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 Carnikang wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Carnikang wrote:
We should not tolerate intolerance in an inclusive, tolerant, and diverse society.

No, we should tolerate intolerance in a society built upon the principles of the freedom of expression and the open sharing of ideas.

Doesn't matter. Once the discussion starts discussing Hitler, it is pretty much over.

Openly sharing ideas and expressing your views is fine. But being intolerant of a belief and actively trying to eradicate it isnt. That sort of intolerance does nothing for a society.

Bringing this all back around, being tolerant of 'feminist veiws' (already a contentious wording/topic here...) is alright until they start labeling those that dont agree with them as nazis or somesuch. When they start acting out and using silencing methods to remove opposition. Then it can become problematic for a tolerant society.

Again, having beliefs and opinions is fine, its how you act on them that labels you tolerant or intolerant, subjcting you to review.

Its kind of amazing that this thread has gone on for so long with so many tangents and sensitive topics discussed and yet we're still on topic and there'a only been one moderator warning. Not to metion we lasted longer than the Board Game Geek thread. I'm also surprised it to 40 pages to get to nazis. Maybe the mods here just don't care.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

After all, the nazis didnt try to exterminate the jews because "Grr we're evil mustache twirling nazis and we hate them". They tried to exterminate them because the person they selected as the Moral Avatar of their society perceived them to be a group so abhorrent and threatening that they had to be ejected by force.

This is pretty much false, you really think Hitler was the only true believer and they just went with it because befehl ist befehl?

Nope. But nothing in the world is that simple. Suspicion of the motivations of Jews was pretty common, and with the help of propaganda from the top echelon it was pretty easy to take that common dislike and whip it up into hatred. And I'm sure the common reactions to *someone else* kicking out the Jews and *someone else* rounding up the Jews so they can't cause any more problems for Germany was pretty universally supported by the political majority to whom the strong individual leadership of Hitler appealed.

But I doubt any more than a vanishingly tiny minority of German citizens in the 1940s would be mentally ok with picking up a pistol and shooting a Jewish child. In fact we have clear and distinct evidence that this is the case and it's why the camps were designed the way they were.

If you asked me to put money on it I wouldn't even bet that Hitler would shoot a Jewish child with no hesitation. Everything is easier to agree with when either someone else is doing it, or when you get to feel like you're being forced to by orders from another.

It actually wasn't most Germans at the time couldn't care less about antisemitism or disliking the Jews. It was always a pretty small and decicated minority that was enabled by the majority to do these things. Why else would they feel the need to hide it before they got into power and then hide what they were actually doing? The Nazis never managed to whip the whole population up into hatred. Hell they even had to downplay it in elections because it proved so unpopular. A small minority acxomplished something the majority would have never agreed with in 33 but just went with by 1941ish. That is the risk, baby steps until you suddenly realize how far its gone.

And you would be surprised how vanishingly tiny the minority would be. We're talking at least tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands having participated in the actions that led to the deaths of people. There weren't just camps. And no, Hitler was a coward.

Well, that's actually just highly speculative. Some noted historians would deeply disagree with your assessment of its popularity but Der Spiegel insists there was no actual measurement so it's all guesswork.

Sebastian Haffner plausibly reckoned that Hitler had succeeded by 1938 in winning the support of "the great majority of that majority who had voted against him in 1933." Indeed Haffner thought that by then Hitler had united almost the entire German people behind him, that more than 90 percent of Germans were by that time "believers in the Führer." In the absence of any genuine test of opinion, and in conditions of intimidation and repression for those who might dare to challenge official propaganda, when the only public opinion which existed was that of the regime's agencies, such a figure can only be guesswork, and is probably too high. At the same time, it seems hard to deny that the regime had won much support since 1933, and that this owed much to the perceived personal "achievements" of Hitler. The personalized focus of the regime's "successes" reflected the ceaseless efforts of propaganda, which had been consciously directed to creating and building up the "heroic" image of Hitler as a towering genius, to the extent that Joseph Goebbels could in 1941 with some justification claim the creation of the Führer Myth to have been his greatest propaganda achievement.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-fuehrer-myth-how-hitler-won-over-the-german-people-a-531909.html

Audustum wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

After all, the nazis didnt try to exterminate the jews because "Grr we're evil mustache twirling nazis and we hate them". They tried to exterminate them because the person they selected as the Moral Avatar of their society perceived them to be a group so abhorrent and threatening that they had to be ejected by force.

This is pretty much false, you really think Hitler was the only true believer and they just went with it because befehl ist befehl?

Nope. But nothing in the world is that simple. Suspicion of the motivations of Jews was pretty common, and with the help of propaganda from the top echelon it was pretty easy to take that common dislike and whip it up into hatred. And I'm sure the common reactions to *someone else* kicking out the Jews and *someone else* rounding up the Jews so they can't cause any more problems for Germany was pretty universally supported by the political majority to whom the strong individual leadership of Hitler appealed.

But I doubt any more than a vanishingly tiny minority of German citizens in the 1940s would be mentally ok with picking up a pistol and shooting a Jewish child. In fact we have clear and distinct evidence that this is the case and it's why the camps were designed the way they were.

If you asked me to put money on it I wouldn't even bet that Hitler would shoot a Jewish child with no hesitation. Everything is easier to agree with when either someone else is doing it, or when you get to feel like you're being forced to by orders from another.

It actually wasn't most Germans at the time couldn't care less about antisemitism or disliking the Jews. It was always a pretty small and decicated minority that was enabled by the majority to do these things. Why else would they feel the need to hide it before they got into power and then hide what they were actually doing? The Nazis never managed to whip the whole population up into hatred. Hell they even had to downplay it in elections because it proved so unpopular. A small minority acxomplished something the majority would have never agreed with in 33 but just went with by 1941ish. That is the risk, baby steps until you suddenly realize how far its gone.

And you would be surprised how vanishingly tiny the minority would be. We're talking at least tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands having participated in the actions that led to the deaths of people. There weren't just camps. And no, Hitler was a coward.

Well, that's actually just highly speculative. Some noted historians would deeply disagree with your assessment of its popularity but Der Spiegel insists there was no actual measurement so it's all guesswork.

