Yes, They Were Socialists: How the Nazis Waged War on Private Property

From Mises.org (July 5, 2022):

When the average person thinks of the Nazis, what often comes to mind is World War II, the Holocaust, and rousing speeches of hate. However, the National Socialists also had economic and political policies, policies many just assume were either free market or New Deal–style public works projects like the Autobahn. But Nazi policy was not so cut-and-dried.

The Nazis were socialists, and it showed in many of the policies they implemented after coming to power in 1933. First, like the Soviets, the Nazis initiated a war on private property. Not surprisingly, property rights were severely curbed by National Socialism in the name of public welfare.

How did the National Socialists combat private property in Germany? The first step came shortly after the Nazis took control, when they abolished private property. Article 153 of the Weimar constitution guaranteed private property, with expropriation only to occur within the due process of the law, but this article was nullified by a decree on February 28, 1933.

With this, the new National Socialist government had complete control of private property in Germany. While they did not take complete control of the lands like the Bolsheviks did in Russia in 1917, the Nazis issued quotas for industries and farms, and later they reorganized all industry into corporations run by members of the Nazi Party.

The War on Business

Peter Temin wrote about this in Soviet and Nazi Economic Planning, stating:

Both governments reorganized industry into larger units, ostensibly to increase state control over economic activity. The Nazis reorganized industry into 13 administrative groups with a larger number of subgroups to create a private hierarchy for state control. The state could therefore direct a firm’s activities without acquiring direct ownership of enterprises. The pre-existing tendency to form cartels was encouraged to eliminate competition that would destabilize prices.

The Nazis, ironically, called this reorganization “privatization,” although the owners of these corporations were either removed from board positions and replaced by Nazi Party members or sold out and became Nazi Party members. They included IG Farben and the Junkers airplane factory. IG Farben was a chemical company founded in 1925 by Carl Bosch and Carl Duisberg, who were both Jewish, and had a capitalization of around a billion marks by 1926. By 1938, all of the company’s Jewish workers had been purged and the supervisory board replaced by Nazis (see Joseph Borkin’s book The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben).

IG Farben was a clear example of the reorganization of industry the Nazis undertook for their benefit. Sybille Steinbacher, a professor of Holocaust studies, wrote about the public-private partnership in her book Auschwitz, stating:

Otto Ambros and IG Farben director Fritz ter Meer held a board meeting in Berlin with Carl Krauch who was not only a member of the board of directors of IG Farben, but also a member of the circle of industrialists around Reichsfurhrer-SS known as Himmler’s “Circle of Friends.”

After the Nazis took power, this kind of cooperation was common. Private businesses became merely public entities, and industrialists who resisted the Nazi commissars and their policies were removed from their positions and their businesses seized.

Junkers airplane factory did not fare much better, according to Temin, who wrote:

Prof. Junkers of the Junkers airplane factory refused to follow the government’s bidding in 1934. The Nazis thereupon took over the plant, compensating Junkers for his loss. This was the context in which other contracts were negotiated.

This Nazi war on business left industrialists and other businessmen worried that they would have their livelihoods stolen from them, as Günter Reimann explains in The Vampire Economy.

Reimann quotes a letter from a German businessman to an American businessman:

The difference between this and the Russian system is much less than you think, despite the fact that officially we are still independent businessmen.

The letter continues:

Some businessmen have even started studying Marxist theories, so that they will have a better understanding of the present economic system.

This German businessman also complained of “arbitrary government decisions concerning quantity, quality, and prices of foreign raw materials.” But businessmen were not the only members of the private sector who faced mass amounts of bureaucracy and control. The farmers faced it as well. [read more]

And just think most of the Left won’t denounce a Nazi sympathizer candidate in their own party.

The Remaking of America

From AM Greatness.com (Aug. 7, 2023):

We are in the midst of one of the most radical revolutions in American history. It is as far-reaching and dangerous as the turbulent years of the 1850s and 1860s or the 1930s. Every aspect of American life and culture is under assault, including the very processes by which we govern ourselves, and the manner in which we live.

