Destiny Central |
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The Nazi
Mindset in Note: Some of this may be hard to take, but we
must eliminate all vestiges of outmoded statist
ideas in order for us to have true freedom.
This article is as good a place to start as any. ================================================================ The Nazi Mind-Set in Copyright by Jacob G. Hornberger, The Future of Freedom Foundation ================================================================ Before the end of
World War II, in 1944, Friedrich A. Hayek, who was later to win
the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, startled the
Western world with a book entitled "The Road to Serfdom".
Hayek argued that despite the war against Nazi Germany, the economic
philosophy of the Nazis and communists was becoming the guiding light for American and British
policymakers. In a later forward to
the book, Hayek wrote: "But after the war broke out I felt
that this widespread mis- understanding of the political systems of
our enemies, and soon also of our new ally, which had to be
met by a more systematic effort. Also, it was already fairly obvious that periment after
the war with the same kind of policies which I was convinced had contributed so much to
destroy liberty else- where... Opinion moves fast in the difficult to remember how comparatively a
short time it was before "The Road to Serfdom"
appeared that the most extreme kind of economic planning had been seriously
advocated and the model of to play an important role in public
affairs...Be it enough to mention that in 1934 the newly established
National Planning Board devoted a good deal of attention to the
example of plan- ning provided by
these four countries: Germany, Italy, Russia, and Japan." Americans must ask
themselves a troubling question: Did Hayek's concerns become
reality - have Americans, in fact, traveled the road to serfdom the past fifty years? Or, to
put it another way, did the Nazis lose
the military battles but win the war for the hearts and minds of the American people? Consider, for
example, the Nazi economic system. Who can argue that the American
people do not believe in and support most of its tenets? For example, how many Americans
today do not unequi- vocally support the
following planks of the Nationalist (Nazi) Party of "We ask that the government undertake
the obligation above all of providing citizens with adequate
opportunity for employment and earning a
living." "The activities of the individual must
not be allowed to clash with the interests of the community, but
must take place within its confines and be
for the good of all. Therefore, we demand: ...an end to the power of the financial
interests." "We demand profit sharing in big
business." "We demand a broad extension of care
for the aged." "We demand...the greatest possible consideration
of small business in the purchases of the national, state, and muni- cipal
governments." "In order to make possible every
capable and industrious [citizen] the attainment of higher
education and thus the achievement of a post of leadership, the
government must provide an all-around enlargement of our entire
system of public edu- cation...
We demand the education at government expense of gifted children of poor
parents..." "The government must undertake the
improvement of public health - by protecting mother and child, by
prohibiting child labor...by the greatest possible support for all clubs
concerned with the physical education
of youth." "[We] combat the...materialistic
spirit within and without us, and are convinced that a permanent recovery
of our people can only proceed from within on the foundation
of The Common Good Before The Individual Good." I repeat: How many
Americans today do not unequivocally support most, if not all, of these Nazi economic and
political principles? And if there is any
doubt whether the Nazi economic philosophy did, in fact, win
the hearts and minds of the American people, consider the
following description of the Nazi economic system by Leonard Peikoff in his book "The Ominous Parallels:" "Contrary to the Marxists, the Nazis
did not advocate public ownership of the
means of production. They did demand that the government oversee
and run the nation's economy. The issue of legal ownership, they explained, is secondary:
what counts is the issue of
control. Private citizens, therefore, may continue to hold titles to property - so long as the
state reserves to itself the
unqualified right to regulate the use of their property." What American
objects to these principles of the Nazi economic system? Don't most Americans favor the planned
economy, the regulated economy, the controlled economy? Don't
most Americans favor the type of
economic controls, and the right of government to institute such
controls, that characterized the Nazi society: wage and price
controls, high taxes, government-business partner- ships, licensing, permits, and a myriad other
economic regulations? The truth is that
Hayek's warning was ignored. Having defeated the Nazis in
battle, Americans became ardent supporters and advo- cates of
Nazi economic policies. Why? Part of the
answer lies in another feature that was central to the Nazi way of life: public schooling.
"Oh, no! You have gone too far this time," the average
American will exclaim. "Public schooling is a
distinctively American institution - as American as apple pie and free enterprise." The truth? As
Sheldon Richman documents so well in his book, "Separating
School & State," twentieth-century Americans adopted the idea of a state
schooling system in the latter part of the nineteenth century from - you guessed it - Richman points out,
public schooling has proven as successful in the succeeded in its goal
of producing a nation of "good little cit- izens" - people who pay their taxes on
time, follow the rules, obey orders,
condemn and turn in the rule-breakers, and see themselves as essential cogs in the national wheel.
