Over at Climate Depot, Marc Morano wonders why Andrew Revkin is calling attention to an article linking Holocaust denial to “climate denial”. He writes:
What’s up with NYT’s Revkin? He touts essay: ‘A look at denial, from Holocaust to climate fight’ by a survivor of Bergen-Belsen & a warmist physics prof. at Brooklyn College Read the Full Article
Is featuring an essay linking Holocaust denial to climate ‘denial’, worthy of a shout out on Revkin’s blog? Excerpt: ‘Denying the Holocaust today, with all the available factual information, requires denying of all of history… But most of our history is based on flimsier evidence, and climate change deniers like to say that using scientific ‘theories’ to explain climate change is not really ‘proof.’
In an email exchange prior to Morano’s post, I wrote:
It seems to me that Mr. Revkin is cementing his approval of comparisons between holocaust deniers, and “climate deniers”. That will be the topic of my post on the issue, unless Andy has an alternate credible explanation. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt until I hear from him.
Revkin “on the run in Asia” as he put it, responded:
I thought it worth noting this post because the writer is a rare breed — a physicist and environmental studies professor and also a survivor of the Holocaust. That gives him the right to explore this terrain, whatever you or I think of his conclusion.
Tumblr is an efficient means of posting the equivalent of a Tweet. I did not endorse his views.
In fact, I agree that most such comparisons are flawed. Back in 2007, before I switched to the Op-Ed side of The Times, I wrote Climate, Coal and Crematoria on Dot Earth to question one such effort by James Hansen.
Tomkiewicz also illustrates the normal nature of the deep divisions among physicists — even Nobelists in physics — on evidence for disruptive greenhouse-driven climate change. Feel free to debate him on the merits of his thesis.
I also mentioned in the email exchange that Mr. Revkin had made some prior reference to Nazi Germany, which I asked him about some months back, but never posted about it. Today seemed like a good time to do so.
By policy, I don’t normally allow Nazi photos/discussion on my blog, being very proactive about Godwin’s Law, but this requires an exception. Screen cap below.
Revkin gives a Tumblr repost (akin to a Twitter re-tweet):*
Ordinary people. The courage to say no.
The photo was taken in Hamburg in 1936, during the celebrations for the launch of a ship. In the crowd, one person refuses to raise his arm to give the Nazi salute. The man was August Landmesser. He had already been in trouble with the authorities, having been sentenced to two years hard labor for marrying a Jewish woman.
We know little else about August Landmesser, except that he had two children. By pure chance, one of his children recognized her father in this photo when it was published in a German newspaper in 1991. How proud she must have been in that moment.
(via inspirement)
And writes: I enjoy things like this immensely.*
(*Both of these sentences were clarified from the original post I made to separate Revkin’s words from the Tumblr repost – Anthony)
Yet, Mr. Revkin, in his capacity as journalist, was quite possibly the first reporter to “confirm” authenticity of the Heartland Leak Documents, including the faked one, seems to not grasp how this world view of his is ironic in the context of his daily reporting.
I asked Revkin on Feb 17th what he thought about that photo:
Do you see any irony in your position?
And he replied:
Irony in relation to my position on climate science as it relates to my position on someone standing up to political terror and tyranny?
I said “yes” and he replied:
To you, who’s the climate equivalent of the guy standing with his hands down?
If you’re going to propose/imply that I’m an apologist for alarmism, I’d have to reject that and ask you to point to a pattern in my coverage of the science that shows this.
I’ve been pretty quick to question anyone trying to cast climate science as a “party loyalty” kind of issue.
This may be relevant. Here’s my response on the fairness question (climategate v. denialgate) and the Dan Rather issue.
As for the “…who’s the climate equivalent of the guy standing with his hands down? ” question posed by Revkin, I see it this way: I think climate change skeptics see themselves as that man, I see myself as that man. Likewise, many AGW advocates see themselves as that man, standing up for the Earth and thus is borne the clash of ideals.
Like August Landmesser’s brave stance, I believe climate skeptics are “Ordinary people. [with] the courage to say no.” and by saying no, we are being trashed, reviled, and libeled in the media and paid propaganda blogs (like DeSmog, Romm’s Climate Progress, and Grist) for doing so.
