Herb,
I think the use of the term "Nazi" in today's lexicon has very little to do with the historic sense of the word. Labelling someone as a "Nazi" today has a powerful emotional reaction, but it doesn't conjure visions of jack-booted Storm Troopers nor the entire list of Nazi atrocities. Rather, the term "Nazi" is used to demagogue, much like the term "Racist" is used. And so it could be said that the term "Nazi" and/or "Racist for that matter, can be defined as "someone who wins an argument against a liberal /progressive /leftist /socialist /Democrat.
Regards,
Ferrari Yooper

Nazism is one of a whole host of ideologies bent on gaining power. It depends upon a small cadre of domineering idealists who know exactly what they are doing, another slightly larger cadre of those who like the minor positions of power they are put in by the elite idealists, a still larger cadre of those who are fooled into going along with things, and the still larger general populace who aren't interested enough in their own freedom to object or oppose the movement - sometimes until it is too late.

Nazism, Communism, Socialism, Feudalism - all are power-hungry ideologies meant to create castes of people in a rigid social hierarchy benefiting those at the very top at the cost of those at the bottom. The primary difference is merely the focus of the ideology itself.

Feudalism was largely the result of a patriarchal/religious system that endowed those of a certain lineage with supernaturally-endowed authority - authority which could not be challenged. Feudalism largely fell apart throughout the world, but still holds on (curiously) in England, Saudi Arabia, and a few other nations.

Communism has largely been the result of the overthrow of the Feudalistic society (France, Russia, China) but taken so far the other direction that it resulted in merely another form of Feudalism that was based on who was the most bloodthirsty during the overthrow. What is interesting is that while one can certainly argue the merits of divine appointment to lead, the very merits claimed by Communistic societies are inherently hypocritical as their instigators are largely those seeking power of their own and who instigate their own rules with massive purges of their own people which far surpassed anything committed by Feudalists. I view Bernie Sanders as a Communist (which he has admitted).

Fascism (which IMO includes Nazism) is intellectual Feudalism. It asserts the unquestionable authority of a supreme ruler, but one which is appointed by the People as opposed to one appointed by God. Both Hitler and Mussolini rose to power through populism and then turned their reign into an egomaniacal power trip. The problem with Fascists is that they are never satisfied with the extent of their power and seek to gin up excuses for war. Italy's claims to parts of African fueled their association with the Axis Pact while Hitler was able to play on the very real grievances which were a result of the Treaty of Versailles following WW I. (What not widely known is that if Italy hadn't been the Fascist's France during WW II, it is very likely that British naval superiority in the Mediterranean - and as a result their air superiority - would have been crushed.) I view Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as fascists.

Socialism is similarly a revolt away from either democratic or republican forms of government toward a more authoritarian kind of rule primarily by bureaucrats. The socialist claims that he is neither a communist nor a fascist simply because they still live under an elected government, despite the fact that the elected officials have almost no real power. The socialist also claims that because the power is separated into silos overseen by subject-matter "experts", that this constitutes an acceptable homage to a separation of powers and that the merit of those in power is a result of their self-imposed intellectual "superiority". The major problem is that the recognition of intellectual "superiority" is done not by actual achievement rigorously vetted by science, but by a popularity contest among the ideological elite - a self-perpetuating cycle that more often than not is driven far more by the ideology than the true intellect. I view Elizabeth Warren as a Socialist.

Before SJWs started calling anyone they didn’t like a Nazi, they were the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. The Nazi collective operated using 25 Points of the National Socialist Programme,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natio...

...
“#4. Only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one who is of German blood, without consideration of creed. Consequently, no Jew can be a member of the race.”
...

Those were the real Nazis. Everyone else is just some copycat.

Technically, Nazism is just another flavor of totalitarianism, like many others. The term "totalitarian" was invented by Benito Mussolini, intended to mean that the state would have total responsibility for the care of its citizens, to give them a sense of security.

I keep going back to the best book on the subject, Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer, a Study of Mass Movements." Hoffer breaks down what exemplifies the leaders and the followers of such movements in plain language, and his book is an enjoyable, if unsettling read.

As for the use of the term "Nazi" as a polemic, it's merely the latest in a long line of accusatory labels designed to shut down rational discussion. In the age of the religious state, to be labeled a blasphemer, heretic, or infidel left the accused with no hope of refuting the charge. When terms like Nazi, racist, or homophobe are hurled at a conservative or libertarian, the intent is to make it clear the accuser's mind is tightly shut.