The Revolution began under the Obama administration that sought to divide Americans into oppressed and oppressors, and then substitute race for class victimization. It was empowered by the bicoastal wealth accrued from globalization, and honed during the COVID lockdown, quarantine-fed economic downturn, and the George Floyd riots and their aftermath. The Revolution was boosted by fanatic opposition to the presidency of Donald Trump. And the result is an America that is unrecognizable from what it was a mere decade ago.

Here are 10 upheavals that the Left has successfully wrought.

Free expression. In large swatches of American society—particularly the corporation, the media, the government, the public schools, and the university—it is suddenly dangerous to speak freely. At a DEI workshop, politely object that “whiteness” does not account for all the challenges of “marginalized peoples,” and you will become either ostracized, reprimanded, or perhaps fired.

Suggest to a class that man-made climate change and the state remedies for it, are still under debate—and your career and livelihood are endangered. In 2020, state that Covid lockdowns would do more eventual damage than the virus—and your career was through. Express doubt that there are more than two biological sexes, and if an athlete or high school principal you will be shunned or rendered professionally inert.

The government, in league with social media, censors the news. “Liberal” universities often first require McCarthy-era type “diversity” statements for one to be hired. Commissars review syllabi to spot incorrect or improper speech or insufficient DEI zeal.

The Left now seeks to modify the First Amendment, and its empowerment of “hate speech,” defined as most anything impeding the progressive project. The state and the universities properly issue word lists of approved vocabularies.

The old ACLU or Sen. Church Committee would now probably be deemed rightwing. The methodologies of Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover are the preferred models, once they were rebooted to the right cause.

The Weaponization of Justice. Administrations and their efforts to stock the justice department with supporters come and go. But in the last decade the Left has viewed the Department of Justice as a political extension of the party—whose unchecked power must properly be directed to hurt enemies and help friends. No wonder Eric Holder described himself as Obama’s “wingman” and became the first Attorney General to be held in contempt for ignoring a congressional subpoena.

Never in U.S. history have the Department of Justice and sympathetic state and local prosecutors indicted a leading opposition candidate and likely nominee of one of the two major parties, and at the beginning of a presidential campaign. Donald Trump is currently charged with nearly 100 felonies by at least two prosecutors. He likely eventually will be hit with more than- 500 indictments, from four prosecutors, every one of the latter with a long record of either leftwing associations or Democratic service.

The mass murderer Charles Manson faced less legal exposure. No one believes Trump would have been indicted on such counts—most of them involving allegations from years past—were he not running for President.

One count that Donald Trump is not charged with is bribery, or taking money while in office, a crime cited as impeachable in the Constitution and germane to the accusations that Joe Biden and his family raked in millions from foreign governments due to the improper use of his prior Vice Presidency. For what reason did Joe Biden lie that he never discussed his son’s business? Why did Hunter complain to his daughter that Joe demanded half of his own grifting income? Why would a Vice President serially call disreputable American grifters and foreign corrupt oligarchs? Can Joe’s lifestyle ever be reconciled with his reported income?

Given such asymmetry in the application of the laws, conservative or even apolitical Americans are apprehensive that any political prominence will draw the attention of government in effort to either indict or bankrupt them with legal expenses.

The last four FBI Directors have either admitted they lied under oath, or preposterously under oath claimed ignorance or amnesia about events directly under their control. Or they simply stonewalled subpoenas and testimonies about alleged FBI crimes.

The former CIA Director admitted to lying twice under oath. The FBI hired social media corporations to suppress election-cycle news deemed unhelpful to the Left. The agency, along with Democratic operatives, helped hatch the election-cycle conspiracy of the 2015-2016 Russian-Collusion hoax, and the 2020 Russian disinformation laptop hoax. The FBI played a central role in many of the 2024 indictments. In other words, the FBI along with the DOJ, has sought to warp three presidential elections in a row.

On the prompt of a Joe Biden campaign official (and now Secretary of State) and a former interim CIA director, 50 former intelligence officials lied to the electorate that an authentic but incriminating Biden computer was a likely Russian plant—a fact known to be lie but not disclosed as such by the FBI. [read more]

This is the blueprint how the Left is radically transforming America. Another great article by VDH.

US forces kill senior ISIS leader in Syria: CENTCOM

From Fox News.com (June 24):

A U.S. airstrike last week in Syria killed a top ISIS leader, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on Wednesday.

