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Yes, bring them on if the choice is between them and the modern left. Was I unclear about that?
That being held sufficient to qualify as outright nazism in itself...it illustrates why this entire discussion is absurd.
But a number of Nazi supporters in 1930 Germany would have voiced their support in term of "better them than the Bolsheviks", no? I don't think you can no-true-Scotsman a form of Nazi support away if it would rule out a plurality of actual 1930s Nazis.
And at the time, they were right. The Bolsheviks were worse and hobbled the entire region for decades.
Rather unfortunate about what happened in between, but eastern Germany is still far behind the west in terms of economics and development, 70 years later, isn't it?
If your point is comparing progressives to the Bolsheviks... then I'm gonna take my chances that the current right isn't genocidal, because I'm pretty sure the current progressives are just as destructive as the old given a chance.
FWIW, West Germany did get a lot of help after the war, while the east was thoroughly exploited by its overlords.
Yeah, I was underrating the Marshall Plan and other programs. Thank you.
And yet I'm unsure whether it was decisive in the East VS West Germany comparison. Even if there had been no Marshall plan and no soviet exploitation, the socialist East would probably have fallen behind on its own like all the socialist countries did. Just perhaps not quite so badly.
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Evil rapacious capitalism less exploitative than the dictatorship of the Kremlin proletariat?
Unpossible.
Well, as you know, we did receive this generous American aid on the condition that we would be the first line of cannon fodder in case of the cold war going hot, so it wasn't entirely altruistic.
But I'd still say that's a better deal than what the Ossies got.
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If the choice is between Nazis and the modern left, what is the actual difference in practice between an outright Nazi and someone who "only" would rather have Nazis than the modern left? It looks like they're both working towards the same goal. Even if the "preferrer" intends to try and slow the swing of the pendulum from the left to Nazism once it starts being too Nazi for his taste, at the moment he's all too happy to help it gain momentum.
For the record I do not believe that the choice is between Nazis and the modern left, although I grant that picking "nazis" appears a lot simpler for many than picking the middle.
Take out the word 'Nazi' for something less polemic, and step back from the American political pendulum metaphor that treats the range of outcomes as a linear spectrum of 'left' to 'Nazi', and you'll find that this point is irrelevant. The primary purpose of conflict decision making is to maximize your own position, not to maximize harm to another particular other party's. This is particularly true in situations where there are multiple enemy parties, and prioritizing one leaves the other the space and ability to continue to target you.
Just start with the pendulum framing. It's a bad conflict map, straight up. There are far more variations and potential future outcomes for political momentum than left-wing political collectivism and right-wing political collectivism. Not only is there entire non-collectivist paradigms, both left and right, but even the premise of left and right is fundamentally flawed. It inherently implies a duality to a more-than-two agent problem.
Take a three-way conflict between A, B, and C. Your argument rests on the premise that A must choose between B and C. This is incorrect- A can choose neither B or C. B and C can both be enemies to A, as well as each other. Whether A chooses to attack B or C first or most is not an implication or insinuation that it is choosing to align with the other. It is a reflection of limited action capacity, and that one can only be 'first' or 'most' opposed against a single party. More generally, there is a limited capacity to action.
That party C would be all to happy if party A targets party B, and could use it to gain momentum for themselves as party C, is not actually any sort of reason for party A to not target party B. After all, the same logic applies for party A to target party C, which would thus let party B gain momentum. The momentum definition, by its nature, means party A is 'all too happy' to enable the momentum of the party it is not targeting first/.
The only ways for party A to not grant this sort of momentum to either party B or C is to either not attack either of them, or to attack both of them equally. Both are terrible ideas for A, in terms of opposing either (and both).
Non-attack, or more specifically non-response to attacks from B or C, allows both of them to generate their own momentum. After all, both B and C have their own sources of momentum, independent of A, hence why they are separate parties and not subsets of A in the first place. Non-action also gives momentum.
But equally splitting attention against B and C is also bad, because B and C are almost certainly not equivalent threats needing equal opposition. This could be because they are different in nature (which they probably insist they are), or in capacity, or some other distinction. Capacity to threaten is a considerable, and often overriding, difference.
But even if B and C were equivalent, it would still be the wrong move for A to divide resources to oppose both equally. That, after all, would considerably reduce- even halve- their ability to take out either. Party A may not have the capacity to take out either even with full capacity. But worst of all, equal and equally split opposition would be an invitation / incentive to encourage parties B and C to tactically cooperate against A. This would increase the degree of threat / harm A faces, and also reduce its ability to counter either B or C.
But to bring this back to the start-
It does not matter to A if A attacking B helps C build momentum, because C's momentum is not the terminnal / primary value of success. Party A does not lose if C has momentum, unless C has such momentum that it would overwhelm A. Party A does not win if C has no momentum, and can lose if B has enough momentum to overwhelm A. Party A's interest is based on Party A, not Party C (or B).
But it certainly is in Party B's interest for Party A to prioritize Party C, and especially if Party A harms others parts of Party A that aren't part of Party C.
Or- to translate it back to less-theoretical-
You do better when you prioritize your own interests, not when you prioritize harming your opponents, and especially not if you prioritize targets based on another opponent's judgements.
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You said it yourself. The "preferrer" and the actual nazi are aligned in their purpose temporarily. Yet they are not the same.
As for whether this is the choice - that depends on
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As some Spartan once allegedly wrote in a message,
I think the issue is that, generally (dunno about Southkraut himself), people who genuinely prefer Nazism to modern leftism see modern leftism as having the same sins as Nazism, but worse, or perhaps more dangerous. So if things became too Nazi for their taste, it wouldn't make sense to push for modern leftism, since modern leftism is even further along the spectrum in the direction they don't want to go.
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