Brian Leiter wonders why we have anonymous web presences. Here's why: I'm about to defend Schwarzenegger and Hitler. Ok, not really, but I'll defend Arnold on this point.
He said: "I admire [Hitler] for being such a good public speaker and for his way of getting to the people and so on. But I didn't admire him for what he did with it. It's very hard to say who I admire, who are my heroes."
Now, he was initially misquoted, but that's not really his problem. Suppose this is right: all he's admiring is charisma and bootstrapping-- granted, in a nonstandard exemplar. I'm suspicious of views that claim that, say, only the virtuous, not the vicious, can display certain traits (e.g., courage), and it seems coherent to say that Hitler had traits that were, in themselves, admirable.
Now, there's a further question about why Arnold chose this public speaker and not others, but I don't think that choice requires an endorsement of fascism.
You've explained my caveats more clearly than I did, but this is just what I was getting at: yes, what you say is true, but this seems an instance where we should shun nuance: the taint (if true, and it is) is enough to disqualify him.
I'm not certain of my position on this, and people do get in a huff when one says "this is no time for nuance," but there you have it.
One more qualification. There's an ambiguity in "I admire S for trait t": it might mean "I admire S because S has t" or "I admire S qua t-exemplar." The first, not the second, entails something like an endorsement of S; the second might amount to nothing more than "I admire t, and t happens to be a trait of S's." I was (charitably) reading Arnold as offering the second, not the first, even though his language suggests the former, because I think that's what he was getting at, and I don't think we should fault him for failing to master the qua tricks.
(Maybe it's better to express the difference this way, as a distinction between (i) S's having t is sufficient for S's admirability; (ii) S's having t is some grounds for admiration, but in this case it's swamped by S's other traits; (iii) t is an admirable trait.)
Now on to your view. You say that we oughn't elect anyone with ties to Nazism, but that just begs the question, since what's at issue is whether Arnold has the sort of tie to Nazism that's relevant. (I mean, the 'has been persecuted by' relation isn't a mark against electability....) Suppose that his remarks were an infelicitous expression of admiration for particular traits of people who rose to power from humble origins, as I've (only half-seriously) suggested. Then (and this is really my point) the only legitimate taint is one that's based on misreading what he said, and that doesn't seem to be an argument against electing him.
There are plenty of reasons to avoid voting for him. His bus is called 'running man,' for example. He humiliates underlings for fun. Those are sufficient, in my book. What's mysterious, I grant, is what Hitler has to do with any of this, because, on my reading, the admiration is for the trait, not the person. So much the worse for my reading. (On the other hand, I suspect that Young Arnold was one of many young men attracted to the fascist aesthetic-- like David Bowie?-- and that, plus a love of shock value, led to the utterances. I'm not sure that's a reason to deem him unelectable, either, but that's a slightly different argument.)
The problem is that you're trying to be fair to the candidate, but I'm saying that fairness to the candidate is not the primary (or even an important) consideration where certain associations (eg Nazism) are concerned.
Fine, but you say, "that just begs the question, since what's at issue is whether Arnold has the sort of tie to Nazism that's relevant." Then you analyze the tie. But let's save some work and analyze relevance instead. That will change the threshold sufficiently to make analysis of the tie superfluous in most situations. In fact, this really is my point: where Nazism is concerned, our threshold should be so low that almost any "tie" at all is disqualifying. You'll want a formulation: a disqualifying tie is any association with Nazism that a reasonable person could mistake for sympathy.
My justification for such an onerous burden on the candidate is, as I said, that s/he represents us. What lengths would you go to to ensure that you're not mistaken for having Nazi sympathies? You already noted that you were glad to be anonymous although you also made it clear that you were (in italics) defending Schwarzenegger on this point alone. Then you made it quite clear that your defense was based on your belief that what was being defended was not in fact sympathy for Nazism. Three forceful distancing techniques. I'm not sure you don't agree with me.
This is going to turn into another mash note to fontana, but he's right. Get tenure soon fontana! (or shoud I say Hillary Putnam)
Perhaps we believe nazism so bad that any ginned-up controversy wrongly creating the impression that X sympathizes with nazism suffices to debar X from public office. The point doesn't seem like a slam dunk to me. Maoism and racism are both really bad too, but I don't want to cede to partisans the ability to end a political career by inaccurately portraying a candidate as a racist or Maoist.
