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Originally Posted by Maru
@Bold I don't see that quote.
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"The great sacrament of the left, abortion. You'll be pleased to know that Hitler was pro-choice."
It goes on to talk more specifically about genetic selection / Aryan breeding but the choice of language here is very telling about the author, I would say. This is someone who had their opinion long ago and has gone in search of information to bolster their prejudice - "Aha! Here's a juicy one I can use..." - rather than someone who has gone into this with a genuine sense of curiosity for history. That makes the entire article suspect, for me.
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We know nationalism is linked to authoritarianism, but as you say, he enacted left-leaning policy to keep the public happy. So, while he himself is far-right, the enablers of his platform were more left-leaning, probably far left-leaning (I mean how much privilege would be needed to get you to support so much atrocity?...)..
That's where I think the left-right schema sort of leaves us to wander alone, because you can't say the movement is entirely right-leaning when you need left-leaning policies/agenda to hold it all together (to essentially keep support)...
I don't know how these things play out in the UK, but in the US, most young people wouldn't know what socialism is, even when they support it. If you ask them what it means. Most would know what a Nazi is, and they would only associate it to the far right because of the media... so they don't maybe understand enough to know how two very different platforms could lead to essentially the same thing.
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He wasn't
far right, the political compass in the original post is pretty accurate; he was highly authoritarian, and economically just right-of-centre.
But personally I think the four point compass illustrates perfectly the general misunderstanding that people have about political leanings these days; the Y axis is much more relevant to understanding a regime like the Nazis than the X axis. Right and Left are largely irrelevant; he used economics as a tool to further his extreme authoritarianism, and would have (and potentially did) go back and forth over that line depending on what best suited his goals at the time. In other words... His ideology was authoritarianism and racial supremacy, with left/right leanings being an afterthought.
These days people seem to think that it's a flat scale from left to right, and that this describes all political leanings and ideologies. Hence terms like "lefties" and "alt-right" when there is barely any similarity at all between a far left liberal and a far left authoritarian. In fact, if anything, a left leaning liberal will have FAR more in common with a right leaning liberal than they will with a left leaning authoritarian.
Then of course, these days it's just a total mess because of the added element of selfishness. Which basically means that people want liberalism for THEMSELVES, whilst similtaneously wanting authoritarianism for EVERYONE ELSE.