Sebastian Haffner plausibly reckoned that Hitler had succeeded by 1938 in winning the support of "the great majority of that majority who had voted against him in 1933." Indeed Haffner thought that by then Hitler had united almost the entire German people behind him, that more than 90 percent of Germans were by that time "believers in the Führer." In the absence of any genuine test of opinion, and in conditions of intimidation and repression for those who might dare to challenge official propaganda, when the only public opinion which existed was that of the regime's agencies, such a figure can only be guesswork, and is probably too high. At the same time, it seems hard to deny that the regime had won much support since 1933, and that this owed much to the perceived personal "achievements" of Hitler. The personalized focus of the regime's "successes" reflected the ceaseless efforts of propaganda, which had been consciously directed to creating and building up the "heroic" image of Hitler as a towering genius, to the extent that Joseph Goebbels could in 1941 with some justification claim the creation of the Führer Myth to have been his greatest propaganda achievement.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-fuehrer-myth-how-hitler-won-over-the-german-people-a-531909.html

Disagree how? I never said Hitler wasn't popular in Germany, I said Hitler's antisemitism wasn't as popular as people always tend to think. There is more to the history of Nazi Germany than antisemitism, its not the only thing he did. The article you link doesn't mention antisemitism as widespread, it even explicitly said this:

The claim that the change in Germany's fortunes had been achieved single-handedly was, of course, absurd. Fascinating, nevertheless, in this litany of what most ordinary Germans at the time could only have seen as astonishing personal successes of the Führer, is that they represented national "attainments" rather than reflecting central tenets of Hitler's own Weltanschauung. There was not a word in this passage of the pathological obsession with "removing" the Jews, or of the need for war to acquire living space. Restoration of order, rebuilding the economy, removal of the scourge of unemployment, demolition of the restrictions of the hated Versailles Treaty, and the establishment of national unity all had wide popular resonance, ranging far beyond die-hard Nazis, appealing in fact in different ways to practically every sector of society. Opinion surveys long after the end of the Second World War show that many people, even then, continued to associate these "achievements" positively with Hitler.

Though Hitler's anti-Semitic paranoia was not shared by the vast bulk of the population

the_scotsman wrote:
"to fail to oppose nazis sufficiently is to condone them"

do you want to take a look at this for a moment? Consider the common turnaround "Yeah and Communists too".

What the Other Team is referring to here when they say Communists is what you'd probably dispute and refer to as "stalinist dictatorships" but it is in fact true that the actions taken by that dictator were in the name of communism.

Here, you would like to be able to take the name, and in some instances the symbols, that were at one point used to justify terrible killings and oppression, to justify something that is obviously distinct and highly different from that ideology. And you'd probably like to not be summarily ejected from free discourse (where you'd probably explain the distinction between your actual ideals and the ideals of those that came before.)

Why is a different symbol and name held to a different standard here? Why is it so obviously necessary to allow and protect the users of one set of symbols and name that to fail to do so would make you an oppressor, and so obviously necessary to attack and destroy the users of another set of symbols and name that to fail to do so makes you an oppressor?

I would think (hope, honestly) that it's because it has nothing to do with the symbol, and instead the ideology. But then the question returns again to "how do you determine when someone is in fact so abhorrent that they do not deserve a place in a just society?" How do you root out your secret nazis and determine you're punching the people you should be punching?

Nazis want to exterminate me and many people I love and care about.

Communists want to reform the economy and institute social equality. They have a history of fascists co-opting their movements and ruining their symbols, and that’s unfortunate.

There’s really no equivalence here.

Peregrine wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
If you do to them what they did to their victims you are no different.

Nonsense. That's like saying shooting someone in self defense is morally equal to torturing and murdering someone for fun. There is zero moral equivalence between committing industrialized genocide to exterminate the people you view as the lesser races and using violence to stop people from doing that.

Advocating for something does not equate doing it, neo facists in the western world are at worse minor political powers with no real power, there is a huge difference in shooting for self defence against someone who assaulted you and shooting someone across the street because they said "I hope you die" the second is criminal offence and will get you in jail or worse in some countries, there is a big reason why feelings and intentions are not criminal offences, only actual acts.

Peregrine wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
If you want to prevent the new "Nazi" to ever come up, never stop them from speaking, never deny them the freedoms our society offers and never attack them, do not give them the opportunity to be the victim and gain sympathy, do not give them the opportunity to call you justifiably a liar because you discriminate against them when your values are against it, do not give them the opportunity to show the world that you do not stand for what you speak.

Or shoot them. Repeat as long as it is necessary to shoot Nazis. Nazis can not create extermination camps if they are dead. Freedom of speech is not an obligation to stand passively by and watch as the greatest evil in history organizes and attempts another try at genocide.

And gather them in your own extermination camps to save the humanity from their disgraceful existence, like they attempted to do with the Jews, the gay, the wrong thinkers and after you exterminate them, who is your next great opponent? at what point you realise that when you speak like a fascist, act like a fascist and think as a fascist you probably are a fascist? Freedom of speech is worthless if you apply it one sided and exclude groups from it, its not freedom it is controlling of speech.

Regardless at the moment we do not see "The greatest evil in history organise another try at genocide" neo fascists have virtually no power and whatever power they get is because people block them and do not allow them to express their stupid ideas and make themselves marginalised by society and false sympathy because they are a group that is constantly attacked.

Peregrine wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Allow them to speak and call them on their ideology, remind everybody how they are allowed to speak when they would not allow the others to do so, show everybody that our society does not need to resort to violence to solve its problems even with its anathema and most importantly of all educate your young show them why our western society and values are better than theirs, that is how you defeat the Nazis.

How did polite debate and superior values work in the 1930s?

(Hint: a whole lot of people were murdered, and a whole lot of people died to stop the Nazis.)

It was not polite and there were no superior values, you should look why the Nazi party rose to power in the 30's why common folk allowed them to gain power through legal political means and maybe try to not repeat the same mistakes? history is never a simple untangled web with one easy explanation for the causes of one result.

Also you really should look why the rest of the western world allowed Germany to become the Nazi state.

Disciple of Fate wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

Because whatever they may do or say the western values, the western freedom, however flawed, is always better and will always prevail in the end.

That's not entirely historically acurate. Often times it has only prevailed after a lot of people got hurt, not just nazism but other forms of fascism.

True, on the same note though almost all fascist states rose to power legally and that means they offered a seemingly better solution than their opponents to their countries population, the lesson is to prevent this in the future, if a fascist party looks more attractive than any democratic party, the political parties of this country failed dramatically at their job.

Peregrine wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:
They are allowed to organize politically and it's ok that they attempt to gain power

Then you and I simply disagree. There is nothing ok about attempting to commit genocide. No step in that direction is acceptable, period. If there is any credible threat of Nazis gaining power then it is morally acceptable to use any means necessary, up to and including shooting every Nazi until no more Nazis remain, to stop them from doing so.

It is obvious we disagree, point is what you advocate is fascism, if they gain power you obviously failed to prevent them gain popularity in the population, killing them and making them martyrs is one obvious way to fail.

If some one ask you why your concentration camps, your lynch mobs and your mass shootings are morally better what will you say to them? because there is a chance? after you exterminate them who is the next one to be purged?

If they start exterminating people then this is obviously illegal, they are criminals and they will be dealt with.

