I hope you got yourself a commented edition. Taking aside the shitty content, the book is such a shoddy piece of text that decyphering what Hitler meant is pretty hard without outside help. It's also overly repetitive and plagued by other problems so it's obvious that using it for any other purpose than historical interest is impossible. Much like with the Protocols, skimming through it is the best antidote to antisemitism any sane person can get.

Prop Joe, Can I borrow some of your irrational paranoia?

Proposition Joe has the best package in town.

Mein Kampf = My Struggle. Well it certainly appears that Hitler struggled with his writing!

lmfao @ "irrational paranoia"

there's an explicit provision to track that shit in the Patriot Act, TC

Tettleton Chew...the KING of right-wing nuttery on Web Dip....disses the invasive nature fo teh Patriot Act??? Ahhhhh ha ha ha ha ha! Tett....maybe you need to dislodge your head from wherever it is lodge (most likely where the sun does NOT shine...) and understand what your government does. You know...the government you openly hate on a regular basis? You seem like a bit of an irrational hypocrite, here, Tett....

I bought a copy of Mein Kampf in India (again purely for research purposes, and it only around 0.30 AUD). At first, the occasional spelling mistakes put me off, but afterwards they were the only things keeping me interested. Even IF (please notice the *if*) I were a nazi, the damn book is impossible to read.

I remember looking at it on the sly in the aisle of the library shelves it was in back in high school...

But then, it wasn't much of a worry of mine, getting caught--

The library was rarely full in the book section, just the computer section, and if someone ever WAS back there, chances were they didn't give a damn about the books or what was being read, but just wanted a secluded place to eat lunch or text or whatever else.

Never quite felt right even reading that book out of curisoity, though...logical or not, that's probably the one book I just feel a real, physical uneasiness reading...

Well now I'll have to go out and get a copy. By the way are there any really prominent conservative texts out there on the scale of Mien Kampf and The Manifesto?

Like the Communist Manifesto, I enjoyed reading Mien Kampf for it's historic value and certain idealogies.

You can indeed get them online or special order them from companies willing to sell them, otherwise they are banned in Public Libraries and even in certain States.

they're banned? in the US?

Yep. Banned to protect your freedom, of course.

@Puddle:

Well, contrary to what FOX News anchors Hannity and O'Reilly--and formerly Beck, to show how credible the bunch truly are--would have you believe...

Fascism and Communism are directly opposing theories of governing.

So, when O'Reilly likens Obama to a Communist and Beck to a Fascist on the same day, you can see how enlightened the people are on the subject, as that'd be the political equivalent of being a square-circle, really, a Fascist-Communist...

So to answer your question:

The "Left" and "Right" in America generally stem from the two most influential English political theorists of the 1600s whose theories essentially founded the nation--and may be found, in cases, almost word-for-word in American foudning documents.'

These, of course, would be John "All men are created equal" Locke and Thomas "Protection over Liberty" Hobbes.

And this is where Communism and Fascism may be seen to get their roots (Though not historically, Marx may have been influenced by Locke, but that's up for debate, and certainly Hitler was influenced by a variety of sources, so Hobbes' role, if any, isn't unique and special to Hitler.)

Communism is Locke-run-amok, where "All men are created equal" becomes "All men must be TREATED as equals," which is a nice sentiment, and for purposes of legality, is obviously a good one--an example being civil rights--but apply that to a mass government on a mass scale and you have over-achieving employees being treated and paid the same as under-achieving employees, or even just "standard"-achievers...there is no reward incentive, all are treated equally, like cogs in a machine...but the cogs ARE equal in theory, so the premise from Locke is still thee, just taken to an extreme he never envisioned it would or should go.

So, the "prominent conservative text" that would be the counterpart to "The Communist Manifesto" is...

Well, plenty, really...Nietzsche's "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" is a social counterpoint, and Hobbes' aforementioned work, entitled "Leviatian," is a political counterpoint...

But "Mein Kampf" IS a conservative, right-wing "answer" to Marxist theory, as it's a leading text of Fascism, and Fascism is the extremist opposite of Marxism, the same way that the more moderate-Locke and the Left and Liberalism is the counterpoint to the Right and Hobbes and Conservatism.



As a final note, aside from disparraging both extremes--Fascism is a disgusting ideal, and Communism is an unfeasible one...just like my old hero Nietzsche, I find BOTH extremes here absurd--I'm not saying one side is "better" tha the other:

Locke and Hobbes/The Left and the Right BOTH have valuable ideals.

Locke's "all men are created equal" principle is vital to remember for civil and social liberties.