I understand your feelings for fontana might be interfering with your judgment, baa, but a ginned-up maoist controversy is a long way from an interview in which someone says "I admired Hitler." (In whatever context.)
Let me try this another way. We all agree that we don't want a calumny to derail a candidacy. But you both seem to give a little ground on whether there are certain charges for which the ratio of required truth to disqualificatory power is lower. One way to approach the issue is to craft a standard which satisfies both conditions. Another is to look at the specific instance, adjudge that Arnold as governor would lead a non-trivial number of reasonable people to believe that California had elected someone with Nazi sympathies and for us to decide that that's unacceptable.
By the way, I just read the fontana and baa comments at CT about Strauss and have to say this: that one would even need to point out that the dramatic form of the dialogues should be taken into account in any reading of them makes my head spin. In what sense is reading a dialogue as a dialogue "reading between the lines?" Help me out guys, seriously--why do people read like this?
I hate to put a brake on all this mad Aristotlean logic going on here, but it seems a very important observation has been glossed over in this query of whether or not AS was sympathizing with the NAZIs. Fontana's arguement that Ahnold's comment meant that he admired Hitler for his oratory skills and public appeal quay only those skills, not the ends he used them for, is untenable. To aruge so is to say that Hitler's strength as a rhetoratician is seperable from his NAZI ideology, which just doesn't seem to be true; his strength was grounded and pervaded throughout with said ideology. So, to say I admire Hitler's ability as a public speaker is to say I admire Hitler's fascistic rhetorical approach which gets people's attention and loyalty. There is plainly no other way to construe it. If he wanted to talk simply about rhetorical skills in ipso, there would have been no example of Hitler. To invoke Hitler is to invoke the means by which Hitler gained the attention of the people, which, we might say, was not the stuff of a role model. So yes, I think AS's comment was sympathizing. And frankly, it's is quite the opposite from suprising that Ahnold would find Hitler's fascistic charisma attractive.
addenum, a good analogy was just handed to me. It's like saying "I admire S as a salesman" when S is a crack dealer. S is a good salesman not because of personal traits, but because he's freakin selling crack. The product is not seperable from him being such a good salesman. Same with Hitler. His fascist-nazi ideology was the crack that made him a "good public speaker." Or so it seems to me at any rate.
Ogged - I will argue that your standard is too high. First off, it is not reasonable that a candidate should be disqualified merely because some people believe the misquotes or spin of the candidates opponents to believe that the candidate sympathises with Naziism. The tie should only be disqualifying if the sympathy exists, not if there's some perception in the public that the candidate has such a tie.
Half of the Bay Area believes that Bush is a Nazi. Should that automatically disqualify Bush as a reasonable candidate, even though it's obvious to anyone with a brain that Bush is not a Nazi?
Secondly, you're holding up a unique standard for Naziism; one which I don't believe it deserves. Communism (real existing Communism) has killed far more people and led more aggressive wars than Naziism did, yet we give candidates a pass if their sympathy for Castro or Ceaucescu or Ho Cho Minh or Mao was sufficiently far in the past. (Here in the Bay Area, sympathy for the right sort of murderous tyrant is almost a requirement for political office.) Hitler is not unique in this way, and to treat Hitler or Naziism as uniqueliy evil is to devalue the victims of the numerically greater evil of Communism.
There's a lot to respond to here, guys, so let me be brusque ;)
The standard is high, but it's not what either Anthony or baa caricatured it as. I haven't given up reason and evidence here. Who disagrees (I mean I can't tell, I'm not asking a lame rhetorical question) that we should have a different standard for associations with particularly heinous groups/causes/activities? Maybe we can go from there.
Michael, I'm almost with you. I think it's very important to note that admiring Hitler as a speaker isn't "content free," but that content doesn't have to be Nazism: it's authoritarian and demagogic and genocidal, but not specifically Nazi. I think it's more honest and more effective to say that Schwarzenegger's remarks indicate an authoritarian...etc. personality rather than a Nazi ideology.
Anthony, I think it's over the top to say half the Bay Area believes Bush is a Nazi. It may be that people there use overheated rhetoric, but if you asked them whether Bush holds Nazi beliefs, I can't imagine that many (let alone half) would answer in the affirmative.