Do you not see the contradiction here? If Nazis are allowed into power and pass a law saying "the lesser races will now be exterminated" then it is no longer illegal and they are not criminals. By your own argument you are not justified in using violence to stop them because they are following all of the laws of the democratic country. If you want to stop Nazis then you need a moral understanding that goes beyond what is and isn't legal, and then you will understand why shooting Nazis is a moral virtue.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Audustum wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

After all, the nazis didnt try to exterminate the jews because "Grr we're evil mustache twirling nazis and we hate them". They tried to exterminate them because the person they selected as the Moral Avatar of their society perceived them to be a group so abhorrent and threatening that they had to be ejected by force.

This is pretty much false, you really think Hitler was the only true believer and they just went with it because befehl ist befehl?

Nope. But nothing in the world is that simple. Suspicion of the motivations of Jews was pretty common, and with the help of propaganda from the top echelon it was pretty easy to take that common dislike and whip it up into hatred. And I'm sure the common reactions to *someone else* kicking out the Jews and *someone else* rounding up the Jews so they can't cause any more problems for Germany was pretty universally supported by the political majority to whom the strong individual leadership of Hitler appealed.

But I doubt any more than a vanishingly tiny minority of German citizens in the 1940s would be mentally ok with picking up a pistol and shooting a Jewish child. In fact we have clear and distinct evidence that this is the case and it's why the camps were designed the way they were.

If you asked me to put money on it I wouldn't even bet that Hitler would shoot a Jewish child with no hesitation. Everything is easier to agree with when either someone else is doing it, or when you get to feel like you're being forced to by orders from another.

It actually wasn't most Germans at the time couldn't care less about antisemitism or disliking the Jews. It was always a pretty small and decicated minority that was enabled by the majority to do these things. Why else would they feel the need to hide it before they got into power and then hide what they were actually doing? The Nazis never managed to whip the whole population up into hatred. Hell they even had to downplay it in elections because it proved so unpopular. A small minority acxomplished something the majority would have never agreed with in 33 but just went with by 1941ish. That is the risk, baby steps until you suddenly realize how far its gone.

And you would be surprised how vanishingly tiny the minority would be. We're talking at least tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands having participated in the actions that led to the deaths of people. There weren't just camps. And no, Hitler was a coward.

Well, that's actually just highly speculative. Some noted historians would deeply disagree with your assessment of its popularity but Der Spiegel insists there was no actual measurement so it's all guesswork.

Sebastian Haffner plausibly reckoned that Hitler had succeeded by 1938 in winning the support of "the great majority of that majority who had voted against him in 1933." Indeed Haffner thought that by then Hitler had united almost the entire German people behind him, that more than 90 percent of Germans were by that time "believers in the Führer." In the absence of any genuine test of opinion, and in conditions of intimidation and repression for those who might dare to challenge official propaganda, when the only public opinion which existed was that of the regime's agencies, such a figure can only be guesswork, and is probably too high. At the same time, it seems hard to deny that the regime had won much support since 1933, and that this owed much to the perceived personal "achievements" of Hitler. The personalized focus of the regime's "successes" reflected the ceaseless efforts of propaganda, which had been consciously directed to creating and building up the "heroic" image of Hitler as a towering genius, to the extent that Joseph Goebbels could in 1941 with some justification claim the creation of the Führer Myth to have been his greatest propaganda achievement.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-fuehrer-myth-how-hitler-won-over-the-german-people-a-531909.html

Disagree how? I never said Hitler wasn't popular in Germany, I said Hitler's antisemitism wasn't as popular as people always tend to think. There is more to the history of Nazi Germany than antisemitism, its not the only thing he did. The article you link doesn't mention antisemitism as widespread, it even explicitly said this:

The claim that the change in Germany's fortunes had been achieved single-handedly was, of course, absurd. Fascinating, nevertheless, in this litany of what most ordinary Germans at the time could only have seen as astonishing personal successes of the Führer, is that they represented national "attainments" rather than reflecting central tenets of Hitler's own Weltanschauung. There was not a word in this passage of the pathological obsession with "removing" the Jews, or of the need for war to acquire living space. Restoration of order, rebuilding the economy, removal of the scourge of unemployment, demolition of the restrictions of the hated Versailles Treaty, and the establishment of national unity all had wide popular resonance, ranging far beyond die-hard Nazis, appealing in fact in different ways to practically every sector of society. Opinion surveys long after the end of the Second World War show that many people, even then, continued to associate these "achievements" positively with Hitler.

Though Hitler's anti-Semitic paranoia was not shared by the vast bulk of the population

Hitler's anti-Semitic policies were well known and public. People claimed they didn't know about death camps per se, but they had Jews publicly wearing Stars of David and being mass deported on trains to Poland for crying out loud. So yeah, you can absolutely draw the conclusion that people approved of these measures if they approved of him.

Also, your quote from the article is way out of context. That paragraph is simply analyzing a single speech Hitler gave in order to comment about what he highlighted in that speech. It's not talking about the Nazi regime as a whole. You can go to page 5 for an example of where it actually talks about Hitler as a whole:

Hitler's conquest of the masses had the vital consequence, therefore, of extending his autonomy from any possible constraints within other sections of the regime. This helped to ensure that the ideological fixations which Hitler obsessively maintained since the beginning of his political "career" -- the "removal" of the Jews and the pursuit of "living space" -- were by the later 1930s emerging not simply as distant utopian dreams, but as realizable policy objectives. The process had been promoted at all levels of the regime through a readiness to "work towards the Führer." But this in itself was a reflection of the dominance that Hitler had so rapidly established after taking over power, then consolidated and extended, backed at crucial stages by the plebiscitary acclamation which the expansion of his popularity had produced.

Emphasis mine.

Audustum wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Audustum wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

After all, the nazis didnt try to exterminate the jews because "Grr we're evil mustache twirling nazis and we hate them". They tried to exterminate them because the person they selected as the Moral Avatar of their society perceived them to be a group so abhorrent and threatening that they had to be ejected by force.

This is pretty much false, you really think Hitler was the only true believer and they just went with it because befehl ist befehl?

Nope. But nothing in the world is that simple. Suspicion of the motivations of Jews was pretty common, and with the help of propaganda from the top echelon it was pretty easy to take that common dislike and whip it up into hatred. And I'm sure the common reactions to *someone else* kicking out the Jews and *someone else* rounding up the Jews so they can't cause any more problems for Germany was pretty universally supported by the political majority to whom the strong individual leadership of Hitler appealed.

But I doubt any more than a vanishingly tiny minority of German citizens in the 1940s would be mentally ok with picking up a pistol and shooting a Jewish child. In fact we have clear and distinct evidence that this is the case and it's why the camps were designed the way they were.

If you asked me to put money on it I wouldn't even bet that Hitler would shoot a Jewish child with no hesitation. Everything is easier to agree with when either someone else is doing it, or when you get to feel like you're being forced to by orders from another.

