A Critique of Linder's Libertarianism

INTRODUCTION

The following article will examine several claims Alex Linder had made in favor of Libertarianism, the key points Linder mentions is Government, Freedom and Education. It is these topics I will examine in order to determine whether or not they hold any value at all. I will also examine a few key criticisms raised by Linder as well as some of his libertarian supporters, regarding the nature of National Socialism.

GOVERNMENT

The form of government proposed by Linder is rather simplistic, in so far as he contends that in a homogeneous European society, there would be no need for government, which he believes "Is incompetent of doing anything well"[1], that it is inefficient. While he certainly has a point that governments today aren't efficient and even hostile towards their own people. He misconstrues this as meaning that because government is dismal today. Any system that offers a government in the future would be equally dismal. To support this position further: he argues that, despite it acting incompetently, it still taxes business and the worker an excessive amount of money, which it then puts to poor use. To counter this, Linder formulated the following solution:

Instead of paying taxes to government and being subject to "economic tyranny" by means of legislation and regulation, it should rather cease to exist entirely, and business would run the process of organizing a society through privatization in its stead. [2] This poses numerous problems in and of itself.

For one: with no government in place, there is nothing to guarantee that business would not in fact monopolize public services and ask fees that are exceeding the means of the average citizen. We already see this in action today, where business actively seeks to exploit profitable markets (that is the non rural regions of the nation) and cut services off from rural regions entirely, actively demanding more money for less services provided to the nation as a whole. Two prime examples being the post office and public transport. Where previously the postal services delivered mail to the folk at no cost, they (the folk) now under an increasingly privatized postal system, have to pay based on the amount of miles they are away from non rural regions. And on the other hand, where previously, public transport was available in rural regions (train stops, bus stops) under increasingly privatized public transport systems, this no longer exists, the person now has to pay for a taxi fare based on mileage in order to reach a non rural region where he can take a bus further to his desired location. All this, simply because it was deemed unfeasible to provide a service in regions deemed to be a non profitable market. This apparent exclusivity in non-rural regions set the stage for price fares that exceed the normal fare because it gave the illusion that it provides something unique to the folk in the non-rural regions. There is also little to guarantee that it would pay its workers proper and a fair wage. Business had for a long time and continues to support the immigration of non-Europeans so they may benefit from paying lesser wages for more profit, the benefit of, which is not even passed to the consumer: that is to say that the wealth is not distributed, but pocketed among a select few. With nothing to ensure that there are any checks in place ensuring that it abides to the spirit of "the Old America" as he so frequently refers to, there is every possibility that they may in fact monopolize the system, and that they may in fact create a master-slave caste within the United States. This discrepancy in wealth distribution coupled with the increase of cheap labor gives rise to an increase in poverty, among the European citizens of the country. This rise in poverty is ironically enough the cause of the origin of Marxism, as it is directly linked to Marx' argument that an increasing divide would occur among those who control the means of production and those who don't. This increasing divide between those who control the means of production and those who don't, inevitably give rise to revolt and unrest within the nation, the desire to redistribute the wealth among those who had been afflicted by this discrepancy gives rise and fertile ground for a Bolshevist revolution.

Alex Linder then continues his crusade against government (in favor of business) further, by claiming that government has in the past cost the lives of millions of people during times of war and tyranny and that business on the other hand, simply offering products and services have not [3]. What Linder forgets is that private business if allowed to do so...exert tyranny of its own upon the folk. While the employee may appear to be free to sell his labor, in reality he isn't. He is compelled by necessity to survive and fend for himself and his family, so while he may maintain a standard salary at which he is willing to offer his skills, if turned down enough he will eventually be forced to accept employment at less than his worth. No man will maintain a standard payment for his skills if he is constantly turned down due to alleged costs. Now granted, business should not be compelled to pay an obscene amount of money purely because it is requested in return for the skills provided that is why salary regulations need to be in place to ensure that a fixed minimum amount are to be paid to specific skill sets. This would ensure that both the individual and the business don't lose. This standard salary however, need to ensure that the individual is capable of living above poverty.

Furthermore, that Linder attempts to make his position seem more plausible and peaceful, by harping on about the fact that lives had been lost and that by replacing or removing this system entirely there would be "peace"...is nothing more than a Utopian dream. Business is equally capable of engaging in the same thing. It is a practice in modern business to commit to intelligence operations and counter intelligence operations against the competition. Both sides tend to commit espionage against the other. Oddly enough Linder, contradicts himself by stating that he does in fact support a military wing of society for the purposes of defending its ideals against racial enemies. [4] This despite his apparent abhorrence of the "blood shedding of the past". Surely if the market needs to rule, these military wings drafted for the purpose of defending the folk against racial enemies, would need to be privatized armies. Considering this, it must be asked who precisely will these privatized armies defend? Will it be the folk or will it be their paymasters? These mercenaries aren't likely to bite the hand that feeds them, so when push comes to shove and the people grow tired of the discrepancy in wealth distribution, and begin to demand what they feel they are entitled to, these mercenaries would not hesitate to suppress them. Obviously this is a tyranny that exceeds anything else that had been cooked up thus far.

Even if we are to assume that this libertarian society has a military wing that functions exclusively for the defense of the folk then it begs the question: Where will the funds come from that ensure that this military wing not only exists, but that it continues to advance its weaponry? Will business fork out the bills as a collective? If so: how can he guarantee us that this would not be used to the detriment of society as a whole? While it may be plausible in the fictional realm...i.e. that business would act ethically and honorable. The staunch reality of the matter is that it's far more likely that they would abuse this power to ensure that they do not lose their privileged position in society. As have been mentioned earlier, the moment that the employees decide to demand what they are entitled to, they would use this power to suppress them. That is to say that the state would immediately fall from libertarianism into Oligarchic-Tyranny. On the other hand, should Linder decide that there must be a government. However, strictly on the sidelines and purely for the purposes of ensuring the maintenance of the military, would the people be taxed in order to fund this scheme? If so: is it not a contradiction of his previous assessment that his system would "free people from economic tyranny through legislation, taxes and regulation"?[5]

How does Linder propose to hold this military wing in check with no centralized government? This is especially problematic when he contends that his proposed society is beneficial to those who work and save, and not to the military and welfare inclined "dregs" of society. Calling the military dregs of society is not conducive to Linder obtaining his ideal state, I am sure he believes that he would be able to accomplish this without the approval and admiration of the military, but this isn't looking at the matter realistically: The military could if it deems his ideal state a threat to the constitution, stamp it out quite easily, and it would not hesitate to do so if he decides to adopt this path. There are ample examples in history that demonstrate how the military responds to the message that it is to be dissolved, they almost always respond by grabbing power themselves. Especially when they perceive the state as being weak and incapable of self-defense, which Linder's are. That aside let's assume that it is even possible that he manages to defy the odds...does Linder instead propose elsewhere that we should opt for a civilian armed forces? How precisely does he propose that those who desire centralized government would not in fact seize this opportunity to create a centralized government contrary to his ideal of a business utopia? The situation is so unpredictable that there can be no guarantee that these civilian armed forces (mercenaries) would not either answer to the needs of their paymasters as previously mentioned, or simply disband his utopia and opt for a more centralized and realistic government structure. Unless of course he opts for the option to import foreign mercenaries who have no connection to the nation and therefore have no issue with any of the injustices passing under the libertarian utopia.

This is a key problem in libertarian thought: whether it is mainstream libertarianism or Linder's variant thereof. There is little or no consideration of the practical implications of their policy (or lack there of) as is evidenced in the long list of questions posed and contradictions that arise from them through investigating potential answers or solutions. There is a reason attempts were made at legislation's to be passed in order to protect the worker and the reasons stretch far deeper than merely stifling the freedom of the elite to maximize their profit. A competitive market and economic freedom does not despite the false beliefs of the majority, imply that one has the freedom to monopolize or that one has the freedom to undermine small business under the auspices that "the fittest survive". The unchecked nature of Capitalist thought led directly to the increasing loss of property among the common property owner and the small business man.

It is not because it requires genius to create business that the small business owner struggles to maintain his position in the market. It is because there is little to prevent big business from weeding him out. Several anti-competitive tactics are often employed to weed out the small business man, for instance: business drops the prices running at a loss for a short period forcing their competitors to apply the same methods in order to attract consumers to their products, which ultimately leads to bankruptcy. This turns the small business owner from an independent contributor to the market into a serf enthralled to big business. To use another example: Walmart and Compass demand that suppliers drop their prices to break even (or less) otherwise they will seek supply from other suppliers.

The logical questions that arise at this point would be: "how did unchecked capitalism lead to the increasing loss of property owned by the common man, as well as to the loss of property owned by the small business man?" and "how precisely does this make him enthralled to large business?"

Large business has a tendency to consume property and small businesses in the interest of growing its own market. Whether this be by deliberately providing a product in mass scale and at cheaper and worse quality than that of the small business owner, or simply buying them out, the end remains the same... It ultimately leads to an increasing loss of small property holders and an increasing grip on property by larger corporations. That is to say that the buying and selling power is largely in the hands of large corporations, even if they do sell this property to small and medium enterprises (if it is deemed to not be profitable) it is sold at prices that do not meet the value of the property. The reason this is done is to ensure that a profit is made from bought property rather than a loss. I am sure that most of you think at this juncture that if land is legally purchased, then it is legitimate and does indeed assist the small property owner as well as the economy financially. But this is not the case at all. You have probably played the popular board game monopoly and seen the results if one player gains control of two thirds or all of the property on the board: it makes it increasingly difficult for the other players to survive in the climate that is the game. Now granted you might smirk at this, and point out that life is not a board game and while this may be true, unchecked capitalism has precisely this same outcome. In so far as it (just as the board game) gradually stifles the economic freedom of the small to medium property and business owner and makes it increasingly difficult for small to medium enterprises and property owners to function, they will eventually (just as the player in the game) be forced to sell at a loss and file for bankruptcy.

