I am nearly halfway through Jonah Goldberg's book Liberal Fascism, and I highly recommend it to every one of my readers. Not only is it well-researched and well-written, it is as devastating, if not more so, than the Irrational Atheist in how systematically it attacks its intended targets. Ironically, having read about the Wilson era, I have actually come to have a sort of appreciation for the freedom that we have today. Believe it or not, but America was actually significantly less free during the days of the Wilson Administration than it is today. Imagine an era in which America actually had a propaganda ministry that could function on the level of a major totalitarian state and where we had a bona fide secret police force. Throw in where criticizing the government, not sedition, but criticizing, the government could get you sent to prison, and where there were at least 175,000 political prisoners.
The guy behind Winamp and Gnutella is at it again. His latest project is a cheap, hassle-free replacement for Pro Tools, a seriously expensive music studio suite. The product, Reaper, sounds very interesting, and could really shake things up when it comes to getting more musicians out from underneath the thumbs of the music industry status quo.
I paid $15 for 3.75 gallons of gas tonight, enough to get me home from a friend's house on the other side of Fairfax County with plenty of room to spare. I cannot even imagine what my gas expenses would be like if I drove a luxury car or a SUV. My civic gets about 26-27mpg in the city. Why do people continue to drive these gas guzzlers as the cost to keep fueling them becomes unacceptably high? Oh, right. It's because the American Dream today is no longer about political, religious and economic liberty. It's about being able to consume what you want, when you want.
Speaking of the economy. Anyone notice that the movie studios are practically living in denial about the way things are going? Around here, new DVDs still average $19.99 each. Hello, Hollywood. This is reality calling. It now costs nearly $50 to fill up a Honda Civic. Yes, a Honda Civic. $19.99 for a new release is too high. I bet that they will start to push for a bail out or more anti-piracy legislation, as they end up crying to Congress about not making as much money as they would like.
My minivan only get 14-16 mpg. However, it is paid for. Now, seeing as I only fill up once per week it is actually cheaper for me to keep it than to take on a car payment. Assuming I were to get a small car that got double the mileage, gas would have to hit around $6/gal for it to be worth the extra expense of a car payment. I suspect this is one thing keeping people driving what they are driving. Plus the fact that it is very difficult to sell an SUV right now, for obvious reasons.
In the meantime I am curtailing my driving, moving into a cheaper place and riding my bike more (I have a trailer/stroller for my boy so we can go places and even take it shopping)
Exactly correct. It is not without reason that the odious Woodrow Wilson perches without peer atop my list of most hated Presidents. Those who want to make Bush the worse president ever based on civil rights concerns know nothing about either Wilson or Lincoln. Bush may be a poor President (and I would say that no President ever wasted such potential), but he is as far from Wilson as Washington was from Napoleon.
It's mostly a location-specific issue. If you live in a place as densely populated as Northern Virginia, you wouldn't be able to do that. With my commute, you'd be going through about two to three gallons of gas just on the work commute. I'm lucky in that I can go through about 25 miles round trip of usually semi stop and go traffic on about one gallon of gas. People who drive SUVs around here are usually getting raped at the pump because in many areas around here, regular alone goes for about $4/gal.
Indeed. As bad as he may be, I can't see Bush going as far as Wilson and his ilk.
Bush himself hasn't gone there, and time is running out for him. However, he placed an awful lot of arrows in the quiver for the next Wilson that comes along.
And Mike, if your commute is only 25 miles round trip you may find a bike ride is just the thing. The difference in commute time might be so little as to surprise you. Plus its fantastic exercise.
That would be extremely dangerous where I commute. Two of the three roads I travel on for most of the commute are fairly major highways in this area of Virginia.
If you liked Jonah's "Liberal Fascism," wait till you get a load of Mark Steyn's "America Alone" - 'bout scared the heebie-jeebies out of me.
Back when I lived in Arlington the only safe place to bicycle seemed to be the bike-path to Mount Vernon - and that was insanely crowded.
I like my new-used '06 F-150 - gas in Germany is about $8/gal. half of which is taxes. I have to do my part to bring about global warming.
:-)
I try to avoid reading books about the modern jihad because unlike stuff like Liberal Fascism, they tend to just make me bitter. It's a real problem that I have, and you can laugh at me for it, but I have to keep my politics down a bit these days in order to not just have a nasty view toward the world and be able to enjoy life.