I certainly don't mean for Nazism to be unique. (I haven't reread, but I thought I was pretty careful to always qualify that.) There are other equally horrible associations: child molestation, for one. But, since you bring it up, and I hear it a lot, a quick note on the comparison with Communism: I think it's off-base. Nazism, in it's most perfect imagined realization, is evil, genocidal and fascistic. That's not true of communism, which is damn near utopian. There is a moral price (and a high one, absolutely) to be paid for turning a blind eye to the "numerically great" evils of "communist" regimes. But, for the condemnation of any given communist, that's a separate determination to be made; it doesn't follow from their beliefs.
Fontana, I never thought you were an ancient philosopher.
Ogged - if you want to hold politicians to a very high standard regarding association with evil causes or activities, that's not objectionable to me, though I wonder if you have any sort of statute of limitations: Does Bustamante's involvement with (and refusal to repudiate the more extreme ideas of) MEChA count? Most Latino politicians in California were in MEChA while in college, but most have repudiated the separatist and racist components of the MEChA ideology. Is that repudiation enough? Does Bustamante get a pass even though he has refused to repudiate the more extreme ideas which MEChA propagates?
Regarding the comparison between Communism and Naziism, I think you're off base.
First off, at their root, both Communism and Naziism are extreme versions of the ideology that the individual is *only* a means to an end, and that the individual has no rights against the collective. That idea is evil and genocidal. Communism requires the liquidation of the bourgeiose, just as Naziism requires the liquidation of the Jews, because they own everything. Your extrapolation of the Communist ideal as somehow more noble than the Nazi ideal is mistaken.
Secondly, the road to Hell, etc. - ideologies ought to be judged on their actual effects, not only their sales pitch. Communism, everywhere implemented, results in a political environment about as grim as Nazi Germany. One or two such failures might not condemn the ideal, but a universal record of disastrous failure ought to.
Thirdly, there are many American politicians who have not just been members of Communist clubs in college, or whatnot, but have actively praised existing communist dictatorships - those who praised Stalin are mostly dead or retired, but look into people's records and you can find a lot of effusive praise for Mao, Ceaucescu, Castro, and Kim. That sort of sympathy doesn't have the excuse of supporting the ideal rather than the real.
Ogged, I agree that the question of what part of Hitler's rhetorical approach people found so appealing would require a more specific answer than just branding it "nazi-ism" but, I think it's clear from some of Ahnold's comments that what he saw attractive in it was the extreme authroitarian quality - the quality of the leader who tells the crowd who they are and what they will do. It seems that Nazi-ism necessarily contains that quality, although that quality is not limited to Nazi-ism. So, if we want to be generous and say Ahnold wasn't/isn't a nazi sympathizer, it still seems that he is attracted to a method of governing that is dangerous, repulsive, and frightening.
Anthony, I don't think there's anything in the actualy communist ideology that deprives the individual of rights. There's a re-conception of perhaps what rights are, for instance, it argues that there is no such thing as 'private property,' but such isn't a "right" under even a capitalist system. Life, libery, and the pursuit of happiness should still be protected in communist ideology. Second, communism the way Marx concieved it, and I think you've shown you know the vast difference between Marx and Stalin, in no way required the "liquidation" of the bourgeoise in the way that Nazi-ism removed the Jews. The bourgeioise would cease to exist under Communism because the conditions for their existence, private propery ect..., woould cease to exist. Whereas Nazi-ism targeted the Jews as scapegoats, because the party needed an "us" to ally its people and a "them" to fight against. It's not in the same ballpark.
Anyway, as I hinted at, Soviet Communism was not ideological communism. Ideological communism was achieved more closely in the 60's communes, if anywhere. That should be kept in mind. Communism, if not a practical form of government, certainly had some great ideas. The same cannot be said about Soviet Totalitarianism or Nazi-ism.
Brian Leiter wonders why we have anonymous web presences. Here's why: I'm about to defend Schwarzenegger and Hitler. Ok, not really, but I'll defend Arnold on this point.
He said: "I admire [Hitler] for being such a good public speaker and for his way of getting to the people and so on. But I didn't admire him for what he did with it. It's very hard to say who I admire, who are my heroes."