It actually wasn't most Germans at the time couldn't care less about antisemitism or disliking the Jews. It was always a pretty small and decicated minority that was enabled by the majority to do these things. Why else would they feel the need to hide it before they got into power and then hide what they were actually doing? The Nazis never managed to whip the whole population up into hatred. Hell they even had to downplay it in elections because it proved so unpopular. A small minority acxomplished something the majority would have never agreed with in 33 but just went with by 1941ish. That is the risk, baby steps until you suddenly realize how far its gone.

And you would be surprised how vanishingly tiny the minority would be. We're talking at least tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands having participated in the actions that led to the deaths of people. There weren't just camps. And no, Hitler was a coward.

Well, that's actually just highly speculative. Some noted historians would deeply disagree with your assessment of its popularity but Der Spiegel insists there was no actual measurement so it's all guesswork.

Sebastian Haffner plausibly reckoned that Hitler had succeeded by 1938 in winning the support of "the great majority of that majority who had voted against him in 1933." Indeed Haffner thought that by then Hitler had united almost the entire German people behind him, that more than 90 percent of Germans were by that time "believers in the Führer." In the absence of any genuine test of opinion, and in conditions of intimidation and repression for those who might dare to challenge official propaganda, when the only public opinion which existed was that of the regime's agencies, such a figure can only be guesswork, and is probably too high. At the same time, it seems hard to deny that the regime had won much support since 1933, and that this owed much to the perceived personal "achievements" of Hitler. The personalized focus of the regime's "successes" reflected the ceaseless efforts of propaganda, which had been consciously directed to creating and building up the "heroic" image of Hitler as a towering genius, to the extent that Joseph Goebbels could in 1941 with some justification claim the creation of the Führer Myth to have been his greatest propaganda achievement.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-fuehrer-myth-how-hitler-won-over-the-german-people-a-531909.html

Disagree how? I never said Hitler wasn't popular in Germany, I said Hitler's antisemitism wasn't as popular as people always tend to think. There is more to the history of Nazi Germany than antisemitism, its not the only thing he did. The article you link doesn't mention antisemitism as widespread, it even explicitly said this:

The claim that the change in Germany's fortunes had been achieved single-handedly was, of course, absurd. Fascinating, nevertheless, in this litany of what most ordinary Germans at the time could only have seen as astonishing personal successes of the Führer, is that they represented national "attainments" rather than reflecting central tenets of Hitler's own Weltanschauung. There was not a word in this passage of the pathological obsession with "removing" the Jews, or of the need for war to acquire living space. Restoration of order, rebuilding the economy, removal of the scourge of unemployment, demolition of the restrictions of the hated Versailles Treaty, and the establishment of national unity all had wide popular resonance, ranging far beyond die-hard Nazis, appealing in fact in different ways to practically every sector of society. Opinion surveys long after the end of the Second World War show that many people, even then, continued to associate these "achievements" positively with Hitler.

Though Hitler's anti-Semitic paranoia was not shared by the vast bulk of the population

Hitler's anti-Semitic policies were well known and public. People claimed they didn't know about death camps per se, but they had Jews publicly wearing Stars of David and being mass deported on trains to Poland for crying out loud. So yeah, you can absolutely draw the conclusion that people approved of these measures if they approved of him.

Also, your quote from the article is way out of context. That paragraph is simply analyzing a single speech Hitler gave in order to comment about what he highlighted in that speech. It's not talking about the Nazi regime as a whole. You can go to page 5 for an example of where it actually talks about Hitler as a whole:

Hitler's conquest of the masses had the vital consequence, therefore, of extending his autonomy from any possible constraints within other sections of the regime. This helped to ensure that the ideological fixations which Hitler obsessively maintained since the beginning of his political "career" -- the "removal" of the Jews and the pursuit of "living space" -- were by the later 1930s emerging not simply as distant utopian dreams, but as realizable policy objectives. The process had been promoted at all levels of the regime through a readiness to "work towards the Führer." But this in itself was a reflection of the dominance that Hitler had so rapidly established after taking over power, then consolidated and extended, backed at crucial stages by the plebiscitary acclamation which the expansion of his popularity had produced.

Emphasis mine.

After he got into power, that's the point. By the time people started realizing what he was doing he already had full control. And I never said the majority wasn't aware of the antisemitism and the trains. I'm countering the original argument that "Suspicion of the motivations of Jews was pretty common, and with the help of propaganda from the top echelon it was pretty easy to take that common dislike and whip it up into hatred". And you're quoting a biased source (Nazi Germany) from before the war (1938) on his popularity when those deportations only started in 1940-41. There is a reason the Nazis actually tried to keep the Final Solution as secret (which is not to say that people weren't aware), they knew it didn't have popular support. Popular support for Hitler and popular support for his antisemitism are two different things and it ignores his other 'accomplishments' that made him so popular in the first place.

 Verviedi wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
"to fail to oppose nazis sufficiently is to condone them"

do you want to take a look at this for a moment? Consider the common turnaround "Yeah and Communists too".

What the Other Team is referring to here when they say Communists is what you'd probably dispute and refer to as "stalinist dictatorships" but it is in fact true that the actions taken by that dictator were in the name of communism.

Here, you would like to be able to take the name, and in some instances the symbols, that were at one point used to justify terrible killings and oppression, to justify something that is obviously distinct and highly different from that ideology. And you'd probably like to not be summarily ejected from free discourse (where you'd probably explain the distinction between your actual ideals and the ideals of those that came before.)

Why is a different symbol and name held to a different standard here? Why is it so obviously necessary to allow and protect the users of one set of symbols and name that to fail to do so would make you an oppressor, and so obviously necessary to attack and destroy the users of another set of symbols and name that to fail to do so makes you an oppressor?

I would think (hope, honestly) that it's because it has nothing to do with the symbol, and instead the ideology. But then the question returns again to "how do you determine when someone is in fact so abhorrent that they do not deserve a place in a just society?" How do you root out your secret nazis and determine you're punching the people you should be punching?

Nazis want to exterminate me and many people I love and care about.

Communists want to reform the economy and institute social equality. They have a history of fascists co-opting their movements and ruining their symbols, and that’s unfortunate.

There’s really no equivalence here.

Communism was not co-opted by Fascism, it just fell into dictatorial and oligarchical variants of its own. Communism was militantly atheist, for example, and actively committed violence against religious institutions and worshippers. Stalin didn't starve the Ukrainians out of national superiority, but to eliminate an independence movement before it started or, if you are more charitable towards him, an unintended consequence of Soviet industrialization.

