The Nazis in 1933 hadn't done anything within an order of magnitude of the evil they would perpetrate in 1943. They nevertheless were still Nazis, and everyone who did not actively condemn them then was in part responsible for what they did later.

Many evil people weren't Nazis; some Nazis weren't necessarily evil. Evil is not part of the definition of Nazism. Promoting authoritarianism, exclusionary nationalism, institutional racism, autarky, anti-liberalism and anti-socialism are the hallmarks of Nazism. Anyone who holds the beliefs of the Nazis is a Nazi, regardless of what level of success they have to date achieved in carrying out their aims.

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unclad5968 13 hours ago | parent [-]

> The Nazis in 1933 hadn't done anything within an order of magnitude of the evil they would perpetrate in 1943. They nevertheless were still Nazis, and everyone who did not actively condemn them then was in part responsible for what they did later.

Only because what they did in 1943 surpassed anything imaginable. In 1933 the Nazi party immediately banned all political parties, arrested thousands of political opponents, started forcing sterilization of anyone with hereditary illnesses, and forced abortions of anyone with hereditary illness. Evil is absolutely an identifying part of Nazis. The idea that Nazis are just anti-liberals is exactly why we cannot go around calling everyone we don't like Nazis. The Nazis were not some niche alt-right organization.

If you genuinely think there are Nazis controlling youtube or the government, and all you're doing is complaining about it on hackernews, you're just as complicit as you're claiming those people were.

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jjk166 13 hours ago | parent [-]

One is not immune to being a Nazi because they are not evil, being a Nazi makes people evil. Much of the horror of the Nazis was that seemingly normal, reasonable people committed those atrocities; many without even considering that what they were doing was wrong until after the fact.

We do not call people Nazis because we dislike them, we dislike them because they are Nazis. Most non-Nazis, when accused of being a Nazi, point out how their views differ from the Nazis. I won't claim it's always the case, but the people who argue they can't possibly be Nazis because Nazis are bad, and they are not, typically are.

The Nazis very much were an alt-right, anti-liberal group. They were more than that; I gave a whole list of core tenets to their beliefs. Overlapping some tiny amount doesn't make someone a Nazi. Hitler being a vegetarian is not an indictment of vegetarians. But if a person were to go through the list of those 6 things the Nazis championed and find themselves championing 4 or 5 of them, it should be cause for alarm.

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unclad5968 11 hours ago | parent [-]

Listing "anti-liberalism" as one of the worst characteristics of a group that committed genocide, eugenics, enslaved minority groups, and attempted racial extermination is the issue. The idea that being anti-liberal is what makes you a Nazi and not the other stuff is ignorant at best, which is my original point about education.

	▲	Dylan16807 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That wasn't a list of the worst characteristics. It was a list of useful identifying characteristics. And Nazis were Nazis before they did any genocide.