Have you encountered righties actually saying "Hitler was bad, but the communists were worse"?

[ck4829]

I've seen this message said by a lot of people, and frankly it's very appalling, but it's also a bit unsettling.

"Hiter and the nazis were bad, but the communists were far, far worse. So, why does everyone hate the fascists, but not the communists?"

An example of it being said, I've seen several others, but this is the most recent one I've seen:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091022133154AA4C8co&r=w#NbUvWDO8VTg2zxWbCvFr

Hey, it doesn't matter if it's 6 or 6 million dead. An ideology that uses terrorism and murder is not an acceptable ideology, it's a group of people trying to justify their terrorism and murder.

Secondly, if numbers do matter, we could go into the specifics of just how many people Hitler did kill. He is responsible for WWII (50 million dead), the Holocaust (12 million and maybe even higher, as in maybe up to 21 million dead, and Operation Barbarossa (20 million dead).

To think that fascists will most likely never be seen as an acceptable ideology again, and that just ticks some people off because communism is not in there with them. It's just not fair, huh, righties?

[whosinpower]

1. If you really want to make them rethink that

Tell them - that if this was true, and George W. Bush was in power - then he would of sided with the Nazi's to fight the Russians - enemy of my enemy is my friend - scenario.

And if they think - seriously - that this is what the americans should of done - then they are totally whacko.

[Mz Pip]

2. How about

they were both evil. It is possible to condemn both. They are not mutually exclusive.

[jinto86]

4. Yea, how many died in the "great leap forward"

Deaths aren't exclusive to one or the other.

[Hannah Bell]

9. how many died in the irish potato famine, the bengal famine, etc.

all man-made, & capitalist.

[Occam Bandage]

12. One million and three million respectively. nt

[Occam Bandage]

13. At least twenty million. Difficult to know. nt

[Hannah Bell]

14. The Bengal famine of 1770

was a catastrophic famine between 1769 and 1773 (1176 to 1180 in the Bengali calendar) that affected the lower Gangetic plain of India. The famine is estimated to have caused the deaths of 15 million people (one out of three, reducing the population to thirty million in Bengal, which included Bihar and parts of Orissa).

The famine occurred in the territory which was called Bengal, then ruled by the British East India Company.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1770


19th century

1800-1801 famine in Ireland

Four famines - in 1810, 1811, 1846, and 1849 - in China claimed nearly 45 million lives.<43>

1811-1812 famine devastated Madrid, taking nearly 20,000 lives

1815 eruption of Tambora, Indonesia. Tens of thousands died of subsequent famine

1816-1817 famine in Europe (Year Without a Summer)

1830 famine killed almost half the population of Cape Verde

1830s Tenpo famine (Japan)

1835 famine in Egypt killed 200,000

1844-1846 famine in Belgium

1845-1849 Great Irish Famine killed more than 1 million people<44>

1846 famine led to the peasant revolt known as “Maria da Fonte” in the north of Portugal

1846-1857 Highland Potato Famine in Scotland

1850-1873 as a result of Taiping Rebellion, drought, and famine, the population of China drop by
over 60 million people<45>

1866 Orissa famine of 1866 in India; one million perished

1866-1868 Famine in Finland. About 15% of the entire population died

1869 Rajputana famine of 1869 in India; one million and a half perished

1870-1871 famine in Persia is believed to have caused the death of 2 million persons<46>

1873-1874 famine in Anatolia

1879 Famine in Ireland

All mortality avoided in Bihar famine of 1873–74 in India.

1876-1879 ENSO Famine in India, China, Brazil, Northern Africa (and other countries). Famine in northern China killed 13 million people. 5.25 million died in the Great Famine of 1876–78 in India.

1878-1880 famine in St. Lawrence Island, Alaska<47>

1888 famine in Sudan

1888-1892 Ethiopian Great famine. About one-third of the population died.<48><49> Conditions worsen with cholera outbreaks (1889-92), a typhus epidemic, and a major smallpox epidemic (1889-90).

1891-1892 famine in Russia caused 375,000 to 500,000 deaths<50>

1896-1897 ENSO famine in northern China leading in part to the Boxer Rebellion

1896-1902 ENSO famine in India<51>


20th century

1906,1911 famines in Russia

1907,1911 famines in east-central China

1914-1918 Mount Lebanon famine during World War I which killed about a third of the population

1914-1918 famine in Belgium

1915-1916 Armenian Genocide. Armenian deportees starved to death

1916-1917 famine caused by the British blockade of Germany in WWI; up to 750,000 Germans starved to death<52>

1916-1917 winter famine in Russia

1917-1919 famine in Persia. As much as 1/4 of the population living in the north of Iran died in the famine<53>

1917-1921 a series of famines in Turkestan at the time of the Bolshevik revolution killed about a sixth of the population<54>

