That "Country First" Philosophy (Tom DiLorenzo)

Tom DiLorenzo found the new slogan for the Republican Party eerily familiar, and not in a good way:

The Republican Party of 2008 is not the first political organization to adopt the slogan "country first" as its guiding philosophy. One of the intellectual fathers of twentieth-century German fascism was Paul Lensch, who wrote in his book, Three Years of World Revolution, that the philosophy of German fascism (Nazism) was expressed in the slogan "Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz," which means "the common good comes before the private good." "Country first" or "national greatness conservatism" in today's vernacular.

In Mein Kampf (1943 Houghton Mifflin edition, p. 297) Hitler explained that in his "noblest form" the Aryan "willingly subordinates his own ego to the community, and if the hour demands, even sacrifices it." The individual has "not rights but only duties," said the mass-murdering dictator. The Nazis adopted a "25-Point Programme of the Party" in 1925 that was prefaced with the statement that "the activities of the individual must not clash with the interests of the whole . . . but must be for the general good." Fatherland First!

You don't have to hold your nose and read Mein Kampf to understand this. Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines fascism as "a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized, autocratic government."

Bill Anderson adds:

In reading Tom's post about "country first," I am reminded of "Triumph of the Will," created by Leni Riefenstahl which chronicles the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg. "Triumph of the Will" itself was not Nazi Propaganda, as it was a very good use of film without any voiceover. She just filmed the action as it was.

What I remember is the young men declaring "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer!" and that the Furher's will was their will. But, this hardly was the first time in the 20th Century that we saw this "oneness" viewpoint expressed. The American writers who fawned over the Soviet Union in its early days wrote of the "organic wholeness" and "oneness" of the people in Russia.

Just what do people think "Progressivism" is all about? I can assure you it is NOT about the expansion of individual rights. The only "individual right" that I recall anyone extolling at the Democratic National Convention this year was that "precious right to choose."

The Age of Collectivism began somewhere around the turn of the 20th Century, and it remains with us today. We have seen its ugliness in one form or another, and we saw it again with the Remocrats and Depublicans in 2008. Why am I not surprised?