$8/gal is way too much for me. I think I would just get a moped and risk it everyday with that sort of price...
MT:What part of it is fiction? Having read some actually history on fascism, I have yet to see anything in the first half of the book I've read so far that is fictitious.
Well to begin with:
“the fascist label was projected onto the right by a complex sleight of hand…before the war, fascism was widely viewed as a progressive social movement with many liberal and left-wing adherents in Europe and the United States…After the war, the American progressives who had praised Mussolini and even looked sympathetically at Hitler in the 1920s and 1930s had to distance themselves from the horrors of Nazism. Accordingly, leftist intellectuals redefined fascism as “right-wing†and projected their own sins onto conservatives, even as they continued to borrow heavily from fascist and pre-fascist thought.â€
This is what’s called a “whopper.†First of all, anyone going through periodical archives of the 20s and 30s, anyone reading writers of that era, knows that both liberals and conservatives associated fascism with the right wing well before WWII. Travel books of the 1930s, for instance, listed the Nazi party under right wing political groups, as did liberal magazines like The New Yorker and conservative magazines like Time :
There will be 607 Deputies in the new Reichstag, largest, in German history. Simplifying the returns, it means that the Nazis and other Right Wing Parties will have a total of 277 seats." Time Magazine, 8/8/32
It took no “liberal sleight of hand†to associate fascism with the right – unless you are willing to characterize Time’s rock-ribbed Republican and conservative publisher, Henry Luce as a liberal engaging in “sleight of hand.â€
Then there are his lies of omission. Goldberg presents this book as a work that tells the whole story about fascism when in fact, the picture he offers is much less complete than that offered by all those supposedly liberal historians who’ve been – he’s claimed -- intent on hiding the “truth†about fascism. It’s fascinating to observe, for instance, how he handles the knotty problem of Henry Ford:
“Hitler said he was a great admirer of Henry Ford, though he didn’t mention Ford’s virulent anti-Semitism. What appealed to Hitler about Ford was that he ‘produces for the masses. That little car of his has done more than anything else to destroy class differences.â€
In reality it was Ford’s anti-Semitism and his beliefs about the superiority of “Anglo-Saxons†that made him a hero to the Nazis, who bought up translations of his book The International Jew at a tremendous rate. It was also his anti-Communism and, in spite of all Hitler’s rhetoric about eliminating “class differences,†Ford’s disdain for the concept of equality. Ford believed that there was “no greater absurdity and no greater disservice to humanity in general than to insist that all men are equal,†a philosophy that jibed quite well with Hitler’s belief that “men are not of equal value or of equal importance.â€
There’s nary a mention of this in the book. Nor is there much talk about the Spanish Civil War, an odd omission in any discussion of 20th century fascism. (But then, the number of leftists and liberals who flocked to Spain to fight fascism well before the Second World War wouldn’t do much for Goldberg’s claims about that liberal plot to associate fascism with the right after WWII, would it?)
Nor is there much about such Hitler supporters in Germany as Emil Kirdorf, an industrialist “so reactionary that he called the policies of the Imperial government ‘dangerously radical’†because it “had allowed Bismarck’s antisocialist law to lapse.†(From Who Financed Hitler, by James and Suzanne Pool) or steel heir Fritz Thyssen.
I’d be interested in knowing exactly what you’ve read on the history of fascism that puts Hitler and the Nazis on the left side of the political aisle. William Shirer certainly doesn’t. Nor does Joachim Fest. Nor do most historians, or contemporary observers of Nazism.
I still see nothing that shows that these ideologies were actually right wing. In fact, the majority of their platforms are unequivocally left-wing planks, such as seizing the wealth of the Bishoprics, enfranchising women, etc. There is hardly anything about their platforms or actions that favored the old guard, unless you count coopting the economy's established players as a means of centralizing control over it. Furthermore, having read the catechism of the German "Christianity" that Hitler created, I think it's ludicrous to argue that there was anything religiously conservative about his government, as that dogma is so wildly blasphemous as to be unworthy of being even remotely related to anything Christian.
I haven't extensively studied this subject, but unlike most Americans, I've actually read the party platforms, and I take them at reasonable face value as to them being what the parties actually stood for. It's understandable that Hitler and Mussolini would coopt conservative industrialists and somewhat pander to them because that was the path of least resistance, and pragmatic compromise is the only way that a revolutionary movement can see even some of its changes take effect without causing society to devolve into an orgy of bloodshed and civil war.
