting socialism to their side, while saying "no" to wealth
redistribution and class warfare to claim the die-hard anti-marxists.
I respect your valiant defense of your ideological side, but I say that if
you truly want to defend it, You should fact check this article by Thomas
Colton Ruthford and remove it.
Sincerely,
********
The main website is down, but I found several more copies of this article on the web. This is worse than Bush's SOTU.
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