On the other hand: land used for agriculture, which is the essential heart of any nation, is under constant pressure from developers seeking to buy the land and use it to develop urban sprawls. The houses may be sold, but the lease of the land still remains in the hands of the developer. This developer can at his own discretion (should the contract not stipulate otherwise) raise the rent of these houses as he sees fit, increasing the financial grip on the average citizen. Another point to consider is the fact that agricultural land purchased is never bought at the actual value of the farming land, simply because it is not calculated on its value to the nation, or its value to the farmer, or to the national community, but on its market value in terms of acres, which is a mechanistic and arbitrary method of evaluating the value of productive farming land. Farming land is not simply acres of sand: it is acres of productive land that produces the substance which gives the nation its independence from others and contributes to a healthy, vibrant national population.

It is here where we see the larger difference between the affects caused in reality and those caused in a board game. While these may affect the individual player in the game of monopoly, these practices affects each and every member of the folk in reality.

This is because the loss of valuable agricultural land, creates dependency on foreign food imports and it uproots the farmer from his natural element forcing him to adapt to a mechanized occupation that is not suited to his skill set. Now it may be argued that he should adapt and apply new skills in order to become more competitive. But all this does, is merely state that he should accept his lot and work toward a new lifestyle, thus taking the human factor out of it i.e. moral consideration of the lot of others is not taken into account, but is merely secondary to profit and the increase there of: anyone could then technically be systematically weeded out of their professions and simply be told to apply new skills so they can sustain a living. This is not just and it certainly is not in line with what we envision for our folk. We cannot place them second to profit nor can we condone disconnecting our folk from the land. Of course to this it could be responded that it was the farmers choice to sell his land. On this, I must disagree: it is rarely the case that a farmer sells his land out of choice, but more often than not because he is compelled to. Today, a local farmer producing local produce has to take into consideration factors outside his immediate market. That is to say: that any produce he makes locally, the same are imported by some large enterprise for cheaper and sold for cheaper on the market, making it increasingly difficult for the local farmer to sell his goods. The local farmer in turn has to cut prices and utilize less and less of his land as the cost of production exceeds that which he makes from the consumer, until ultimately he is not only incapable of sustaining himself, but incapable of sustaining the land, thereby forcing him to sell. This is why there is a need for fixed prices on produce, to give local farmers the ability to sell their produce and more so, to be assured as a constant what it is they can expect to get in return. On the other hand, the loss of small to medium sized businesses increases economic dependency on foreign business investments among our folk. Both of these lead to the same end, more and more people are forced to become dependents, and rest their fate entirely on the good fortunes of their employer. When you have economic independence and economic freedom (I discuss the nature of true economic freedom later in this section), skilled workers are more valuable and paid accordingly, checks are in place to ensure that they are rewarded for it. However, in a monopolized "capitalist/libertarian" society, there would be no demand for skilled workers because all work goes directly through a select few property owners. Meaning that they control the demand not vice versa. The value of such workers would diminish and they'd be paid to the extent of cheap labor and nothing more.

Another point to consider is: the loss of small and medium business could also lead to the demise of quality control as I have briefly mentioned earlier. I shall now explain what it is I mean by this:

Whether it is believed or not, it is highly probable that once there is little competition that maintains a quality standard, business would see no reason to ensure that they produce products that are top quality. As far as they'd be concerned, you should simply accept what is on offer for without them there to provide the product you wouldn't have it to begin with. We already see indications of this, several of our products are being made abroad at cheaper rates and with far less emphasis on "quality".

With these thoughts in mind, people should heed warning not to look at business practices from a direct perspective while neglecting entirely that there are various (and often used) indirect practices to achieve the desired effect for large corporations. The methods by which farmers are bought off their land are by no means ethical to say the least, they either have their produce sanctioned, or they are forced to buy their material from exclusive providers. This is also a method practiced to stifle the small business owner. If you are dependent on one supplier, you are dependent on his prices. There is no freedom to pick and choose a supplier as it fits your needs. It is not "liberating from economic tyranny" as Linder fancies his scheme to be, but quite the opposite that occurs...enslavement to the point where the farmer has little choice, but to leave behind the life that is so embedded in his blood.

With that said it is clear that economic freedom is not achieved when rested in the hands of the select few, or those capable of weeding out the small property holder. Just as freedom as a concept is not attained by catering for the minority of the population, what concerns freedom is how it is beneficial to the community as a whole. The benefit to society is determined by the results achieved. People reject policy not because it "limits freedom" but because it is damaging or detrimental, if the results are pleasing to the State and the folk, then the people will seek no reason to disband it.

Clearly an economic policy that caters for a select few individuals above the well-being of the folk is not a feasible alternative to the centralized government of today, much less to speak of one that is actually of benefit to the folk. One simply cannot substitute a sledgehammer with a bulldozer and call it a solution as Linder has done. Government is not there to ensure the well-being of the select few, but rather the well-being of the folk and the state as a whole, and while libertarians and Linder may have a point that today it is neglecting this task, it is inconceivable to suggest that the only solution is one, which is by far the worst imaginable...that is to say that the folk should be left to the devices of a system which in the past and the present showed its tendency to exploit. If business had been ethical and if it had been the solution to societies problems, then there would not have been a need for legislation and economic theory to prevent the exploitative tendencies of big business.

Linder cannot state that certain regulations would remain to ensure they (the worker) aren't bitten out by business in order to remedy these inconsistencies and if he does decide to argue in favor of it. How does he plan to institute a completely neutral committee to oversee that it complies to these regulations? And would this not then contradict his assertion that he would "free the business from economic tyranny"? It is always possible to accommodate certain regulations, but the more and more he does this, the less it becomes libertarianism, and the more it leans toward a centralized form of governing. It is folly to state that because the current establishment misuses funds appropriated through taxation, it's necessary to entirely do away with the system and entrust it to business which poses several severe problems if maintained unregulated, as is evidenced throughout this section.

We're going to need far more than mere "aesthetic dreams" to convince us that leaving our fate entirely up to business is the right choice for our folk and since reason contradicts this assertion, it would take a miracle of immense proportions to alter the fact that it simply will not work without it eventually ending in tears.

FREEDOM

The second issue on Linder's list is the matter of freedom. It is Linder's contention that less control by government ultimately means more freedom and that it is the key to the development of all the creative spirit within the folk [6]. Now obviously this only shows one thing:

Linder hasn't the faintest clue what precisely freedom means. He's under some false perception that freedom can only be attained when it is uninhibited as much as possible. While it may be true when you look at it from such a simplistic standpoint, it is by it's very nature anarchic as well. This is why we look at freedom in terms of how it relates to man and freedom as it relates to the community. These two concepts are interlocked and inseparable. That is to say that:

Freedom as it relates to man on an individual level needs to conform and be in harmony with freedom as it relates to the community. Obviously, if we allow man the freedom to inflict harm onto another, we equally disallow the victim the freedom to not be harmed, in this regard we restrict the freedom of one who desires the freedom to harm another for the good of the community (who desires co-existence in as peaceful a way as possible). It is not in uninhibited individual freedom that freedom as a whole is achieved, but by how it relates to the well-being of the community. This does not, however, mean that we prevent the individual's right of personal freedom. We fully acknowledge the right to personal freedom, provided that these do not in any way harm the community or the individual. That is to say: personal "freedoms" that are detrimental to the individual as well as to the folk, must be sacrificed for the good of the community and for the individual as well. Of course it could be argued that: what a person does in the privacy of his home is entirely his business and that we cannot possibly say that he must, be held accountable for actions committed in the privacy of his home. But here we touch upon an issue that depends entirely on the perception of the individual himself (as mentioned earlier) and what he thinks the freedoms he is entitled to are. While it may be true in most cases that we cannot intervene in the privacy of the individual's home. There are exceptions to this rule: It cannot be argued that the abuse of drugs is alright as long as it is done within the privacy of the individual's home. He may consider this a freedom he is entitled to have, but this puts at risk the well-being of every member of the folk that comes into contact with him throughout the duration of his intoxication. This sort of argument would also assume that an individual who acts irresponsibly has the responsibility to refrain from putting others at risk. Which simply isn't the case, if it is not directly endangering others lives, it is the selling of these substances to the community and the active recruiting of community members that's undertaken at every possible opportunity. Showing that: more often than not, these self damaging "personal freedoms" have community wide consequences. There are far more diabolical instances of perceived personal freedom that have harmed others and have ultimately left a community in shock. However, we need not delve into these as I trust that we've come to understand that there are with regard to the privacy of an individual's home, exceptions to the rule. And as a result of these exceptions demonstrable instances where, for the sake of the greater good certain personal freedoms must ultimately be sacrificed and actively worked against. And to do this, we make use of regulations called laws, which act as the checks (much like a maze) that guide man to his spiritual, moral and intellectual growth.

Consider the following thought experiment:

When science wishes to determine the faculties of an organism, it places them in a regulated environment so that they may extract the potential of the organism to its fullest extent, in any matter of problem solving and it frequently translates into success. The reason is because an organism that is placed into a regulated environment is able to use its cognitive abilities without distraction. However, if there are no such regulated environments in place, then these collective (and productive) energies would be dispersed with little guidance to ensure that they reach their maturity. Or to put it slightly different: castes will form within society, and each one would seek to impose its will on the other.

Now this is not to say that a human being is not a complicated organism, but in a society where several depend on one another it is equally necessary to ensure that distractions of an immoral nature do not occur. The checks imposed in order to secure freedom for all law abiding members of the folk are fundamentally no different to the regulated environments produced to ensure that distractions do not occur and that the maximum potential is extracted from the organism. Whereas without these checks in place it would collapse into a chaotic environment where the general well-being of the folk are in danger. Humans are for the most part in constant pursuit of happiness, and as a result of this pursuit of happiness, they are ill-inclined to refrain from immorality unless there are attached to these actions consequences as there is with any choices that are made. It had been shown countless times in society that people are easily susceptible to suggestion. It takes only a few to tempt with immorality for it to catch fire and stifle the moral fiber of the folk.

With this said:

If we consider the matter discussed previously it is obvious that when we review Linder's "White-Man-ISM" versus National Socialism, that National Socialism does indeed do far more to ensure that proper freedom is rewarded to the community. It is true that he could point to certain concepts of National Socialism that inhibit the "freedom of man," but only so far as he perceives these freedoms. That is to say that: what he considers free, others equally consider tyranny...If these checks ensure the advancement of the community as a whole, then freedom has indeed been ensured.