All of that said, I think the simplest argument that these movements were not right wing is that the Soviet Union, the standard-bearer of Communism, did not regard them as such until the invasion of its territory by the Germans. In fact, the Soviets and Italian Fascists had a very warm relationship during the 1920s, which suggests that Lenin, someone who no one in their right mind would call a Russian conservative, clearly saw them as an allied movement.
MT: I still see nothing that shows that these ideologies were actually right wing.
You've seen a direct refutation of Goldberg's ridiculous claim that the "right wing" label was something imposed on fascism by liberals and leftists after the war. In fact, pretty much everyone, liberal, conservative, right wing or leftist, considered the Nazis to be on the right side of the political spectrum. As for whether or not fascism was "actually right wing" --
"In fact, the majority of their platforms are unequivocally left-wing planks, such as seizing the wealth of the Bishoprics, enfranchising women, etc."
The Nazis did not "enfranchise women." It was the liberal Weimar Republic that did this. In fact, the Third Reich systematically and openly rolled back most of the advances in women's rights that had taken place during Weimar, driving women from professions and government and doing its best to confine women to the realm of "kinder, kuche, kirk" -- children, kitchen, and church. Francisco Franco did much the same in Fascist Spain, dismantling rights women had gained. If Mussolini, indeed, enfranchised women, he was an exception among fascists.
MT: There is hardly anything about their platforms or actions that favored the old guard, unless you count coopting the economy's established players as a means of centralizing control over it.
LOL! Riiiight. There was hardly ANYTHING in their actions that favored the old guard, unless you count the avid support the Nazis enjoyed from "established players" (exactly what IS the difference between "old guard" and "established players?") and big-wigs in the military -- many if not most of whom were avid supporters until Hitler actually began losing the war.
MT: Furthermore, having read the catechism of the German "Christianity" that Hitler created, I think it's ludicrous to argue that there was anything religiously conservative about his government, as that dogma is so wildly blasphemous as to be unworthy of being even remotely related to anything Christian.
I don't the Nazis were "religiously conservative." Nor do most historians.
MT: I haven't extensively studied this subject, but unlike most Americans, I've actually read the party platforms, and I take them at reasonable face value as to them being what the parties actually stood for.
Taking the Nazis at face value in that manner is a serious mistake. The socialist planks in the Nazi Party platform were never acted upon, and were in fact regarded by Hitler as a sort of cynical window dressing aimed at German workers -- much like the word "socialist" in the Nazi party name.
MT: It's understandable that Hitler and Mussolini would coopt conservative industrialists and somewhat pander to them...
They did more than "somewhat pander to them." Hitler proved their faith in him was not misplaced by dismantling trade unions and imprisoning trade union leaders.
MT: All of that said, I think the simplest argument that these movements were not right wing is that the Soviet Union, the standard-bearer of Communism, did not regard them as such until the invasion of its territory by the Germans. In fact, the Soviets and Italian Fascists had a very warm relationship during the 1920s, which suggests that Lenin, someone who no one in their right mind would call a Russian conservative, clearly saw them as an allied movement.
Using that rationale, the Nazis were not, in fact racist, because they had much longer and firmer alliance with the nonwhite Japanese than they did with Stalin. And your argument blithely ignores the Spanish Civil war, which by no means indicates a "warm" relationship between Communism and Fascism.
You STILL haven't said what you've read on this subject.
Anything?
The Soviets never implemented any of the final stages of Communism either. Does that make them not Communist?
Various Communist regimes did similar things, wherein they liquidated all non-government trade unions. I guess that makes them conservative too. Totalitarians don't like competition from non-governmental entities.
Skirmishes like this between on-and-off-again rivals/allies are common in international politics. Our own relationship with Britain in the 19th century varied from cordial and friendly to bitter enemies from time to time. The Soviet Union did not actually renounce its association with these governments until open war was waged upon it, and before that, it had a good relationship with the Italian Fascists.
Of course, by Fascist, I am referring primarily to the Italian movement, not to the Nazis.
I've already told you. The party platforms, and pieces of their history. I've never pretended to be a scholar. I know this may surprise you, but I was actually interested in seeing you defend your point, not making a rhetorical question/point.
Now, a question for you: what constitutes right-wing politics and what constitutes left-wing politics?
MT: The Soviets never implemented any of the final stages of Communism either. Does that make them not Communist?
