Not really “powertripping”. Just pathetic. Consider this a notice to avoid feddit.org… I’ve unsubbed and blocked the instance.
We can’t dehumanize fascists for their choice to dehumanize everyone for things outside their control though, because that would be mean, and hurt their sociopath feefees!
Europe stool idly by throughout the 1930’s “tolerating” fascism, and the Nazi’s killed over 100 million people. Don’t make the same mistake as the radical centrists of history. Fascists will not afford you the same tolerance or courtesy.
feddit.org is a German hosted instance that has to abide by the German law. By that law, your comment falls into a grey-zone of legality. As much as I agree with you, they were right in removing your comment, as they are legally obligated to. They could get into trouble if they don’t.
To quote the feddit.org sidebar:
Content that is illegal in Germany, Austria or Switzerland will be deleted and can lead to an immediate ban of the account.
This line of reasoning was used by certain mods on lemmy.world when the public was posting pro Luigi sentiment.
They cried that dutch law then US law required them to remove this comments and to suppress the discussion on news and politics subs on lemmy.world
The largest pro luigi sub today is hosted on lemmy.world…
This agreement is getting tired. Sure whoever runs the servers can do as they please, but the excuse of law breaking is disingenuous.
Ah germs, I understand. Consistently on the wrong side of history. Can’t even mildly criticise genociders in that shithole.
Can you quote an article of German law forbidding calling nazis (or any other violent political group) pieces of shit?
It is a genuine question - I am not familiar with German law.
Nothing easier than that: Art 130 StGB
Anyone who, in a manner likely to disturb the public peace,
1.
incites hatred against a national, racial, religious or ethnic group, against sections of the population or against an individual because of their membership of a designated group or a section of the population, incites violence or arbitrary measures, or
2.
attacks the human dignity of others by insulting, maliciously denigrating or slandering a designated group, parts of the population or an individual because of their membership of a designated group or part of the population,The Post was in A Manner to disturb the public by being a public post. It attacks the human dignity by dehumanising a group based on their world view. Under current German law this is incitement to people.
Not that directly, but saying they have “zero worth” might be against GG Article 1
Human dignity is inviolable
Pretty sure dehumanizing can be prosecuted under this, even if its rather tame. Also there have been some laws over the last few years that criminalize violent speech on the internet and that give people the ability to report comments directly to agencies. These might make it quite dangerous for the instance to keep up these comments.
I assure you, German leftist often say way more intense stuff on a daily basis, but not on publicly hosted servers
Can you quote the actual article?
Can you be less annoying? No one owes you anything here.
You are misrepresenting the facts here. Nobody said that calling Nazis pieces of shit is actionable under German law. That’s not the problem. The post specifically states that “Nazi lives don’t matter”, questioning a person’s right to life is dehumanizing and might very well break German law. I’m not a lawyer, so I’m not gonna quote specific case law but if I were an admin, I’d also would err on the side of caution here.
Can you be less annoying? No one owes you anything here.
Can you go and kindly shag yourself? No one asks you to answer here.
Furthermore, you don’t have a clue how logic works, do you? If someone claims the comment has been removed due to German law, it is on them to prove it.
I guess that’s a no
Well done, perfectly logical analysis of my last comment. Now try to apply the same to the entire thread.
I did. That’s the first article of the Grundgesetz (Basic Law) of Germany
Constitution is not a criminal law so no. But someone else already quoted criminal law which at a very stretch may be applicable here.
Yes, but these are probably also an extend/criminal law implementation of this constitutional law. Also you would still break the law, even if you couldn’t get punished for it. Something you don’t want to host on german servers.
To contextualize my original comment a bit more and explain how these things work over here: you can already get sued for just insulting somebody. I remember a case a few years ago where somebody called a right wing politician a “Hurensohn” (son of a whore) and got his house raided by police. Getting sued (especially by politicians) for insults isn’t unlikely in germany. The platform hosting that content can also get in trouble for it. OP apparently talked about a politician, who could try and sue in Germany. Since OP is probably not from there, the server owners will get in trouble instead. All that to say: this form of moderation is legally necessary in Germany. You can dislike this and I agree with you, but it’s not something that’s going to change. It doesn’t mean that the mods are supporting fascism, as so many are seemingly claiming. Feddit.org is a rather left instance (in Germany we’d say “linksgrün versifft”) and they are definitely not trying to shield nazis, they just try to follow the local law to prevent getting sued
This is true.