Now, he was initially misquoted, but that's not really his problem. Suppose this is right: all he's admiring is charisma and bootstrapping-- granted, in a nonstandard exemplar. I'm suspicious of views that claim that, say, only the virtuous, not the vicious, can display certain traits (e.g., courage), and it seems coherent to say that Hitler had traits that were, in themselves, admirable.
Now, there's a further question about why Arnold chose this public speaker and not others, but I don't think that choice requires an endorsement of fascism.
Posted by Fontana Labs | Link to this comment | 10- 3-03 11:43 AM
You've explained my caveats more clearly than I did, but this is just what I was getting at: yes, what you say is true, but this seems an instance where we should shun nuance: the taint (if true, and it is) is enough to disqualify him.
I'm not certain of my position on this, and people do get in a huff when one says "this is no time for nuance," but there you have it.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 10- 3-03 11:47 AM
One more qualification. There's an ambiguity in "I admire S for trait t": it might mean "I admire S because S has t" or "I admire S qua t-exemplar." The first, not the second, entails something like an endorsement of S; the second might amount to nothing more than "I admire t, and t happens to be a trait of S's." I was (charitably) reading Arnold as offering the second, not the first, even though his language suggests the former, because I think that's what he was getting at, and I don't think we should fault him for failing to master the qua tricks.
(Maybe it's better to express the difference this way, as a distinction between (i) S's having t is sufficient for S's admirability; (ii) S's having t is some grounds for admiration, but in this case it's swamped by S's other traits; (iii) t is an admirable trait.)
Now on to your view. You say that we oughn't elect anyone with ties to Nazism, but that just begs the question, since what's at issue is whether Arnold has the sort of tie to Nazism that's relevant. (I mean, the 'has been persecuted by' relation isn't a mark against electability....) Suppose that his remarks were an infelicitous expression of admiration for particular traits of people who rose to power from humble origins, as I've (only half-seriously) suggested. Then (and this is really my point) the only legitimate taint is one that's based on misreading what he said, and that doesn't seem to be an argument against electing him.
There are plenty of reasons to avoid voting for him. His bus is called 'running man,' for example. He humiliates underlings for fun. Those are sufficient, in my book. What's mysterious, I grant, is what Hitler has to do with any of this, because, on my reading, the admiration is for the trait, not the person. So much the worse for my reading. (On the other hand, I suspect that Young Arnold was one of many young men attracted to the fascist aesthetic-- like David Bowie?-- and that, plus a love of shock value, led to the utterances. I'm not sure that's a reason to deem him unelectable, either, but that's a slightly different argument.)
Posted by Fontana Labs | Link to this comment | 10- 3-03 1:02 PM
The problem is that you're trying to be fair to the candidate, but I'm saying that fairness to the candidate is not the primary (or even an important) consideration where certain associations (eg Nazism) are concerned.
Fine, but you say, "that just begs the question, since what's at issue is whether Arnold has the sort of tie to Nazism that's relevant." Then you analyze the tie. But let's save some work and analyze relevance instead. That will change the threshold sufficiently to make analysis of the tie superfluous in most situations. In fact, this really is my point: where Nazism is concerned, our threshold should be so low that almost any "tie" at all is disqualifying. You'll want a formulation: a disqualifying tie is any association with Nazism that a reasonable person could mistake for sympathy.
My justification for such an onerous burden on the candidate is, as I said, that s/he represents us. What lengths would you go to to ensure that you're not mistaken for having Nazi sympathies? You already noted that you were glad to be anonymous although you also made it clear that you were (in italics) defending Schwarzenegger on this point alone. Then you made it quite clear that your defense was based on your belief that what was being defended was not in fact sympathy for Nazism. Three forceful distancing techniques. I'm not sure you don't agree with me.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 10- 3-03 3:06 PM
[redacted]
Posted by [redacted] | Link to this comment | 10- 3-03 4:16 PM
This is going to turn into another mash note to fontana, but he's right. Get tenure soon fontana! (or shoud I say Hillary Putnam)
Perhaps we believe nazism so bad that any ginned-up controversy wrongly creating the impression that X sympathizes with nazism suffices to debar X from public office. The point doesn't seem like a slam dunk to me. Maoism and racism are both really bad too, but I don't want to cede to partisans the ability to end a political career by inaccurately portraying a candidate as a racist or Maoist.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 10- 3-03 4:40 PM
I understand your feelings for fontana might be interfering with your judgment, baa, but a ginned-up maoist controversy is a long way from an interview in which someone says "I admired Hitler." (In whatever context.)