No, what makes them Communist is their open and whole hearted embrace of Marx, their elimination of private property and their complete and utter government takeover of industry -- something the Nazis did not do.
MT: Of course, by Fascist, I am referring primarily to the Italian movement, not to the Nazis.
Since this debate was prompted by your recommending a book that attempts to tie modern liberalism to Nazism, your comments about Mussolini are beside the point. You're trying to make your case by confining the debate to a subset of fascism rather than fascism as a whole.
MT: I know this may surprise you, but I was actually interested in seeing you defend your point, not making a rhetorical question/point.
I have defended my point. I've cited hard facts. Goldberg claims that the term "right wing" was something foisted upon fascism after WWII. I've pointed out that the Nazis were referred to as "right wing" by every observer well before that time, sympathetic and unsympathetic, and I've cited at least one quote from a conservative magazine at that time where the Nazis are referred to as right wing several years before the war.
You've claimed that the party platform of the Nazis indicates that the Nazis were leftists. I've pointed out that none of those socialist planks were ever acted upon, and that in fact, the Nazis were most ardently supported, not by socialists, but by wealthy industrialists and members of the military -- hardly a "socialist" crowd.
In short, I've not confined my answers to mere "question points." I've answered your points, and then asked you to expand on your own.
MT: Now, a question for you: what constitutes right-wing politics and what constitutes left-wing politics?
Right wing politics typically involve anti-Communism, an emphasis on traditional roles for women and a desire to institutionalize or retain certain forms of bigotry, whether racial or religious. There is frequently a high level of nationalism coupled with a romantic hearkening back to some presumed golden age of the past.
Left wing politics typically lean towards sympathy for socialism and/or communism, though it should be emphasized that both leftists and socialists are frequently anti-Communist. (Liberals invariably are) There is an emphasis on the shedding of traditional roles, and on sexual, racial or religious equality. The past is typically rejected as corrupt and tyrannical.
Pft: You STILL haven't said what you've read on this subject.
MT: I've already told you. The party platforms, and pieces of their history. I've never pretended to be a scholar.
What "pieces of their history" have you read, aside from a political platform that most historians and contemporary observers of Nazism considered meaningless? Who was the author?
The movement that is formally known as Fascism originated in Italy, not in Germany. Furthermore, Goldberg's thesis was not that liberalism is tied to Nazism, but rather that Progressivism, Fascism and National Socialism all arose from a common worldview.
These definitions have barely any meaning. You have thrown out some minor characteristics, when what I want is a more systematic definition that explains how both Nazism and American conservatism can both be meaningfully right wing, when American paleo-conservatism favors free markets, decentralized government and generally favors strong, expansive views of constitutional liberties.
Your definition of right wing barely passes muster as "things I dislike," let alone a definition that is useful for describing how conservatism on this continent can be lumped into the same camp as the Nazis.
Clearly nothing you have read has prepared you to explain something as simple as what "right wing" really means beyond a few, generic characteristics that are so broad that they cover many disconnected groups. Hell, based on your point about racism, one could conclude that any Progressive who was sympathetic to eugenics was a right-winger.
Another problem with your definitions is that it flows in a circle, when it should flow in a spectrum; one side should be total state control, the other anarchy. If you have Fascism on the extreme right, and Communism on the extreme left, that leaves no room for classical liberalism, libertarianism or anarchism. That the extreme points in your definition share very similar characteristics in practice means that it is not a spectrum, but rather a continuum.
MT: The movement that is formally known as Fascism originated in Italy, not in Germany.
And yet you and Goldberg keep referring to the Nazis – not just Mussolini – in your attempts to portray fascism as a leftist rather than a right wing movement.
Now, possibly because you’ve begun to notice that the Nazi/liberal thing isn’t working out real well when faced with historical facts, you’re trying to confine the discussion to Mussolini’s Italy. Sorry, but that’s just not going to work.
How do you explain the fact that contemporary observers of fascism of pretty much every political persuasion – journalists, travel writers, historians, casual observers, etc. – almost to a person refer to fascism as a right wing movement?
MT: Furthermore, Goldberg's thesis was not that liberalism is tied to Nazism, but rather that Progressivism, Fascism and National Socialism all arose from a common worldview.
To claim that a book entitled “LIBERAL Fascism†is not trying to tie liberalism to fascism is beyond absurd.
MT: These definitions have barely any meaning. You have thrown out some minor characteristics, when what I want is a more systematic definition that explains how both Nazism and American conservatism can both be meaningfully right wing, when American paleo-conservatism favors free markets, decentralized government and generally favors strong, expansive views of constitutional liberties.