Do you realize Mao killed more people in his Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward than Hitler did? Mao was not a fascist. He was a dictatorial communist. Fascism is a wedding of the corporations and the state into a partnership where industry serves the aims of government. It's highlights are nationalism, bloody imagery and public-private hybrid entities. Communism there ARE no private corporations. The state simply is (until you hit anarchic communism). While Marx technically saw this stage as part of Socialism, the world at large commonly refers to it as Communism.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
I mean it worked pretty well in WW2, lot less Nazis around nowadays. Eventually they force you to take a choice.

We are not really discussing murder now, are we?

No, its self defense, Nazis work towards the goal of murdering their political enemies and those that don't fit their racial views. Would you have people just stand by and let the 1940's happen again or?

Have many Nazis tried to kill you? As in, in real, real life 2018? You, personally. Did people with swastikas came to kill you with guns?

Are you denying that there are parts of society that still believe in it? You should ask those German police officers who die in the line of duty against people clinging to the laws of the Reich in Germany. Its a dangerous ideology. Once they get into power its open season on a lot of people, at that point they have the right to defend themselves. Nazis have murdered people in recent years. We're not killing them for their beliefs right now are we?

A Jewish friend of mine and his wife were attacked in HB by neo Nazis who followed them home. They ended up moving to get away from the hate. The son of my rabbi in college was put in the hospital, and I personally have been threatened and harassed (although that was by antisemites who claimed to be Palestinian sympathizers rather than Nazis). Nazis are still around and still violent when they think they can get away with it.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Audustum wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Audustum wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

After all, the nazis didnt try to exterminate the jews because "Grr we're evil mustache twirling nazis and we hate them". They tried to exterminate them because the person they selected as the Moral Avatar of their society perceived them to be a group so abhorrent and threatening that they had to be ejected by force.

This is pretty much false, you really think Hitler was the only true believer and they just went with it because befehl ist befehl?

Nope. But nothing in the world is that simple. Suspicion of the motivations of Jews was pretty common, and with the help of propaganda from the top echelon it was pretty easy to take that common dislike and whip it up into hatred. And I'm sure the common reactions to *someone else* kicking out the Jews and *someone else* rounding up the Jews so they can't cause any more problems for Germany was pretty universally supported by the political majority to whom the strong individual leadership of Hitler appealed.

But I doubt any more than a vanishingly tiny minority of German citizens in the 1940s would be mentally ok with picking up a pistol and shooting a Jewish child. In fact we have clear and distinct evidence that this is the case and it's why the camps were designed the way they were.

If you asked me to put money on it I wouldn't even bet that Hitler would shoot a Jewish child with no hesitation. Everything is easier to agree with when either someone else is doing it, or when you get to feel like you're being forced to by orders from another.

It actually wasn't most Germans at the time couldn't care less about antisemitism or disliking the Jews. It was always a pretty small and decicated minority that was enabled by the majority to do these things. Why else would they feel the need to hide it before they got into power and then hide what they were actually doing? The Nazis never managed to whip the whole population up into hatred. Hell they even had to downplay it in elections because it proved so unpopular. A small minority acxomplished something the majority would have never agreed with in 33 but just went with by 1941ish. That is the risk, baby steps until you suddenly realize how far its gone.

And you would be surprised how vanishingly tiny the minority would be. We're talking at least tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands having participated in the actions that led to the deaths of people. There weren't just camps. And no, Hitler was a coward.

Well, that's actually just highly speculative. Some noted historians would deeply disagree with your assessment of its popularity but Der Spiegel insists there was no actual measurement so it's all guesswork.

Sebastian Haffner plausibly reckoned that Hitler had succeeded by 1938 in winning the support of "the great majority of that majority who had voted against him in 1933." Indeed Haffner thought that by then Hitler had united almost the entire German people behind him, that more than 90 percent of Germans were by that time "believers in the Führer." In the absence of any genuine test of opinion, and in conditions of intimidation and repression for those who might dare to challenge official propaganda, when the only public opinion which existed was that of the regime's agencies, such a figure can only be guesswork, and is probably too high. At the same time, it seems hard to deny that the regime had won much support since 1933, and that this owed much to the perceived personal "achievements" of Hitler. The personalized focus of the regime's "successes" reflected the ceaseless efforts of propaganda, which had been consciously directed to creating and building up the "heroic" image of Hitler as a towering genius, to the extent that Joseph Goebbels could in 1941 with some justification claim the creation of the Führer Myth to have been his greatest propaganda achievement.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-fuehrer-myth-how-hitler-won-over-the-german-people-a-531909.html

Disagree how? I never said Hitler wasn't popular in Germany, I said Hitler's antisemitism wasn't as popular as people always tend to think. There is more to the history of Nazi Germany than antisemitism, its not the only thing he did. The article you link doesn't mention antisemitism as widespread, it even explicitly said this:

The claim that the change in Germany's fortunes had been achieved single-handedly was, of course, absurd. Fascinating, nevertheless, in this litany of what most ordinary Germans at the time could only have seen as astonishing personal successes of the Führer, is that they represented national "attainments" rather than reflecting central tenets of Hitler's own Weltanschauung. There was not a word in this passage of the pathological obsession with "removing" the Jews, or of the need for war to acquire living space. Restoration of order, rebuilding the economy, removal of the scourge of unemployment, demolition of the restrictions of the hated Versailles Treaty, and the establishment of national unity all had wide popular resonance, ranging far beyond die-hard Nazis, appealing in fact in different ways to practically every sector of society. Opinion surveys long after the end of the Second World War show that many people, even then, continued to associate these "achievements" positively with Hitler.

Though Hitler's anti-Semitic paranoia was not shared by the vast bulk of the population

Hitler's anti-Semitic policies were well known and public. People claimed they didn't know about death camps per se, but they had Jews publicly wearing Stars of David and being mass deported on trains to Poland for crying out loud. So yeah, you can absolutely draw the conclusion that people approved of these measures if they approved of him.

Also, your quote from the article is way out of context. That paragraph is simply analyzing a single speech Hitler gave in order to comment about what he highlighted in that speech. It's not talking about the Nazi regime as a whole. You can go to page 5 for an example of where it actually talks about Hitler as a whole:

Hitler's conquest of the masses had the vital consequence, therefore, of extending his autonomy from any possible constraints within other sections of the regime. This helped to ensure that the ideological fixations which Hitler obsessively maintained since the beginning of his political "career" -- the "removal" of the Jews and the pursuit of "living space" -- were by the later 1930s emerging not simply as distant utopian dreams, but as realizable policy objectives. The process had been promoted at all levels of the regime through a readiness to "work towards the Führer." But this in itself was a reflection of the dominance that Hitler had so rapidly established after taking over power, then consolidated and extended, backed at crucial stages by the plebiscitary acclamation which the expansion of his popularity had produced.

Emphasis mine.

