Who are you calling a Nazi?

Liberals like to call conservatives Nazis. They regularly compare George Bush to Hitler. The interesting thing about this is that it makes no sense. The Nazis were much closer to modern day liberals than to modern day conservatives. Check out some of the reasons from Joe Mariani from Chronwatch:

The Nazi Party platform contained 25 demands, adopted in 1920 and essentially unaltered at the time Hitler took power. Many of those socialist demands resonate far better with modern-day American liberals than Conservatives. Consider the following examples:

7. We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood and way of life for the citizens.

Does this sound more akin to the liberal belief that the government is responsible for job losses or gains, or the conservative position that jobs are created by private enterprise (though helped or hindered by current economic policies)? Does it sound like a demand for welfare?

11. Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. Breaking of rent-slavery.

This is aimed directly at landlords and large business owners. It hardly seems likely that capitalists and conservatives would insist that no one receive any money unless he personally earn it by doing the actual work themselves.

12. In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice in property and blood that each war demands of the people personal enrichment through a war must be designated as a crime against the people. Therefore we demand the total confiscation of all war profits.

If that doesn't sound like today's standard liberal hate speech against Halliburton, nothing ever will.

13. We demand the nationalization of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).

Nationalization of industries is hardly in line with the conservative aim of privatization of industries. It's liberals, in general, who want to nationalize industries (starting with healthcare).

14. We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.

Wealth redistribution? Does that sound like a particularly right-wing ideal?

15. We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.

Republicans and conservatives are accused of wanting to halt Medicare and steal Social Security in every election cycle, so this demand for expansion could hardly be a part of any conservative agenda.

25. For the execution of all of this we demand the formation of a strong central power in the Reich. Unlimited authority of the central parliament over the whole Reich and its organizations in general.

Conservatives, who favor more limited government with lower taxes (in order to restrict its growth), would directly oppose a strong central government with unlimited authority (possibly resisting with guns, which German citizens first had to register, then surrender).

Hmmm....who are the modern day Nazis, really?

---Katie