Sorry, but my description of the difference between “left-wing†and “right-wing†political movements were not lists of merely “minor characteristics†or lists of thing “I dislike.†Obviously, I prefer liberalism, just as you plainly refer conservatism but I don’t reject all tradition any more than, as a conservative, you probably reject all new ideas.
American “paleo-Conservatives†put an emphasis on tradition and anti-Communism that puts them squarely in the right wing of the political spectrum. Nazis put an emphasis on tradition and anti-Communism that put them squarely in the right wing of the political spectrum. This does not mean that paleo-Conservatives are Nazis any more than liberals are Communists. It does mean paleo-Conservatvies are part of the right-wing continuum, just as liberals are part of the left-wing continuum.
MT: Clearly nothing you have read has prepared you to explain something as simple as what "right wing" really means beyond a few, generic characteristics that are so broad that they cover many disconnected groups. Hell, based on your point about racism, one could conclude that any Progressive who was sympathetic to eugenics was a right-winger.
I’ll take this as an admission that, in fact, you’ve read nothing about the history of Nazism beyond what Jonah Goldberg and a few right-wing blogs have told you. The fact that you apparently believed the Nazis had enfranchised women(!) should have told me as much, but I thought I’d give you a chance to show that you’d actually made an effort to read about this subject before talking about it.
No, terms like “right wing†and “left wing†are not so precise that they don’t overlap in some ways. The same could be said for words like “liberal†and “conservative.†That these are slightly broad terms, however, does not render them meaningless. The term “red-headed,†for instance, can apply to someone who has a wide variety of colored hair, dyed or natural. It can mean, auburn, or carrot-red. In the case of someone who’s a strawberry blonde, it can be used interchangeably with “blonde.†“Red-headed,†remains a useful and a meaningful term, in spite of this imprecision.
MT: Another problem with your definitions is that it flows in a circle, when it should flow in a spectrum; one side should be total state control, the other anarchy. If you have Fascism on the extreme right, and Communism on the extreme left, that leaves no room for classical liberalism, libertarianism or anarchism. That the extreme points in your definition share very similar characteristics in practice means that it is not a spectrum, but rather a continuum.
Yes, it is a continuum. This does not render these terms meaningless. Stalin loathed avant-garde art, liberals, and most intellectuals. So did Hitler. So did Pinochet. So, for that matter, do many American right-wingers, whether they qualify as paleo-conservatives, neo-Conservatives, or members of the Religious Right. Does the fact that Stalin, Hitler, Tim LaHaye, and Robert Novak would agree about the artistic merit of Robert Mapplethorpe make LaHaye and Novak leftists?
I never claimed that. I said that in the half of the book I've had time to read so far, he hasn't claimed that modern liberalism is derived from Nazism, but rather that it is derived from Progressivism, which is a movement that arose from the same sources, and had a peer relationship with National Socialism and Italian Fascism, and Goldberg admitted that there is a distinction between Italian Fascism with a capital F and "fascism" with a lowercase f to imply mere similarity.
A few things, I'm not a conservative. I'm a libertarian with conservative sympathies because my religious views are informed by the Reformed Protestant tradition. The reason I scoff at the definitions of right-wing that you provide is that they provide little that is usable with politics to describe movements that are practically frothing-at-the-mouth enemies of one another like paleo-conservatism and National Socialism.
So, wouldn't the anti-Communism likewise make liberalism partly right-wing under this definition? It also leaves no room for movements like libertarianism which are simultaneously both right wing and left wing movements.
You should have known that I was talking primarily about Italian Fascism when I made that comment, as abolition of the Bishoprics was on their platform, not the Munich Manifesto, and enfranchising women was the first plank of the Italian Fascist manifesto.
Actually, red-headed is not a good example of this because it carries a greater degree of precision than you give it credit for. When someone says "red-head," a generally precise image is generated in the listener's head as to what to expect, whereas a conservative can be anything from a warmed over classical liberal who is strong on traditionalism, to a sort of populist who wants to control everything from cradle to grave in the name of morals, decency and tradition. It is thus, highly imprecise as a term, and the same holds true of "liberal."
Does the fact that Stalin and LaHaye both like(d) dogs make them on the same side of the aisle, either? How about if Novak and Hitler both drink the same beer and prefer the same type of woman?
