So now I am a Nazi!

Posted on February 20th, 2007 by Darth B'strad.
Categories: Political, Ethics, Philosophy, Media, Democrats.

In my latest post, The Courage on Display, Bieren Skidels posted up a comment saying “the rhetoric supporting more and more military in Iraq is beginning to sound more and more like the rhetoric the Nazis used to get Hitler into power - people are starting to stop thinking about things critically and simply appeal to violent patriotism… our own western style call-to-jihad… what a pity…” So now that I don’t agree with Bieren on the Iraq war I am on par with the Nazis. Thank You.

I actually had been expecting this response. Whenever the left cannot argue with your position they just try to dismiss you as a Nazi, sexist, bigot, homophobe, Islamophobe, racist or whatever phobia, -ism or slander that they could possibly come up with so that they don’t have to confront your position and the facts. However this is a typical tactic for the left in an op-ed in the Boston Globe, Ellen Goodman said, “I would like to say we’re at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let’s just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future.” And you hear this over and over again any time that you just do not hold the same position as the left. Just listen to Al Gore, Michael Moore, or read some lefty blogs and you’ll see it all over the place.

However on the other hand it does not seem that the right does the same to the left. In my article It’s beginning to feel a lot like the 1930’s, I made sure to say that I did not think that the left is evil. In that article I said, “I know you people that believe in this think that you are doing the best thing for the country, and I do think that you are patriotic, but YOU ARE GOING TO GET US KILLED!!!” Now does that sound the same as calling someone a Nazi? The right thinks the left is wrong or even dangerous or foolish but the left thinks that the right is CRAP. Dennis Prager, as usual, has some good insights into this by saying, “A second lesson to be drawn from the Goodman statement is that it helps us to understand better one of the defining mottos of contemporary liberalism: ‘Question authority.’ In reality, this admonition applies to questioning the moral authority of Judeo-Christian religions or of any secular conservative authority, but not of any other authority. UN and other experts tell us that there is global warming; such authority is not to be questioned.” Because of this it becomes nearly impossible to reason with them because it is not the ones trying to come over here and kill us who are the evil ones, it is me who is the evil one. So to play into that stereo type I made up Darth B’strad in order to personify the evil that the left believes that I am. And so I let them vent their anger at some evil personification that they think that we conservatives are.

Every single day I hear people on the right making clear arguments supported by fact in order to make their points and vary rarely start slandering their opponent in order to discredit them but the left throws out every slander they can make up. So how come I can’t find any similar smearing on the right? If any of you have any examples of the right smearing the left please send it to me at Darth@strightouttadenver.com .

Now to be fair to Bieren, he is not quite on the left, although he argues like a leftist, he just has a bunch of extreme views in every direction. Although as we have seen with Arnold Schwartenegger whatever is not conservative has a tendency to move to liberalism given time, we’ll just have to see how universal this theory is. And then you have the Pacifist Muse who is also different because he does not engage in the kind of slander that the left does. He actually tries to argue the merits with fact even though he is completely wrong. That is why I appreciate him so much; it is refreshing to have someone try to debate you logically than for them to call you a Nazi all the time. Unfortunately it seems that P Muse is the exception rather than the rule, although there are some others out there like him.

So what can we do about it? Simple, beat them at the ballot box and keep them out of power for a long time so that they will eventually have to come up with some good arguments to get any power back. In order to do that we’re going to need some strong republicans and we also have a war going on too.

7 comments.

Bieren Skidels

Comment on February 21st, 2007.

I never said you were evil Darth… I said that the rhetoric for supporting more and more troops in Iraq is beginning to seem “like Nazi propaganda” - i.e. totalitarian in nature, and meant to drown out the opposition, obviously you misread. The right and left slander each other all the time, and this doesn’t get very far. The reference to Nazi propaganda was meant to be specifically poignant in your case because you had compared the Iranian government to Hitler’s Germany.

I was pointing out that the post was in fact, not “good argument” and was filled mostly with emotional appeals to patriotism… in the article begins with pure sarcasm, followed by phrases like “The Middle East is a crazy place and a tough nut to crack” and compares the current situation to some “myth of unbeatable communist guerrillas”… uh ok? what?

The other plans are played down as much as possible, and the implication is that the only “sane” plan is the Bush plan and one that sends more and more troops to Iraq…

I’ll sum it up … stealing a few words from a New Yorker article by Hendrik Hertzberg:

“rather than looking for a policy that might be within our means and might mitigate the disaster, Bush is betting all his chips — all our chips — on the only choice that allows him the fantasy that in the end people will say: Bush was right. […] His Presidency and his “legacy” are in ruins anyway, so he imagines he has nothing to lose. If only that were true of the rest of us.”