CENTCOM "forces conducted an airstrike in northwest Syria, June 19, that resulted in the death of a senior ISIS leader," according to a press release.

"The precision strike killed Ali Husayn al-‘Ulaywi and is part of ongoing U.S. efforts to disrupt and eliminate terrorists seeking to attack Americans abroad or the U.S. homeland. CENTCOM forces continue to work alongside regional partners," CENTCOM added.

"CENTCOM and our partners remain committed to rooting out remaining remnants of ISIS to ensure its enduring defeat," CENTCOM Commander Adm. Brad Cooper said in a statement. "We will continue to defend the U.S. homeland, our service members, and allies and partners across the region."

The Middle East is not the only area where the American military has been active lately.

The U.S. military conducted a deadly strike killing three alleged "narco-terrorists" on June 18, according to U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM).

"Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations. Three male narco-terrorists were killed during this action," SOUTHCOM noted.

SOUTHCOM also reported another strike days later.

"On June 21, at the direction of the commander of U.S. Southern Command, Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations. Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations," SOUTHCOM reported.

"Two male narco-terrorists were killed during this action, and there were six male survivors. Following the engagement, USSOUTHCOM immediately notified U.S. Coast Guard to activate the Search and Rescue system for the survivors," according to SOUTHCOM. [source]

Another terrorist dead. Good. 

JONATHAN TURLEY: Supreme Court hands Trump a border victory liberals can't spin

From Fox News.com (June 25):

"In ordinary speech, no one would say that a person ‘arrives in’ a place ... before the person enters that place."

Those words may seem ripped from the pages of Dr. Seuss, but they are taken from the 6-3 majority opinion of Justice Samuel Alito iin Mullin v. Al Otro Lado. They captured the lost-in-translation character of the Court's fight over whether undocumented persons must be physically present in the United States to make an asylum claim.

In one of a pair of major immigration wins for the Trump administration, the Court ruled that asylum seekers who are stopped on the other side of the Southern border are not present in the United States. If treated as inside the country despite being outside it, these individuals would be allowed to enter and remain while their asylum claims are pending.

The case highlights the lengths to which the Biden administration went to facilitate the entry of undocumented persons into the country. It rescinded a policy of "metering" that was put into place by the Obama administration (and later restored and expanded by the Trump administration).

In seeking to bar Trump from enforcing the same policy as the Obama administration, the three liberal justices sounded positively Clintonesque in debating what the meaning of "in" is. Justice Sonia Sotomayor denounced the majority's "illogical interpretation is driven almost entirely by a fixation on a single word: ‘in.’ Words, however, must be read in context and with attention to how they fit into the statute as a whole."

In their view, "contextual" reading means that you can be "in" the United States without actually being "in" the United States.

The sharp disagreement in the opinions spilled over to the release of the opinions. Justice Alito read a summary of his opinion, followed by a more lengthy reading by Justice Sotomayor of her dissent. The stinging dissent produced a rare rebuttal from the bench by Alito, who was surprised by the extended comments and said that, if he had not been blindsided, he would have said more, including how "the policy in question was adopted by two very different administrations." [read more]

Another win!

Supreme Court Upholds Birthright Citizenship, Rejecting Trump's Proposed Limits

From Newsmax.com (June 30):

The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a broad conception of birthright citizenship, rejecting President Donald Trump's executive order declaring that children born to people who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.

The justices relied on a long-settled understanding of the 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, and more recent federal laws in ruling that anyone born in the country, with very limited exceptions, is a citizen.

The Republican president's restrictions had been blocked by several lower courts and had not taken effect anywhere in the U.S.

During arguments in April, both conservative and liberal justices questioned the order's legality in a momentous case that was magnified by Trump's unprecedented attendance in the courtroom.

The justices ruled on Trump's appeal of a lower-court ruling from New Hampshire that struck down the citizenship restrictions.

The birthright citizenship order, which Trump signed on the first day of his second term, is part of his administration's broad immigration crackdown.

Birthright citizenship was the first Trump immigration-related policy to reach the court for a final ruling. The justices previously struck down global tariffs Trump had imposed under an emergency powers law that had never been used that way.