After he got into power, that's the point. By the time people started realizing what he was doing he already had full control. And I never said the majority wasn't aware of the antisemitism and the trains. I'm countering the original argument that "Suspicion of the motivations of Jews was pretty common, and with the help of propaganda from the top echelon it was pretty easy to take that common dislike and whip it up into hatred". And you're quoting a biased source (Nazi Germany) from before the war (1938) on his popularity when those deportations only started in 1940-41. There is a reason the Nazis actually tried to keep the Final Solution as secret, they knew it didn't have popular support. Popular support for Hitler and popular support for his antisemitism are two different things and it ignores his other 'accomplishments' that made him so popular in the first place.

Note the emphasis. He only had control because of the popular support. They knew what he was doing and they helped him stay in power and do it.

If you want to argue the timing of the article and timing of the trains you need some evidence his popularity actually DECREASED in 1940-41. I haven't seen any and there's no reason in my book to believe he actually got less popular in this time. Even in your own words, "whipping them into hatred" would indicate he did indeed, eventually, get them behind it.

I would say there is as much ground to argue they tried to suppress some (note not all, just some) details of the final solution secret more for international reasons than domestic ones.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
I mean it worked pretty well in WW2, lot less Nazis around nowadays. Eventually they force you to take a choice.

We are not really discussing murder now, are we?

No, its self defense, Nazis work towards the goal of murdering their political enemies and those that don't fit their racial views. Would you have people just stand by and let the 1940's happen again or?

Have many Nazis tried to kill you? As in, in real, real life 2018? You, personally. Did people with swastikas came to kill you with guns?

Are you denying that there are parts of society that still believe in it? You should ask those German police officers who die in the line of duty against people clinging to the laws of the Reich in Germany. Its a dangerous ideology. Once they get into power its open season on a lot of people, at that point they have the right to defend themselves. Nazis have murdered people in recent years. We're not killing them for their beliefs right now are we?

A Jewish friend of mine and his wife were attacked in HB by neo Nazis who followed them home. They ended up moving to get away from the hate. The son of my rabbi in college was put in the hospital, and I personally have been threatened and harassed (although that was by antisemites who claimed to be Palestinian sympathizers rather than Nazis). Nazis are still around and still violent when they think they can get away with it.

Yep, its easy to say you should be tolerant towards the intolerant, meanwhile they are just holding a knife behind their back waiting for you to turn around.

 Verviedi wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
"to fail to oppose nazis sufficiently is to condone them"

do you want to take a look at this for a moment? Consider the common turnaround "Yeah and Communists too".

What the Other Team is referring to here when they say Communists is what you'd probably dispute and refer to as "stalinist dictatorships" but it is in fact true that the actions taken by that dictator were in the name of communism.

Here, you would like to be able to take the name, and in some instances the symbols, that were at one point used to justify terrible killings and oppression, to justify something that is obviously distinct and highly different from that ideology. And you'd probably like to not be summarily ejected from free discourse (where you'd probably explain the distinction between your actual ideals and the ideals of those that came before.)

Why is a different symbol and name held to a different standard here? Why is it so obviously necessary to allow and protect the users of one set of symbols and name that to fail to do so would make you an oppressor, and so obviously necessary to attack and destroy the users of another set of symbols and name that to fail to do so makes you an oppressor?

I would think (hope, honestly) that it's because it has nothing to do with the symbol, and instead the ideology. But then the question returns again to "how do you determine when someone is in fact so abhorrent that they do not deserve a place in a just society?" How do you root out your secret nazis and determine you're punching the people you should be punching?

Nazis want to exterminate me and many people I love and care about.

Communists want to reform the economy and institute social equality. They have a history of fascists co-opting their movements and ruining their symbols, and that’s unfortunate.

There’s really no equivalence here.

There is if you understand what the phrase refers to (the aforementioned stalinist dictatorships).

Sure, people are falsely equivocating modern communists who just want to reform the economy and institute social equality with the mass murderers of stalinist dictatorships...

But how many people are currently being labeled as nazis who do not actually advocate for the policies of that group OR associate themselves with their symbology?

How do you distinguish between someone who secretly desires to exterminate you and your loved ones in a death camp and someone who thinks people of a different race fit certain commonly held stereotypes, wants to see immigrants deported, and wants women to continue to adhere to what they view as historically womanly inferior roles? A monster from a garden-variety donkey-cave, if you will?

Both those views fall under the category of "bad" but I'm wondering how you propose we sort one from the other, because I hope you can see that there is some sort of a degree or difference here.

Fascism is the belief that the state as a concept is somehow greater than the populace.

Stalin applied nationalist propaganda through his “socialism in one country” model, and actively suppressed communist movements in Spain by supporting the Falangists over the CNT-FAI. He also dissolved the soviets (labor councils).

He was also racist, throwing Jews (or as he called them, rootless cosmopolites) in camps, and homophobic (reversing Lenin’s tolerance of gay relationships).

The idea of the vanguard party itself, practiced in the Soviet Union and the majority of other ‘communist’ nations flies in the face of the ideological nature of communism being a popular movement.

Much of the same applies to Mao, except Mao was more of a complete idiot (who did not understand ecology) than Stalin.

the_scotsman wrote:


There is if you understand what the phrase refers to (the aforementioned stalinist dictatorships).

Sure, people are falsely equivocating modern communists who just want to reform the economy and institute social equality with the mass murderers of stalinist dictatorships...

But how many people are currently being labeled as nazis who do not actually advocate for the policies of that group OR associate themselves with their symbology?

How do you distinguish between someone who secretly desires to exterminate you and your loved ones in a death camp and someone who thinks people of a different race fit certain commonly held stereotypes, wants to see immigrants deported, and wants women to continue to adhere to what they view as historically womanly inferior roles? A monster from a garden-variety donkey-cave, if you will?

Both those views fall under the category of "bad" but I'm wondering how you propose we sort one from the other, because I hope you can see that there is some sort of a degree or difference here.

If you fly a swastika flag, admire the politics of Nazi Germany, think liberals/communists/jews should be thrown out of helicopters or put in camps, support a dictatorship to remove “degeneracy”, and advocate for extreme national superiority, you’re a Nazi.

The acts described are illegal and can/ should be prosecuted.

As it has been discussed and apparently dismissed, organising into a political party of their own is not illegal but assaulting them for that is, them assaulting individuals or groups is illegal and they can be legally prosecuted, not for their beliefs, but their actions.

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Carnikang wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Democracy dakkagakker! Do you speak it?

Considering the political climate here in America, democracy is being threatened on a fundamental level. And theyre part of the movement, though not the entirety of it.

I agree with Peregrine, partially though. We should not tolerate intolerance in an inclusive, tolerant, and diverse society. Shooting them may go too far, but letting them do as they please to gather and spew vile rhetoric is much too little.