1921 famine in Russia killed 5 million<55>

1921-1922 Famine in Tatarstan

1921-1922 famine in Volga German colonies in Russia. One-third of the entire population perished<56>

1928-1929 famine in northern China. The drought resulted in 3 million deaths

1928-1929 famine in Ruanda-Burundi, causing large migrations to the Congo

1932-1933 Soviet famine in Ukraine (Holodomor), some parts of Russia<57> and North Caucasus area.<58> 2.6 to 10 million people may have died<59>

1932-1933 famine in Kazakhstan killed 1.2-1.5 million<60>

1936 famine in China, with an estimated 5 million fatalities<61>

1940-1943 famine in Warsaw Ghetto

1941-44 Leningrad famine caused by a 900-day blockade by German troops. About one million Leningrad residents starved, froze, or were bombed to death in the winter of 1941-42, when supply routes to the city were cut off and temperatures dropped to -40 degrees.<62>

1941-1944 famine in Greece caused by the Nazi occupation.<63> <64> An estimated 300,000 people perished

1942-1943 famine killed one million in China

1943 famine in Bengal

1943 famine in Ruanda-Urundi, causing migrations to the Congo

1944 famine in the Netherlands during World War II, more than 20,000 deaths

1945 famine in Vietnam

1946-1947 famine in Soviet Union killed 1-1.5 million<65> <66>

1958 Famine in Tigray, Ethiopia, claimed 100,000 lives
1959-1961 Great Leap Forward / The Great Chinese Famine (China). The official statistic is 20 million deaths, as given by Hu Yaobang

1965-1967 drought in India responsible for 1.5 million deaths<67>

1966 famine in Bihar, India.<68>

1967-1970 Biafran famine caused by Nigerian blockade

1968-1972 Sahel drought created a famine that killed a million people<69>

1973 famine in Ethiopia; failure of the government to handle this crisis led to fall of Haile Selassie and to Derg rule

1974 famine in Bangladesh

1975-1979 Khmer Rouge. An estimated 2 million Cambodians lost their lives to murder, forced labor and famine

1980 famine in Karamoja, Uganda

1984 famine in Ethiopia

1990-2003 Iraq has faced famine conditions since 1990. The Iraq sanctions resulted in high rates of malnutrition. Between 200,000 and 1 million excess deaths.<70>

1991-1993 Somalian famine

1996 North Korean famine <3> <4>. Scholars estimate 600,000 died of starvation (other estimates range from 200,000 to 3.5 million).<71>

1998 famine in Sudan caused by war and drought

1998 ENSO famine in Northeastern Brazil

1998-2000 famine in Ethiopia. The situation worsened by Eritrean-Ethiopian War

1998-2004 Second Congo War. 3.8 million people died, mostly from starvation and disease

2000-2009 Zimbabwe's food crisis caused by Mugabe's land reform policies<72>

21st century

2003- famine in Sudan/Darfur (Darfur conflict)

2005 Malawi food crisis

2005-06 Niger food crisis

2006 Horn of Africa food crisis

2008- Myanmar food crisis. The Cyclone Nargis devastated Burma's major rice-producing region.<73>

2008- North Korean famine<74><75>

2008- Horn of Africa food crisis<76><77>

2008- Afghanistan food crisis<78>

2008- Bangladesh food crisis<79>

2008- East Africa food crisis<80>

2008- Tajikistan food crisis<81>

2009- Kenya food crisis<82> 10 million Kenyans face starvation.<83>

[phantom power]

3. To say nothing of the fact...

that no policy being proposed by any political party with any influence even remotely resembles communism.

The farthest-left policies, on any issue even under consideration, might be considered a watered-down form of democratic socialism.

[provis99]

5. we've got people right here on DU who say the exact same thing.

lots of Hitler apologists seem to be lurking around DU these days.

[JVS]

6. I think people have claimed that here.

Reactionary pantloads!

[Posteritatis]

7. It's a pretty common view on the right

They focus on it because much of the US was defined for decades in terms of Not Being Communist as opposed to Not Being Fascist.

[demosincebirth]

8. right wingers and nazi's are from the same mold.

[Democracyinkind]

10. I for one find both to be equal if we are talking about the Era of Stalin and Lenin.

As a student of history I don't really see the difference when it comes to the methods used for control or the blatant disregard for human lives as long as we are talking about the WW1-WW2 period... Applied to later times the statement is certainly pretty bizarre...

I just don't think that it is about numbers or motivations. If systematic deprivation and killing of people is the raison d'etre of a regime it really doesn't matter what they claim to be. That's to say that calling the Soviet Union (especially pre ww2) strictly "communist" is missing the point anyway.
I imagine that if you were grabbed and sent to a camp it didn't make all that much of a difference to you if the camp was located in Poland or Siberia.

[Occam Bandage]

11. Yes. All the time.

They'll, say, compare the death toll of the Holocaust to the Great Leap Forward, and then wonder why fascists are hated but communists are not.