Right-Wing Cant: Barack Obama as Modern-Day Hitler

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Common name-calling from the right about Barack Obama has been that he is like Adolf Hitler or that he's a nazi or a fascist. Comparisons with Adolf Hitler have been based on the comparison that both are charismatic leaders and the perception among conservatives that Obama wants to take away this country's freedom. In the U.S. system of electoral politics, charisma is almost a necessary precondition to becoming president. The majority of Americans want a president they can feel inspired by, confident in, or relate to (e.g., the perception that George W. Bush is a man they would feel comfortable having a beer with or inviting to a backyard barbecue with the family). Former vice president Al Gore and Senator John Kerry were hammered by the media for appearing too wonkish and wooden. Former president Ronald Reagan was considered highly charismatic, "the Great Communicator" whose ideas still influence the Republican Party today.

The second attack is that Barack Obama wants to take away America's freedom. This is of course an ideological consideration. The Right tends to consider the existence of government itself an impingement on freedom rather than perhaps a guarantor of freedom, any form of taxation (except in support of the military) as a form of theft, and any regulation of commerce and industry as communism. The current hysteria is that healthcare reform, especially any public option, is a slight against freedom. The connection is an emotional one but not a logical one. The connection is a visceral association between economic freedom and socialism and between socialism and destruction of freedom. There is no consideration of the freedom healthcare reform would give to the uninsured or underinsured. There is no consideration that some regulation can actually prevent things like monopolies and consumer fraud/abuse that are destructive of people's freedom.

The assertion that Obama is a nazi or fascist implies that Obama follows certain totalitarian or authoritarian right-wing policies.The only policy that resembles fascism I have noted is a corporatist policy of bailing out "too-big-to-fail" banks and other financial institutions, GM, etc. The rest of the package from National Socialism, Fascism, the Falange, and Ba'athists bears little resemblance to contemporary Democratic policy: racial/national purity, xenophobia and strong anti-immigration policies, removal/ostracism of dissident/radical elements from society, military aggression, absolute submission to the state, an alliance between the state and traditional authorities (the military, the church, the nobility), and suspension of democratic rights. Actually, we saw more of those things during the Bush administration, and Obama has been trying to reverse many of those policies now.

No offense but what is your point? Obama isn't really a Nazi? Thanks for clearing that up I guess.

Every president gets called a fascist or a Nazi by one group or another. It's just a term that invokes an emotional response. Obama isn't the first and won't be the last.

Also, the main perpetrators of the "Obama is a Nazi" stuff are LaRouche followers who can described more as the fringe left not "right wing extremists" like you're saying.

Lord Obama is NOT a Nazi. He is a Statist. He believes the government is the most important and most beneficial factor of society. He is wrong. The government is a necessary evil. If men were good, we would not need governments. The necessity for government is like the Mark of Caine on the human race.

Very well. We need government to keep the peace. Now let us have as little as we can and still keep the peace. Prince Obama would not agree with this position. He wants to use government to make us Better.

ruveyn

The concept that government, which is a system for setting the rules of social interaction, is basically evil, strikes me as one of the most pernicious attitudes ever promulgated by selfish idiots who would prefer to vandalize the world for their own purposes. Shooting at your feet is not a very wise action.

^ This.

Great idea - tar and feather a whole side of the argument by a few loons would would go as far as to say what the left said about Bush for eight years, and that of course solves all questions about the Obamacare Bill. For anyone who doesn't notice that sort of slight of hand, I have a feeling you could sell them a good stretch of land in the Everglades.

Government is the rational response to what is really pernicious -- the human race. Hobbes made this point. Humans cannot regulate themselves on an individual basis. They will 99 times out of 100 plead their own cause and do unto their neighbors before their neighbors do unto them. That is why we need the State. To keep us from killing each other.

There is a movie -The Day the Earth Stood Still- (the Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal version). Klaatu explains (at the end of the movie) that his people had to build a race of robots that could neither be bribed nor turned off to keep the peace. Once they had their robot guardians/masters they were able to get on with more profitable ventures.

That is what we need. A race of Gorts. Unfortunately we have to make do with a race of slimy critters -- our government leaders and masters. They tend to look like Ted Kennedy.

ruveyn

The Bush protesters on the left were arrested for holding signs that said "No More War." The Obama protesters on the right were allowed to bring armed assault rifles and Hitler posters. Did you mean "slight of hand," or "slight of handcuffs?"

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington ... ters_x.htm

How about 6,000 or 600 or 60?


Anyway, I thought Obama was a marxist........

Inferior genes had nothing to do with Hitler's actions against Jews. Hitler's crimes were committed because he was under the delusion that the Jews were looking to control the world's leadership.

Little did he know that his actions would solidify their control.

Nice.

But keep in mind that Hitler didn't propose gassing the Jews until after he was well-established in power. Had the German people known what he was going to do, they would never have sanctioned it. Once he became a monster, the people were too fearful to stand against him in significant numbers.

He proposed it in -Mein Kampf- which was written during the 1920s. Hitler knew gas very well, being wounded in a gas attack.

ruveyn

Granted, but the German people didn't believe he would actually do it until he started doing it.

Lots of monsters telegraph their intentions, but people aren't willing to take that at face value. They wait for the "proof," and by the time they get it, it is too late to stop what's happening.

Hitler did not think the Jews were inferior. He thought they were a race of super-villains. The Roma - now that was a race he considered to be inferior.

I think there were a lot of people who thought that Jews should "be put in their place" and they supported Hitler in that. I don't think that they wanted an extermination programme. Some may have said, "Those Jews are too big, too powerful, take up too much space, are weakening Germans, aren't necessarily loyal to Germany... who will take them down a couple of notches... ah, Hitler, just the man for today..."

Hitler did something else notable. He took Germany out of a world regime, a world system that was rigged against Germany. I think this explains the appeal of people, in part, like Chavez in Venezuela... world systems have built-in winners and losers and people don't like having their country set aside as a designated loser.

Hence the problems in South America and the Middle East today.

Iran isn't happy with being a designated loser and neither is Venezuela.