The first article of our constitution is like all of our criminal law packed into one sentence. Most of our criminal law is just specifying how violating the dignity of humans gets punished. So while in theory he was not wrong with that this is against our constitution this is not how a judge would argue.
Wrote it down in another comment in case you might actually care you can read it there:
Yes, I have seen it, thank you.
You could copy and paste that chunk of text in to a thing called a “search engine” and if it exists outside of that comment you’ll find out where.
Just a thought.
Have you actually read it? I am yet to see a legal section saying “pretty sure”
Hi, I happen to be a moderator on that community. I wouldn’t have banned you but I won’t put my partners’ decision under scrutiny if this is a temporal ban. If this ban is permanent, feel free to DM me, I’d like to review what happened here.
PS. Moderating communities is exhausting! And terribly difficult given my account is not on feddit.org
I’m going to assume this is a language thing. You really do sound like a nazi when saying “i wont put my partner’s decision under scrutiny” when the decision is to act like a nazi. You may want to reword or recend that comment.
I can see where he was coming
A three day ban is now apparently Nazi. This word has truly lost all meaning. You are lost ideologically.
I only meant to say that changing another mod decision would only be taken, after discussion with them, if there’s a clear and robust disagreement (a permanent ban). This, to me, is just a lack of agreement (a temporal ban).
I can see where he was coming
A three day ban is now apparently Nazi. This word has truly lost all meaning. You are lost ideologically.
Always keep in mind the human on the other end. The human who has made their whole identity be about dehumanizing other people. Remember, remain respectful and considerate, only they get a pass at ignoring that.
Wait, why are governments suddenly falling to fascism!?!?
This seems like a 50:50 type scenario. I personally wouldn’t bother with moderation unless someone complained, but a good faith arguement can be made that you were breaking the rules.
While the current US adminstration is arguably somewhere between proto-fascist and fully fascist (there is lots more room for democratic and human rights backsliding), I can see how dehumanisation can be seen as a legitimate moderation reason for your comments.
They seem to only have a rule against dehumanisation of minorities, where the term is pretty clearly intended to mean minorities generally subject to persecution/bigotry:
4. No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism.
I feel the ban is a bit over the top, anyway. I get the post being removed for being a bit too aggressive, but to immediately ban over (what I presume) is a first offence… I’d simply give a warning myself.
Ban is definitely over the top.
Sometimes less is more with respect to rhetoric (not saying there aren’t situations were you have to be clear and uncompromising in your statements).
Another rule is that all contents have to follow German, Austrian and Switzerland’s laws. Under German law the comment that got deleted is incitement of people and therefore it was right to delete it.
Yeah, in that case I understand.
Saying “nazi lives don’t matter” isn’t even “dehumanizing”.
Dehumanization is Trump calling immigrants rapists and criminals, and associating them with insects, rodents, and pests.
Dehumanization is banning every government department from acknowledging the existence of women, LGBTQ+, minorities, etc, and ordering them to erase any mention of their history.
You’re not gonna see this as you blocked feddit.org, also geh dahin wo der Pfeffer wächst!
For everyone else:
Saying “nazi lives don’t matter” isn’t even “dehumanizing”.
Doubtful from a legal point of view
Dehumanization is Trump calling immigrants rapists and criminals, and associating them with insects, rodents, and pests.
Dehumanization is banning every government department from acknowledging the existence of women, LGBTQ+, minorities, etc, and ordering them to erase any mention of their history.
Basically everyone on feddit.org agrees with this, so this whole rambling doesn’t make any sense. Two things can be true at the same time.
Doubtful from a legal point of view
Can you quote the section of German law you based this assessment on?
https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__130.html
(1) Anyone who, in a manner that is likely to disturb the public peace,
- incites hatred against a national, racial, religious or ethnic group, against sections of the population or against an individual because of his or her membership of the aforementioned group or a section of the population, or incites violence or arbitrary measures, or
- attacks the human dignity of others by insulting, maliciously denigrating or defaming a designated group, sections of the population or an individual because of their membership of a designated group or a section of the population,
shall be liable to a custodial sentence of three months to five years.