EDUCATION

Similarly to government, Linder argues that because the education system today is astronomically worse than home education, home education (based on a strictly intellectual curriculum) should be the absolute practice in his libertarian society.[7][8] There are several issues with this:

Linder assumes that every parent that elects to educate their child at home takes the toughest intellectual course possible for their child, which is simply not the case. More often than not they opt for the same curriculum that he considers to be "entirely geared to attitude adjustment" (see note 8). On the other hand, he also assumes that parents not themselves educated in a strictly intellectual curriculum, would be able to educate their children in such a rigorous education system. Even worse that they would enable the children to understand the courses with relative ease. Which upon close reflection is patently absurd: merely reading a wide array of books does not qualify a parent in the teaching of rigorous intellectual material. It requires in-depth knowledge of the material provided. A child needs to be guided and explained the content of his school curriculum, something an untrained parent cannot do in a complex school curriculum.

Linder further assumes that every parent would willingly do so; this is also not the case: Home education today is done by parents who elect to accept that responsibility, it is not mandatory. In a "loosely free" libertarian society, there can be no checks in place to ensure that all parents adhere to this responsibility. That is to say that: they cannot be forced to ensure proper education for the youth of the society. Of course, Linder could (as is his custom to do) sway between the two options (his and the one provided here) and enact such a law to ensure proper education. This however, is a particularly tricky matter, as it is in essence in the privacy of the citizen's home and we could equally then implement various other laws on the grounds that what the citizen does in the privacy of his home is detrimental to society as a whole. Including the matter of homosexuality, which Linder deems "alright as long as it is in the closet".[9] Clearly the one contradicts the other. Linder cannot be in favor of imposed laws like these regarding home education, whilst considering the other as "beyond the bounds of the law" if it is maintained in the privacy of the house. Especially when he considers homosexuality to be damaging to the community.

That's precisely the problem law makers had in the early 19th century and this is precisely why the public school system was created. It alleviated the parents from this responsibility and ensured maximum privacy at home without violation. I am sure some would consider the possibility that because education in general is mandatory that it is fundamentally no different to implementing these laws that violate the privacy of home decisions and choices, but this is not the case. In providing optional public schooling a choice is provided for the parent, to either elect to home school their children; or to grant the responsibility to the State; or on the other hand private institutions to do so. In Linder's libertarianism there is no choice regarding the matter, which makes it less a matter of 'freedom' than the solution provided by the state and private institutions.

Of course we could repeat the fact that this system is abused today, and that the education curriculum is extremely dumbed down. But when one discusses a theoretical future state (as Linder does) he must take into account the fact that a rigorous, and well-balanced education system within an Aryan society would be better able to ensure that children are properly educated. As it would serve as a beacon in the community guiding our youth back to their natural roles. This is something, Linder's libertarian ideal cannot guarantee. His strict home school policy will leave our youth susceptible to the very ideals that have led us down this path to begin with. Linder wrongly assumes that once he achieves success, every single individual in his society would convert to a full-blown racial libertarian. Whilst at the same time acknowledging that this isn't feasible at all...i.e. He acknowledged that it is necessary at first to deal away with non-whites and such, under the auspices of a racial dictatorship. [10] but thinks this will only be necessary until these threats are removed. Once they are removed, society will be blissful and we could return to a state of statelessness. Which begs the question: If Linder considers the only solution to the racial question an authoritarian interim government, why does he neglect the most important aspect of the folk, its youth? It is absurd to think that one merely has to rectify the racial demographic and society would magically balance itself to a state of serenity.

The problems that we face aren't merely rectified in one generation or in a few years, it is a condition that requires constant monitoring which can only be attained by means of proper governmental ground work. The concept of a thousand year Reich was not because National Socialism envisioned itself as a "political messiah" as some have come to think, it is because it recognized that ideas have a lasting effect whether they are demonstrable within society or not. It is necessary to have a system in place that lasts long enough to reintroduce racial principles into our folk; so it once more becomes a natural instinct.

HOW LINDER'S BAND OF LIBERTARIANS ARGUE AGAINST NATIONAL SOCIALISM

Recently, in order to further boast his libertarian ideals, Linder and his band of libertarians decided to in effect lash out against National Socialism and its perceived "tyrannical laws" which had been passed. In this section, we will deal with several of these issues brought up during his discussion about the libertarian ideal. The topics will be dealt with in a Statement & Answer format, so as to maintain consistency. For the purposes of consistency, I've made these statements according to a general outline. The verbatim statements can be found in the source.

"Libertarianism offers freedom of association"[11]

To this, we answer: In National Socialism today as well as in Germany, people do and did have the freedom to associate with whom they please. You may consider this statement preposterous and point to the fact that they were not allowed to associate with non-Whites, Jews, communists and so forth...but I could equally point out that your position is patently absurd on the basis that you maintain fully that your society will only function once these elements are not in it. I could equally then, turn the question on you and ask why you prevent the freedom of association between European and black, European and Jew and communist and libertarian?

"What if I don't want to associate with a National Socialist, would they be alright with it?"[See note 11]

To this we answer: There were several party members in National Socialist Germany who associated freely with non-party members. People who elected to not join the party; or any of its branches were not hindered in any of their day to day activities. There was no discrimination against people on the basis that they either did not "vote" or are not members of the National Socialist party. The same would apply today, National Socialism adheres to a strict folkish concept: we love our folk and our single drive is to secure its survival and ensure that it continues its advancement to its highest potential. Obviously when we consider this fact, there is little to suggest that we would go so far as to discriminate against law abiding members of our folk. Of course, you could always argue that there have been instances where members of the folk in National Socialist Germany were prosecuted for practicing communist ideals, but this would be hypocritical to mention considering that it is doubtful that you would tolerate individuals who practice egalitarianism in your exclusive libertarian "society".

"In National Socialism, the controlled media will not report your point of view"[12]

To this we answer: It is in the interest of any institution whether it be Government or in your case a lack there of, to perpetuate their ideals. It is essential to the existence of ideologies to do so. Whether you propagandize 80% of material that are libertarian and allow 20% of the arguments that are easily swatted for the purposes of making your own ideal appear that much more solid, makes your media no less controlled than those of any other State.

We already observe this tendency on your part, eagerly threatening to silence those who oppose your visions, and sometimes out right silence them entirely should they provide a bit too much opposition and too many arguments that you are unable to answer directly yourself.

"National Socialism is out dated and won't work in America"[13]

To this we answer: National Socialism is an organism in and of itself, it continuously adapts and evolves as time flows by, which makes it I dare say the most modern World view that exists today. And on the other hand because it is adaptable and because it does evolve, it is equally workable in the United States. It is foolish to believe that we could simply copy German National Socialism which evolved from German culture, German thought and German historical background and paste it into Denmark and expect it to work. It would logically and by its very nature adapt in accordance with their culture, thought and background, just as it would do the same in the United States.

SUMMARY

Throughout this essay, I've explored several key points in Linder's libertarian ideals, and it is through this exploration that I conclude the following reasons as to why it is a flawed utopic pipe dream: On his ideas to replace government with private business we concluded that one cannot expect business to not abuse the power granted to them over the citizen body. On his ideas for an education system we concluded that it cannot be expected that an education system based on pure homeschooling would work in a reasonable sense because it lacks the elements that provide a lasting framework for the folk. Also, that not everyone has the free time at their disposal to handle such a rigorous education system as Linder has in mind, neither do they have the correct training in understanding these materials. Lastly, on the concepts of Linder's "freedom" we concluded that it is folly to expect freedom to be "loosely defined" based on "less control" without it inevitably leading to an increasingly immoral society.

It appears as though libertarianism is a political concept that needs to be taken on good faith and warm sentimental feelings rather than calculated and well thought out solutions. Clearly this is not a feasible solution to the problems we face today, nor is this the kind of system in which we should trust the future of our folk.

Notes:

[1] Linder, Alex. “Libertarianism Is Poison”. Vanguard News Network. 21st September 2009. 13th November 2009. http://www.vnnforum.com/showpost.php?p=1052484&postcount=60

[2] Linder, Alex. “Libertarianism Is Poison”. Vanguard News Network. 21st September 2009. 13th November 2009. http://www.vnnforum.com/showpost.php?p=1052494&postcount=61

[3] Linder, Alex. “Libertarianism Is Poison”. Vanguard News Network. 20th September 2009. 13th November 2009. http://www.vnnforum.com/showpost.php?p=1052221&postcount=32

[4] Linder, Alex. “Libertarianism Is Poison”. Vanguard News Network. 21st September 2009. 13th November 2009. http://www.vnnforum.com/showpost.php?p=1052484&postcount=60

[5] Linder, Alex. “Libertarianism Is Poison”. Vanguard News Network. 21st September 2009. 13th November 2009. http://www.vnnforum.com/showpost.php?p=1052494&postcount=61

[6] Linder, Alex. “Libertarianism Is Poison”. Vanguard News Network. 22nd September 2009. 13th November 2009. http://www.vnnforum.com/showpost.php?p=1052983&postcount=139

[7] Linder, Alex. “Libertarianism Is Poison”. Vanguard News Network. 22nd September 2009. 13th November 2009. http://www.vnnforum.com/showpost.php?p=1053088&postcount=153

[8] Linder, Alex. “Libertarianism Is Poison”. Vanguard News Network. 23rd September 2009. 13th November 2009. http://www.vnnforum.com/showpost.php?p=1053088&postcount=163

[9] Linder, Alex. “The Continental Divide Poll: Where WN Stand on Government”. Vanguard News Network. 2nd October 2009. 13th November 2009. http://www.vnnforum.com/showpost.php?p=1056672&postcount=71

[10] Linder, Alex. "The Continental Divide Poll: Where WN Stand on Government". Vanguard News Network. 1st October 2009. 13th November 2009. http://www.vnnforum.com/showpost.php?p=1056266&postcount=1

[11] SteveB. "The Continental Divide Poll: Where WN Stand on Government". Vanguard News Network. 1st October 2009. 13th November 2009. http://www.vnnforum.com/showpost.php?p=1056295&postcount=8

[12] Linder, Alex. "The Libertarianism Is Poison". Vanguard News Network. 21st September 2009. 13th November 2009. http://www.vnnforum.com/showpost.php?p=1052404&postcount=47

[13] Bandanza, Robert. "The Continental Divide Poll: Where WN Stand on Government". Vanguard News Network. 1st October 2009. 13th November 2009. http://www.vnnforum.com/showpost.php?p=1056305&postcount=10

Adolf Hitler and his Personal Library

A Book Review of Timothy Ryback, 2009, 'Hitler's Private Library: The Books that Shaped his Life', 1st Edition, The Bodley Head: London

Adolf Hitler is well known to have been an avid reader and as he himself relates in 'Mein Kampf': he would often spend his days and nights reading from the time that he was a 'down and out' in Vienna to the final days of his noble self-sacrifice in the Fuehrer bunker during the battle for Berlin. Timothy Ryback has attempted to bring us a slice of what Hitler read and in essence to help form a coherent view of some of Hitler's reading material and habits. Unfortunately despite the innovative selection of the topic: the book itself isn't really about research, but rather about foistering Ryback's opinions on the reader as well as character assassinating Hitler at every conceivable opportunity.