Consider the words of
Richard Ebeling, in his introduction to
"Separating School &
State:" "In the hands of the state, compulsory
public education becomes a tool for political control and
manipulation - a prime instru- ment
for the thought police of society. And precisely because every child passes through the same
indoctrination process - learning the same "official
history," the same "civic virtues," the same lessons of obedience and loyalty
to the state - it becomes extremely difficult for the
independent soul to free himself from the straight jacket of the
ideology and values the political authorities wish to imprint upon
the population under its jurisdiction.
For the communists, it was the class struggle and obedience to the Party and Comrade
Stalin; for the fascists, it was worship of the nation-state and
obedience to the Duce; for the Nazis, it
was race purity and obedience to the Fuhrer. The content has varied, but the form has
remained the same. Through the institution of compulsory state
education, the child is to be molded like wax into the shape
desired by the state and its educational
elite. We should not believe that because ours is
a freer, more demo- cratic society,
the same imprinting procedure has not occurred even here, in has imprinted upon it a politically correct
ideology concerning ciety.
Practically every child in the public school system learns that the "robber barons" of the
19th century exploited the common working man; that unregulated capitalism
needed to be harnessed by enlightened government regulation
beginning in the Progressive era at the turn of the century; that wild
Wall Street speculation was a primary cause of the Great
Depression; that only American intervention in foreign wars has
been necessary and inevitable, with the global leader and
an occasional world policeman." This brings us to
the heart of the problem - the core of the Nazi mind-set: that the
interests of the individual must be subordi- nated to the
interests of the nation. This is the principle that controls the minds
of the American people, just as it controlled the minds of the German people sixty years
ago. Each person is
viewed as a bee in a hive; his primary role in life is to serve
the hive and the ruler of the hive, and to be sacrificed when the hive and its rulers consider it
necessary. This is why
Americans of our time, unlike their ancestors, favor such things
as income taxation, Social Security, socia- lized medicine, and drug laws; they believe,
as did Germans in the 1930s, that
their bodies, lives, income, and property, in the final analysis,
are subordinate to the interests of the nation. As you read the
following words of Adolf Hitler, ask yourself which American
politician, which American bureaucrat, which American schoolteacher,
which American citizen would disagree with the principles
to which Hitler subscribed: "It is thus necessary that the
individual shall finally come to realize that his own ego is of no
importance in comparison with the existence of this nation; that the
position of the individual ego is conditioned solely by the
interests of the nation as a whole; that pride and
conceitedness, the feeling that the individual...is superior, so far
from being merely laughable, involve great dangers for the
existence of the community that is a nation; that above all
the unity of a nation's spirit and will are worth far more
than the freedom of the spirit and will of an individual;
and that the higher interests involved in the life of the whole
must here set the limits and lay down the duties of the
interests of the individual." Even though the
average American enthusiastically supports the Nazi economic
philosophy, he recoils at having his beliefs lab- eled as
"Nazi". Why? Because, he argues, the Nazi government, unlike the tration camps, and this mass murder of millions
of people, rather than economic
philosophy, captures the true essence of the Nazi label. What Americans fail
(or refuse) to recognize is that the concen- tration camps were simply the logical extension
of the Nazi mind- set! It does not matter whether there were
six million killed - or six hundred - or six - or even one. The
evil - the terrible, black evil - is the
belief that a government should have the power to sacrifice even one individual for the
good of the nation. Once this basic
philosophical premise and political power are conceded, innocent
people, beginning with a few and inevitably ending in
multitudes, will be killed, because "the good of the nation" always ends up requiring it. Political killings
of innocent people could never happen in But so was Nazi economic policies
were widely favored and acclaimed (by Germans and Americans). But there is
another basic problem with that assertion: it is happening here in 1930s, Americans
either refuse to see it happening, or they rationalize what is
happening so that they do not have to deal with it. Now, it is true that the killings do
not number in the millions - but they certainly do number, so far,
in the thousands. Let's take some
examples. The Branch Davidians at U.S. Army tanks and
gas were used against peaceful, religious, well-armed people. More than eighty Americans,
including child- ren were
gassed and burned. And is there any remorse - any re- gret - any independent governmental investigation
into this massacre? Not on your life. The government
officials, just like their Nazi
counterparts, think they did "the right thing" in killing our fellow citizens. And for those of
you who look to the judiciary for protection,
you had better look elsewhere: the federal judge
who presided over the trial of the vivors declared that he would not permit the
government to be "put on
trial," and then slapped forty-year sentences on the Branch Davidian survivors. Or take Randy
Weaver, his wife, and son, of were set up on an idiotic gun charge. (Weaver
sold a shotgun that was a quarter
of an inch too short, at the request of a wrong trial date. When he failed to appear,
they surrounded his house and attacked. A government sniper shot
his unarmed wife in the head with a bullet as she was
holding her baby. And they shot Weaver's son in the back. Then, at
Weaver's trial, they fabricated evidence and committed perjury.