Part 1
I have always had an image of politics and political systems as a continuum - but not in the form of a line, but in a circle. That circle is divided into Left and Right hemispheres by a line from 12:00 to 6:00.
At 12:00 you are at Democracy - that is, pure democracy. Perhaps the US, under the Constitution, is to the Right slightly at 1:00 as a Constitutional Republic. I would put say Britain slightly left at 11:00 as a Parliamentary Democracy, only because that system allows for turnover of the leadership by way of a vote of “no confidence” in the Commons.
Any government can swing left or right depending on the leadership and it’s agenda.
Today, both the US and Britain, as well as France and other Western Democracies are tending ever more Left. The US is probably somewhere between 10:00 and 12:00, while Britain and France are probably between 9:00 and 11:00.
While I might spend a lot of space on this circle, the subject is, after all, a definition of “Nazi”, so I will focus on the part of the circle below a line from 9:00 to 3:00.
At 6:00 are the most totalitarian and oppressive regimes one can imagine. Think Oceania from Orwell’s 1984.
Nazism was characterized by a governmental system based on a 1) singular leader, 2) a political philosophy of conformity, 3) a pervasive and powerful military, 4) enforcement via secret police, 5) indoctrination of the youth of the country, 6) the elimination of all political opposition, 7) persecution of ethnic and political minorities, and 8) a certain amount of isolation of the population from the outside world. There were, of course, other aspects.

There are no "Nazi's" today. They belonged to a specific place and time. We may have some "Neo-Nazi's" now, but these are just people who somehow, and in their mental deficiency, "relate" to the 20th-century group.

Every time a leftie uses it as a pejorative against a conservative, they only BILLBOARD their own mental deficiencies and historical/political ignorance.

Milo speaks his mind, and only because of what he says, has been labeled a Nazi by leftists. Here is a recent event against Milo by well to do “democratic socialists” at public restaurant full of people,
https://youtu.be/Y7PPL7O5ciQ

Well, after learning about Hitler, and the brownshirts which started attacking the Communists, and they were unemployed thugs who started at pubs complaining loudly until they started taking their actions.

The government shielded them as long as they focused on the communists, he had some side deals, and it was one of those deals (not voting) that landed Hitler in power.

When I think of a NAZI, I think of someone who enforces the totalitarian rule from above. Someone who BELIEVES they are acting with support of the government, and in fact are doing what MUST be done for the government to FIX THINGS.

And that is why the LEFTISTS are TRULY the NAZIs in todays story. They believe they have the right to RUIN BUSINESSES, CAREERS, NAMES for violating the rules of "their governmental/societal beliefs".

It is NEVER a single person that is the issue. It is the MOB Mindset. The thought of seeing an old man being beaten generates a natural reflection to protect the old man.
Not to join in. But in those days, call that man a despicable jew, or notice that all the people doing the attack are DRESSED JUST LIKE YOU, and you shut off that natural response,
and the PACK ANIMAL response takes over.

And I think it is INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT to point out that the action in NUMBERS is the real problem. SJWs are just morons. But when they can ruin you because a 17 year old kid calls for a nationwide boycott, and you suddenly have to think "Hitler Youth Program" to get the picture.

Finally, every time I think about it, the CLEAR relationship between the LEFTISTS and NAZIS gets clearer. Hitler liked ideological youth he could get to turn their parents over with... So doe leftists. They went after the media, and labelled people INSANE who did not agree with them (ahem, Kanye attacks). They used HATE and DIVISIVE language. They had their EVIL group that was responsible for all your suffering. They also were totally against capitalism, because it is unfair... And they LOVED to play the FAIR/UNFAIR and hurt feelings games. They were FINALLY totally against FREE SPEECH.

and when a Leftist reads the previous paragraph, they are thinking I got it wrong somehow, its exactly reversed from that.

As a side note, Jordan Peterson has a comment on YouTube about capitalism, and HOW Marx was wrong in his assumption that free markets are not fair. Life is not fair, and the Pareto principal (80/20 rules), says that the square root of ANY population will have 50% of the productivity/money/property/etc. It's an unfair balance in human nature. And I believe it exists to drive us to be better, and to recognize better. [Spoiler Alert: That's why communism and socialism always fail]

If it's about power, government control, racism/"Superior race", world domination and a lot of death as a consequence...then it's what we call:
THE LEFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ludwig von Mises in the revised 1951 edition of his 1937 Socialism, had a short description of Nazism. It played upon the anti-capitalistic Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz ( the commonweal ranks above private profit), Lebensraum (the desire for the nation to a land self sufficient in resources), and Nahrungsfreiheit (freedom from importing food.) It took decades of propaganda in schools to instill the racism against any Jew or other non-Aryan but to also accept many non-Aryans, some who had Jewish background, as leaders. Just a lot of non-capitalistic mentality.

Here is an example IMHO.
"After we win this election. It's our turn!
Payback time everyone not with us is against us and they better be ready cause we don't forget.The ones who helped us will be rewarded.
The ones who opposed us will get what they deserve. There is going to be hell to pay. Congress won't be a problem for us this time. No elections to worry about after this one . We have 2 SC Judges ready to go." Valerie Jarrett to Barrack Hussien Obama Oct 2016
Apparently they were not ready to finish their terms.