The book starts off well enough describing the dearth of literature covering the issue of what Hitler's private library contained and that it is rather hard to tell what Hitler actually read of it. Ryback correctly points out that in order to understand Hitler you have to first understand what formed the opinions that created National Socialism, but what Ryback forgets, or rather doesn't seem to care for, is that in order to understand what Hitler read and why it appealed to him one has to get inside his head. This Ryback doesn't do and when he does: he asserts, by implication, that for some reason he has special knowledge of what Hitler liked and what he did not.

For example in dealing with a worn typed manuscript of the, apparently unpublished, book 'Law of the World' by Max Riedel: Ryback claims that it was 'well read by Hitler', because it would 'appeal to him' with little evidence martialled as to Hitler's taste in literature let alone proof that it was actually read by Hitler. Let us note that all Ryback has to 'indicate' this is that it was in Hitler's library (which was huge and as Ryback correctly notes elsewhere Hitler certainly didn't read all, or even most, of it), that it had underlining (again Ryback correctly notes elsewhere that other individuals habitually read Hitler's books before him and recommended to him what they thought he would like to read therefore this isn't proof either), that the book was rather worn from reading (where we don't know the original condition of the book and nor do we know who read it so much: one cannot jump to the conclusion that it was Hitler although it is a unproven possibility) and that this book was supposedly given to Hitler by his maid on the request of Riedel.

This kind of equation, although it apparently satisfies the otherwise scholarly (if rather incorrect at times) Ian Kershaw, is not satisfactory in any evidential sense, because it is a series of speculative 'what ifs' and because others routinely read books in Hitler's private library then it is rather unlikely to have been Hitler personally unless we have specific proof, which Ryback simply does not provide. However this doesn't stop Ryback from trumpeting this 'discovery' and declaring that:

'Here we glimpse at least a portion of Hitler's essential core. It was a distillation of the philosophies of Schopenhauer or Nietzsche than a dime-store theory cobbled together from cheap, tendentious paperbacks and esoteric hardcovers, which provided the justification for a thin, calculating, bullying mendacity.' (1)

This assertion by Ryback is simply absurd and overt character assassination rather than the logical conclusion from 'careful analysis' he implies it to be. Ryback here is simply asserting, without analysis or even a basic understanding, that National Socialism is a 'dime-store theory' and that one of its key statements, 'Mein Kampf', is simply a bunch of ideas distilled from cheap literature. To argue that National Socialism, by virtue of his assertions about Hitler, is a 'dime-store theory' is not only a serious intellectual error but a sign of a mind that has decided before hand that it is irrational and therefore sets out to find evidence as such from Hitler's private library.

Ryback asserts that National Socialism, in effect, has no real basis in German philosophy and that Hitler's thought was just a collection of quotes that he had found in his reading. Ryback claims that Hitler read for quotes rather than to understand and simply asserts that this was the case without even attempting to provide evidence for it: one suspects it is because it actually entails trying to understand National Socialism, which is something Ryback seems to what to avoid as doggedly as possible.

That National Socialism was the logical product of German philosophy, and that Hitler certainly had read and understood this philosophy, can be found by comparing the work of Edgar Julius Jung a conservative revolutionary philosopher (who opposed National Socialism and even Ryback would have to admit knew what he was talking about philosophically) to Mein Kampf and by noting the certain similarities of thought: although due to having less of a formal education Hitler's expression of that thought was a little less extensive and developed and tended to (correctly) focus on the practical applications (and learning from historical experience) rather than theorectical elements of philosophy. Ryback simply doesn't know what he is talking about, but that doesn't stop him making the nonsense equations and false assertions that he does.

The 'dime-store theory' comment has its roots in the fact that Hitler had a liking for American 'dime novels', which were short relatively simple fictional stories that were cheap and easy to read. That Hitler had a large collection of these Ryback sees as 'proof' that Hitler was simple-minded and hadn't really read or mastered the great classics of German literature. Ryback here ignores that National Socialism is based heavily on those very classics of German literature and it was Adolf Hitler more than any other man who set the tenants of National Socialist philosophy.

It is also notable that Ryback doesn't take into account that Hitler at this point had just been through the first world war and part of the staple of any soldier then as now is entertainment and that is provided by reading. That Hitler had not long come back from the front and had picked up a passion for 'simple' literature is hardly surprising given that as, Ernst Juenger relates in his war memoir 'Storm of Steel', reading was a fairly common way of decreasing the boredom of trench life and passing time. Juenger himself read a good deal in the trenches and it is reasonable to assume that given Hitler's love of reading before and after the first world war that he also engaged his passion in whatever literature could be found.

One rather thinks that these 'dime novels' were simply readily available (Hitler himself notes the dearth of good propaganda reading material that the German soldiers had available to them to such an extent that they would actually look forward to reading the enemy's new propaganda leaflets that were dropped over their lines) and that in the trenches Hitler found it hard to acquire decent reading material (Juenger himself was lucky, and an exception, in that he was fluent in French and able to read the contents of the local inhabitants libraries) and that these 'dime novels' were relatively easy to acquire and offered an escape from the tendium and terror of trench life. Ryback, of course, completely ignores such necessary considerations and plunges on in his 'attempt' to prove that Hitler was an 'imbecile' when he was something of a genius (considering he created a coherent weltanschauung and consistently acted within its dictates without even a standard education).

Ryback also implies that because the books in Hitler's library that were by the classical authors of German literature and philosophy were apparently unread (and mind you we have only Ryback's claim on this point and he is hardly a trustworthy, let alone objective, witness as I have demonstrated above) this evidences his position, but again we find that Ryback is selectively interpreting his 'facts' (even if we assume these copies not be unread) since he fails to take into account that Hitler spent much time when he was in Vienna in the libraries reading. Since these classics were almost certainly represented in those libraries and 'Mein Kampf' shows the influence of these works then we can only assume that Hitler had first read them while he was Vienna or possibly behind the lines during first convalescense after being wounded by a diversionary attack on the Somme by the British in 1916. That is what the logical conclusion would be if one were take into account the evidence, but then Ryback isn't interested in factual/logical work, but rather in throwing rotten fruit at a man he doesn't even try to understand.

Also notable in this regard is Ryback comments about the proofs for 'Mein Kampf', which he argues by implication that because Hitler routinely misspelt some basic words that he was stupid. Rather misspellings are common on proof copies in any age, especially in the days that one did not have word processors to check spellings, and the grammatical errors that Ryback makes much of are merely the result of an unfinished education. It is also quite possible that Hitler was dyslexic given his general intelligence as demonstrated by his later work, his trouble with spelling as well as grammar and the fact that Hitler was a somewhat disruptive boy at school (as dyslexics often can be, because of their sense of frustration). This demonstrates Ryback's attention to detail when it suits him, but also his selective interpretation of evidence that frequently ignores more plausible explanations if one takes the situation and other evidence into account.

In addition to this Ryback doesn't actually spend several chapters of 'Hitler's Private Library' talking about Hitler at all, but rather outlining weird theories in regard to Alfred Rosenberg and Alois Hudal who was a German Catholic Bishop and philosopher in Rome. Hudal wrote a book in 1937 called 'The Foundations of National Socialism', which was an ambitious attempt to reconcile National Socialism with Catholicism that, although not much attention was paid to it at the time, was highly successful in doing just what it proclaimed to do. Ryback asserts that this work was the Vatican's attempt to challenge Alfred Rosenberg's strong anti-Christian views as expressed in 'The Myth of the Twentieth Century': this is rather tenuous as when reading the work one has to actively look for what Ryback asserts is the 'manipulation' of National Socialism to fit the Vatican's supposed agenda. One may reasonably opine that it is doubtful Ryback has even read the work in question, but rather uses tortuous inferences in other texts and Hudal's other work to suggest that this is the case.

This seems unlikely because the Catholic Church had already published several counters to 'The Myth of the Twentieth Century' before this point, such as the rebuttal to 'The Myth of the Twentieth Century' published by the Archdiocese of Cologne in 1934 that Rosenberg responded to in later editions of 'The Myth of the Twentieth Century'. That Ryback doesn't note this should be no surprise by now as it shows just how little research Ryback actually did before writing 'Hitler's Private Library'.

All in all Hitler's private library is a severe disappointment. The idea for a work covering Hitler's literary interests and the contents of his library is a good one and does deserve extensive treatment by a scholar and that scholar is certainly not Timothy Ryback who, despite the several good reviews the book has received by learned professors who seem more interested in cashing their paycheck than the ideals of scholarship, in any sane world would be tarred, feathered and exiled to Ascension Island or another deserted rock in the middle of the ocean.

(1) Timothy Ryback, 2009, 'Hitler's Private Library: The Books that Shaped his Life', 1st Edition, The Bodley Head: London, p. 161

The Life of Tiberius Gracchus

Tiberius Gracchus, and his brother Gaius, are two important figures in early Roman history that we are told about by Plutarch in his 'Lives'. Tiberius and Gaius brought about the reforms that shaped Rome into being the superpower and empire that it was to become, but yet little is known about them or their eventual sacrifice of their lives for the ideals they espoused. I propose therefore to offer a portrait of the important parts of Tiberius Gracchus' life here, Gaius Gracchus in my next article and then offer an interpretation of the moral and warning of their lives and actions that is beneficial to National Socialism as it enters the second Kampfzeit. Since their lives are examples for National Socialists to understand and follow. I have based my account on Plutarch's 'Tiberius Gracchus' and will make references to relevant passages in footnotes (1). So let us begin our tale.

Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus were two brothers born nine years apart into a prominent Aryan family of Romans. Their father, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, was a general with two triumphs to his noble name and was renowed throughout Rome as a man of good character and principle. Their mother, Cornelia, was the daughter of one of Roman's greatest generals, the 'Roman Hannibal', Scipio Africanus and a woman whose honourable character and beauty were well known throughout the world to such an extent that the powerful Pharaoh of Egypt, Ptolmey VI (2), expressed his love for her and requested that she honour him by being his queen after her husband's untimely death in 150 B.C (3), but she refused this on the probable grounds that the Ptolmey dynasty, descended from one of Alexander's (Aryan) Greek generals, had become mixed with undesirable (negro and semitic) stock and would inevitably result in the dilution of her family's bloodline, which she rightly treasured.

Tiberius, the eldest remaining son of the marriage, retained these noble characteristics and he, with his brother Gaius, was known to be just, trustworthy and honourable (4). This respect was shown by Tiberius' swift appointment to the college of augurs, of whom there were nine, and a fellow augur and leader of the Senate, Appius Claudius Pulcher (5), offering Tiberius his daughter's, much sought after, hand in marriage, which Tiberius gratefully accepted, during the banquet that celebrated Tiberius' appointment to the college of augurs (6).

Tiberius was soon recruited to serve in the Roman army in Africa under Scipio Africanus the younger in the third, and final, Punic war against Carthage and was noted for his bravery being the first to storm over the wall into Carthage. Tiberius resultingly received much acclaim for this feat of bravery and was also held in great esteem by his commander with whom he was given the honour of sharing a tent (7).

After this military triumph Tiberius was elected as a quaestor (8) and dispatched to serve in Spain against the Numantines, a Celtic warrior tribe in northern Spain (9), under the command of the incompetant consul Gaius Mancinus. Mancinus proceeded to lose every engagement that he fought against the Numantines and his army was soon surrounded and outnumbered by fierce Numantine warriors. In order to try and save his own skin Mancinus promptly sent out peace envoys to the Numantines, but they refused to negotiate with anyone but Tiberius, because they had heard of his personality and had known his father who they held to be a great and honourable warrior (10)(11).

Tiberius negotiated fairly with the Numantines and managed to befriend them so that they allowed the Roman army to march back to Rome thus saving the lives of some twenty thousand Roman citizens (12). For this great feat of diplomacy and care these citizens and their families felt truly indebted to Tiberius, because he had saved their lives and allowed them to go back to their peace time occupations. This was little thanks to Mancinus who was rightly villified in Rome, by both the Roman people and the Senate, for his incompetance and lack of courage (13).

Unfortunately as a result of this villification of Mancinus a vocal minority of the Senate, who were more interested in enriching themselves by seizing land in the name of Rome for their own personal profit than maintaining the honour and diginity of the Roman people, used this strong feeling to demand that Rome not honour the terms of the peace as agreed by Tiberius but rather send a new army under Scipio Africanus the younger to crush the brave and honourable Numantines. These same self-centred Senators, much like the politicans of today, also tried to translate this into further political advantage by demanding the enslavement of all the officers of Mancinus' army, especially Tiberius, so that they could stripped naked and sent in chains to the Numantines as a statement of Roman's intent not to honour the peace treaty agreed by Tiberius (14).

Only the quick-witted actions of Scipio Africanus the younger in the Senate to mollify the majority that had been enraged by the rhetoric of the self-interest minority saved Tiberius and his fellow officers and in doing so had to sacrifice the incompetant Mancinus to the Senate's lust for blood. Unfortunately Tiberius saw this as a gross betrayal of everything he had agreed with the Numantines and strongly reprimanded Scipio Africanus the younger for his actions, which had saved Tiberius from a vicious punishment (15). This confrontation was eventually to help cause Tiberius' downfall and prevent what he belived in so passionately from coming to pass in his lifetime due to the creation of an enemity between himself and Scipio Africanus the younger who also divorced Tiberius' sister, Sempronia on the grounds that the marriage was not a happy one (16).

After Tiberius' awful experience in the Senate he began to notice that there was an increasing level of misery on the streets of Rome and noted that the same minority of self-interested senators who had been demanding his, and his fellow soldier's, blood were using all manner of con artist's tricks, such as creating non-existent tenants, and even illegal evictions of the inhabitants to forcibly confiscate land in their own name in defiance of the Lex Licinia of 366 B.C., which ruled that each citizen could only hold 310 hectares of land and no more. After forcibly evicting the citizens, with little but what they could carry and the clothes on their backs with no food or money, the greedy minority then brought in slaves, likely Semitic Carthaginians, to work the land in place of the original Aryan inhabitants.

This, Tiberius saw, was destroying Rome's military and civic backbone as these farmers, who were the part of the population that the Roman military recruited from and once these shylockian senators had forced them off their land they became very unwilling to volunteer for military service decreasing Rome's ability to recruit new legions and turning the countryside into the province of the wealthy and slaves with the inherent risk of slave revolts only increasing. This discontent was also speading to the towns and even Rome itself with the poor chalking and painting slogans and appeals on the walls, statues and monuments (17).

Tiberius, who was now a tribune of the people, and his supporters such as his father-in-law, Appius Claudius Pulcher, and the then Pontifix Maximus Crassus, drafted a moderate law that was to force the greedy minority in the Senate to hand the land back that they had illegally acquired to the Roman state, for which they would be suitably compensated, and the land would then be redistributed to the neediest Roman citizens and the veterans who would then provide the basis for the healthy continuation of the Roman state by being the recruiting ground for the Roman military (18).

Unfortunately this rather moderate program still did not win full support among the Roman people, because it offered only a temporary solution in so far as it did not protect them from the future activities of these shylockian senators, but only righted the wrongs that had been done to them. On the other hand it positively infuriated the shylockian senators who wished to keep their ill gotten gains and began to stir up resentment against Tiberius among the Roman citizenry by alleging that Tiberius was out for his own personal advantage and wished to create a general revolution for the purpose of making himself the king of Rome (19)(20). Fortunately however Tiberius was more than a match for these accusations with his personality ringing true combined with his rhetorical ability allowing him to sway the citizens to the cause of right rather than of self-interest (21).

Since the shylockian senators could not sway the Roman citizenry they restorted to an old Senatorial trick to prevent Tiberius' law being passed by persuading one of the other tribunes of the people, one Marcus Octavius (a former close friend of Tiberius') (22), to veto Tiberius' law and thus prevent it from becoming law (and forcing them to comply with it) (23). Tiberius responded to this open provocation by reformulating his law so that it was less moderate and fulfilled the demands of the Roman citizens without any concilliation to the shylockian senators. This was again vetoed and so Tiberius proceeded onto more extreme measures by stopping the day-to-day running of the Roman government by using his veto to prevent the law courts from opening, sealing the treasury and preventing any of the normal business of Roman government to occur (24).

This heightening of the tension, as well as the stakes, by both sides caused the shylockian senators to form a conspiracy against Tiberius and this being somewhat known Tiberius took to wearing a dagger at all times as to protect himself (25). After days of intrigue and counter intrigue, including attempts to disrupt votes and debates in the senate, Tiberius finally made a move to break the deadlock by moving to remove Octavius as a tribune, which was duly granted after many appeals from Tiberius to Octavius for the latter to stand aside (26). The vote was overwhelming and Octavius was removed, which promptly caused a riot as the Roman citizens tried to kill the man who had stood in the way of a law that they not only wished for but needed for their very survival. Tiberius, to his credit, tried to restrain the rioters and did just enough, along with the senators, to prevent Octavius being killed by the angry citizens (27).

After these events Tiberius' law was passed and a three man group was appointed to put the law into practice. These three men were Tiberius, his brother Gaius (who was on campaign against the Numantines with Scipio Africanus the younger) and his father-in-law Appius Claudius Pulcher. These three then began to enforce the law, but were regularly attacked and insulted within the senate who also, in the thrall of the shylockian senators (particularly Publius Nasica (28)), refused these men, particularly Tiberius, the basic facilities to enact the law such as a tent in which they could work (29). This continued for sometime until eventually Tiberius fell victim to the conspiracy of the shylockian senators who managed to finally turn some of the Roman citizens against Tiberius and to murder him as to prevent him from restoring to the Roman citizens what was rightfully theirs.

(1) The edition and translation I am using is Plutarch, Trans: Ian Scott-Kilvert, 1965, 'Makers of Rome', 1st Edition, Penguin: New York
(2) Ibid., p. 154, n. 2
(3) Plut., Ti. Gracch., 1
(4) Ibid., 3:4
(5) Ibid., 4; Macrob., Sat., 2.10
(6) Plut., Ti. Gracch., 4
(7) Ibid.
(8) An official who looked after the financial affairs of Rome.
(9) The Numantines would later commit mass suicide rather than be enslaved to a man by the Romans.
(10) Plut., Ti. Gracch., 5
(11) One of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus' triumphs had been given to him for his military victories in Spain presumably against, or involving, the Numantines.
(12) Plut., Ti. Gracch., 5
(13) Ibid., 7
(14) Ibid.
(15) Ibid.
(16) Plutarch, Op. Cit., p. 154, n. 3
(17) Plut., Ti. Gracch., 8
(18) Ibid., 9
(19) Ibid.
(20) The popular mythos of Rome, especially in the Republican era, was that the kings of Rome had been tyrants and that anyone who tried to make themselves a king was to be reviled, because they sought to create a tyranny. Hence the power of the insinuation and the charge made by the hostile senators against Tiberius.
(21) Plut., Ti. Gracch., 9:10
(22) The reason for Octavius' opposition was because he had been one of the senators who had seized large tracts of land illegally. Tiberius seems not to have known this before he tried to enact his law.
(23) Among the tribunes of the people it was necessary for all the tribunes to agree before the people were able to vote and hence it was a simple matter to persuade, blackmail and/or bribe one of the tribunes to stop the enactment of laws that senators were opposed to.
(24) Plut., Ti. Gracch., 10
(25) Ibid.
(26) Ibid., 11
(27) Ibid., 12
(28) Publius Nasica was one of the senators who owned the largest amount of illegally confiscated land and hence was strongly opposed to this law and Tiberius because it would deprive of him of income and status regardless of whether he had stolen the land or not.
(29) Ibid., 13

A Critique of the National Socialist Movement (Part I): The Concept of National Socialism

The National Socialist Movement (or NSM) is a neo-Nazi, not a National Socialist, group that has recently been making a significant amount of news. We believe the time is now ripe to begin to critique this group's ideology from a National Socialist perspective and explain why it isn't even remotely National Socialist, but more reminiscent of that of the German-American Bund and assorted other American Nationalist groups.

