Hitler's Election

[LadyEagle]

Hitler lost the election, at first.....

But how many people know how Hitler actually became a dictator? My bet is, very few. I’d also bet that more than a few people would be surprised at how he pulled it off, especially given that after World War I Germany had become a democratic republic.

<snipped>

Hitler and his fellow members of the National Socialist (Nazi) Party, who were determined to bring down the republic and establish dictatorial rule in Germany, did everything they could to create chaos in the streets, including initiating political violence and murder. The situation got so bad that martial law was proclaimed in Berlin.

Even though Hitler had badly lost the presidential election, he was drawing ever-larger crowds during the congressional election.

Rest here: http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0403a.asp

Now we already have someone in power and there is chaos in foreign countries but not yet here in the USA. Is it possible that history will repeat itself with Barack Hussain Obama and the Progressives (Socialists).....HERE?

Please read the article and then comment. Thanks.

 

[InTheLight]

Hitler lost the election, at first.....




Rest here: http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0403a.asp

Now we already have someone in power and there is chaos in foreign countries but not yet here in the USA. Is it possible that history will repeat itself with Barack Hussain Obama and the Progressives (Socialists).....HERE?

Please read the article and then comment. Thanks.

LE I enjoy your posts, but really, you've got to give up on this idea that Obama is going to declare martial law and suspend the elections. The situation in Germany in 1932 is nothing like the U.S. in 2012. For starters they had a coalition government and could call elections at any time. For another they DID have elections in Germany even among the staged chaos by Hitler and the Nazis. There is no unrest in the streets of the U.S. and I see no chance that Obama and the Democratic Party would foment chaos. Even if there were the chances of the elections being called off is virtually nil.

 

[blackbird]

If you go back a decade or so here in the US---there was a question on the BB whether Clinton would declare martial law and suspend elections

Long story short----Hitler cheated his way through the German elections---kinda sorta pulled a political Houdini---somehow or other he became a political Einstein----as an artist he couldn't connect the dots(if you've ever seen any of his art work--he couldn't paint his way out of a wet paper bag) nor follow the numbers in a Paint By Number set----but was smart enough to pull Germany through a world wide train wreck of an economy--an economic genius!!

Obama is not near smart enough to pull the same thing off Hitler did in fact---compared to Hitler--in the areas of economy/welfare/and military--"O" is a dunce!!

 

[preachinjesus]

Wow, a whole thread dedicated to proving Godwin's Rule.

Come on people, President Obama isn't Hitler. He's not even close. Let's get realistic about this stuff.

 

[Crabtownboy]

Wow, a whole thread dedicated to proving Godwin's Rule.

Come on people, President Obama isn't Hitler. He's not even close. Let's get realistic about this stuff.

Quite amazing isn't it.

To some degree a person making such statements is showing a pronounced ignorance of the events, beginning with the Treaty of Versailles, and other events leading to Hitler's rise to power.

Conditions in Germany were so different at that time compared to the conditions in the US now that there is no honest way to compare the two as being alike in tone, character or possible outcome.

Also, IMHO, to state the position as stated in the OP is a great insult to Congress and the US military ... suggesting they would simply stand aside and allow it to happen. It also shows a no faith in the power of the US Constitution ... IMHO.

 

[Matt Black]

Lots of factors behind Hitler's rise to power:

1. The Great Depression ----> lots of young men unemployed, plus a polarisation into extreme right and left in politics: both the Nazis and the KPD (communists) did well in elections from 1930 onwards. However the left-wing parties - the KPD and SPD (social democrats) were unable to form a united front against the right in the Reichstag as they hated each other; even the KPD was prone to fragmentation.
2. The extreme right and left - the Nazis and the Communists - recruited said young men into militias: the SA and the Rotfrontkampferbund, who brawled with each other in the street.
3. This urban violence between the extremists alarmed what Sovietologists used to call the 'military-industrial' complex: the army and the industrialists, as well as the upper-class junker landowners (ie: the Establishment/ elite), who feared civil disorder but who feared the communists more because they threatened their land and livelihoods, unlike the Nazis.
4. Therefore the Establishment got behind the Nazis as what they percieved as the lesser of these two evils (even though the Nazi vote had started to decline in the Nov 1932 Reichstag elections) and persuaded President von Hindenburg to let Hitler form a coalition government in which the Nazis had only two positions initially. The parties of the right - unlike those of the left - united behind Hitler against their common foe of communism and left-wing violence.
5. Thereafter the story was much like the communist takeover of eastern Europe some 15 years later: a combination of salami tactics against the opposition (KPD and SPD) involving political violence (SA beating up and killing KPD and SPD Reichstag deputies), the outlawing of the KPD on the grounds that the Rotkampferbund posed a threat to public safety and the voting of dictatorial powers to Hitler on the same alleged grounds, both of which were heartily endorsed at the time by the Establishment and their right-wing parties.