Fortunately, Weaver was acquitted. But have any criminal charges
been brought against the government agents for the murder of
Weaver's wife and son? Did the federal
judge in the case even cite the agents for con- tempt for their reprehensible conduct? Well,
did the Nazi govern- ment ever
bring charges against the SS? Did Nazi judges ever punish Nazi officials for killing Jews? Government
officials killed Donald Scott, a millionaire rancher in house in the middle of the night to look for
marijuana. And when Scott obeyed their
order to lay down the gun he had picked up in his fear of the intruders, they shot him
dead. And it later turned out that they
hoped to find marijuana so that they could confiscate his land and convert it to a national
park. But Americans
either look the other way, the way the Germans did, or they rationalize
what is happening by saying, "The war on drugs has gotta be
won." And it is not just
killings. Just as the Nazis did, they are confiscating
people's money, land, boats, cars - anything they can get their hands on. No longer do they
need to depend only on taxes for their
revenues - they just go grab the money and pro- perty directly and keep it, regardless of the
guilt or innocence of the victims. And, of course, it's all
rationalized because "the war on drugs has gotta be
won." And it's not just
confiscation. It is also terror - the terror of the Internal
Revenue Service agents barging into people's homes,
"visiting" them at work, and levying liens on bank acc- ounts and real estate without notice, hearing,
or other semblance of due process. Yes, it's true - we
are not dealing with the killings and mass confiscations and infliction of terror on millions of
people. It is happening
only to several thousands. But that's today. What happens in a
crisis? Suppose an American ruler decided he is not going to get
"pushed around" by the ruler of Haiti, Panama, Iraq, or Japan? What happens
if a war is not over in a few weeks, but
instead drags out into months, even years, with higher taxes, more controls, and...conscription? What happ- ens if Americans, who are already being
taxed 50 percent of their incomes, now find taxes at 70 or 80 percent?
What happens if there is a massive
tax strike in which millions refuse to pay their taxes? What happens if hundreds of
thousands of American students refuse to
be drafted by a president who refused to be drafted? Will the government
meekly surrender? Will it simply agree to lose "international face"? Not on
your life. The Internal Revenue Service, the
Department of Justice, the FBI, and the army will simply turn their
massive powers against the leaders of the tax revolt and as many of its followers as
possible. And they will do whatever is
necessary to teach those "draft-dodging cowards" a lesson. The American people will learn
what the German people learned: that the
omnipotent state that loves the poor and the needy will remove
its velvet glove and use its iron fist to smash those who interfere with the "good of the
nation." Let's look at some
more examples of the Nazi mind-set in this time in the Department of the Army. The
army conducted nuc- lear radiation
experiments on American soldiers. Why? Because the good of the nation required it. The army
conducted drug experi- ments on
American citizens. Why? Because the good of the nation required it. The army conducted disease
experiments on the American people.