Let me try this another way. We all agree that we don't want a calumny to derail a candidacy. But you both seem to give a little ground on whether there are certain charges for which the ratio of required truth to disqualificatory power is lower. One way to approach the issue is to craft a standard which satisfies both conditions. Another is to look at the specific instance, adjudge that Arnold as governor would lead a non-trivial number of reasonable people to believe that California had elected someone with Nazi sympathies and for us to decide that that's unacceptable.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 10- 3-03 6:19 PM
By the way, I just read the fontana and baa comments at CT about Strauss and have to say this: that one would even need to point out that the dramatic form of the dialogues should be taken into account in any reading of them makes my head spin. In what sense is reading a dialogue as a dialogue "reading between the lines?" Help me out guys, seriously--why do people read like this?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 10- 3-03 6:35 PM
I hate to put a brake on all this mad Aristotlean logic going on here, but it seems a very important observation has been glossed over in this query of whether or not AS was sympathizing with the NAZIs. Fontana's arguement that Ahnold's comment meant that he admired Hitler for his oratory skills and public appeal quay only those skills, not the ends he used them for, is untenable. To aruge so is to say that Hitler's strength as a rhetoratician is seperable from his NAZI ideology, which just doesn't seem to be true; his strength was grounded and pervaded throughout with said ideology. So, to say I admire Hitler's ability as a public speaker is to say I admire Hitler's fascistic rhetorical approach which gets people's attention and loyalty. There is plainly no other way to construe it. If he wanted to talk simply about rhetorical skills in ipso, there would have been no example of Hitler. To invoke Hitler is to invoke the means by which Hitler gained the attention of the people, which, we might say, was not the stuff of a role model. So yes, I think AS's comment was sympathizing. And frankly, it's is quite the opposite from suprising that Ahnold would find Hitler's fascistic charisma attractive.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 10- 3-03 9:14 PM
addenum, a good analogy was just handed to me. It's like saying "I admire S as a salesman" when S is a crack dealer. S is a good salesman not because of personal traits, but because he's freakin selling crack. The product is not seperable from him being such a good salesman. Same with Hitler. His fascist-nazi ideology was the crack that made him a "good public speaker." Or so it seems to me at any rate.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 10- 3-03 9:19 PM
Ogged - I will argue that your standard is too high. First off, it is not reasonable that a candidate should be disqualified merely because some people believe the misquotes or spin of the candidates opponents to believe that the candidate sympathises with Naziism. The tie should only be disqualifying if the sympathy exists, not if there's some perception in the public that the candidate has such a tie.
Half of the Bay Area believes that Bush is a Nazi. Should that automatically disqualify Bush as a reasonable candidate, even though it's obvious to anyone with a brain that Bush is not a Nazi?
Secondly, you're holding up a unique standard for Naziism; one which I don't believe it deserves. Communism (real existing Communism) has killed far more people and led more aggressive wars than Naziism did, yet we give candidates a pass if their sympathy for Castro or Ceaucescu or Ho Cho Minh or Mao was sufficiently far in the past. (Here in the Bay Area, sympathy for the right sort of murderous tyrant is almost a requirement for political office.) Hitler is not unique in this way, and to treat Hitler or Naziism as uniqueliy evil is to devalue the victims of the numerically greater evil of Communism.
Posted by Anthony | Link to this comment | 10- 4-03 3:02 PM
[redacted]
Posted by [redacted] | Link to this comment | 10- 4-03 5:54 PM
There's a lot to respond to here, guys, so let me be brusque ;)
The standard is high, but it's not what either Anthony or baa caricatured it as. I haven't given up reason and evidence here. Who disagrees (I mean I can't tell, I'm not asking a lame rhetorical question) that we should have a different standard for associations with particularly heinous groups/causes/activities? Maybe we can go from there.
Michael, I'm almost with you. I think it's very important to note that admiring Hitler as a speaker isn't "content free," but that content doesn't have to be Nazism: it's authoritarian and demagogic and genocidal, but not specifically Nazi. I think it's more honest and more effective to say that Schwarzenegger's remarks indicate an authoritarian...etc. personality rather than a Nazi ideology.
