That's right. You'd have to be a socialist in order to be a Nazi. The word comes from the German name for the National Socialist German Workers' Party, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. We cannot expect that fact to hinder people like Nancy Pelosi from making assertions about her opponents like this, because she saw some swastikas:



The question was about the legitimacy of the protests. She sort of answered the question, which, I guess, was no. There is no legitimate grassroots opposition to Democrat healthcare reform notions. The opposition are "astroturf", not real grass. Worse than that, however, they must be nazis, what with the swastikas and all.

Right. Like nazis -- socialists -- would object to government-run health coverage. In fact, Democrats have a lot in common with nazis, the Nazis being: opposed to big banks and capitalism in general, opposed to pollution, in favor of two years mandatory voluntary service to the country, in favor of make-work projects (such as the autobahn), opposed to vivisection and cruelty and to animals, opposed to smoking and all tobacco products, in favor of abortion and euthanasia of the infirm and undesirable, in favor of big, unlimited, centralized government, opposed to small, limited, decentralized government – and, of course, in favor of cradle-to-grave nationalized healthcare. If the protesters really are nazis then they must be upset by the fact the present reform plan allows too much capitalism, or something.

This is the result of an education system (and they want to run healthcare too!) that has managed not to include the fact that the nazis were not just some white people who killed Jews, but were socialists who killed Jews.

I too have heard about the swastikas, but so far the stories I've heard, on the radio, have the swastikas with a black stripe through them, as if to say, No, to national socialism for the U.S. In that case, the protesters are not claiming to be nazis; they are tacitly claiming that Democrats are the nazis.

Frankly I think that's a poor way to object to what's going on. As a Chinese proverb says: The one who lands the first blow is the one who ran out of arguments. Calling people socialists, especially if they are, is quite sufficient. Calling them nazis is over the top. And I'll tell you why. What separates nazis from other socialists was the joining of race to class; that was the true significance of their use of the word, national. Originally, the word national meant what we generally now mean by words like racial or ethnic. If we were to translate the best sense of Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei into contemporary English, it might better be translated, Ethnic German Socialist Workers' Party, or the Aryan Socialist Workers' Party. In other words, it was not enough to be of the working class. One needed also to be a true German (i.e., Aryan) worker.

To my knowledge, Democrats, though I do think they are socialists, have not joined class and race. One may have to be a socialist in order justly to be called a nazi, but being a socialist is not a sufficient reason to be called a nazi. In order justly to be called a nazi, one must be a supporter of ethnic socialism.

Presently, Rush Limbaugh makes the claim that it is Democrats who are truly nazis, but that is because he has an incorrect understanding of the true sense of the word national. He thinks Democrats can justly be called nazis because of the similarity of platforms. It is a serious error. And one cannot expect to be taken seriously who makes that kind of mistake.