It is not as though, we must continue this war no matter what - we must evaluate the alternatives… stay or not, pull out slowly or quickly, more troops or less, right or wrong… right and left wing articles that just make fun of the other side are missing the point — but I guess that’s what I should expect from this broken (and ALL TOO POLITICAL) system we have here, in the US of A.

obviously I wasn’t JUST calling names in my comment — (besides the “Empire wannabees” of course) :)

… and the Nazi reference was not even labeling right wingers.. it was comparing their rhetoric… so where did you get that idea? - and it was comparing general right-wing rhetoric, not your’s Darth… - your not in the position to drive right-wing rhetoric just yet :0

Darth B'strad

Comment on February 22nd, 2007.

Every time that you make a comparison with Nazis you transmit the evilness of the Nazis to the person that you are comparing them too. My comparison of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Adolf Hitler is valid because Ahmadinejad is evil like Hitler and I gave plenty of evidence to prove that. If you can not call someone that funds and plans suicide bombings on civilians, beheadings of business people, and the subversion of free states in order to impose their brutal government on them evil then I’m sorry to say but you have a broken moral compass. Thus my comparison is valid because this is equally evil as forcing Jews into gas chambers. To compare me and my fellow conservatives to people who advocated, tried to cover up or tried to explain away Hitler’s unjust war to annex and oppress people into his National Socialist society where six million Jews were murdered is just wrong. Your comparison is false because we do not advocate subjugating Iran into America. We want to defend our country that is already being attacked by Iran now and prevent Iran from attacking our homeland as well as freeing the people that are being brutally subjugated by their own government. By your comparison you would also have to lump in Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt in with the Nazi propagandist as well. When you do that you cheapen the evil that was committed by the Nazis. We can not do that because then we can not understand the true evil that is out there. I think that your comment was foolish and I think that you owe me and my fellow conservatives an apology as well as all of the people that have suffered at the hands of the Nazis for cheapening the evil they had suffered. The point being for my piece here is that we can not make comparisons to Hitler, Stalin, Saddam or any of the evil dictators unless if that person is truly an evil person and we need to stay away from crossing that line so that we do not cheapen the evil that people have suffered in the past. This is a line that I have not even heard those on the right cross however those on the left recklessly cross this line all the time. So if you do find any examples of people on the right crossing this line please tell me so that I can also condemn them for doing so.

Bieren Skidels

Comment on February 22nd, 2007.

hahah…. I am comparing your rhetoric! not how evil you are… HELLO!? I believe I ordered the large cappuccino?

Having rhetoric like that of someone else’s does not make you the same as them in other aspects (i.e., as evil) - in fact, depending on which type of appeal you are focusing on, Hitler’s rhetoric had many things in common with that of Martin Luther King Jr. - and of course, that would never imply that MLK was evil - just because he used some rhetorical devices in common as that used by great orators of the past.

Specifically, my point was that the rhetoric of the previous article - was primarily a mess of emotional appeals to “violent patriotism”… this was one of the defining aspects of Hitler’s rhetoric, and in that sense - the article, and many other defenses of Bush’s/Conservatives’ strategy concerning Iraq - I have felt that the arguments spent little time dealing with facts, logic, and understanding - instead favoring emotional-rhetorical appeals… hence the comparison. If you are not logical enough to evaluate the good and the bad objectively, then I am sorry.

Also, the way you dictate a moral line (Hitler was evil, Conservatives are good, Ahmadinejad is evil, Roosevelt is good) is rather simplistic. I don’t think the Christian God would draw these clear lines (not necesarilly the same ones you draw). Acording to the Bible, they were all evil - while some professed Christianity (Roosevelt and Hitler) and some don’t (Ahmadinejad) - some were overtly racist (Hitler and Churchhill and you could argue Ahmadinejad), all did wrong things in their life, as well as in their leadership. The reality is that there are many people in the world with different perspectives that might draw those “moral” lines much differently (or not draw them at all) (and many of those disagreeing people are Christians just like you)…

for instance, you stated:

“someone that funds and plans suicide bombings on civilians, beheading of business people, and the subversion of free states in order to impose their brutal government on them”

should be called evil. With a few changes to irrelevant details (”suicide”, “business”) - many people in the world accuse the US of those actions. In fact, very educated people who study history on site around the world… with hard proof.. say that the US has done those things…

In point, your passionate disassociation of the Nazi’s and the conservative party, not only missed my point (it had to do with rhetoric, not how evil they were!), but it also showed you trying to disassociate yourself from evil with your own human rhetoric… only the grace of God can disassociate you from evil - and you should be humble about that - not boastful.