This is exactly what you should do. Let them gather and speak, then counter their arguments with their own and make them look foolish and backwards in public or maybe even change some minds. If you're secure and informed well enough in your beliefs that should be easy enough to do. Driving them underground and forcibly silencing them feeds into their own victim complex, entrenching them further into their own radicalization. I don't know why this is so hard for people to understand.

Without getting too much into US politics, we've seen people double down on their tribalism when informed and ignore some truly heinous gak their candidates do. They even brag about voting specifically to hurt the other side, the one warning them. Your approach just doesn't work.

Honestly, I think this is one of those cases where the average person who has never been one of the untermenschen on the extermination list just doesn't get it, not on a personal level. This goes back to the earlier discussion about how homophobia just doesn't seem like the most important issue when you have the option to opt out of being affected by it. But for the people with the targets on their backs they can't get rid of, it feels a lot more like a life and death issue.

Audustum wrote:
Note the emphasis. He only had control because of the popular support. They knew what he was doing and they helped him stay in power and do it.

If you want to argue the timing of the article and timing of the trains you need some evidence his popularity actually DECREASED in 1940-41. I haven't seen any and there's no reason in my book to believe he actually got less popular in this time. Even in your own words, "whipping them into hatred" would indicate he did indeed, eventually, get them behind it.

I would say there is as much ground to argue they tried to suppress some (note not all, just some) details of the final solution secret more for international reasons than domestic ones.

No, whipping them into hatred is the point I disagree on, it wasn't made by me hence the quote marks.

And seriously, the source you yourself post said Hitler's antisemitism wasn't shared by the "vast bulk of the population" and now you're trying to argue that they knew what he was doing and had popular support in his antisemitism?

When they forced Jews to wear the yellow star on their clothing, the better for people to identify them, many non-Jewish Germans did not react in the way that Goebels wanted them to. Jews reported being greeted on the street with unusual politeness.... Foreign diplomats, among them the Swedish ambassador and the US Consul-General in Berlin, noted similarly sympathetic reactions on the part of the majority of the population...... Popular reactions to the introduction of the Jewish star were overwhelmingly negative... When, not long afterwards,the police began rounding up Jews in German cities and taking them to the local railway station for deportation to the east, negative public reactions outweighed the positive ones.

Evans, The Third Reich at War, 555

The page keeps going with SS reports on the negative attitudes if you want more.

 Carnikang wrote:

Openly sharing ideas and expressing your views is fine. But being intolerant of a belief and actively trying to eradicate it isnt. That sort of intolerance does nothing for a society.

Fair enough. As long as it is expression and not action, then it's fine. But what if someone is intolerant against expression itself? What if they can make the argument that the expression itself is an action?

What about if someone is intolerant towards sexy women in media and is actively trying to eradicate it? Couldn't they themselves argue that by creating sexy miniatures/games/whatever, they are perpetuating harmful behavior towards women and that it is morally just to seek to eradicate it? Moreover, couldn't they argue that by defending sexy miniatures, one would be acting in a manner harmful to society?

This isn't a theoretical question. I've seen the progressives argue that expression, such as hate speech, is a dangerous action in and of itself. I'm sure you probably subscribe to that belief yourself. So splitting hairs about the difference between expression and action doesn't really work. Fact is, the US was based on the principles of the freedom of expression - the freedom of the mind - and action is an expression that is likewise protected. For instance, burning the US flag in protest.

We tried that and now have an admitted serial sexual assaulter who thinks some Nazis are good people in the White House. Your approach just doesn't work.

Name one of your freedoms that got suppressed since Trump got the office.

topaxygouroun i wrote:

We tried that and now have an admitted serial sexual assaulter who thinks some Nazis are good people in the White House. Your approach just doesn't work.

Name one of your freedoms that got suppressed since Trump got the office.

I think his point is that rational debate doesn't work against Nazis (not calling Trump one) if people are willing to ignore it for their own benefit.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:

We tried that and now have an admitted serial sexual assaulter who thinks some Nazis are good people in the White House. Your approach just doesn't work.

Name one of your freedoms that got suppressed since Trump got the office.

I think his point is that rational debate doesn't work against Nazis (not calling Trump one) if people are willing to ignore it for their own benefit.

Doesn't matter if the Nazis don't listen. The ones you need to convince is the voters. The voters vote and no alt-right party has ever gone into power the last years. And no, Trump is not a Nazi nor a fascist. He's a millionaire clown. He has no political agenda or power whatsoever. Every last one USA citizen trolls him openly in all forms of media and they are free to keep doing so. Try to do that with a fascist regime governing.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
I think his point is that rational debate doesn't work against Nazis (not calling Trump one) if people are willing to ignore it for their own benefit.

Rational debate doesn't work against anybody. That's why we're currently arguing about Nazis. Because reason left the building a while ago and everybody is trying to emotionally anchor their opponents to something odious so that they can trump them with moral superiority.

I don't think Sarkeesian talking at GenCon is even vaguely related to WW2, except that authoritarianism is kind of a dick move.

topaxygouroun i wrote:

We tried that and now have an admitted serial sexual assaulter who thinks some Nazis are good people in the White House. Your approach just doesn't work.

Name one of your freedoms that got suppressed since Trump got the office.

He is attempting to remove freedom of the press. He has openly stated he wants to use the apparatus of government to punish his enemies. He has incited violence at his rallies. Just because he isn't' competent doesn't mean he isn't trying.

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
I think his point is that rational debate doesn't work against Nazis (not calling Trump one) if people are willing to ignore it for their own benefit.

Rational debate doesn't work against anybody. That's why we're currently arguing about Nazis. Because reason left the building a while ago and everybody is trying to emotionally anchor their opponents to something odious so that they can trump them with moral superiority.

I don't think Sarkeesian talking at GenCon is even vaguely related to WW2, except that authoritarianism is kind of a dick move.

Again we got here from people saying don't make the community political and others pointing out its always been back to Cap fighting Nazis.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Carnikang wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Democracy dakkagakker! Do you speak it?

Considering the political climate here in America, democracy is being threatened on a fundamental level. And theyre part of the movement, though not the entirety of it.

I agree with Peregrine, partially though. We should not tolerate intolerance in an inclusive, tolerant, and diverse society. Shooting them may go too far, but letting them do as they please to gather and spew vile rhetoric is much too little.

This is exactly what you should do. Let them gather and speak, then counter their arguments with their own and make them look foolish and backwards in public or maybe even change some minds. If you're secure and informed well enough in your beliefs that should be easy enough to do. Driving them underground and forcibly silencing them feeds into their own victim complex, entrenching them further into their own radicalization. I don't know why this is so hard for people to understand.

Without getting too much into US politics, we've seen people double down on their tribalism when informed and ignore some truly heinous gak their candidates do. They even brag about voting specifically to hurt the other side, the one warning them. Your approach just doesn't work.