To call someone a Nazi is to also call them a racist.
Me dino recalls photos of the KKK waving swastikas shortly before World War 2 and some Jim Crow white supremacists sporting swastikas during the 60s and later on.
Hitler had Germans taking pride in their phony "Aryan" race that, through ethnic cleansing, was supposed to produce blond supermen ruling a Third Reich for the next thousand years.
When I was a corrections officer for 21 years, a few white inmates were members of the Aryan Nation. They did not cause much of a problem. Blacks sharply outnumber whites at an Alabama state prison.

As I recall, the question was about freedom. From the tech point of view, you are correct.

Name-calling is a national pastime, especially in social media. And language evolves inexorably to keep up with the morphing of concepts.

Throwing "Nazi" around to denounce those whose ideas one disagrees with devalues the historical context of the Holocaust, specifically as it applies to the extermination of Jews.

Of course, even that application of "Nazi" was already a one-stage removal from the original, purely political title. It became the label for utter evil. So it became a useful handle to apply to any other evil. People are only too ready to grab on to such handles to spread that meme farther and demonize any target. It's probably too late to shove that trend back into its original box.

It seems to me that the best policy would be to just call a thing whatever it is. If you mean Communism, say "Communism". If you mean totalitarianism, say "totalitarianism". If you mean fascism, say "fascism". If you mean statism, say "statism". And if you mean National Socialism, (Nazism), say "Nazism".-- There has been, in my lifetime, considerable effort to oppose Communism to Nazism (or fascism) but, in my book, they are both different sides to the same counterfeit coin.

The official name of the National Socialist party in German is "NSDAP: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei", or, translated into English, "National Socialist German Worker's Party." The Allies during WW-II took the first couple of syllables (as pronounced in German) and called it "Nazi". That is why old vintage film clips of the Nazi era show banners and standards with the letters "NSDAP" on them.

Part 2
The political and social philosophy of the Nazi State were not necessarily bad or malevolent in and of themselves. After all Hitler was Time Magazine’s Man Of The Year in 1938 and praised for the German Miracle. But the actions of the leadership of the Nazi regime, and the crimes carried out later in the name of National Socialism, which gave complete control to a very small number, showed us that under such a system it was impossible to have individual freedom of thought, speech or action, to say the least.
Primarily for these reasons I place Nazi Germany at 5:00 on the circular continuum. Perhaps even 5:30.
But here is the kicker.
If one looks at Stalinist Russia, what is seen is that Stalinist Russia applied a nearly exact copy of the rules of National Socialism, only under the name of Communism. Look through the list of characteristics above and you will realize that the systems of National Socialism and Communism as practiced by Stalin are nearly identical. There were, of course, some differences. In Soviet Russia the State owned all means of production. It confiscated nearly all private property, and so on. But the basic political and social philosophy of Soviet Russia was nearly identical to that of Nazi Germany!!
So was Stalin a Nazi? One might say “Yes.” with a straight face.
The Nazis killed nearly 12 Million people in their concentration camps. And it is estimated that Stalin killed nearly 30 Million in his gulags. For all of these reasons I place Soviet Russia at 7:00 on our scale, or perhaps 6.30.
As you see, despite their being political arch enemies during the 1920s and 1930s, these systems are very, very much alike.
Jonah Goldberg, in his great book “Liberal Fascism”, begins the book by demonstrating the impossibility of clearly defining “fascism”. Attempting to do so is like playing philosophical whack-a-mole. I think the same can be said of trying to define “Nazi”. On February 24, 1920, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazis) published their platform for Germany which contained 25 demands. You can read this document at jewishvirtyallibrary.org. But reading it will not define Nazi as we came to know it. While most of the demands sound nationalistic, most can also be viewed as not outrageous, given Germany’s position at the time, and the difficulties it faced under the Treaty of Versailles.
If I were to offer a definition of Nazi, as it is used in our political discourse today, I would probably define it like this.
A Nazi is someone who wants power, and to control, manipulate and dominate others by whatever means available. A Nazi wants others to shut up and accept his or her ideas, opinions or rules as indisputable fact. A Nazi is racist (persecution of the Jews), sexist (women are of secondary importance), homophobic (the German Nazis sent them to the concentration camps), and all the other “...ist” and “...phobic” labels so easily bandied about. A Nazi, in power, will round up those who disagree and shoot them. A Nazi has no concern for you or your concerns.
I think it is interesting and telling that those of us who honestly want to have an honest dialogue are labeled Nazis by those with whom we want to talk, while they at the same time try ever means to demonize us, try to shut us up, attack us in the streets (think Antifa) and use lies and deception to impune our concerns and our very character. Sounds a bit like a Nazi, don’t you think?

Full length: Nazional Sozialiste Democratisch Arbeiters Partei (NSDAP). Parse this form of fascist motion (socialist cubed) however you will.

fascist...rejection of liberty, freedom, and the right to life in it's totality