I would not want to cheapen the evil experienced by anybody in the world - including those who experienced the holocaust during WWII, which I have spent much time studying (many classes and many papers), met holocaust survivors, visited the Holocaust memorial museum in DC, and visited the death camps in Europe… The Holocaust and the suffering associated with it, are things I care greatly about - and I will try to use my understanding to avoid them in the future. However, Contrasting Hitler’s use of rhetorical devices with that of American’s modern day “conservatives” is a far cry from cheapening the suffering of the Holocaust.

Darth, your punching ghosts with your eyes closed. Open your eyes! This whole thing was never about calling conservatives “Nazis” - and that would be clear to anyone watching this phantom boxing match.

respectfully Bieren

I hope you enjoyed my unapologetic-apologetics… say that five times fast

Bieren Skidels

Comment on February 22nd, 2007.

anyways.. it’s not like I associated you with the “Religious Reich”, neither a wall street trader nor a Mormon missionary… but if you keep it up, I might call you a constipervative…

:)

constipervative: [kahn’-stip-urv’-uh-tiv] n.

an intolerant, uptight, narrow-minded individual who suffers instant hypertension when confronted with an argument that differs from his point of view

–Raul Colon

Darth B'strad

Comment on February 22nd, 2007.

Well, folks, I was looking for some clarity and it looks like I’ve found it. It seems that the saying “being on the left means never having to say I sorry” is particularly true in this case. Well that’s alright I really wasn’t expecting an apology anyway. The fact is that Bieren did not say rhetoric devices in his comment he said we have similar rhetoric that implied that I was trying to cover up the evil that was committed by Bush. If he had said rhetoric devices in the first place I most likely would not have pursued this as aggressively as I did. But this was helpful because of the way that Bieren says that my moral line is simplistic. This has been very revealing and it also tells me that our difference is irreconcilable. If person A says person Z is evil and person B says person Z is not evil is it highly unlikely that person A and person B are going to be able to agree on what to do with person Z. The moral equivalence between America and her enemies is a typical tactic on the left and also has a way of confusing them to the point that they can no longer make any clear moral distinctions any more. That is why it comes so easy for the left to throw conservatives in with Nazis and it is also because of such clear moral dictions that conservatives stay away from making such comparisons. If there is no real evil in the world then there is no problem with comparing people you don’t agree with to Nazis. How you can convince someone that something is evil on the other hand is something that has proven to be just about impossible. I think that the only real way for them to learn it is for them to have more life experiences. That is why I said in my article that it is most likely going to take a nuclear bomb going off in one of our cities for them to realize this. We’ve had 9/11 and it seems that they have already forgotten that. So the price we would have to pay in order for the leftist to realize the truth is too high of a price to pay. So all we can do is proudly say “yes, I am a conservative” and then work hard to get the truth out there so that third of people in the middle really understands what is at stake here. There is no use trying to debate Bieren any further on this he is not going to understand what he did here. Throwing some jabs at him as well would also be worthless because that would only serve to anger him and discredit me. But this has been enlightening and now that I know fully where Bieren stands I will be able to adjust my tactics in order to fit this situation a little better. It took a little work to reveal his leftist nature but now that we see it then that just helps prove the theory that whatever is not conservative will become liberal. I see that everyday and that is why we conservatives need to get the word out there so that we can bring people into our movement and beat the leftist at the ballot box so that we can save the country.

Bieren Skidels

Comment on February 24th, 2007.

I said you have like rhetoric, and I still hold by that statement - deal with it.

I would not consider myself on the left, and I apologize for whatever misunderstandings I may have caused you - poor Darth.

my leftists nature? haha - you use conservative to imply good and left to imply evil… deal with details, and quit trying to sidestep my original comment by claiming that our differences are irreconcilable.

Darth B'strad

Comment on February 25th, 2007.

I wasn’t expecting you to change your position and at lest on this issue you are on the left. Again, the whole point of my piece here is to show that we conservatives to not think of you liberals as evil. We think you are wrong maybe even foolish but not evil. and quite to the contrary I went to the heart of the issue in order to show why we are not going to agree here. Prager’s motto for his show is “I prefer clarity to agreement” and I think that is something I will strive for here.
thanks for the opportunity to try to make thing clear

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