And according to https://kujus-strafverteidigung.de/strafrecht/volksverhetzung/ the protected groups include
Gruppen mit einer bestimmten weltanschaulichen Überzeugung (Groups with a certain view or conviction)
Which one could concievably put Nazis into (although their views are shit they’re still views)
https://www.anwalt.org/volksverhetzung/#absatz-1-nr-1-stoerung-des-oeffentlichen-friedens-durch-aufruf-zu-hass-und-gewalt Further provides the following explanation for attacks against human dignity:
Dem Täter kommt es aus verwerflichen Beweggründen darauf an, andere Menschen als besonders minderwertig, unwürdig und verachtenswert darzustellen. (For reprehensible motives, the perpetrator aims to portray other people as particularly inferior, unworthy and despicable.)
I would think saying someones live does not matter constitutes them as unworthy (of life).
Thank you, first answer with a merit. Although 1 definitely doesn’t apply. 2 you can argue about but I doubt it.
Agreed regarding Trump and dehumanization. I am Ukrainian, so you can imagine what I think of Trump, his goons and even those who support Trump (Americans or otherwise).
I am almost arguing from a devil’s advocate point of view.
To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if the mods at a high level support your views (in a different more nuanced phrasing), but you do have to have a modicum of fairness when approaching a rule like “no dehumanization”. The style/tone of your comment did conflict with the rules, that’s all I am saying.
No, you need to read about the paradox of tolerance.
You have to shut down the Nazis before they shut you down.
You guys always stop halfway through Poppers writings of the Paradox.
“I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument. They may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.”
Popper never argued to strip people of the right to free speech. Even immoral free speech. He makes the line very clear: when people begin using fists and pistols. That is, tolerate up to the point of physical violence.
I don’t think the paradox of tolerance works here. Popper argued that a truly tolerant society must retain the right to deny tolerance to those who promote intolerance. It doesn’t say kill them, it says don’t tolerate them. Meaning exclude these topics from public discourse or make basic right non-negotiable and unalterable. One of these basic rights being the right to life. Ironically, by calling into question such a basic right, you are actually the intolerant one Popper means.
Of course, this only applies as long as we are still in a tolerant society. A better argument at the moment especially in the US would be the right to resist.
It doesn’t say kill them
Neither did the OP
Agreed. You do have to shut down nazis/tankies etc. Zero tolerance policy even.
I am just saying look at it from the mods point of view, they do have to act upon their “no dehumanization” rule or they risk that rule not having any meaning.
Consider a situation where some tankie is ranting about how Trump supporters are capitalist roachs and lack humanity. You don’t want that shit in any community.
Not a power tripping Mod just a huge misunderstanding.
Vance, you wanted to label as Nazi and went off a rant, was only mentioned indirectly, so you probably couldn’t mean him.
And instead of talking to the Mods you started this post.
My grandad who fought in WW2 used to say to me “You don’t speak to Nazis. You shoot Nazis”.
I may be less radical than that but I would gladly see all nazis and nazi apologists on compulsory re-education courses or in prisons.
Edit: I hope the OP don’t mind me using this post in my https://lemmy.world/c/opisafuckingidiot community with the explanation that this time it is a mod who is an idiot: https://lemmy.world/post/25616034
I am in the shoot them camp and got permabanned from reddit because I am vocal about it.
Classic right wing mindset requiring tolerance of intolerance.
Nazis are shitbags, yes, but like, calm down a bit. Don’t stoop down to their level.
and this idiot take is how you end up with a Nazi problem
You don’t prevent a Nazi problem by playing their game of hate. It’s a game they will always win. By saying shit like that, all you’re doing is emboldening the hardliners and giving them ammunition, while reconfirming those doubting their beliefs.
Yes when Nazis are rounding people up simply turn the other minority
Sweet mother of an appeal to extremes. How do you go from “don’t use Nazi’s playbook” to “do nothing while Nazis are committing an ethnic cleansing”?
Aren’t they already commiting an ethnic cleansing?
Depending how you look at it, sadly yes. That people in the US are doing nothing about it is both terrifying and disappointing.
Because every time we try to do something about it we have milquetoast nazi sympathizing centrist complaining about “stooping to their level”.
It’s not an extreme. It’s what the nazis did last time they were in power and what neonazis openly admit to planning to do next time they’re in power. Any ounce of repect and human dignity given to them will be used to harm people who have done nothing wrong.
You’re missing the point. This isn’t about treating Nazis with respect, it’s about not playing their game, which only benefits them.
The point is that it’s not a game. Nazism cannot be tolerated and has to be met with strong resistance, even violence when it poses a threat. You are an enabler.
deleted by creator
From an anarchist/leftist perspective this is a clear case of PTB. But a milquetoast response to fascism is one of the identifying characteristics of liberalism (unfortunately), so I don’t think anyone will be surprised about this type of censorship on a mostly liberal server tbh.