The first part of this critique we are going to direct towards their article 'explaining' what National Socialism is on their website (1) from where we will take all quotes attributed to the NSM unless otherwise stated. The format we will use for this critique will be a paragraph by paragraph rebuttal rather than an essay. Since this format will allow us to dissect the NSM's statements in detail and prevent us from going off topic too much to explain the philosophic basis of National Socialism in detail. We will be focusing on the NSM's actual statements of ideology in this critique rather than comparing them to the ideological ideals and positions of these other groups with the exception of National Socialism.

The first thing the NSM page states about National Socialism as an ideology is the following:

"National Socialism is, above all things, the doctrine that it is not only for the good of humanity but absolutely essential for the survival of humanity that scientific method be applied not only to the breeding of animals and bugs but also to the breeding of human beings."

Here the NSM has made only one point that is correct in regards to National Socialism and that is that National Socialism asserts that it is logical to apply the rules of husbandry, that have been applied to animals without any significant negative effect, to human beings in general (or the science of eugenics/dysgenics). This is possibly one of the most controversial parts of National Socialist ideology, but also one of the best known (arguably as a result of it being controversial).

What is not stated by the NSM is that, although National Socialism recognises that eugenics is both important and central to the National Socialist conception of the future of the Aryan race, eugenics as a policy might not be implemented for quite some time due to the folk's understandable resistance to what many do regard, and did to a significant degree during the Third Reich, as 'playing God'.

This isn't to say that the NSM are per se incorrect, but they place undue stress upon eugenical policy in National Socialism. National Socialism is about the centrality of race not eugenics, because although we may say with confidence that eugenics is an important part of National Socialist thought. If eugenics was found in the view of National Socialist scientists to be unfeasible then it would be removed from the philosophy of life's practical application. This can be done because National Socialism does not rest on eugenics, but rather on race (or 'is applied biology' if you like) contrary to what the NSM seem to think.

This brings us onto one of the serious errors in the NSM's statement in so far as they use the term 'humanity' and suggest that National Socialism believes in the 'good of humanity'. This is incorrect. National Socialism does not recognise the concept of 'humanity' beyond the Aryan race: in so far as non-Aryans are human beings, one cannot deny that fact scientifically, but that they are not of the same material and spiritual wealth as Aryans and therefore are not of the same value to the National Socialist state.

One could argue that National Socialism endorses the idea that all peoples have a right to homogenuity and self-improvement. Indeed this would be correct, but it misses out the necessary caveat: as long as they do not oppose the Aryan race. If forced to chose between other members of this so-called 'humanity' and the Aryan race: National Socialism will always choose the Aryan race. By using the generalism of 'humanity' the NSM are committing a capital ideological mistake and showing rather openly that they do not understand even the basic concepts of National Socialism, which is we note in passing, an elite ideology not a mass ideology as is often claimed (it is populist but the populace on the whole cannot be National Socialists, but they can be loyal party members if you like).

This brings us nicely on to the next part of the NSM's 'vision' (if one can call it that) of what National Socialism is:

"National Socialism does not wish to destroy inferior races or individuals any more than a wolf leader wants to destroy the pack but only to organize them into a productive order which alone can enable them to survive and enjoy some degree of human felicity."

We notice again this use of the universalist (and egalitarian) concept of 'the human being', which is invalid in National Socialism for the reason I have explained above. The NSM's above statement seems to realise this fact, but then contradict itself by suggesting that National Socialism wishes to 'organise humanity' so that 'humanity' can 'survive', which directly implies that National Socialism will dominate them (how else are we to assume that only through National Socialism can other races survive for National Socialism is only for Aryans not for jews, negroes or mongoloids due racial subjectivity). Then the NSM have a 'pink and fluffy' moment and decide that this is the only way for other races to 'enjoy some degree of human felicity'.

So essentially what the NSM are asserting here is that either National Socialism (i.e. Aryans) will dominate all non-Aryans and somehow make their lives wonderful (which is rather utopian as well as contra National Socialist doctrine about the interaction between Aryans and non-Aryans) or that National Socialism will be adopted by non-Aryans (which is an impossibility in National Socialism due again to racial subjectivity [i.e. different races think differently so National Socialism to non-Aryans would be very different to National Socialism to Aryans and would therefore not be National Socialism per se]).

Either of these two alternatives are opposed to the National Socialist philosophy of life, because they assert either that National Socialism, in essence wants to conquer/dominate the world, which is not the case, because National Socialism is for Aryans alone, but reserves the right to do as is required in the best interests of the Aryan race. The second alternative, as I have already pointed out, is opposed to the very basis of National Socialism in so far as it bases itself in an egalitarian assumption (i.e. 'all races think alike'), which is opposed to the National Socialist view that all races and individuals are inherently unequal and that each race has a different race soul.

Our problem in interpreting what the NSM are asserting National Socialism is. Is that the author of the 'What is National Socialism' on the NSM webpage seems to be suffering from a form of schizophrenia and contradicts himself or herself at least once a paragraph. There is also often contradiction between paragraphs and this is what we find when we compare the next paragraph to the language of the other two (quoted above).

The next paragraph states the following:

"National Socialism deplores the reversal of human evolution being accelerated by welfare-ism, brotherhood-ism, race-mixing and the unlimited breeding of the inferior races and individuals while the superior limit themselves to few offspring or none."

Our first thought when reading the above paragraph is that it is completely opposed to the assumptions of the two preceeding paragraphs. In so far in the first and second paragraphs there was the common assumption that there was and is a thing called 'humanity' in National Socialism, which there is not. 'Humanity' is an egalitarian-cum-religious term for human beings and the way the NSM use the term implies an egalitarian purpose, but in the second paragraph we saw that there was the assumption that only National Socialism can produce a 'productive order' among the 'inferior races', which stood out as a hypocritical point to the general direction of the article.

Now either the NSM can have a situation where National Socialism works in 'the best interest of humanity' or National Socialism dominates 'inferior races'. One cannot really have one with the other due to the simple application of the concept of race. In so far as what one race thinks is good for another is not likely to be congruent with what the other race thinks is good for itself. The difference here is that unlike the NSM we are applying race not merely mouthing the words: that is one of the key differences between a neo-Nazi and a National Socialist. We National Socialists apply our ideology: neo-Nazis just copy some of the words and symbols of National Socialism without being National Socialists (much how some corporations have included the red star of the Soviet Union in their logos and the hammer and sickle on their products, but cannot be classed as Marxist-Leninists).

We also note that the NSM use the terms 'inferior race' and 'superior race' when these are racially-subjective judgements with no racially-objective criteria to allow such a judgement. The NSM here are confusing the concept of the 'inferior race' (or Untermensch literally deriving from Lothrop Stoddard's term 'Underman') in so far as their logic presumes that inferiority in National Socialism is a state, which it is not, but rather is a process. It is true that in Stoddard's original usage it might have seemed to be a state, but that is because Stoddard wrote purely in the present rather than following his logic, which would have indicated that the 'inferior race' is actually a process (based on race and evolutionary pressures creating eugenical or dysgenical evolution/de-evolution).

The concept of the 'superior race' (or Ubermensch or the commonly used terms 'Superman' or 'Master race') is, like the concept of the 'inferior race', a process rather than a state. It is racially-subjective, but at the same time it is vital to National Socialism in so far as it represents the eternal struggle towards being the Ubermensch (an impossible and always equidistant goal if you will). This concept of the eternal struggle towards something better is somewhat recognised by the NSM (in so far as they mistakenly associate eugenics wholly with it), but they do not understand its context in National Socialist ideology or the principles that underlie it.

The next issue we come to is the wording of this particular statement by the NSM. In so far as it uses at least one term that is unknown to us and not to our knowledge in use in National Socialist, popular or intellectual culture. That term is 'brotherhood-ism', which one can only assume probably refers to the 'Aryan Brotherhood' who are a criminal gang, who claim to be National Socialists (but are not in any way, shape or form National Socialists [for National Socialists are not common criminals]), involved in drug trafficking and prison violence. This made-up term presumably means that the NSM merely rejects the criminal behaviour and drug trafficking conducted by the 'Aryan Brotherhood'.

Although this is somewhat redundant given the amount of the NSM members who have convictions for criminal behaviour [i.e. a touch more than a speeding ticket]. If this is what the term means, and the NSM should be specific about the meaning of 'movement only' terminology, then it is a good thing to be against, but as we have said if the NSM is opposed to 'brotherhood-ism' then surely it should kick out its members who have partaken of drugs (and that use can't be put down to use of say cannabis once or twice when a teenager) and committed anything more serious than getting one or two speeding tickets.

We might be accused here of being 'overzealous' and suggesting members of the folk cannot be National Socialists if they have a criminal past (beyond the threshold of normality i.e. a speeding ticket or two and/or having smoked a cannabis cigarette once in their youth). To answer this let us be very clear about what National Socialism is in so far as it is an ideology based on three key pillars: race, evolution and the leadership principle. All three principles play into our answer to this objection in so far as those who have committed criminal acts are by nature not the elite of the race because they have felt the need to break the law when they should have known better (thus demonstrating that they are either irresponsible or are prone to criminal behaviour). This statement incorporates the first and third principles in so far as the race must be kept pure (i.e. the status of being an Aryan is not only biological but spiritual as well) and the elite/leaders of the race (i.e. the National Socialists) must set an example and therefore are required to be pure as far as that is humanly possible.

The second principle, that of evolution (inherent in the concept of the eternal struggle if any neo-Nazis are reading), answers the historical objection that many members of the SA (and to some degree the SS) had committed, sometimes quite serious, crimes in 1920s and 1930s Germany before the election of the NSDAP in 1933. The principle of evolution answers this because the conditions in the Weimar Republic were very different to the conditions in the United States today. In so far as violence was the political and social norm during the Weimar republic largely due to the existence of large communist military organisations (such as the Red Front Fighters) whose explicit aim was the overthrow of the government and executing all those opposed them. Such conditions do not exist in the United States today and therefore excusing criminal pasts is not acceptable or even possible in this much more peaceful environment where violence is not the social norm as it was in the Weimar Republic.

