Jeff this is pretty close to an article written in the Bristish Mail Online and I quote, "Just imagine what would happen if some crazed Right-winger were to appear on BBC and say that the Nazis had been justified in killing six million Jews in order to achieve their aims."

That being said Hobsbawm was not highly recognized as a "communist" but as an historian.  I know the world for you is split by politics, but sometimes even when a person is wrong such as Hobsbawm they can be accurate in an historical analysis.  While I don't support the "communist" idea of society I certainly can respect the theory of 'historical materialism:".  But the world to you is all rah-rah my teams.  Some of us though merely see it as it is.  I know some will write you support, communism, let me be clear.  No, I don't however than can be valid attributes to a theory without it being totally right.  Just as Hobsbawm as an historian was acknowledged as the historian he was not necessarily for his politics. 

Whether it's Chile's Pinochet or Cuba's Castro, whether it's fascism or Communism, or whether it's shoving a camera up a woman's vaginna in the name of Christianity, it's all birds of a feather. Before a Republican puts down one of the greatest historians of the 20th century, he better step back and reflect on his own values and beliefs. The extremes of left or right are equally evil, and I my hope is that some day we can look back and regard American radical right ideology that began with Reagan in the same vein that Jacoby views Hobsbawm in this article.

The apocalypse must be near: I sort of, kinda, well, let me just get it out, agree with Jeff Jacoby, probably for the first time since he was born. There is room for subtlety and nuanced analysis of Hobsbawm as a historian, but Jacoby has got it right, for once benefitting from his perpetual aversion to subtlety or nuance. Rounding up to the nearest important point, Hobsbawn held awful beliefs that should easily trump his accomplishments. He should have been treated like a junkie or alcoholic who has talent but is ruined by their disease: with pity or revulsion, but not admiration. As for this agreeing with Jacoby, I find it unsettling and will now try to wake up from what must be an early morning nightmare.

There is a long history of this kind of lionizing of the communist stalwarts on the left.  This goes back the 1930s when the New York Times corresondent in the Soviet Union was unable to report of the bloodshed unleashed in the name of the "revolution".  It continued into th 1960s when Harvard professor John Kenneth Galbraith wrote unapologetically about a moral equivalence between the planned economy of the Soviet Union and the free market economy of the United States.  It is only now, through the prism of the post communist emergence of freedom and prosperity in former communist states, does the left wing begin to see the horrific crimes of these regimes.

So now Mr. Jacoby want to revisit the Viet Nam War via the lens of the Heritage Foundation. He's left out a few facts. The oppressors in Viet Nam were outside nations who would not let the people of that country determine their own fate. How did that turn out? 50,000 Americans and over a million Vietnamese dead. The government in South Viet Nam to boot was not emblematic of democratic principles. We had a few pictures of South Vietnamese military meting out justice by shooting captives in the head. This hogwash Jeff Jacoby tries to sell each week is traveling a very low road. By the way what was your stance on Vietnam Jeff? Was this a wise move for our government?

So now Mr. Jacoby want to revisit the Viet Nam War via the lens of the Heritage Foundation. He's left out a few facts. The oppressors in Viet Nam were outside nations who would not let the people of that country determine their own fate. How did that turn out? 50,000 Americans and over a million Vietnamese dead. The government in South Viet Nam to boot was not emblematic of democratic principles. We had a few pictures of South Vietnamese military meting out justice by shooting captives in the head. This hogwash Jeff Jacoby tries to sell each week is traveling a very low road. By the way what was your stance on Vietnam Jeff? Was this a wise move for our government?

The left-right distinction is misleading at the ends of the spectrum. Communists and fascists share a love for repression in a quest for social utopia. Both are willing to deny individual liberty to advance the utopian agenda. The true opposite of these failed ideologies is conservatism with it's bedrock commitment to liberty.

I read this article and felt the urgent need to comment so that the Globe staff who examine the website "hits" don't interpret my visit as approval for Jacoby's utterly unnuanced drivel.

The type of thinking -or should I say feeling- that the author exposes is exactly what created the kind of atrocities he condemns. It's never about WHAT you think, but HOW you think. 

I find the timing of this article very troubling. With both candidates claiming that this election season is a choice between two widely different points of view and ways of leading, Jacoby in his juvenile, schoolyard way seems to be telling us all to vote for Mitt Romney because the other guy is an equivalent to Stalin or Hitler (and although I'm certainly no historian) I can say with a high degree of certitude that Hitler was no communist. It's all about association.What a terrible way to start my day. What a bad taste this article leaves when put into the context of what it is trying to achieve. 

Good article. Sad to say that many liberals will not see this. Communist ideals flourish in the west because of democracy with many of it's freedom. Communism as existed in reality is just like any form of dictatorship. Power rest with the few. The mass is oppressed and don't have many freedom. The control in these regimes are the secret police or security apparatus.

Lest one forgets as everyone got busy writing about Hobsbawm which goes to one show how well he is known to some of us although I doubt to most commentors.  I would be remiss to merely in passing forget to mention Nguyen Chi Thien a great poet and an under the radar activist for freedom.  Of course Jacoby would fail to mention Thien was not a "free market" guy he just did not believe in "communism" as it was implimented in Vietnam.  He in fact believed in the old Vietnam, loved the peasentry and the land and mostly wanted the freedom to write.  Then again how many Americans knew of Thien?  I'd be surprised if Jacoby was one of them.  Of course Jacoby has to soil everything with politics.

Again this article is awfully familiar to one I had read previously.  What's going on Jeff?

Given what we are facing as a nation, right now, it is telling that a less than mediocre columnist would pen a piece like this as his signature column for the week. Yes, we get it. Oppression is bad. Blind ideology is bad. Agreed! But say that I'm a young woman and I've been raped.. . would Nguyen Chi Thien say that I had to bear that baby because Christian extremists say I must? Or perhaps say I had stage IV pancreatic cancer, would Nguyen Chi Thien say that it was my duty to forego an exit from an inevitable and painful outcome because my compatriots ordained it so? Big government is only bad when it agrees with you, I fear. Now that you've extolled Nguyen Chi Thien, how about having him speak to the issues that are germane to us now? Crazy, I know. You are a disgrace as a true conservative, and the less said about your journalistic skills, the better. Regards, mw.

Interesting do two people dislike my comment praising Thien or did the dislike the fact he wasn't a free marketer.  Perhaps it was the fact they don't know anything about him or perhaps they wanted me to call him a rabid defender of an American lifestyle.  After all that's all there is, right.  Amazing.