 

[LadyEagle]

First of all, socialism (Nazis) are left wing, not right wing.

Second of all, we have record unemployment in the US and roughly 47% are on government assistance (not including SS and Medicare).

Third: Obama and his Progressive Party (Democrats) have shoved obamacare down our throats without input from the Republicans and with only 1 Republican vote against what the majority of Americans wanted.

Fourth: Obama has circumvented our spineless congress and trampled our Constitution, legislating through executive order and regulations through his czars and appointees.

Fifth: There is unrest in the world right now and who is to say it won't foment here, to cause confusion and chaos, which would require Martial Law to bring "order."

You can go on believing that it is impossible in the US for an Obama rise to power, but we shall see....

Conditions in Germany were so different at that time compared to the conditions in the US now that there is no honest way to compare the two as being alike in tone, character or possible outcome.

Amazing that you don't see the similarities.

We shall see....

 

[Baptist Believer]

Matt's analysis above is accurate, although of necessity, overly simplified. I suggest you take what he wrote as a starting place and research the rise of the Nazi party on your own so you can be satisfied for yourself.

First of all, socialism (Nazis) are left wing, not right wing.

Compared to communists, they are more right wing. Furthermore there's more to "left wing" and "right wing" than economic policy. The Nazis presented themselves as law and order candidates and fielded an army to control the violence in the streets since the Weimar Republic was forbidden from maintaining much of a standing army because of the Treaty of Versailles - intended to prevent Germany from becoming a threat to its neighbors. Instead it had the effect of making the official government weak and ineffective against violence in the streets caused by communists who sought to turn Germany into a communist state like the Soviet Union.

Second of all, we have record unemployment in the US and roughly 47% are on government assistance (not including SS and Medicare).

Germany was facing possibly the worst case of runaway inflation that the world has ever witnessed and, as far as I know, there was no government assistance for the people. Both the Nazis and Communists leveraged that issue. Once the Nazis came into power, they provided substantial assistance to the people (well, most Germans except for the ones they considered less than human) which helped win over the hearts of the populace. This is a very different situation than in the U.S. today.

Third: Obama and his Progressive Party (Democrats) have shoved obamacare down our throats without input from the Republicans and with only 1 Republican vote against what the majority of Americans wanted.

That's one of the consequences of elections. If people who do not share your values/interests win, you values/interests may not be taken into account on major social issues. This upcoming election may well be a referendum on "Obamacare."

Fourth: Obama has circumvented our spineless congress and trampled our Constitution, legislating through executive order and regulations through his czars and appointees.

He's not the only President to do things like that, but then again, if you and the majority of the American people don't like it, vote him out of office.

Fifth: There is unrest in the world right now and who is to say it won't foment here, to cause confusion and chaos, which would require Martial Law to bring "order."

I can say that it is very unlikely given our political history, the nature of our people, the private ownership of firearms, and the overall faith in our system of government.

You can go on believing that it is impossible in the US for an Obama rise to power, but we shall see....

"An Obama" has already been elected to power. Sounds like you are trying to say something else.

We shall see....

I remember you have assured us of many things in the past. One of which was that Obama was going to be sworn in on a Koran. Didn't happen.

Don't let yourself get taken captive by fear.

 

[LadyEagle]

Matt's analysis above is accurate, although of necessity, overly simplified. I suggest you take what he wrote as a starting place and research the rise of the Nazi party on your own so you can be satisfied for yourself.

I have researched it as well as the occult in Hitler's Nazi Germany and the Rise of the Third Reich. Recently viewed the whole history from History Channel DVDs, as well.

"An Obama" has already been elected to power. Sounds like you are trying to say something else.

I am.

I remember you have assured us of many things in the past. One of which was that Obama was going to be sworn in on a Koran. Didn't happen.

Not yet. Wait until the second term.

Don't let yourself get taken captive by fear.

Thanks for the advice, but I'm not. Disgust, yes. Fear, no. The Lord is my Shepherd. Not Obama. And not the government.

:flower:

 

[Matt Black]

The Nazis, despite their name, weren't socialists; if they were, they wouldn't have had the backing of the industrialists and landowners, all of whom had seen what had happened to their kind under socialism and communism a few hundred miles to the east. Said industrialists (eg: the Krupps, I G Farben) and landowners were allowed to keep their businesses and estates by Hitler - again, hardly the marks of a socialist.