This is especially true in so far as that in order to attain power in the United States today. National Socialists cannot call themselves National Socialists, because to do so would merely invalidate all the good work National Socialists have done in educating the folk (per Ellul's observations about the fact that propaganda, in order to successfully propagandise the folk, must always go with the current grain and not against it). In essence National Socialism evolves along with science and with the conditions in which it finds itself (including the racial situation in the given country): it does not stand still as if it were the 1920s and 1930s in Germany (i.e. the first Kampfzeit or Time of Struggle).

The next issue we come to also has a little to do with wording, but most importantly to do with logic. The issue concerns the term 'welfare-ism', which is simply 'welfare' as in 'welfare state' with an 'ism' on the end to make it sound like a meaningful catch-all term (much like the Marxist term: 'Imperialism'). Since no definition is provided we should assume that 'welfare-ism' means something akin to taking welfare or sponging off the welfare system, but this interpretation (which is the obvious and simplest one) is somewhat contradicted by the NSM's logic in so far as they seemingly assert (without qualification mind you) that the welfare system is contrary to National Socialism, because it allows the unfit and 'inferior races' to procreate.

This is problematic because it is on the one hand suggesting, by logical implication, that a certain amount of welfare is suitable but on the other hand suggesting that taking any welfare benefit is contrary to the eugenical goals of National Socialism (i.e. breeding up). How do the NSM reconcile these two positions? The simple answer is that they do not and they do not provide any qualification as to what their logic and positions are: one would assume (to be generous) that what they actually mean here is that Aryans may receive welfare, but non-Aryans must not. However this would seem to be contrary the tenor of the paragraph in so far as in the NSM's view any Aryan who would take welfare is not of 'the superior race' by that very fact (i.e. shouldn't need welfare). This creates the paradox that we cannot really address here due to lack of qualification by the NSM, but what we can say is that the NSM would have to drop one of these two positions or completely reword their paragraph in order for it to make sense.

However in National Socialism, although we endorse natural selection and natural variation, we do not advocate letting the folk starve because they happen to require government assistance. National Socialism being a wholly race-based philosophy requires that National Socialists should look after the folk to the best of their ability and that includes those members of the folk without much material wealth who may, due to circumstances [such as the untimely death of a husband and having numerous young children], be unable to work in the sense of private employment but can be publicly employed as mothers for example.

Therefore because National Socialism is race-based and cares for the folk: it must have a form of what we may assume the NSM are condemning i.e. 'welfare-ism' in their own made-up terminology. This is not to say that National Socialism condones members of the folk to sponge of the body of the folk, but rather that a clear distinction is made in National Socialism between those who are unable to work in the usual sense, but this being due to a form of public employment (e.g. being mothers to more than two young children), and those who are able to work but choose not to do so while demanding money from the body of the folk who do work for it. Thus the NSM's logic, although rather fuzzy and contradictory, is wrong on both counts in so far it simply doesn't take into account the fact that National Socialism is a wholly race-based philosophy and doesn't simply work around the concept of eugenics.

The next paragraph also confirms the NSM's lack of understanding, typical of neo-Nazis, that National Socialism is a wholly race-based philosophy:

"To accomplish these utterly fundamental and vital aims, National Socialism declares its goal to be nothing less than the absolute domination of the white, civilized areas of the earth by the Aryan white man and the leadership of the Aryan white man by the strongest and wisest individuals of the race rather than the largest number of weaklings, mediocrity's and selfish private interests."

Firstly: we note that the author of the NSM's article regards himself or herself to have outlined the 'aims' of National Socialism in the first three paragraphs, but even if we were to assume these were representative of National Socialism in even the loose sense. Then the author would not have outlined even a basic program or basis for a weltanschauung (or philosophy of life), but rather just a series of meaningless and vague statements, which, as we have shown above, are extremely fuzzy in terms of their logic and are often mutually exclusive to one another. The author has, unfortunately, proven nothing but his or her own incompetance and lack of understanding of National Socialism as a profound and revolutionary philosophy of life.

Secondly: the NSM's statement that the 'Aryan white man' (whatever that is) is supposed to 'dominate' 'white civilized' areas of the earth is simply asburd. In so far as civilisation is another aspect of National Socialist thought in which, although it is certainly comforting to think there is a racially-objective standard, there is only the racially-subjective standard (i.e. what one race thinks is civilised is to another quite uncivilised as can be ascertained by the history of the contact between Aryan Europeans and the rulers of India as well as between the Conquistadors [who were decidedly non-Aryan on the whole] and the Aztecs and Inca).

We may presume that what the NSM are referring to without actually saying the name of the point of principle is Lebensraum (or living space), which dictates that Aryan man has the right, which is to be exercised pragmatically for the good of the folk, to claim lands that were originally Aryan (i.e. where Aryan remains can be found as to indicate an Aryan civilisation once existed there). This does not mean, as the NSM put it, that National Socialism wishes to 'dominate' the 'white civilized' parts of the earth, because National Socialism has little interest in this overt 'domination' (one presumes the NSM author has been reading too much Nietzsche and has consciously or unconsciously assumed the intellectual garb of a master-slave mentality), because National Socialism naturally views itself privately as superior to all other philosophies and ideals (but that isn't to say it doesn't encourage careful and precise study of them in order to learn from their successes, mistakes and intellectual foundation) and, like the Aryan folk in relation to non-Aryan folks, realises that superiority is not expressed in 'domination' but rather in naturally being above others (i.e. struggling upwards and letting the results speak for themselves).

In the Lebensraum principle National Socialism does not seek to 'dominate', but rather allow natural order to assert itself in so far as if the Aryan folk are to feel themselves superior to non-Aryan folks then the Aryan folk need to demonstrate that superiority in and of themselves to the non-Aryan folks who will be covertly 'dominated' by the Aryan if you like. The NSM seem too busy trying to assert that Aryans should be dominant rather than they are dominant: for if an individual is truly naturally superior to another then they shouldn't feel the need to talk about 'dominating' them all the time, but rather just get on with 'dominating'. This again highlights the difference between National Socialists and neo-Nazis in so far as Neo-Nazis talk about things as 'being a superior race', 'dominating other races' etc ad infinitum, while National Socialists simply commit themselves unceasingly to the eternal struggle upwards and get on with actually putting the ideology into practice.

We can also note that by the NSM's own stated 'standards', with so many (ex-)criminals in their past and present ranks, the NSM is composed of the same 'large number of weaklings, mediocrity's' and those with 'selfish private interests'. Unfortunately the NSM despite its rhetoric simply fails to live up to the (quite mediocre) expectations that it holds up as the ideal, but then this is nothing new when studying the question of neo-Nazism in so far as Neo-Nazis, unlike National Socialists, love to talk the talk without walking the walk (so-to-speak).

Thirdly the NSM's statement is rather confused racially-speaking so far as it asserts that there is such a thing as 'White men' when there are not. 'Aryan' and 'White' do not mean the same thing. Aryan is a term which refers to the Indo-European (and possibly the Proto-Indo-European) folk who in National Socialism are equated with Northern Europeans with their most pure expression being the Nordic and Celtic sub-races, but including Alpine as a second tier of purity. 'White' on the other hand is a colloquial expression which has no meaning beyond the common racial fallacy of equating colour of skin with race. 'White' doesn't equate a race, because there are no logical racial boundaries of 'Whiteness' much the same as one would find it hard to be racialistic on a racial level (i.e. that of Caucasoid) without including jews, Arabs and Indians in the equation as 'White'.

One thing National Socialism requires of every National Socialist is a study of the racial question in so far as each National Socialist needs to understand basic racial theory, but because of the intricate nature of the question they merely have to understand the digested version rather than one with all the supporting data and arguments added. The NSM don't seem to know about, let alone understand, this basic point of National Socialist practice let alone being able to apply that knowledge to the situation in the United States. Simply put the idea of the 'White man' or the 'White race' is simply redundant and intellectually bogus.

The NSM then proceed to make a slightly more sane statement in so far as:

"To achieve this goal National Socialism recognizes that power must be won legally, first in the strategic center of the world, the United States, and then in all the other white Aryan areas of the earth."

This is somewhat correct. National Socialism does recognise that power must be attained legally, but one suspects that this statement comes less from an application of National Socialist principles and analysis to the situation in the United States, but rather to a simple copying of the strategy adopted by the NSDAP after the failure of the famous Beer Hall Putsch. This is evident in the fact that this 'legal path to power' is merely stated as an adjunct to the rest of the article, almost as a disclaimer, which does not include any further revelation about the specific legal route to power to be adopted but rather that that is the way forward for some unspecified reason (i.e. a disclaimer to prevent the NSM being sued for advocating violent revolution, which it quite blatently does on occasion). One does not expect the NSM to tell the world exactly what they plan to do to achieve power, but one does expect at least some kind of general blueprint of how they plan to operate within the reasonable boundaries of the law, which predictably is not provided by the NSM.

Another issue with this latest NSM statement is that it speaks of the United States as the strategic centre of the world and while this is partially true: it is not wholly true. In so far as the United States is home to a somewhat sub-racially (and to a lesser extent racially) mixed population, but it also contains a considerable amount of military and economic might as well as has, despite the racial and sub-racial mixing, a very viable Aryan racial stock. However the NSM would have to revise their assertion to be the United States being the strategic centre of the Aryan world in order for it to be correct: since their statement at present ignores other strategic quasi-superpowers such as China and to a lesser extent Russia.

The rest of the statement we have already addressed above. So we can swiftly move on to the next paragraph written by the NSM, which still relates to geopolitics and again apes the notion of race without applying it in the analysis and response to the knowns and unknowns of the situation. This paragraph is as follows:

"National Socialism does not recognize the imaginary geographic boundaries of nations as being as important as the very real boundaries set by nature in RACE."

