I think you're ascribing beliefs to me that I don't hold. I view political beliefs as a continuum, and you can connect any degree of belief to a lesser or greater degree of belief. I referred to fringes on the Right that have a favorable opinion of fascism, just as there are fringes on the Left that have a favorable opinion of communism. Hell, Left and Right are connected along the same spectrum.

I don't at all agree with the whine that "those on the Left are far more free to express their views than those of us on the Right". That's just one tired cliche in the old complaint that everybody's out to get conservatives, one that I think is just an ego prop in some David-and-Goliath self-aggrandizement myth. It's just another insult directed toward Liberals by implying that we're less committed to freedom of speech and other liberties than the Right. Self-aggrandizement by denigration. Sound familiar?

Here's a puzzle for you: The Right hates the ACLU because it perceives it as liberal. Yet the ACLU's stereotypical claim to fame--what I'd say if I had to explain the ACLU to somebody who'd never heard it before--is that they're the people who even defend the free speech rights of Nazis. And I'd be telling the gospel truth. So if ACLU=liberal and ACLU=commitment to free speech, then I guess Liberal=committment to free speech. Go figure.

White racial groups aren't welcome in public places, but racial organizations of other groups are allowed in the highest halls of power in the land.

Sounds unfair on the face of it. But I think a perfectly fair world could only be inhabited by Alzheimer's patients--people with histories. Here in the real world, history complicates the simple arithmetic calculations of balance, and the hard fact is that white racism has had more damaging consequences than the racism of other groups. Like or not, we're gonna be in the doghouse longer.

It's analogous to the way we treat convicted sex offenders. In a perfectly fair world a person who'd served out a prison term would have "repaid his debt to society" and would be entitled to put it behind him. It's unfair for the government to tacitly encourage vigilantism against released sex criminals by publishing their names and whereabouts, but it's not going to change any time soon.

(Understand, I'm not condoning sex crimes, I'm saying that the way we go about dealing with them is dangerously dishonest. If the sentence is insufficient, increase it. Make it life if rehabilitation is impossible. But don't encourage harrassment outside of prison. Bad precedent; slippery slope; who's next?)

So, Lee, bottom line is that many of our ancestors were assholes towards other races. I didn't do it, I wouldn't do it now, I'm not guilty and don't deserve punishment; but I'm not going to escape answering for it anyway through certain mild social sanctions such as societal shunning of Caucasian affinity groups. Deal with it. It'll correct itself when sufficient time has passed (and somebody else earns the doghouse).

Hitler versus Marx...sounds like Frankenstein versus the Wolfman. But casually linking them like that betrays a lack of knowledge about the two individuals. They weren't two peas in a pod. Marx was a theoretical economist at heart, was never a dictator or held any kind of power. His writings on economics are still studied today because his observations on the evolving economics of the 19th Century Industrial Age are considered a valuable contribution to the field, updating Adam Smith's similar observations about the agrarian economies of the 18th Century. A recapitulation of the history of economic theory goes Smith, Marx, Keynes, Friedman, etc.

Marx went on to predict, in a way that many took to be prescriptive, the communism that he thought was the natural successor to industrial era economics. Lousy prediction, but some people liked it so much they tried to force it. That's where responsibility for the Soviet Union can be laid at Marx's door, but it's not the reason he's still studied today. It's rather silly to suggest that anybody reads Marx today as part of some sinister Commie plot to actually implmenent his ideas, just as it's silly to suggest that anybody who's read Mein Kampf is automatically a Nazi sympathizer. I've read it, and I'm sure you have. 50% is random chance.