Just a small public service announcement, given what seems to be bandied about lately. I'm rather old-fashioned in some ways, I admit. But there is no such thing as a good nazi.

Never pity a nazi.

I hope you can appreciate this, and please do help to spread the word. It's best if the intelligent people take the time to think about this. We are the frog.

Who gets to define the term ‘nazi?’

Not a trivial question.

People who glorify and emulate the nazi party; extreme authoritarians; fascists. These are nazis, many of whom wear the badge proudly. The term is not to be casually or lightly applied to simply someone who is stricter than you'd like, or someone with whom you have a disagreement, nor is it an excuse to be used to justify one's petty dislike of another person. It is not a frivolous term to be applied arbitrarily or in a cavalier manner, in a misguided attempt to make a point, because it makes no such point.

It is a fairly trivial question in a landscape filled with such people from every direction, united in their methodology and the consistent way they respond, relate, and react to others not inside their insular group.

Your definition differs from mine, though admittedly not by much. However, as I'm sure you are aware, that term has a ludicrously broad spectrum of meanings to a broad spectrum of people. This is the danger of imprecise language. If you are advocating we grant so much power to that word, it is important that we decide whose definition is authoritative, and just how malleable that definition should be.

Personally, I'd rather not allow a word to control me so much that it causes me to abdicate my humanity and capacity for reason. I prefer to assess people and ideas on their own merits.

Here you go.

I don't particularly see relevance from the rest of your comments to respond to them, so I'll just leave you with that as an explanation and consider the matter done.

I can respect that… though I can't shake the feeling you're walking something back, just a little. Are actual nazis a big problem across the pond? It seems like an odd thing to take a strong position on, but yeah, any German national socialists plotting to invade Czechoslovakia… those guys are bad news.

There are a few good books on the development of the neo Nazi movement and extreme groups. Peter Goodrick Clarke's Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity is especially comprehensive in its coverage.

There's also Apocalypse Pretty Soon: Travels in Endtime America though it's about the millennium back in 1999, so many things still resonate.

I also recommend Hitler: the Survival Myth by Donald M. McHale and Hitler's Death: the case Against Conspiracy by Luke Daly-Groves.

Conspiracy theories and extreme politics have a direct relationship to Nazism.

Still, I will pity someone for their ignorance and lack of integrity, but it will not stay my hand. I'm a veteran, there are illegal orders and you can disobey them.

You want to know what happened to the real life Nazis in the Einsatzgruppen who wouldn't participate in an Aktion against the enemies of the Reich? They weren't shot, they were just transferred to other duties. Even the real Nazis knew that not everyone was willing to massacre innocents in the service of the Reich. A good starting point is another book by Donald M. McKale Hitler's Shadow War : the Holocaust and World War II

I don't think he was talking about actual nazis. Or even neo-nazis. It seems he was making a general gripe about people who do things they don't personally agree with and using the excuse they were “just following orders:” Soldiers who carry out orders they don't agree with, police officers who enforce laws they don't personally agree with, employees who enforce store policies they don't personally agree with. He's saying they're nazis and basically human garbage. I think there are some extreme examples where that rhetoric is warranted, but in the vast majority of cases it is grossly inappropriate.

It might help if I knew specifically what he was addressing, but in a broader sense I struggle to find the overall relevance or usefulness of such a message.

Read the books I cited and you'll understand how far neo-nazism has seeped into modern culture without anyone really aware of it anymore. Except maybe the JDL or Southern Poverty Law Center.

These are plain folks who are horrified to be called Nazis but whose belief systems contain many elements drawn from 80 years of Esoteric Nazism, neo-nazism and identity cults.

I'll put them in my Christmas stockings, but in the meantime maybe you could provide a summary?

El Cid wrote:
I can respect that… though I can't shake the feeling you're walking something back, just a little. Are actual nazis a big problem across the pond? It seems like an odd thing to take a strong position on, but yeah, any German national socialists plotting to invade Czechoslovakia… those guys are bad news.

No not really, like anywhere we have people and groups with extreme views but actual nazis, no.

Genejoke wrote:

El Cid wrote:
I can respect that… though I can't shake the feeling you're walking something back, just a little. Are actual nazis a big problem across the pond?

No not really, like anywhere we have people and groups with extreme views but actual nazis, no.

Well the UK does have Holocaust denying, nazi worshipping, anti-Semitic, white supremacist, fascist groups that use Teutonic runic symbols that recall Nazi regalia but they don't call themselves Nazis.

Some Christian Identity groups are like that too and sell reprints of Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Indeed, but the OP implied that by Nazi he meant actual Nazis.

He did, but I think he only did that because he was trying to wiggle out of his original position. But whichever definition, whether we're going with “actual nazi” or “you're a big meanie,” I can't make heads or tails of the point he was trying to make, or what relevance it has without more context.

I don't believe more intolerance is what the world needs right now. And I'm far more concerned about modern witchhunters who see nazis around every corner, than I am by anything actual nazis may be up to these days.