The mindless regurgitation of the fabrications in the Heartland faked document without even checking authenticity first, showed just what sort of mindset we are fighting in the media, and it seems to me that what Mr. Revkin “enjoys” seeing as being a brave person in one historical venue, he views as a nuisance in others. Here’s why. He tweeted this a week later, just after DeSmog blog launched their assault on the Heartland Institute and climate skeptics worldwide.
My irony meter pegged, the needle broke off, flew out, and embedded itself into the wall of my office when I read that, because of Revkin’s post about August Landmesser just a week earlier.
The be absolutely clear, so that opportunists don’t try to spin this around, I don’t view pro AGW people as “Nazi’s” and nobody should ascribe any such opinion to me.
Quite the contrary, I simply view them as people with a rigid worldview that I and millions of others (according to recent polls) disagree with based on our review of the available science.
But, since Mr. Revkin opened this door in the context of recent events, I felt it important to bring it to light. It is also important to review who brought the comparisons of holocaust denial and climate skepticism together, a mainstream journalist, columnist Ellen Goodman, is credited with popularizing the usage in 2007. Here, she makes a clear unambiguous connection:
I would like to say we’re at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let’s just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future. – Ellen Goodman, Boston Globe, February 9, 2007 “No change in political climate” on the Wayback Machine here
There’s more than enough climate ugliness to go around on both sides, and what is it doing? Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. said this of it last May, describing the tactics of his opponent Joe Romm:
…[it is] making enemies out of friends and opponents out of fellow travelers.
In my view, the same can be said about the recent billboard fiasco.
I also want to reiterate that Heartland made a huge misstep and blunder with their recent billboard campaign, and that while it is technically true that “unabomber” Ted Kaczynski did in fact write about his concerns about greenhouse gases in his manifesto (I checked), the method of messaging chosen by Heartland was just plain dumb, ugly, and counterproductive in my view. From what I gather, their intent was to use the same tactics that have been employed by alarmists against skeptics, to illustrate how these ugly tactics are used. But, when you sink to using the same tactics as your opponent, you give away any moral advantage you might have, and I think Heartland did that. I’ve made some mistakes like that myself. The best you can do is to apologize, learn from them, and never repeat them. When you are bombarded with hateful messaging almost 24/7, sometimes you make a mistake in your reply. Heartland made a mistake, a big one. I think Vaclav Klaus summed it up pretty well. From the Guardian:
Václav Klaus, the Czech president and prominent climate sceptic, has condemned a controversial billboard campaign used by a rightwing US thinktank to advertise the forthcoming conference at which he is scheduled to give the keynote speech. However, his spokesman said Klaus will not join other speakers who have pulled out in protest and says he still intends to proceed with the engagement.
I agree with his position in condemning the billboard campaign, as well as his decision to go to the conference. After careful consideration, I will attend as well.
As we witnessed yesterday with the Romm/Pielke Jr. blowup, the tactic they are employing now is to “divide and conquer”, using the disgust many have over the billboard fiasco as a wedge issue.
Solidarity is therefore needed more than ever, which is part of why I’ve decided to attend the conference. But, in my opinion, we also need an alternate venue, because trying to give the science discussions and the political rhetoric some degree of separation is impossible in such a convention environment. As Ross McKitrick demonstrated in his rebuttal so well, scientists don’t like mixing with ugly political rhetoric, and political activists often don’t like the logic and restraint that scientists have. There was bound to be a clash of ideals at some point.
Some folks have suggested that this episode marks “the end of climate skepticsm if Heartland fails”. What they don’t realize is that Heartland was never the “headquarters” for climate skepticism, only an occasional facilitator for a bringing together a widely diverse set of people. Even if Heartland were to disappear tomorrow, climate skepticism is now a mainstream issue, it will continue. As confirmed by many polls, there are millions of people who are skeptical of the issue like we are here on WUWT. That isn’t going away any time soon.
Note to commenters: This thread will have an exceptionally low tolerance level for off color or attack commentary. Be on your very best behavior.
BTW, there’s “evolution” all about. The big USA enviro NGOs are toning down climate change. Remember the “Pew Center for Global Climate Change?” The No. 1 deceiver of NPR audiences?
Take a look at their entity now, pasted here for you’all:
“”The Pew Center on Global Climate Change is now the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES). As C2ES, we will continue to provide independent analysis and innovative solutions to address the climate and energy challenge. Please take this opportunity to update your links.””