Also I agree with others here that the situation in the USA presently is not on all fours with that in Germany in 1930-33. When you start having fights between the right-wing militias and armed members of the ACLU, then you might be onto something...

 

[LadyEagle]

The Nazis, despite their name, weren't socialists; if they were, they wouldn't have had the backing of the industrialists and landowners, all of whom had seen what had happened to their kind under socialism and communism a few hundred miles to the east. Said industrialists (eg: the Krupps, I G Farben) and landowners were allowed to keep their businesses and estates by Hitler - again, hardly the marks of a socialist.

Also I agree with others here that the situation in the USA presently is not on all fours with that in Germany in 1930-33. When you start having fights between the right-wing militias and armed members of the ACLU, then you might be onto something...

How about this?

...private ownership of the means of production existed in name only under the Nazis and that the actual substance of ownership of the means of production resided in the German government. For it was the German government and not the nominal private owners that exercised all of the substantive powers of ownership: it, not the nominal private owners, decided what was to be produced, in what quantity, by what methods, and to whom it was to be distributed, as well as what prices would be charged and what wages would be paid, and what dividends or other income the nominal private owners would be permitted to receive. The position of the alleged private owners, Mises showed, was reduced essentially to that of government pensioners.

De facto government ownership of the means of production, as Mises termed it, was logically implied by such fundamental collectivist principles embraced by the Nazis as that the common good comes before the private good and the individual exists as a means to the ends of the State. If the individual is a means to the ends of the State, so too, of course, is his property. Just as he is owned by the State, his property is also owned by the State.

But what specifically established de facto socialism in Nazi Germany was the introduction of price and wage controls in 1936. These were imposed in response to the inflation of the money supply carried out by the regime from the time of its coming to power in early 1933. The Nazi regime inflated the money supply as the means of financing the vast increase in government spending required by its programs of public works, subsidies, and rearmament. The price and wage controls were imposed in response to the rise in prices that began to result from the inflation.

The effect of the combination of inflation and price and wage controls is shortages, that is, a situation in which the quantities of goods people attempt to buy exceed the quantities available for sale.

Shortages, in turn, result in economic chaos. It's not only that consumers who show up in stores early in the day are in a position to buy up all the stocks of goods and leave customers who arrive later, with nothing — a situation to which governments typically respond by imposing rationing. Shortages result in chaos throughout the economic system.

Written in 2005, the rest is here: http://mises.org/daily/1937

 

[Matt Black]

A more nuanced view

 

[InTheLight]

LadyEagle a better analog than Nazism and Hitler would be the race riots and violence in the streets in 1968, since that was a U.S. election year. This is pretty much your scenario, is it not?

There was an incident in South Carolina where highway patrol officers fired into a crowd of people protesting segregation. Three were killed and over 20 people injured.

There were race riots in several cities following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. LBJ ordered troops to patrol Washington D.C. There were also riots in Baltimore, Chicago, and Louisville. In Chicago there were numerous fires and looting. Mayor Daley authorized 'shoot to kill' orders against arsonists. The national guard was called in and LBJ ordered 5,000 U.S. troops into the city.

Along with riots you had student protests on campus. Sit-ins were common. Clashes between protestors and police were frequent.

And of course there was the violence in the streets of Chicago during the Democratic National convention, with an estimated 500 citizens injured and over 100 police officers hurt.

This is pretty much your scenario, yet there was never a thought of canceling the 1968 election.

 

[Matt Black]

Sound analysis. But even that isn't quite the same: an additional factor that was present in Germany in December 1932 and definitely not present in the US in 1968 was that the Reichswehr stated that it couldn't both protect Germany's borders and control the fighting SA and Rotfronkampferbund - this was a tipping point in getting the German military behind Hitler. I can't imagine anyone in the National Guard, still less the US Army, thinking that in 1968...

 

[NaasPreacher (C4K)]

LadyEagle a better analog than Nazism and Hitler would be the race riots and violence in the streets in 1968, since that was a U.S. election year. This is pretty much your scenario, is it not?

There was an incident in South Carolina where highway patrol officers fired into a crowd of people protesting segregation. Three were killed and over 20 people injured.

There were race riots in several cities following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. LBJ ordered troops to patrol Washington D.C. There were also riots in Baltimore, Chicago, and Louisville. In Chicago there were numerous fires and looting. Mayor Daley authorized 'shoot to kill' orders against arsonists. The national guard was called in and LBJ ordered 5,000 U.S. troops into the city.

Along with riots you had student protests on campus. Sit-ins were common. Clashes between protestors and police were frequent.

And of course there was the violence in the streets of Chicago during the Democratic National convention, with an estimated 500 citizens injured and over 100 police officers hurt.