Honestly, I think this is one of those cases where the average person who has never been one of the untermenschen on the extermination list just doesn't get it, not on a personal level. This goes back to the earlier discussion about how homophobia just doesn't seem like the most important issue when you have the option to opt out of being affected by it. But for the people with the targets on their backs they can't get rid of, it feels a lot more like a life and death issue.

Did you just play the "you've never been oppressed" card on a Celt?

topaxygouroun i wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:

We tried that and now have an admitted serial sexual assaulter who thinks some Nazis are good people in the White House. Your approach just doesn't work.

Name one of your freedoms that got suppressed since Trump got the office.

I think his point is that rational debate doesn't work against Nazis (not calling Trump one) if people are willing to ignore it for their own benefit.

Doesn't matter if the Nazis don't listen. The ones you need to convince is the voters. The voters vote and no alt-right party has ever gone into power the last years. And no, Trump is not a Nazi nor a fascist. He's a millionaire clown. He has no political agenda or power whatsoever. Every last one USA citizen trolls him openly in all forms of media and they are free to keep doing so. Try to do that with a fascist regime governing.

Didn't you just tell off someone for describing the government in Germany despite not living there? Why don't you take your own advice?

I have seen hate speech increase since the election, by a significant amount. People are more brazen. I have seen elected members of the OC government become noticibly more hostile and corrupt since the election, no doubt because they realized those tactics work now. That's not even getting into the Muslim ban or what ICE is doing.

topaxygouroun i wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:

We tried that and now have an admitted serial sexual assaulter who thinks some Nazis are good people in the White House. Your approach just doesn't work.

Name one of your freedoms that got suppressed since Trump got the office.

I think his point is that rational debate doesn't work against Nazis (not calling Trump one) if people are willing to ignore it for their own benefit.

Doesn't matter if the Nazis don't listen. The ones you need to convince is the voters. The voters vote and no alt-right party has ever gone into power the last years. And no, Trump is not a Nazi nor a fascist. He's a millionaire clown. He has no political agenda or power whatsoever. Every last one USA citizen trolls him openly in all forms of media and they are free to keep doing so. Try to do that with a fascist regime governing.

No its not the Nazis that don't listen, its that people don't listen to rational debate against Nazis as long as they get out of it what they want.

I'm glad that the extent of democratic safeguards is that not enough idiots have voted for the alt-right directly yet. Even though we had Bannon being pretty influential as the brain behind the "clown".

 Sim-Life wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Carnikang wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Democracy dakkagakker! Do you speak it?

Considering the political climate here in America, democracy is being threatened on a fundamental level. And theyre part of the movement, though not the entirety of it.

I agree with Peregrine, partially though. We should not tolerate intolerance in an inclusive, tolerant, and diverse society. Shooting them may go too far, but letting them do as they please to gather and spew vile rhetoric is much too little.

This is exactly what you should do. Let them gather and speak, then counter their arguments with their own and make them look foolish and backwards in public or maybe even change some minds. If you're secure and informed well enough in your beliefs that should be easy enough to do. Driving them underground and forcibly silencing them feeds into their own victim complex, entrenching them further into their own radicalization. I don't know why this is so hard for people to understand.

Without getting too much into US politics, we've seen people double down on their tribalism when informed and ignore some truly heinous gak their candidates do. They even brag about voting specifically to hurt the other side, the one warning them. Your approach just doesn't work.

Honestly, I think this is one of those cases where the average person who has never been one of the untermenschen on the extermination list just doesn't get it, not on a personal level. This goes back to the earlier discussion about how homophobia just doesn't seem like the most important issue when you have the option to opt out of being affected by it. But for the people with the targets on their backs they can't get rid of, it feels a lot more like a life and death issue.

Did you just play the "you've never been oppressed" card on a Celt?

Do people tell you to climb into an oven?

The oppression you have experienced is different, and I don't know what it was like. If you tell me someone is acting to put you and yours in the ground, I'll believe you. But I do know what it is like to have people threaten me or casually bring up their cabal theories or state that Jews can't be trusted, or that I am good with money all because of my ancestry. I know there are groups of people who would gladly stomp my face if they were sure they wouldn't go to jail for it, and they have told me so. It makes the idea of stopping Nazis before they have the profile to protect each other all the more urgent.

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
Did you just play the "you've never been oppressed" card on a Celt?

Them's my potatoes son.


Also I'm impressed at the leap from passing familiarity + name on an expansion for a game = 'industry' guest of honour.

Regardless of whether you think she's toxic or not, the people at GenCon must be aware that many people (especially in this hobby given the crossover with video games) do see her as toxic. Why would you not just play it safe and not invite her?

Well the cynic might say controversy sells, a more idealistic mindset might be that they see the outside perspective as valuable.

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Carnikang wrote:

Openly sharing ideas and expressing your views is fine. But being intolerant of a belief and actively trying to eradicate it isnt. That sort of intolerance does nothing for a society.

Fair enough. As long as it is expression and not action, then it's fine. But what if someone is intolerant against expression itself? What if they can make the argument that the expression itself is an action?

What about if someone is intolerant towards sexy women in media and is actively trying to eradicate it? Couldn't they themselves argue that by creating sexy miniatures/games/whatever, they are perpetuating harmful behavior towards women and that it is morally just to seek to eradicate it? Moreover, couldn't they argue that by defending sexy miniatures, one would be acting in a manner harmful to society?

This isn't a theoretical question. I've seen the progressives argue that expression, such as hate speech, is a dangerous action in and of itself. I'm sure you probably subscribe to that belief yourself. So splitting hairs about the difference between expression and action doesn't really work. Fact is, the US was based on the principles of the freedom of expression - the freedom of the mind - and action is an expression that is likewise protected. For instance, burning the US flag in protest.

That sort of is the issue at heart. Expression of belief is subjective.

Adressing the underlined.... Not really? Hate speech is a vague term in my opinion. Its too widely used as a buzz word to 'rally the troupe'. When someone is actually spreading hate through words and actions, it is a dangeros expression. Using a racial slur on its own is really gakking rude, but using it as a means to focus hate on a particular party or person could be considered a dangerous action.

Burning the flag is generally seen as an act of aggression, depending on the who what when and where. Retiring the flag in flames is an expression of respect, while hoisting the flag and burning it while yelling anti-American slogans is threatening.

I cant type well on this gakked pho

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
I think his point is that rational debate doesn't work against Nazis (not calling Trump one) if people are willing to ignore it for their own benefit.

Rational debate doesn't work against anybody. That's why we're currently arguing about Nazis. Because reason left the building a while ago and everybody is trying to emotionally anchor their opponents to something odious so that they can trump them with moral superiority.

I don't think Sarkeesian talking at GenCon is even vaguely related to WW2, except that authoritarianism is kind of a dick move.

This I agree with. Rational debate doesn't work once a subject feels too personal. In today's climate, that's most of the time.