The corporate warmistas are evolving, Obama-style, to follow the money! The small fry warmistas won’t evolve profitably, they are too arrogant to adapt to the facts, rather than make the facts adapt to their beliefs. A personality flaw which, by the way, excludes them from any position on a board of and corporation or large NGO.
Evolve!
What will the warmsters say next February?
Please consider the height, speeds and trajectories of the current tropospheric circulation paterns, as they are indeed changing.
Our solar cycle 24 peak looks more like next December than anytime in 2013…
What conditions must be present in the troposphere and within the magnetosphere and what stimulus or stimuli are required for transitional changes from glacial to inter-glacial & visa-versa?
If you or anyone else on this planet can provide those answers, we would not be talking about earth’s complex systems in the way we do.
Cheers!
In this debate over the term ‘denialists’ also consider the National Wildlife Foundation February 2012 report “The Psychological Effects of Global Warming on the United States: And Why the U.S. Mental Health Care System Is Not Adequately Prepared” (http://www.nwf.org/~/media/PDFs/Global-Warming/Reports/Psych_Effects_Climate_Change_Full_3_23.ashx).
That document included this quote: “This report aims both to fill in the gap in our awareness of the psychological impacts of climate change, and by exposing the emotional side of the issue, to find the place in our hearts that mobilizes us to fly into action, forewarned, determined, relentless. It also is a call for professionals in the mental health fields to focus on this, the social justice issue of all times, with their capacity to work through denial and apathy, to bring insight and commitment before it is too late.”
If an organization claims climate change is the social justice issue of all times, is it not real denial to call climate change a more important social justice issue than the Holocaust itself?
I can’t take Rabbett, however knowledgeable he might be in his area of expertise (is it chemistry?), or anyone else who refers to himself in the 3rd person, seriously.
What is so funny to me on both sides of this, is that noone cares but the people involved. This will not move the needle on climate change for either side. Both sides need to be less myopic, less argumentative, and more open to discourse as the truth lies in the middle (nearer WUWT than Gore, but…). Get over it.
Now, go make more fun of Hansen’s complete lack of integrity and incredible bias – factually.
Some points:
1) We must stop making this a left (warmists) vs right (skeptics) issue. There are many people coming from all different perspectives that question the science. But I hear so many comments trying to tie a political view to what side of fence you are on.
2) This issue is mainly about control. If you look at key issues where the governments/ruling class comes down the harshest, it is always about keeping people from being independent. And here is where common ground can be found. The back to Earth movement (Hippie days) had a big component about being able to live off the grid. That movement was pretty well crushed by various techniques that I believe were intentional (violence, drugs, race wars, zoning, … ). If we keep in mind this is a fight for freedom of expression and independence, then we don’t need to bring in the false division of political entities.
3) The Heartland Institute is ONE outlet for discussing this issue. It should not be THE outlet or we will lose and lose big time. Any political entity carries too much baggage and is too inflexible to be the guiding light. The guiding light should be the pursuit of scientific truth, freedom of expression, and liberty from oppression.
We are NOT deniers, but pursuers of a noble cause.
Can anyone point me to a high res image of the photo,seems to me the man in the circle is sitting down smiling as if posing for a picture.He also seems to have a lot of room around him compared to the others,also if you zoom in he has a wierd hairsyle on the top right.I also noticed that there are a lot of other people not raising their hands.Is this a fake?
One point of correction to all here who are commenting about “6 million dead Jews” etc. After a lot of reading I agree with Simon Wiesenthal and I don’t mention that number as it hides the true evil of the regime. He always insisted (and would stop people in mid sentence when they mentioned the 6 million number) on the fact that it was “11 million non-combatant civilians murdered of whom 10% were babies and small children”.
I always wondered why he was so adamant on that point and I think it revolves around a lot of things you hear like:
“It was just the Jews” – No they murdered everyone including their own (250,000 Germans). Yes the Jews were singled out (they didn’t make up half the population but they did make up roughly half the dead) but evil kills everything in its way.
“Maybe they deserved it” – No they didn’t. Isolating the deaths to one group makes it easy to view things in this fashion but when you realize the real numbers match those of the holodomor across a huge disparate number of groups it falls apart.
I highly recommend “The Murderers Among Us” as a great book to check out along with “Inside the Third Reich” to try and grasp how ordinary people can be turned into accomplices to murder on such a grand scale.