Why? Because the good the nation required it. The army herded
innocent Americans of Japanese descent into American
concentration camps. Why? Because the good of the nation required it. The army entered into joint
ventures with German Nazis at the
end of World War II. Why? Because the good of the nation required it. In other words, in
the past, engaged in evil, Nazi-like conduct for the
"good of the nation." Would they do so
again? You can bet your life they would, if the "good of
the nation required it", and even if it entailed the violation of
every single restriction on government power set forth in the in all this. Through the power of ideas, we
can reverse the trend. If ideas did not matter, governments
would not try to suppress ideas. Ideas do matter; they do have
consequences; they do influence
people into acting, into changing, into reversing course. But the rights
guaranteed by the First Amendment - the right to speak, to write, to disseminate ideas -
are not sufficient. The ultimate
safeguard against the ultimate tyranny lies instead with the right to bear arms guaranteed by the
Second Amendment. If this Amendment
is destroyed or severely constricted, the rest of the Constitution
becomes worthless, because in a crisis in which their power
base is threatened, and in which there are no means of forcible
resistance, government officials will squash the things they
view as "technicalities" - free speech, habeas corpus, trial by
jury, and the other rights guaranteed in the Constitution. Combine a crisis
with a disarmed, discontented citizenry, and the concentration
camp for hundreds of thousands becomes a real possibility. But when the citizenry, together with various
pat- riotic sheriffs, police, and members of the
armed forces, have the means to
inflict severe casualties on their potential oppressors, tyrants
think twice before they try to oppress their own citizens too heavily. That is why every
single effort to restrict or control or manage the ownership of guns must be resisted. The
ultimate barrier to the ultimate tyranny lies not with the
ballot box. It lies not with the soapbox. It lies not with the jury
box. The ultimate barrier to the
tyranny of one's own government lies with the cartridge box. Contrary to
everything our rulers tell us, and everything that our schoolteachers
are teaching the children of this nation, the biggest threat
to the lives and well-being of the American people lies not with some foreign government.
The biggest threat to the American people lies with the And while gun
ownership stands as a barrier to potential, Nazi- like behavior, the
long-term solution is to dismantle, not reform, the iron fist of the welfare state and the
controlled economy. This includes the
end (not the reform) of the IRS, the DEA, the BATF, the SEC, the
FDA, HUD, the departments of HHS, Labor, Agriculture, and
Energy, and every other agency that takes money from some and gives
it to others or interferes with peaceful behavior. It entails the repeal of all laws that
permit such conduct. And it means the privatization of most
of the bureau- crats who
work for the But it also entails
the end of potential oppressors, who, in the past, have
shown no reluctance to engage in evil, malicious, illegal, Nazi-like
conduct against American citizens, such as the CIA and the standing army. Would this mean
that the to act as the international Roman emperor?
That is exactly what it should mean. But what about threats of
invasion of the United States? Such
threats are virtually nonexistent. But if every sin- gle citizen if free to arm himself to the
teeth, any nation con- templating invasion would know that attacking the would be like swallowing a porcupine. What about a quick
mobilization? There would be no reason why citizen-soldiers
would not quickly mobilize in the event of an emergency. For example, suppose that the standing
army is dis- banded. The members of the 82nd Airborne
Division would not simply disappear. They would become private,
productive citizens, but ready in times of peril to answer the
call. They could be, and probably would
be more than willing to be, at any location in the country within 24 hours. Moreover, there
would be a doubly positive effect in terms of economic prosperity. No longer would taxes have
to be sucked out of the pockets
of private citizens to support the armed forces. And the members of the armed forces,
now privatized, would now be economically productive members
of society. In his book
"The Road to Serfdom," Friedrich Hayek warned Ameri- cans in 1944 that
despite their military war against the Nazis, they were traveling
the philosophical and economic road that the Nazis and the
communists were traveling. Our grandparents and parents ignored Hayek's warning. Now, we are
left with the consequences; a
government of omnipotent size and power using its power to kill
innocent, peaceful citizens and confiscate millions of dollars
of property to feed its insatiable hunger for more power. Today, the number of victims
is in the thousands. But at the end of
this road lie the concentration camps for the multitudes. Can the tide be
reversed? Can the omnipotent state be dismantled, rather than simply reformed? Yes. It will take a
return to first principles - the principles on which this
nation, not hold that it is the
individual, not the collective, that is supreme; that each
individual has been endowed by his creator with inalienable
rights; that among these rights are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments
are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from
the consent of the governed; that whenever any government,
including the American government, becomes destructive of
these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it
and to institute a new government; and that no individual - his
life, liberty, or property - shall ever be sacrificed for the good of the nation. As Ayn Rand put it thirty years ago in her
essay, "The Fascist New Frontier": "If you wish to oppose [statism], you must challenge its basic premises. You must
begin by realizing that there is no such thing as "the public interest"
except as the sum of the inter- ests
of individual men. And the basic, common interest of all men - all rational
men - is freedom. Freedom is the first re- quirement of
"the public interest" - not what men do when they are free, but that
they are free. All their achievements rest on that foundation
- and cannot exist without it. The principles of a free, non-coercive
social system are the only form of
"the public interest." Such principles did and do exist. Try to
project such a system. In today's cultural atmos- phere,
it might appear to you like a journey into the unknown. But - like |