This statement by the NSM has little to recommend itself either in logic, knowledge or terminology. This is because the NSM confuse the word 'nation' with the word 'country'. A nation is a biological entity (i.e. a folk tied together by blood and soil if you will) and a country is a geographic entity. A country may include many nations and a nation maybe split across many countries. That said nations still have geographic boundaries, whichever way we wish to look at the situation as every tribe has an extent to its territory and does not go into another tribes territory unless it wishes to declare war on that tribe and increase the size of its own territory. Countries are similar, but base themselves on a collective unity under a common non-racial and universalist myth, which tries to combine all the nations that make up a country into an unnatural unit and then use them to bring more territory under the country's sway and incorporate new nations and parts of nations into the unnatural unit.

That said these common and universalist myths can be used to successfully tie several nations and parts of nations together such as in the case of France, the United Kingdom, Austria-Hungary, Italy and particularly the United States. This isn't to say that there is not a racial order that is arrived at in these countries where usually one nation dominates the others through the use of their natural competitive instincts and gifts (and that can be anything from military force to atrocity propaganda to the use of bribery), but rather that this racial order is unstable due to competing racial interests and mindsets often leading to bloodshed between the nations within the country (Czechoslovakia and the bloodshed between the ruling Czechs and the discriminated against Slovaks and Germans is an appropriate example). This is part of the basis of the justification of the need for National Socialism in so far as nations cannot live together, but the NSM statement does not recognise, let alone understand, the difference between the nation and the country.

The NSM assert that geographic boundaries have no meaning, but this is logically and intellectually redundant as I have explained above. It also perpertuates the stereotype of National Socialism seeking 'world domination' that was so common in the United States in the 1940s (with the faked Hitler quote famously claiming that 'Our Stormtroopers will soon be in the Whitehouse' [I paraphrase slightly from memory]). By talking like this the NSM show that they are rather hypocritical in so far as their first paragraph talked of a utopian solution for all folks under National Socialist rule (or rather that was what it implies), but now the NSM have begun to imply that National Socialism has no boundaries and wishes, in effect, to conquer the world. After all one can readily substantiate this point by looking at literature common to the 'White Nationalist' 'movement', of which the NSM is a part (despite claims otherwise), where numerous 'White homelands' are claimed to be in existence from China (using the Tocharin Indo-European folk in Western China) to Sumeria (in modern day Iraq using Arthur Kemp's 'blue-eyed statues' argument) to India (using the Aryan invasion hypothesis).

We should also note in passing that if the NSM view race as being so important (i.e. in the capitalisation of the word in the original, which I have retained in my quote for purposes of accuracy): why have they not applied the implications of race to their definition of National Socialism? National Socialism is, I repeat, a wholly race-based philosophy and the easiest way to tell a National Socialist from a neo-Nazi is that the National Socialist applies the implications of race to the situation, while the neo-Nazi just spouts of about race without applying it to the situations with which they are confronted both intellectually and on a daily basis.

The next paragraph from the NSM's 'definition' of National Socialism is largely a repetition of the errors of the paragraph we have just critiqued, but because it contains the application of the NSM's idea of geographic boundaries meaning nothing and an additional point about two general socio-economic systems it is worth taking the time to critique. The paragraph is as follows:

"We therefore declare out intention eventually to incorporate all Nordic and Aryan white peoples into a single political entity so that never again will white men fight and kill each other on behalf of such silly things as imaginary geographic boundaries or such vicious things as Jewish economic swindles-either Communism or capitalism."

The first thing we notice about this statement by the NSM is that it is overtly utopian in nature. In so far as it suggests that if a 'single political entity' that incorporated all Nordic and 'Aryan white people' (whatever they are) that someone said folk will not kill or harm each other over such 'silly things as imaginary geographic boundaries or such vicious things as Jewish economic swindles-either communism or capitalism'.

This is simply delusional on the part of the NSM in so far as they assume that political entities equate nations or countries, which they do not, because politics is often international and political entities are themselves often international by their very nature. Even your standard foreign affairs department or ministry is an international political entity, because of its need to keep significant amounts of its assets abroad for embassies, consuls, diplomatic intelligence gathering operations, pressure groups and so forth. A political organisation is not simply a national or country specific entity as the NSM presume, but rather a far more complex beast with the likeihood of being in some way international (such as the Comintern was from 1919-1943 for example where it was an adjunct of Soviet foreign policy and propaganda) and even supranational (such as the United Nations pretends to be).

Therefore such a 'single political entity' seems rather unlikely, especially when such issues as historical cultural differences, historic rivalries and the fact that the folk genuinely see their country-level identity as being very important to them. For example Norwegians will not stop being distinctly Norwegian just because you transplant them somewhere else and tell them that they are part of a racial community and that being Norwegian is simply irrelevant.

National Socialism in its realised form during the Third Reich did not declare that Norwegians suddenly stopped being Norwegians but instead propagandised the Norwegians to the effect that the Germans and Norwegians were different and this was good and proper. However what they also argued, and very effectively as well as correctly, was that Norwegians and Germans shared a common Aryan heritage and that they were cousins and should treat each other as family and kin.

This demonstrates a much keener understanding of human nature and the essence of applied National Socialism compared to the NSM's statement, which is based on a marxist-type assumption that 'we are all equal in our race'. This assumption is one that is often used in its more common form: 'we are equal in our humanity' that the author of the NSM's 'definition' all but used in the first and second paragraphs. National Socialism does not seek to destroy national identies, but rather seeks to create links between the Aryan nations based on treating each other as one would treat family. National Socialism understands and treasures the fact that Aryan culture is different in the specifics, but shows remarkable similarity in its general ideas, which can only be the product of the Aryan race soul.

To further expand on a point we made above: the NSM's definition suggests that the Aryan folk will not kill each other over 'silly things' once this state is achieved, but this is simply absurd. One can very easily regard the idea of killing another Aryan over such a thing as an argument, the love of a mate and/or in a drunken rage as being 'silly', but they will still happen in an Aryan state. Crime will still occur and man, Aryan or not, will still engage in 'irrational behaviour' (actually it is quite rational if one understands humans in the context of the animal kingdom). Therefore one cannot help wonder but as to the state of mind of the NSM author of the definition of National Socialism since it is utopian and rather absurd.

As for the economic systems that are briefly mentioned: communism and capitalism. The NSM are somewhat correct in that they imply that these two systems are not regarded as suitable in National Socialism, but what they don't qualify is why these two systems are excluded or the variation which is excluded.

In the first case of communism, we may presume the NSM mean the Marxist-Leninist variant, all variants of communism are unacceptable however [as opposed to socialism of which are few variants are acceptable], the marxist system relies on the assumption that the truth of man's nature lies in his economic behaviour and that the material is all that is. This assumes that man starts off from roughly the same basic biological footing and that there is no real difference between the nations and races other than a few external considerations such as culture, physical appearance etc. It demands that the world be governed by the 'mass of the people', what it calls the proletariat, which is the origin of the Stoddard's idea of the 'revolt of the underman' that did influence National Socialist thought, because the only difference between the proletariat and the bourgeous (those who own the means of production) is capital and marxists assert that the capital belongs to all not just the few.

Marxism is not a suitable economic system in National Socialism, because it is a contending world view that starts off from assumptions that are simply contrary to the basis for National Socialism. For where National Socialism asserts that we are all born biologically unequal due to hereditary and genetics and that this is very important. Marxism asserts the opposite: that we are all born more or less biologically equal and that any variation is due to environment which can be corrected under communist rule.

This makes the two philosophies of life at complete odds with one another and bound to come to blows: physical, mental or spiritual. National Socialism also has a strong spiritual component and believes in a creator (as to whom we identify this creator as: that is a whole other debate and fortunately largely a personal one), while marxism preaches out and out atheism believing in no creator and no God while asserting that the only thing that actually matters is what we do that effects the material circumstances during our time on planet earth. Therefore it is rather obvious in this rather brief summary why Marxism and National Socialism are completely incompatible.

Capitalism on the other hand is not a philosophy of life, but is rather simply a position statement on economic issues and like socialism there are a number of capitalist variants that are compatible with National Socialism, because captialism does not necessarily assert the equality of man, but rather exists of man's inequality. That said however capitalism is by its very nature focused on the creation of more capital and this leads to the unlimited variant of capitalism, or laissez-faire capitalism, being mutually-exclusive to National Socialism because it prioritises the creation of capital over the well-being of the folk. In essence invalidating National Socialist principles and policy by its demand that more capital be created (per the standard conception of the rational economic man i.e. a man who thinks in terms of profit and success and nothing much else). Therefore, like with socialism, National Socialism is compatible only with certain moderate varients of capitalism, because National Socialism prioritises the interest of the folk and the folk's interest is at the very centre of the National Socialist nation state. You could in essence call National Socialist economic policy: folkism (i.e. the interests of the folk community first before the interests of capital and the wider 'social' community).

This leads us then past three paragraphs in the NSM article, which are simple statements of morality (i.e. National Socialism isn't explicitly out to murder people) and, rather mild, statements of opposition to jews and an attempt to formulate an internal policy of simply exiling undesirables, which doesn't solve very much but that is a matter of practical policy rather than intellectual coherency. The last statement however is merely a reformulation of the several of the other paragraphs and claims that National Socialism is all about 'contributions to humanity', which it is not, as I have explained above, and also attempts to assert once again that National Socialism is eugenics-based and not race-based. In skipping these last three paragraphs we are not skipping any pertinent information, but rather doing so because they re-state previously addressed positions and ideas as well as often deal with mere rhetoric in regards to things like the jewish question, which has little bearing on this critique and hence we feel it would be superfluous to critique these passages.

So let us sum up our critique of the NSM briefly. The NSM have not shown any understanding of the National Socialist philosophy of life what-so-ever: they maintain that eugenics is the centre of National Socialist thought when it is in fact race. The NSM suggest that National Socialism has something to offer humanity: this is incorrect for National Socialism is for Aryans alone and due to racial subjectivity National Socialism is only suited for Aryans. National Socialists apply the philosophy of life to every minute of every hour of their existence and get on with the necessary reality of living the Spartan ideal every day rather than merely talking about it as the NSM clearly are more interested in doing. The NSM are simply neo-Nazis with little idea what the symbols they so eagerly use mean or what the ideas they espouse mean in practice. Simply put they are rather similar to 'living history' re-enactors who spend their weekends pretending to be something they are not as a form of entertainment and the NSM are really just the same: trying to relive the first Kampfzeit as if a small town in beautiful Ohio was really the streets of Munich in 1927.

(1) http://www.nsm88.org/whatisns/whatisns.html