Peace to all.
Anthony, I congratulate you on a very balanced perspective and well written article. Keep up the good work
“quidsapio says:
May 10, 2012 at 1:55 pm
I think it would be interesting to study exactly how the path was laid to take people to the point of actually believing the absurd idea that questioning a scientific theory could be equated with denying the death and suffering of 6million people!. It’s been done so cleverly and with such orchestration it has the look of a smooth ad campaign. Where did it come from?”
its probably to do with the religious belief of AGW/CC by some of the Iconic individuals in the Church of Global Warming movement who strongly believe us ‘deniers’ will be the deaths of millions of people if we don’t go along with their arrogant strident belief their GIGO AGW/CC computer modelled prophetic projections will come to pass by 2100!
Roger Caiazza says:
May 10, 2012 at 4:13 pm
“If an organization claims climate change is the social justice issue of all times, is it not real denial to call climate change a more important social justice issue than the Holocaust itself?”
A thing called the National Wildlife Foundation? What do they have to do with “social justice”, “the mental health field”?
That being said, I’m sure the warmists need need all the mental health care they can get.
There is a close analogy between the Germany of the 1930s and the global warmists. Hitler and Gobbles [sp?] formulated the idea that if you tell a big enough lie often enough it becomes accepted as the truth. Exactly what the global warmists do!
Nick in vancouver says:
May 10, 2012 at 3:59 pm
“Economic chaos fed the hysteria and a manufactured threat was the oxygen that fed the Naz*s’ fire.”
Sure, but history can’t repeat in that way – the EU is not a democracy. And if one of the puppet regimes falls, there’s always the Lisbon treaty and EUROGENDFOR to reinstate a new one.
Looks like Charles Gerard Nelson and others already commented in similar vein, but here goes anyway…
To me this is very telling. The AGW crowd are on the ropes, and they are trying to draw the realists into their style of fighting which is all rhetoric and propaganga, no substance. We must resist this! They are masters of deceit and they own all the microphones; we cannot outshout them. Every time a rhetorical low blow is launched our way we should LAUGH and counter with a flurry of facts, facts, and more facts.
My perception of Revkin is that he is essentially a sportscaster who harbors a deep and secret love for a certain team but tells himself that he is too professional to let that love influence his journalistic objectivity. And I think he tries really hard but just can’t quite manage to keep the bias out of his writing. I suspect that he was quite pleased that Tomkiewicz, who by his history is (wrongly IMO) considered immune to Godwin’s Law, came along to say what Revkin and his secret pals would like to say but can’t.
In my view the comparison of [the truly mythical] “climate deniers” to “holocaust deniers” is only another case of Climate Science’s use of the same old argument by alleged analogy tactic which we’ve seen employed over and over on the part of “mainstream” Climate Science, precisely because its “science” does not hold water on its own! And therefore neither do its multiple analogies. For example, if “the science” of CO2 = CAGW is “just like gravity”, that needs to be proven on its own, in contrast to its actual 100% prediction failure rate concerning the relevant critical empirical realities of climate and weather.
As a matter of fact when it comes to its own use of analogies, Climate Science itself is demonstrably simply not real science.
Therefore in that light, I don’t personally care if Climate Science calls me a “climate denier” by using its same old “scientific” methods, that is, on the “basis” of yet another alleged, but completely wished for and merely postulated analogy – which really only ends up comparing the fact of Climate Science’s truly unscientific nature to the fact of the real existence holocaust deniers!
But unfortunately, its “shotgun” smearing of sceptics as “deniers”, etc., is what Climate Science does and how it hopes to “win” the argument and then go ahead unfettered with its obsessive controllism; regardless of the blowback it incurs upon itself and even when the reality of the debate ends up looking more like Climate Science itself falls prey to its own demonizing analogies which it instead tries to apply to the sceptics!
So I say to Climate Science, “Tough luck if you end up looking exactly like those you are trying to falsely condemn with your rediculous analogies!” And just as with the phenomena so far occurring within our completely natural climate and involving our nearly completely natural climate change – save for potential land use, aerosol, soot, etc., effects – it’s not like that particular outcome for “mainstream” Climate Science would be anything new in the history of human activity, political and governmental systems, propaganda operations, and the ever present phenomenon of human projection.