I maintain that the terms are effectively meaningless because of the fact that they exclude whole swaths of ideology and put groups that are objectively quite different into the same category.
Of course, if you update the spectrum according to Ayn Rand's collectivism-individualism divide, it actually starts to make sense. Granted, if you do that, virtually everything that you associate with on the left is actually on the collectivist side, and much of the right wing is on the individualist side.
If you have Fascism on the extreme right, and Communism on the extreme left, that leaves no room for classical liberalism, libertarianism or anarchism.
That's precisely their goal, Mike. The Hegelian dialectic.
Bravo, MikeT.
Fascism and communism share a relationship with lions and hyenas: both vie for the position of dominate predatory group, and the resulting friction is utterly predictable.
The individualist/collectivist polar model for political ideology seems to be the most accurate of the bunch.
MT: So, wouldn't the anti-Communism likewise make liberalism partly right-wing under this definition?
Only inasmuch as they are not as far to the left as Communists – just as conservatives remain on the right, but are not as far to the right as Nazis.
MT: a conservative can be anything from a warmed over classical liberal who is strong on traditionalism, to a sort of populist who wants to control everything from cradle to grave in the name of morals, decency and tradition. It is thus, highly imprecise as a term, and the same holds true of "liberal."
Which does not render the words “conservative†or “liberal†useless -- as indicated by your own frequent use of the word “liberal†on this blog.
MT: Does the fact that Stalin and LaHaye both like(d) dogs make them on the same side of the aisle, either?
If LaHaye and Stalin both advocated that everybody owning and caring for dogs be a requirement hard-wired into government policy, it might. As it happens, neither of them did, and the morality or immorality of loving dogs is not a meaningful issue in either right-wing or left-wing circles, so your question is nonsense.
Dog haters were not rounded up, abused and killed in Stalin’s Russia, Hitler’s Germany, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, or Pinochet’s Chile. Nor were people who drank the “wrong†kind of beer or dated tall, rather than short women. Liberals, intellectuals, artists, and other people typically loathed by such political control freaks were. A distrust of nuance, of thought, is what such thugs, on both the right and the left, have in common.
MT: Of course, if you update the spectrum according to Ayn Rand's collectivism-individualism divide, it actually starts to make sense. Granted, if you do that, virtually everything that you associate with on the left is actually on the collectivist side, and much of the right wing is on the individualist side.
“Update the spectrum…†Another word for historical revisionism. You want to cram everyone’s view of history into Rand’s narrow vision.
It’s no accident that the author of LIBERAL FASCISM has also written at least one essay lauding the policies of that Chilean mass murderer, Pinochet. Goldberg wants to associate Hitler’s crimes with the meaningless word “socialist†in the Nazi party name rather than the policies of extermination that Hitler shares with right-wing “heroes†like Pinochet and Rios Montt. Worse, Goldberg wants to use this dishonest association of Hitler with the left as a rationale for justifying the crimes of people like Pinochet.
Do you truly think you can talk intelligently about fascism after reading only one highly inaccurate and dishonest book on the subject?
Pardon me, I should rephrase that. "So imprecise as to be useless except as a completely generic starting point for discussion."
Would you care to cite some examples of where members of the religious right and Stalin actually have things in common, in terms of what they would advocate forcing onto the public via state control?
If their actions are that similar, then perhaps they are both born of the same wellspring of ideas.
It's hardly a narrow vision, and as much as I disagree with her, she was absolutely spot on with her reconstruction of political boundaries along collectivism-individualism as opposed to right-left, as your own arguments show. Where collectivism and individualism are generally discrete, hard boundaries with absolute control on one side (Communism) and absolute absence of control (anarchy) on the other. It also tends to actually make left-right definitions make a lot more sense in practice.
Do you think you can talk intelligently on this subject when you cannot even see that if you have definitions which are as muddled as your definitions of right and left wing? Just sayin...
Of course, beneath the surface, the Nazis, Fascists, Socialists and Communists all have something fundamental in common: they seek to centralize control over the entire economy into the hands of a powerful central government. Their motivations may be different, but the practical result is an economy that is completely controlled and planned by an unaccountable elite.
Furthermore, your simplistic use of traditionalism fails to take into account the fact that there are forms of traditionalism that are quite common in places like the United States which are both right wing by your reckoning and yet vehemently anti-statist. Yet more reason why I think these definitions don't work anywhere nearly as well as you think they do.