Trump's order would have upended widely held views that the 14th Amendment confers citizenship on everyone born in the U.S., excluding only the children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force.

The amendment was intended to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship, though the Citizenship Clause is written more broadly. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside," it reads.

In a series of decisions, lower courts have struck down Trump's executive order as illegal. The decisions have invoked the high court's 1898 ruling in Wong Kim Ark, which held that the U.S.-born child of Chinese nationals was a citizen.

The Trump administration argued that the common view of citizenship is wrong, asserting that children of noncitizens are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States and therefore are not entitled to citizenship.

More than one-quarter of a million babies born in the U.S. each year would have been affected by the executive order, according to research by the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University's Population Research Institute.

While Trump has largely focused on illegal immigration in his rhetoric and actions, the birthright citizenship restrictions also would have applied to people who are legally in the United States, including students and applicants for green cards, or permanent resident status. [source]

Stupid. Most countries don't have this policy. I guess birth tourism will continue especially from China.

More on the ruling:

• Justice Thomas defines what it means to be an American in dissent against SCOTUS birthright ruling
• Justice Alito: Birthright Citizenship Is ‘Grotesque’
• Citizenship Has Become A Financial Product Ripe For Exploitation By Birth Tourists And Illegals
• Birthplace Citizenship Is Incompatible With Mass Immigration
• If Anyone Can Birth An ‘American,’ Citizenship Means Nothing
  
• Glenn Beck TEARS APART The Supreme Court's Birthright Citizenship Ruling [video]
  

Walking miracle: Man falls 400 feet in Hawaii, survives and now at MIT

From Jerry Newcombe on Christian Post.com (Mar. 24, 2023):

Recently I met a man who is a “walking miracle.” A survivor of a horrible accident, 55-year-old Danny Yamashiro, a pastor’s son and native of Hawaii, is grateful for every day of life.

Danny’s website tells what happened: “At 18, he survived a deadly 400 foot fall from the famed Pali ridge in Hawaii. Rescuing his girlfriend from a 20 foot fall, Danny slipped and fell head first 300 feet and later another 100 feet. He suffered traumatic brain injuries (skull fractures, torn scalp), a shattered ankle, smashed organs, extensive lacerations, and being comatose. A spiritual awakening impacted his recovery.”

Danny’s story is highlighted in an article in Listverse.com about 10 people that survived precipitous falls from great heights: “Despite being severely injured, Yamashiro clung to life while rescue workers attempted to retrieve him. As the rescuers moved down the mountain, Yamashiro shifted his weight on the ledge causing him to fall another 30 meters (100 ft).”

They add, “While he did survive both falls and go on to make a full recovery (as well as a successful career in televangelism), the ordeal didn’t leave him unscathed. Yamashiro sustained an array of life-threatening injuries.”

How could someone survive such an accident?

I got to interview Danny on the radio recently. We pick up right after he was rescued in 1985 from the fall: “The doctors told my parents, ‘It doesn’t look good. If he makes it through the night, surely he will be in a vegetative state for the rest of his life.’ And that was my turning point where the Lord intervened. I needed to learn to walk, talk, eat right. I couldn’t even breathe on my own at the time.”

I asked him to walk me through his eventual healing. “The recovery took a long time. I went through a deep period of several years of dark depression. I had major swings in my emotions. The Lord took me through that. It was a real breaking time — breaking emotionally, psychologically.

“But Biola University in Southern California played a very big role in my healing process, and at the same time grounding me in the Word. I was a biblical studies theology major.”

However, there were certainly times of doubt. Danny told me, “During my college years, there were times when I would actually ask the Lord, ‘Why did you save me? Why did you not just take me?’ It was so painful. And I was so confused. And I remember the Lord whispering to me, ‘Danny, one day I’m going to release you.’ And what I got by that was a sense of hope.”

Danny remembered the Scripture verse that says, “He who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.” And that and other Scriptures (such as Isaiah 43:18-19) greatly encouraged him.

He says, “We talk about going to school and getting educated. But the brokenness was a different kind of education that has allowed me in a very unusual way to connect with people. I don’t even have to say things, and people get a sense where I know what they’re going through. It’s like my brokenness, my suffering allows me to relate with others where they are in their deepest, darkest times.”