I’m repeatedly dismayed at the naivety of the political analysis displayed by many skeptics. Characterising the Warmists as a gang of out-of-control Marxists is fatally flawed and deeply undermines your ability to grasp what you are actually up against.
Look at the situation. The Warmist agenda is being driven by very large amounts of money and sophisticated influence. The US State Department has been secretly financing the IPCC, NASA is right there hosting conferences about how to handle climate change, the mass media are vilifying and marginalising dissent, while eugenicists are using AGW as a platform for advocating population reduction and forced sterilisation.
This isn’t Marxism, it’s the usual machinery of oligarchy, designed to promote the interests of the usual oligarchs, who are of course the same wealthy international elites who funded Hitler. They probably see AGW as a handy excuse for ramping up the price of oil and introducing even more draconian social controls. After all people will put up with a lot if they are told it’s in the name of saving the planet.
In that context, AGW is for the oligarchy just part of a wider agenda – which, ironically enough – may well progress to include fullblown fascism and Holocaust-denial.
I am a climate change supporter. No don’t change my words with this climate has always changed nonsensical circular argument.
Don’t call me socialist either – that’s name calling.
Don’t call me alarmist either. That’s cliché now.
.
Don’t think I’m uninformed either. I read and know all your skeptical arguments. Some of it is reasonable counter argument. Other articles are simply junk science.
And no I don’t think there is some government cover up and it’s scientific fraud either.
So I am with “that man” without arm raised against mindless group think. You see yourself without arm raised as well. Different ways of perception. Both refuse to salute because they see the “thing” as evil.
I am one who writes on this site telling everyone that after sighting a multitude of evidences that climate change is real. That is my right. Like the man without arm raised. No it’s not a socialist plot. We caused it. We are heading for many problems over this century. The globe will continue to warm at an alarming rate.
And if you are Christian fundamentalist type concerned by notion of new age and post modernist concerns about the science, I am concerned as well. Do not accuse me in being “non-enlightened” by my Christian experience. A lot of over zealous idealism that is misdirected is found amongst the good things we find in our churches. Sadly many of my Christian friends are divided on this issue. This community that is unique simply reflect the way it has always been – a misunderstanding and ignorance of good science.
I disagree with you Anthony Watts. I think you are wrong in what your doing by casting doubt on this science of potential CAGW.
I will NOT raise my arm to any mob mentality. It is good that we are both like that in many ways.
@ur momisugly Ross Brisbane “I will NOT raise my arm to any mob mentality. It is good that we are both like that in many ways.”
I think that needs some clarification, I can read that both ways.
Marion says:
May 10, 2012 at 4:31 pm
“Its probably to do with the religious belief of AGW/CC by some of the Iconic individuals in the Church of Global Warming movement who strongly believe us ‘deniers’ will be the deaths of millions of people if we don’t go along with their arrogant strident belief their GIGO AGW/CC computer modelled prophetic projections will come to pass by 2100!”
True up to a point – but I think behind the blind belief there’s a dangerous political component driving this that we can’t ignore.
Actually, I’m repeatedly dismayed at the naivety of the political analysis displayed by many skeptics. Characterising the Warmists-in-government as a gang of out-of-control Marxists is fatally flawed and deeply undermines any ability to grasp what we are actually up against.
The Warmist agenda is being driven by very large amounts of money and sophisticated influence. The US State Department has been secretly financing the IPCC, NASA is right there hosting conferences about how to handle climate change, the mass media are vilifying and marginalising dissent, while eugenicists are using AGW as a platform for advocating population reduction and forced sterilisation.
This isn’t Marxism, it’s the usual machinery of oligarchy, designed to promote the interests of the usual oligarchs, who are of course the same wealthy international elites who funded Hitler. They probably see AGW as a handy excuse for ramping up the price of oil and introducing even more draconian social controls. After all people will put up with a lot if they are told it’s in the name of saving the planet.
In that context, AGW is for the oligarchy just part of a wider agenda – which, ironically enough – may well progress to include fullblown fascism and Holocaust-denial.
rossbrisbane,
Well, there goes a minute of my life that I’ll never get back.
How about some reality-based scientific opinion, instead of just your opinion?
Fair enough.
For my part though, Heartland’s billboard was a barbed rebuff and at that: a perfectly valid retort.
