The Meaning of "NAZI"

Posted by Herb7734 7 years ago to Philosophy
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The word Nazi is actually the symbol for the National Socialist Party in the German language. It has, however, come to be used as a way to call a person or organization a nasty epithet. It symbolizes a totalitarian mentality which has no regard for human life and requiring total obedience to the state or the dictator or both.Many years ago in his book "The Ominous Parallels" Leonard Piekoff expressed rejection of five of the most common
interpretations of Nazism. Each is dismissed in order to present a serious analysis of the subject. So I'm presenting this challenge to the Gulch to provide a definitive explanation of this often misused and incorrectly used word. This is not a sum total quiz. Piekoff's definition might not be even be the best one.I have a feeling that that there are better ones in the Gulch that are better used. Here are the five incorrectly used explanations of Nazism:

1. Nazism is caused by ignorance; The Nazi criminals and their supporters were primitive barbarians.
2. Nazism is caused by the accidental seizure of power by a small minority of vicious men.
3. Nazism is caused by the innate depravity of human nature.
4. Nazism is caused by a corruption of the people. It is a disease of the people.
5. Nazism was caused by a specific military, economic, and governmental crises.

Your answer can be as long or as short as you wish. Piekoff's definition ran on to become an essay. I'll try to slice it into its cogent parts. Nazism is a philosophy of an array of theories , doctrines, opinion, notions and beliefs, which by using propaganda at top volume via all forms of media.It is to be heard by those who voted for them and sympathized and embraced them.

Note, that the philosophy covered as many premises as possible in order to include the interests of as many people as possible. Its point was to gather up followers because even 10% of the people when gathered in one place, makes a formidable crowd.


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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 6 years, 12 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I like this analysis, but I still don't see the difference between fascism, socialism, and communism. The difference is subtle, if it exists at all.
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  • Posted by Dobrien 6 years, 12 months ago
    Here is an example IMHO.
    "After we win this election. It's our turn!
    Payback time everyone not with us is against us and they better be ready cause we don't forget.The ones who helped us will be rewarded.
    The ones who opposed us will get what they deserve. There is going to be hell to pay. Congress won't be a problem for us this time. No elections to worry about after this one . We have 2 SC Judges ready to go." Valerie Jarrett to Barrack Hussien Obama Oct 2016
    Apparently they were not ready to finish their terms.
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  • Posted by 6 years, 12 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Nazi and Fascist, are basically the same terms, The only difference might have been that the German required a stronger unquestioning loyalty. Both allow private ownership which is heavily controlled by the state.
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  • Posted by 6 years, 12 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Politicians and their party could care less about the people they supposedly represent. Follow the money. Translate the power. That is what it is all about. And Goldman Sachs employees aren't any better off.Which is why hard work and ambition is what allows a person to get out from under the thumb of their employers.. If you can be a big producer or go into business for yourself .
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  • Posted by 6 years, 12 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Why do you buy Chevrolets? We've always bought Chevies. They are a tradition. We don't even think of a different brand. That is the type of mentality that votes Democrat. Not all, but many.It accounts for a big percentage of voters. "Democrats are for the working people." That's all changed and it is now the Republicans who are the workers party, even if they're at loggerheads with the unions. Many cannot grasp the topsy-turvy world in which the middle class workers are doing best with Republicans. Just as Roseanne described it. Some Democrats simply refuse to believe what has happened since the advent of Trump.
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 6 years, 12 months ago in reply to this comment.
    IMO, not so much. It's easy enough to call a Muslim a Muslim for being a Muslim.
    As for Muslims hating Jews, the Koran instructs Muslims to convert or kill anyone for not being a Muslim.
    And some Muslims take this a stretch further, killing other Muslims for not being their kind of Muslim.
    And The Evil Hag as a candidate said, "I dream of open borders" so this kind of a "religion of peace" can freely cross over here?
    Nutty Nancy, Mad Maxine and Crying Chucky would applaud with approval as well as all those dimwit Dem voters demented enough to reelect, reelect, reelect them.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 6 years, 12 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I completely agree. "Nazi" is an imprecise term used today more for the shock value than to describe any real correlation to the original offenses committed by the German Fascists from whence sprang the original moniker.
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  • Posted by Solver 6 years, 12 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I notice that these groups which hate white people, and preaching that all whites are privileged, are clusting together and becoming less tame.
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  • Posted by 6 years, 12 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I'm glad that you included Gypsies,etc. instead of just jews. The Nazis were more ecumenical in their hatreds of just the Jews. Do you find it interesting that the Arabs hate the very same groups as the Nazis?Yet, they are never called Nazis. Something to ponder, I guess.
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 6 years, 12 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Yes, the so-called "numbers game" definitely favored the German Nazis when they sent the scapegoated Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, nonconformists, etc, to extermination camps.
    American Nazis and/or other white supremacists hold peaceful demonstrations, though they tend to be the only ones blamed by the media when Antifa beats them up.
    The only thing that irks me dino about that is the "blame game" media hypocrisy.
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  • Posted by 6 years, 12 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Your anilyzation is quite correct. My point, however, is the use of the word Nazi as an epithet describing anyone and everything that is negative and despicable no matter what action or attitude caused it, When used in that way, the word is used to cover such differing nagativity that its true meaning becomes obscured and is just another word for bad.
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  • Posted by 6 years, 12 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That's a clue to the nature of such groups. They are cowards, and unite in order to protect each other. But they remain quite tame until the odds are in their favor.
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 6 years, 12 months ago
    To call someone a Nazi is to also call them a racist.
    Me dino recalls photos of the KKK waving swastikas shortly before World War 2 and some Jim Crow white supremacists sporting swastikas during the 60s and later on.
    Hitler had Germans taking pride in their phony "Aryan" race that, through ethnic cleansing, was supposed to produce blond supermen ruling a Third Reich for the next thousand years.
    When I was a corrections officer for 21 years, a few white inmates were members of the Aryan Nation. They did not cause much of a problem. Blacks sharply outnumber whites at an Alabama state prison.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 7 years ago
    Nazism is one of a whole host of ideologies bent on gaining power. It depends upon a small cadre of domineering idealists who know exactly what they are doing, another slightly larger cadre of those who like the minor positions of power they are put in by the elite idealists, a still larger cadre of those who are fooled into going along with things, and the still larger general populace who aren't interested enough in their own freedom to object or oppose the movement - sometimes until it is too late.