He adds, “I think about our Lord Jesus Christ, ‘the Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief,’ and I think, ‘Wow, there’s some profound thoughts that go along and the relatability when we go through that kind of suffering.’”

Since his complete recovery, Danny has been involved in preaching the Gospel in Hawaii, in Africa, in Asia, the Middle East, and in Latin America. He has earned a Ph.D. at Trinity International University in Deerfield, Illinois. About 10 years ago, he went on to advanced studies at Harvard, where he received a standing ovation when he spoke upon graduation.

Today, he serves as an evangelical chaplain at M.I.T., where he is the co-chairperson of the Cambridge Roundtable on Science and Religion. They engage in dialogue with the faculty on science and religion. This includes participants from M.I.T. and Harvard.

He views these dialogues as “gateways to share the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Danny also hosts a regular Christian radio program based in the Boston area.

Any student of early American history knows that there were many examples of God’s Providence shining on this nation. George Washington said that Americans in particular should be grateful for the way God miraculously helped become a nation.

Dr. Danny Yamashiro, a walking miracle, experienced new life out of near death. I happened to meet him during Lent, which may be viewed as a season of miracles. After all, at this time, we celebrate the crowning event of all time, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave. [source]

Indeed. That is a miracle.

We Need More Inequality, Not Less

From Mises.org (July 15, 2022):

We are bombarded regularly with narratives touting the ravaging effects of income inequality in capitalist societies. For many, inequality is the signature economic story of the twentieth century and must be averted at all costs. But inequality is only problematic when it’s the culmination of corrupt policies that grant favors to privileged groups. In reality, market-driven inequality is the source of unbridled progress.

By vetting the quality of ideas, markets reward talented and insightful individuals for responding to consumer demands. Unlike government-mandated privileges, markets are impartial observers of value. Political connections are unnecessary for players to succeed in the free market; only a willingness to employ one’s talents to serve consumers will reap success.

However, since some people are more talented than others, markets will invariably produce inequality. Yet inequalities are likely to result in positive outcomes due to talented individuals’ ability to improve average people’s living standard. Most people lack the ability to revolutionize society, but luckily for ordinary people, gifted individuals’ pursuits set off economic and technological changes that boost long-term economic growth and create opportunities for average people to join elite circles.

Amazon made Jeff Bezos a wealthy man, but the entity has also transformed thousands of small businesses into lucrative ventures by providing a place for them to market their products to the globe. In fact, through its store, the company has launched forty thousand millionaires. Amazon’s ripple effect is so significant that it has even made its affiliates’ customers widely successful, as Celinne Dacosta points out in her feature on Rasmus and Christian Mikkelsen:

Rasmus and Christian Mikkelsen are twin brothers who quickly became pioneers in the Amazon book and Audiobook publishing space, having collectively released over 150 books. The growing industry motivated the twins to co-found PublishingLife.com, an online education business that helps ordinary people escape their 9-to-5. With the use of the twins’ Amazon book publishing business model, hundreds of people have been able to achieve life-changing results. To date, their students have made a combined $20 million dollars in verified earnings.

Without talent inequality, supercompanies like Amazon and Google would not exist, and there would be fewer outlets for average people to create wealth. Inequality is beneficial to society, because if we were all equal, the world would be remarkably mediocre. Culturally, this world would be bereft of artistic and literary wonders, since people would be incapable of rising to the level of William Shakespeare or Pablo Picasso.

Our understanding of science would equally be warped in the absence of minds like Galileo Galiei, Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein. Unfortunately, life in this realm of mediocrity would be nasty, brutish, and short. Dying from simple ailments would be the order of the day, considering that society would lack people with the curiosity and talent of men like Louis Pasteur and Alexander Fleming, who revolutionized our approach to treating diseases.

Even more sinister is that the absence of extraordinary people would fail to trigger the benign envy that usually motivates people to improve their circumstances. Without inequality, there can be no progress, since its absence suggests that we are all equally talented. And if this is the case, then the creativity required to advance society cannot emerge.

Never forget that when all men are equally competent, no man can be excellent. As such, a truly equal society is one where we are all similarly mediocre and living a life that’s below humanity’s potential. [source]

I concur. Without inequality, you have a potential for group think.