The gloves came off years ago, I think, that, if we don’t recognize the venality and sheer misanthropic loathing in many alarmists hearts, then you are a denier of the reality, of human nature and of a certain type of political shill.
Money, indeed is the root of all evil, how can it be denied that; there is big money at stake here, in the renewables markets and in the ‘graft’ that investment banks can garner from the whole chimera of the carbon fantasy, small wonder the ‘battle’ became dirty, ‘trench warfare’ is not a clean business.
I honestly think Mr. Watts that the ‘battle’ over the science has been fought and won, the alarmist redoubt has been battered and the garrison has fallen back – we gave quarter, lets face it we are the good guys.
The ‘war’ however, has moved on, this is mainly a political ‘conflict’ now, the stakes are high and it never was going to remain some sort of [mixing metaphors] ‘chukka’ played out in a bygone age of a corinthian spirit of fairplay and good natured sportsmanship.
Rio20+ is the current gab-fest on the horizon and brings a new slant, a new strategy to town, in the background AGW has not gone away, however, the buzz word right now; is ‘sustainability’ and the agenda is ’21’, hardball is the play.
What it all means for us, whatever ‘handle’ you give it…………
Taxpayers are the target, I for one am fed up to the back teeth of being told that my energy bills are steeply rising and seemingly inexorably to feed some sort of idiot commitment made on my behalf by politicians who have not a clue about what they advocate. Insult to injury, all of this done: without my sanction..
Absolutely, no say and yet I am forced to save mother earth and the final insult: it [sustainability/CAGW/ the green agenda call it what you will] is all premised on a nebulous fiction that has now been trashed out of sight by real science.
So, if Heartland threw in a big spanner, it is OK by me, that it was crude but it made a splash and that is politics.
On Revkin, he is entitled to his views, yet, who on God’s green earth places any store in what he thinks and says?
[Only fools and ass’s deny the holocaust, I read history, am fascinated by the subject and wish that men would listen more intently to the lessons history imparts. I also read and do read Geology – another fascination.]
let’s not overlook Connelly, who was certainly noticed online.
pre-Goodman:
21 Aug 2005: Views on warming hard to thaw
By JOEL CONNELLY, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
But refusal to recognize global warming or evidence of man’s role has become, in circles of the oil industry and the political right, a 21st century equivalent of Holocaust denial…
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a swing vote on global warming, was along on last week’s Alaska trip.
The Bush administration is also in denial…
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/connelly/article/Views-on-warming-hard-to-thaw-1181144.php
post-Goodman…count the deniers/denial in this piece:
10 July 2007: Deniers of global warming harm us
by JOEL CONNELLY, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/connelly/article/Deniers-of-global-warming-harm-us-1243264.php
“…………….climate change deniers……………”
Whatever happened to Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming Deniers?
Andy is trying to pull a fast one, but not on me.
For the record here is climate change which I ‘believe’ in and insist has happened.
The Younger Dryas
Medieval Warm Period
Holocene Climate Optimum
US Dust Bowls caused by too little Co2
Soot on Arctic Ice
Antarctica record sea ice extent
Hundreds dead in Eastern European winter
Polar bears cool, Emperor Penguins double than previously thought
Himalayan Voodoo 2035 and much, much more….
“So I am with “that man” without arm raised against mindless group think.”
Well, if all that is around you are the wingnuts yelling for the end of pollution laws and the EPA, and screaming about “socialism,” you indeed are such a man.
Just a hit-and-run maneuver by Revkin.
“….I thought it worth noting this post because the writer is a rare breed — a physicist and environmental studies professor and also a survivor of the Holocaust. That gives him the right to explore this terrain, whatever you or I think of his conclusion….”.
What the hell does that mean?
Is he implying that surviving the Holocaust gives someone unique insights into climate sensitivity to CO2?
It’s all getting very silly.
I’ve never quite understood over left vs right thing. I tend to view totalitarianism vs personal freedom. Both Nazi and Communism are two totalitarianism yet liberals seem to be fixated on using Nazi on the other side as an example why “right wing people” are bad but “left wing people” also worship communism which killed far more people than Nazis ever did. It was estimated that communists like Mao, Lenin and Stalin killed 100,000,000-150,000,000 of their own people to make communism work. Iv’e always find that strange. Personally, I find it insulting when they try to label me as Nazis because my grandfather served in Navy on a battleship during WW2.
Do they teach any history in school these days?