Anthony, I think it's over the top to say half the Bay Area believes Bush is a Nazi. It may be that people there use overheated rhetoric, but if you asked them whether Bush holds Nazi beliefs, I can't imagine that many (let alone half) would answer in the affirmative.
I certainly don't mean for Nazism to be unique. (I haven't reread, but I thought I was pretty careful to always qualify that.) There are other equally horrible associations: child molestation, for one. But, since you bring it up, and I hear it a lot, a quick note on the comparison with Communism: I think it's off-base. Nazism, in it's most perfect imagined realization, is evil, genocidal and fascistic. That's not true of communism, which is damn near utopian. There is a moral price (and a high one, absolutely) to be paid for turning a blind eye to the "numerically great" evils of "communist" regimes. But, for the condemnation of any given communist, that's a separate determination to be made; it doesn't follow from their beliefs.
Fontana, I never thought you were an ancient philosopher.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 10- 5-03 11:42 PM
Ogged - if you want to hold politicians to a very high standard regarding association with evil causes or activities, that's not objectionable to me, though I wonder if you have any sort of statute of limitations: Does Bustamante's involvement with (and refusal to repudiate the more extreme ideas of) MEChA count? Most Latino politicians in California were in MEChA while in college, but most have repudiated the separatist and racist components of the MEChA ideology. Is that repudiation enough? Does Bustamante get a pass even though he has refused to repudiate the more extreme ideas which MEChA propagates?
Regarding the comparison between Communism and Naziism, I think you're off base.
First off, at their root, both Communism and Naziism are extreme versions of the ideology that the individual is *only* a means to an end, and that the individual has no rights against the collective. That idea is evil and genocidal. Communism requires the liquidation of the bourgeiose, just as Naziism requires the liquidation of the Jews, because they own everything. Your extrapolation of the Communist ideal as somehow more noble than the Nazi ideal is mistaken.
Secondly, the road to Hell, etc. - ideologies ought to be judged on their actual effects, not only their sales pitch. Communism, everywhere implemented, results in a political environment about as grim as Nazi Germany. One or two such failures might not condemn the ideal, but a universal record of disastrous failure ought to.
Thirdly, there are many American politicians who have not just been members of Communist clubs in college, or whatnot, but have actively praised existing communist dictatorships - those who praised Stalin are mostly dead or retired, but look into people's records and you can find a lot of effusive praise for Mao, Ceaucescu, Castro, and Kim. That sort of sympathy doesn't have the excuse of supporting the ideal rather than the real.
Posted by Anthony | Link to this comment | 10- 6-03 11:14 AM
Ogged, I agree that the question of what part of Hitler's rhetorical approach people found so appealing would require a more specific answer than just branding it "nazi-ism" but, I think it's clear from some of Ahnold's comments that what he saw attractive in it was the extreme authroitarian quality - the quality of the leader who tells the crowd who they are and what they will do. It seems that Nazi-ism necessarily contains that quality, although that quality is not limited to Nazi-ism. So, if we want to be generous and say Ahnold wasn't/isn't a nazi sympathizer, it still seems that he is attracted to a method of governing that is dangerous, repulsive, and frightening.
Anthony, I don't think there's anything in the actualy communist ideology that deprives the individual of rights. There's a re-conception of perhaps what rights are, for instance, it argues that there is no such thing as 'private property,' but such isn't a "right" under even a capitalist system. Life, libery, and the pursuit of happiness should still be protected in communist ideology. Second, communism the way Marx concieved it, and I think you've shown you know the vast difference between Marx and Stalin, in no way required the "liquidation" of the bourgeoise in the way that Nazi-ism removed the Jews. The bourgeioise would cease to exist under Communism because the conditions for their existence, private propery ect..., woould cease to exist. Whereas Nazi-ism targeted the Jews as scapegoats, because the party needed an "us" to ally its people and a "them" to fight against. It's not in the same ballpark.
Anyway, as I hinted at, Soviet Communism was not ideological communism. Ideological communism was achieved more closely in the 60's communes, if anywhere. That should be kept in mind. Communism, if not a practical form of government, certainly had some great ideas. The same cannot be said about Soviet Totalitarianism or Nazi-ism.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 10- 6-03 11:39 PM
Michael, your first paragraph is exactly what I was saying and I'm in substantial agreement with the rest of your comment.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 10- 7-03 12:15 AM