And Hobbes' comparison of human beings to machines and so a nation to a giant, many-headed moster of a machine, made stronger by the cooperation of all--but NOT to one's detriment--is good to keep in mind as well.

Both worked off of what is known as "Social Contract Theory," which is the theoretical notion that human beings "agree" to form a government and leave what is called "The State of Nature," and their differences of opinion on what happens in the State of Nature corresponds to the positions of the Left and the Right today:

Locke believed all people were, or at least could be, GOOD PEOPLE at heart, he was a Christian and felt everyone had a soul and was descended from Adam and so all were suppoed to be equal and good under God, and his main reason for forming a government is to bring that good out to its fullest potential with works and government help--ie, we all are free to pick apples in the State of Nature, but if we form a government, then some of us can pick apples and farm while others work metals and build towns, thus increasing the quality of life for all.

Hobbes, by contrast, lived through the English Civil War, and was an Atheist, and wasn't always very safe and secure because of his views, so naturally, he held the view that, in a State of Nature, all human beings are selfish and "desire-pursuing machines," and famously said that the State of Nature is "ignorant, nasty, brutish, and short," adn to be avoided at ALL costs...so for Hobbes, SECURITY--not LIBERTY--is the most important thing.

Locke/the Left=Liberty first, Security second (because humans are basically good, so less to guard against)

Hobbes/the Right=Security first, Liberty second (because humans are basically bad, so without security, there's not time to "enjoy" liberty)

And both have valid points.

I'm Left-of-Center myself--I agree with Hobbes, that if you're not secure, there's no way you can enjoy liberty anyway, but at the same time, I agree with Locke that liberty is what makes life worth living for in the first place, and so unless there is an immediate threat, Liberty must always precede Security, as if it were otherwise, life would just break down to being one part in a defensive machine with no free soul.



Anyway, that's my view..."Mein Kampf" is the opposite you're looking for here, but for a less-disgusting and more-enriching alternative, try Hobbes' "Leviathan" for a counterpoint to Marx...

Or Nietzsche, of course--but I'd need a whole other post to even BEGIN waxing on HIM!

;)

"You can indeed get them online or special order them from companies willing to sell them, otherwise they are banned in Public Libraries and even in certain States."

This is completely false, the communist Manifesto an Mein Kamf can be found in public libraries throughout the country. The Communist Manifesto is often required reading in political science and history, and Mein Kamf would be too but Mussolini's writings have more value.

Ther eis a difference between banning and monitoring. Public libraries receiving tax dollars are required to track and report the movement of certain books to the NSA which in turn runs it through their database and looks for patterns. Just check it out once, you should be OK. But check it out, renew it, start checking out other "subversive" material, etc. and you will find your name on their lists.

Of course, everybody who plays diplomacy is on the priority list already.
Mein Kampf IS available online. PM me and I can email you a copy.

"Enjoy" reading Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto?
I guess if you are one ignorant individual you would "enjoy" reading two books that led directly to the deaths of 100 million human beings in the 20th century.
A normal individual would feel melancholy and foreboding reading the lunatic ideas of the most misguided minds in the history of mankind.

It seems quite a few people here are hesitant/scared to admit that they've read or want to read Mein Kampf, and I completely fail to see why. I read the book out of curiosity, to see what justification Hitler had for his racist beliefs, and I found his beliefs were wrong. But I couldn't have known that without actually reading the book. There's nothing wrong with wanting to read something out of curiosity, reading doesnt mean agreeing.

"Mein Kampf" = "My Struggle".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Ove_Knausg%C3%A5rd

Nothing wrong with reading it.
Everything demented about enjoying it.

Yeah theyre not banned at all.

Never read either though - I feel that Mein Kampf would be interesting more as a psychological case study - kind of like that documentary that starred Idi Amin - peer into the mind of a madman.

The Communist Manifesto though i really should read - it's far more influential.

Fascism was obviously a dead end.

Lol where is Fasces btw

You should read Mein Kampf Thucy.
No doubt in my mind it influenced Osama Bin Laden to write his own declaration of war.
The communist manifesto has been completely discredited by the collapse of the Soviet Union, the abandonment of Mao's policies, and the rapid decay of Cuba.
No one with objective reasoning and intelligence gives any credibility to Marx.
Except in academia of course, but objective reasoning and academia are incompatible.

And no one saw me checking it out!
Well, so far his prose is terrible, but I haven't gotten past his auto-biographical opening. We'll see how poorly structured (as has been mentioned here and in other places) his exposition is when I get there.
I don't expect I'll read all of it. The thing is THICK.

Tettleton you dont have to agree with Marx or even be Marxist to recognize that his ideas did and still do profoundly affect modern political discourse and thought. Come on. Lol.