Congressman sorry for likening Obama to Hitler


(CNN) — Republican Paul Broun is sorry for calling President-elect Barack Obama a 'Marxist' and comparing him to Adolph Hitler, the Georgia Congressman said Tuesday.

“I regret putting it that way,” he told WGAC radio in Augusta, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “I apologize to anyone who has taken offense at that.”

In an interview with the Associated Press earlier this week, Broun admitted to calling the future commander-in-chief a 'Marxist' at a recent Rotary club meeting, and said Obama has expressed support for policies similar to those of Hitler.

"It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he's the one who proposed this national security force," Broun told the AP. "I'm just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may– may not, I hope not — but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism."

Broun was specifically referring to a July speech by Obama, where the then-Democratic presidential nominee said he supports a civilian force helping the military when it comes to national security: "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded [as the military]," Obama said in the speech that was largely a call to national service.

Responding to those comments, Broun told the AP Monday: "That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did. When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist."

"We can't be lulled into complacency," Broun added. "You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I'm not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential."

The Obama transition office did not respond to Broun's comments, and in his interview Tuesday to WGAC, the first term congressman said, “The point I tried to make is that he is extremely liberal, he has promoted a lot of socialistic ideas, and it just makes me concerned."

The Nazi party wasn't far right, if anything it was centrist and slightly left leaning. Hence their initial alliances with the Marxist regime in Russia. At that point what was considered their far-left wing had not split from the party.

Nazism is sometimes considered by scholars to be a form of fascism. While it incorporated elements from both political wings, it formed most of its alliances on the political right.

According to most scholars of fascism, there are both left and right influences on fascism as a social movement, and fascism, especially once in power, has historically attacked communism, conservatism and parliamentary liberalism, attracting support primarily from the "far right" or "extreme right."

The term “National Socialism” derives from this citizen-nation relationship, whereby the term socialism is invoked and is meant to be realized through the common duty of the individuals to the German people; all actions are to be in service of the Reich. The Nazis stated that their goal was to bring forth a nation-state as the locus and embodiment of the people’s collective will, bound by the Volksgemeinschaft, as both an ideal and an operating instrument. In comparison, traditional socialist ideologies oppose the idea of nations.

In a confidential 1931 interview, Hitler told the influential editor of a pro-business newspaper, “I want everyone to keep what he has earned subject to the principle that the good of the community takes priority over that of the individual. But the State should retain control; every owner should feel himself to be an agent of the State… The Third Reich will always retain the right to control property owners.” Privately, Hitler stated in 1942, “I absolutely insist on protecting private property… we must encourage private initiative”.

Nazism’s populism, anti-communism and anti-capitalism helped it become more powerful and popular than traditional conservative parties, like the DNVP. For the above reasons, particularly the fact that Nazis and communists fought each other (often violently) during most of their existence, nazism and communism are commonly seen as opposite extremes on the political spectrum.

Drexler emphasized the need for a synthesis of völkisch nationalism, a strong central government movement, with economic socialism to create a popular, centerist nationalist-oriented workers movement that could challenge the rise of communism, as well as the internationalist left and right in general.

A. James Gregor argues that the most "uninspired effort to understand fascism" is to simply place it on the right-wing, or the radical right, as the common tendency was in the Anglosphere during the post-war period.

Yeah, one of the political affiliation apps posted here had a good layout of it in quadrants. Those two being up and down if I remember correctly.

There are no specific requirements under communism that need sacrifice all of the rights of the people, aside from property rights.

Not that I condone fascism, or any -ism for that matter. -Ism's in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon, "I don't believe in The Beatles, I just believe in me." Good point there. After all, he was the walrus. I could be the walrus. I'd still have to bum rides off people.

No, there just are no rights under Marx-Leninism and Maoism, you know those two attempts at Communism (note the big 'C'). Communism is not defined by Marx, other then it being an End of History philosophy. "Eventually" the state will wither away and all that jazz. But hey, Marx wrote more about capitalism then he ever did on Marxism and communism.

Wise words!