Re: [FT] UNSC (emotional rant)

--- Richard and Emily Bell <rlbell@sympatico.ca>
wrote:
> 
> 
> "Parrott, Charles P" wrote:
> 
> > Funny thing is, most totalitarian or authoritarian
> governments don't start out that way.  They start as
> benevolent democracies, republics or monarchies that
> slowly erode citizen rights and freedoms until it's
> too late.
> >
> 
> Totalitarian or authoritarian regimes form suddenly,
> because the previous form of government has
> obviously failed, and the would-be dictator has "The
> Answer".
> 
> Yes, Hitler won a fair election.  The election was
> fair because the Nazi thugs that beat up and
> intimidated voters were no more (or less) brutal
> than the thugs of any of the other party, and then
> Hitler managed to disband or defang all of the
> groups of thugs (including the brownshirts).

While I partially agree with the first part of this (I
would put "failed" in quotation marks), I disagree
with the second. 

The one time Hitler ran for office (for the
presidency) he lost to Hindenburg, and by a fairly
wide margin at that. He became the Chancellor entirely
through backroom deals, rather than thanks to his
electoral showing or his party's popularity (the Nazis
never won outright majority of seats in the Reichstag,
even in rigged elections). The oft-quoted "even Hitler
was elected" statement is pure myth. It's also not
true that the various parties' thugs had "equality of
opportunity". For one thing, the moderate leftist,
rightist, and centrist parties did not engage in such
tactics, only the extreme left and right (the
Communists and the Nazis) ones did, and even then the
German law enforcement tended to deal with Nazi thugs
more leniently than with Communist ones. Concerning
the "brownshirt" disbandment, the SA continued in
existence until the end of 3rd Reich, although its
leadership was purged after Hitler became concerned
its agenda was not the same as his, with the gap being
plugged by Himmler's SS.

Mike J.

Mike J.

=====
Visit 20th Century/Future Wargame Resource page
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Rampart/1966/

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