    Nazism, Communism, Socialism, Feudalism - all are power-hungry ideologies meant to create castes of people in a rigid social hierarchy benefiting those at the very top at the cost of those at the bottom. The primary difference is merely the focus of the ideology itself.

    Feudalism was largely the result of a patriarchal/religious system that endowed those of a certain lineage with supernaturally-endowed authority - authority which could not be challenged. Feudalism largely fell apart throughout the world, but still holds on (curiously) in England, Saudi Arabia, and a few other nations.

    Communism has largely been the result of the overthrow of the Feudalistic society (France, Russia, China) but taken so far the other direction that it resulted in merely another form of Feudalism that was based on who was the most bloodthirsty during the overthrow. What is interesting is that while one can certainly argue the merits of divine appointment to lead, the very merits claimed by Communistic societies are inherently hypocritical as their instigators are largely those seeking power of their own and who instigate their own rules with massive purges of their own people which far surpassed anything committed by Feudalists. I view Bernie Sanders as a Communist (which he has admitted).

    Fascism (which IMO includes Nazism) is intellectual Feudalism. It asserts the unquestionable authority of a supreme ruler, but one which is appointed by the People as opposed to one appointed by God. Both Hitler and Mussolini rose to power through populism and then turned their reign into an egomaniacal power trip. The problem with Fascists is that they are never satisfied with the extent of their power and seek to gin up excuses for war. Italy's claims to parts of African fueled their association with the Axis Pact while Hitler was able to play on the very real grievances which were a result of the Treaty of Versailles following WW I. (What not widely known is that if Italy hadn't been the Fascist's France during WW II, it is very likely that British naval superiority in the Mediterranean - and as a result their air superiority - would have been crushed.) I view Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as fascists.

    Socialism is similarly a revolt away from either democratic or republican forms of government toward a more authoritarian kind of rule primarily by bureaucrats. The socialist claims that he is neither a communist nor a fascist simply because they still live under an elected government, despite the fact that the elected officials have almost no real power. The socialist also claims that because the power is separated into silos overseen by subject-matter "experts", that this constitutes an acceptable homage to a separation of powers and that the merit of those in power is a result of their self-imposed intellectual "superiority". The major problem is that the recognition of intellectual "superiority" is done not by actual achievement rigorously vetted by science, but by a popularity contest among the ideological elite - a self-perpetuating cycle that more often than not is driven far more by the ideology than the true intellect. I view Elizabeth Warren as a Socialist.
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  • Posted by 7 years ago in reply to this comment.
    I thin that most non Germans had no idea of what the Nazis were and what they believed. Maybe even some Germans.
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  • Posted by Solver 7 years ago
    Before SJWs started calling anyone they didn’t like a Nazi, they were the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. The Nazi collective operated using 25 Points of the National Socialist Programme,
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natio...

    ...
    “#4. Only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one who is of German blood, without consideration of creed. Consequently, no Jew can be a member of the race.”
    ...

    Those were the real Nazis. Everyone else is just some copycat.
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