Holocaust

[No*s]

Unfortunately, Germany was FILLED with the gullible. They become TOOLS for the truly evil and so are evil by association. :tsk:

You are quite right...but there's a big difference between somebody believing something they're told by a crackpot, and actively persecuting or ignoring the persecution of a minority. Gullibility easily becomes a tool for evil, but I won't condemn someone for believing a lie. Rather, I will educate them and ostrocize the liars who taught them.

But ONLY when you are wrong!:biglaugh:

I couldn't agree more, only when "you are wrong" hehe.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

jewscout-- As I said in another thread, check your numbers. 11 to 12 million--not 8.3 million--people were killed in the shoah, 6 million of them Jews.

 

[jewscout]

jewscout-- As I said in another thread, check your numbers. 11 to 12 million--not 8.3 million--people were killed in the shoah, 6 million of them Jews.

Your probably right on the total numbers of dead Spinkles, many of the statistics i'm finding deal exclusively with jews. However, in this particular thread i will not sit back and refer to it as "a lie"

As far as concentration camps go, it seems you mainly hear the popular lie of the "6 million Jews", there were a great number of other people interned in those camps, gypsies, Jehova witnesses, Slavs, Russians, homosexuals, political opponents, and just about anyone else considered racially inferior, morally deficient or a political threat that were non- Jewish, yet many times they are included in the "6 million" as Jews.

The point i was trying to make in this thread is the number given, 6 million, deals specifically and exclusively with the jews that were targeted, and that the total dead was much larger. I will not sit back while someone calls the death of 6 million people "a popular lie".
The deaths of the millions of other minorities was a tragedy but the reason, i think, that so much focus is placed on the jews is that 1)they were the group most singled out by the Nazi regime and 2) The Holocaust was the culmination of nearly 2000 years of European and Christian indoctrinated anti-semitism and the western world got to take a good long look in the mirror at itself.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Gullibility easily becomes a tool for evil, but I won't condemn someone for believing a lie. Rather, I will educate them and ostrocize the liars who taught them.

That's more effective as posture than practice. The gullible were predisposed to believe as they did because of a pervasive antisemitism. Meanwhile, the "liars who taught them" were no more than the erstwhile gullible.

 

[No*s]

That's more effective as posture than practice. The gullible were predisposed to believe as they did because of a pervasive antisemitism. Meanwhile, the "liars who taught them" were no more than the erstwhile gullible.

You're quite right, and it is quite difficult. The only way I know to draw the line is to first try and talk to them for a little while and straighten things out, but if they continue, I go on my way. I simply prefer to assume the best of someone at first, rather than simply write them off.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I simply prefer to assume the best of someone at first, rather than simply write them off.

The only people written off were those whose cries were not heard, those who were turned back from our shores and the shores of other lands, those who were slaughtered en masse.

 

[No*s]

The only people written off were those whose cries were not heard, those who were turned back from our shores and the shores of other lands, those who were slaughtered en masse.

That is why I walk away from them if they won't change. I simply cannot tolerate or stomach the garbage very long.

I cannot help or change what happened before I was born. I can do something in the here and now. If I can help one person abandon such nonsense, I help the situation generally. If I cannot persuade them, then I can help it by sending them away from me and talking to people who aren't so closed.

I can't see how dismissing someone when I first hear them spout garbage helps those who died in the Holocaust or helps those who are in danger now or in the near future. I can see dismissing them after they've proven that they are set in their ways, but not before.

 

[Scuba Pete]

I am not nearly as familiar with Nazi Germany, but if it was ANYTHING like Russia's Communists, then those who "truly" believed were well in the minority. But in any war, the various armies rely on indoctrinating their forces with an utter hatred of their foe. This includes an consistent and effective demonization of your enemies. This was especially true in the Pacific theatre where we refered to the Japanese as "Gooks" and "Nips".

In the case of Germany, the hype of their War Machine was such that there was NO ROOM for dissent. This was not restricted to their military, but was spread like a virus throughout the entire populace. Read what Goering said during the Nuremberg trails:

“Naturally, the common people don’t want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.”

It gives me chills because it reminds me of the rhetoric I heard RIGHT HERE IN AMERICA when we attacked Iraq. Think not that this country is free from religiously motivated bigots. We are CONTROLLED by them, and if we are not careful, we will be part and parcel to a genocide that will make Hitler look small time.

It is easy in our enlightened state to pass judgment on the common man in Germany. While I will not hold him up as a good example of resisting evil, I will also not judge him as I know the pressure was immense. After I pass through a similar crucible and am found to have a noble character, then I might point a finger. Until that point, I would only HOPE that I would have the intestinal and moral forititude to say NO. I said as much in this last election, but like Germany, the popular opinion seems to be against me.