This is pretty much your scenario, yet there was never a thought of canceling the 1968 election.

I think we are still far from 1968. Far.

 

[billwald]

>Now we already have someone in power and there is chaos in foreign countries but not yet here in the USA. Is it possible that history will repeat itself with Barack Hussain Obama and the Progressives (Socialists).....HERE?

I remember this sort of prediction being made for every presidential election for least 20 years.

 

[LadyEagle]

What you don't seem to understand is that these people (call them progressives, socialists, whatever) have waited decades to have the power they have now and they aren't about to relinquish it. (Nazism, fascism, socialism, communism, islam are all sides of the same coin - they repress and oppress freedom of the masses, save for the few in power).

The Democratic Party leaders in the WH and Congress are "progressives" meaning, their ideology is "redistribution of wealth" and control of the masses. They have waited and fought for decades to hold the key positions they now have.

Times past in US history have never been like they are at present. Consider the freedoms that Americans have lost in just 3-1/2 years, the mounting debt as never before seen in our nation's history, the fiat money that is printed by the millions each week by the fed (deflating the dollar), the rising prices of everything, the government control over our natural resources (through the EPA, etc.), the shoving of obamacare down our collective throats (1/6 of our economy), the bailouts to banks and automobile industries, the giveaways by the billions in foreign aid, the 47% who pay no federal income tax, the government control over our school lunch programs, the 47 million people on food stamps, the decimation of our military, the drones in the air over US skies spying on us, the molesting and invading our persons in our airports, the corruption in our Congress, White House, Department of Justice, the drone "hits" by one man in power, the doing away with habeas corpus, the indoctrination of our children in public education, the mass media being controlled by the WH, spying on friends and emails (remember "fishy" emails?), our porous borders, dividing Americans (war on women, war on blacks, war on the rich, war on religious beliefs, i.e., obamacare and funding of abortion and birth control, death panels), and so much more. Sooo much has been done in this administration, and yet you say a Hitler is impossible to happen here in the USA? When the Jackboots of ATF can invade a private business like Gibson Guitar or an Executive Order from one man can circumvent Congress, or a Fast and Furious can happen under this administration, or voter intimidation (Black Panthers) can happen under this administration, where a Ruby Ridge or Waco can happen under the DOJ (previous administrations), when the federal government engages in land grabs and tramples the rights of land owners, when the federal government cuts off needed water for farmer's crops to protect minnows, when whole communities are going bankrupt because of over regulation on businesses, for instance, well, yes, we are far from 1968 and far from what the rumors have been for 20 years, but not in the way you guys are thinking; rather, I think the proof of how far this slippery slope has gone is on my side of the debate. Just sayin'.

PS: You will note that Obama's 2012 campaign slogan, "Forward!", also just happens to be a Nazi marching tune. Please don't tell me they pulled it out of thin air without some thought going into it. They know what they are doing.

 

[InTheLight]

What you don't seem to understand is that these people (call them progressives, socialists, whatever) have waited decades to have the power they have now and they aren't about to relinquish it. (Nazism, fascism, socialism, communism, islam are all sides of the same coin - they repress and oppress freedom of the masses, save for the few in power).

The Democratic Party leaders in the WH and Congress are "progressives" meaning, their ideology is "redistribution of wealth" and control of the masses. They have waited and fought for decades to hold the key positions they now have.

I'm going to go back to my 1968 example. After two terms of economic growth and security under Eisenhower the progressives took back the White House and Congress when Kennedy barely beat Nixon in 1960. What followed were dozens of new redistribution schemes--Medicare, Medicaid, welfare--such as what we hadn't seen since FDR. In 1968 they had rioting in the streets, they had called out the National Guard and the Army to quell looting and arson. Yet after all this they held an election--and lost.

Times past in US history have never been like they are at present.

The Sixties were far worse than what we have now. I would submit the recession of the early 80's was worse than our most recent recession.

Consider the freedoms that Americans have lost in just 3-1/2 years, the mounting debt as never before seen, the

[snip list. I could probably build a bigger list than that based on the 1960's]

Sooo much has been done in this administration, and yet you say a Hitler is impossible to happen here in the USA?

That is what I (and others) are saying, yes.

 

[saturneptune]

Has anyone studied the Wilson administration in relation to laws passed that sent thousands to prison for criticizing our part in WW1? One person went to prison for ten years for a comment made in a private conversation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition_Act_of_1918

 

[LadyEagle]

That is what I (and others) are saying, yes.

Well, I lived through the 1960s and it was never like the way it is now, which I cited you examples.

So, rather than continue to try and convince you and others, since your minds are made up, I will end my side of the debate with, "we will wait and see." :flower:

Miracles still happen.