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A Matter of Common Usage
:Well, his chart is "on the right". :-) --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 10:03, 9 April 2007 (EDT)
:Well, his chart is "on the right". :-) --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 10:03, 9 April 2007 (EDT)
== A Matter of Common Usage ==
I'm sorry, but this is simply nonsense. No, "left" and "right" are not always exact terms when they're used in the context of politics, but neither is "liberal" or "conservative" and you guys seem perfectly willing to use those terms, even going so far as to set up separate entries for "liberal" and "conservative." As I've already observed to Ed Poor, the entry on Communism plainly states that "Communism is an economic system, social organization, and LEFTIST political movement." Why, if you're willing to allow a statement about Communism being "leftist" to stand, are you squeamish about applying "right wing" to the Nazis?
They were considered "right wing" in the Nazi era in Germany. They have been referred to as "right wing" since by historians. Diarists of that time referred to them as "right wing," journalists, travel books, critics of the Nazis, supporters of the Nazis, all referred to them as "right wing." Attempting to remove that label is nothing more or less than historical revisionism, and since the term "leftist" has remained in the reference to "Communism" even after I've pointed it out, it is decidedly suspect and one-sided revisionism.
The arguments I've encountered for not applying the term "right wing" to the Nazis are an illustration of just how ridiculous is this attempt to change common usage. The Nazis rose as a response to many of the liberal policies of the Weimar Republic, the emacipation of the Jews, the increasing freedoms enjoyed by women, the rise of avant garde artists. Cramming this reality into the argument that "the Nazis weren't right wing" requires misrepresenting history, figuring out some way that the Nazis DIDN'T oppose the Weimar Republic. Thus, I've been told "The Weimar Era didn't end until 1939," and been offered a fudged quote from Albert Speer to support a claim that's not just dubious but positively surrealistic. Doesn't it give you just a little pause that this silliness is the only way this rejection of the term "right wing" can be defended?
--[[User:PF Fox|PF Fox]] 11:32, 9 April 2007 (EDT)