Luigi committed a crime, rheee!
The issue is that by attacking people you are puahing them farther into extremism.
Isolation from friends, family and other social support networks further intensifies social influence within cults. By severing ties with external influences, cults control members’ social interactions and shape their perceptions of reality. This isolation heightens members’ dependence on the cult for social connection and validation, making it difficult for them to seek help or escape from the group’s control.
Making friends with Nazis won’t make them any less fascist. It just serves to normalize fascism.
It depends on how you approach it, you shouldn’t be friends with someone like that, but they need to undertand why.
They know why. They don’t care. You can’t care about what a person thinks and want to kill them. Nazis want to kill or enslave everyone who isn’t aryan.
You’re fucking insane if you think we should be killing them with kindness. We need to just straight up kill them, because nazism and human life and dignity are mutually exclusive.
Well, yeah. We don’t condone murdering murderers, either.
Depends on the murderer. Dexter has great ratings because people do in fact support murder of people who kill and aren’t being held accountable, at least in theory.
At least in fiction. Big difference.
Luigi seems to have a lot of support as well. In reality.
I think the key difference is that no one was bringing Brian Thompson to justice.
The nature of humans is that they seek justice for themselves. Congress and the courts are, in theory, an uneasy compromise to offer people justice in exchange for demanding that they don’t go out and make justice for themselves. Because we’ve seen where that leads, and it sure isn’t good.
You can believe in the rule of law and still think Brian Thompson deserved to die. Because by any legal standard, he committed more homicides than pretty much everyone on death row. And yet, somehow, our system is so twisted up that it is fine. Everything Thompson did was perfectly legal. Just like slavery, segregation, and the holocaust.
I don’t think killing CEOs at random is a route to any good thing. Bringing random violence into the political equation serves one side only, and it is not ours. But it is perfectly consistent to condemn murder and still support Luigi, in reality.
no one was bringing Brian Thompson to justice
You’re not wrong, but the issue is that as fewer and fewer people believe that the law will actually hold anyone accountable, they’ll decide the correct thing to do is to take it into their own hands.
And, if there’s anything that’s been very, very, very, very, clearly shown over the last 2 or 3 years in the US it’s that the rule of law does not apply to anyone who is rich, famous, or is capable of wielding sufficient soft power.
If you’re one of those 3, then absolutely nothing you do is illegal, and once you’ve reached the point where the justice system will not do anything to those that wrong you, the only thing you have left is to go out and take action yourself, which historically has almost always been violence.
I would expect there to be more, rather than less, of these types of murders from here on - especially given that everyone in this country either has a gun, or is a 15 minute background check away from having one.
You’re not wrong, but the issue is that as fewer and fewer people believe that the law will actually hold anyone accountable, they’ll decide the correct thing to do is to take it into their own hands.
Very much so. I was meaning to imply as much, when I threw that little “in theory” into how congress and the courts are supposed to work.
The class war will not be televised!
But also there other things people can do to fight it besides violence. Yeah it aint as glamorous as taking down a CEO parasite for entire nation to align behind.
Advocate for your wages, mind your privacy and be a shrewd consumer…
Deny parasite profit hurts them it just would take millions to really punish these parasites.
But yeah people with nothing to lose which are being minted daily by thousands will do their thing… I always wonder why the old are such bootlickers. Seems like a fine way to go out. But boomer is too selfish, too scared of death to do anything but bootlicker the capital class while telling his child to work harder.
legal […] like the holocaust.
Funnily, German law did not change during the holocaust, and Germany still convicts people for being accessories to murder in concentration camps under the laws of the 1940s.
And yet… German ruling oligarch clan is made up of people who obtained their capital from slave labour.
Amazing how that works, aint it?
“There is only what is and that’s it. What should be is a dirty lie.” — Lenny Bruce
There’s no justice inherent in the world. The nature of things is that the ruthless and powerful will prosper. That is why setting up systems of justice and maintaining them is important. They will never be perfect or even close to it, but having them is better.
Condemning murder wasn’t the argument though, it was condemning all murder including against particular people or groups who want to or have committed murder like nazis. Luigi is the evidence that if a system protects those types of people from repercussions, the person who corrects them tend to get support from general public which runs counter to condemning all murder.
At this point it’s just semantics between physical violence and actions that lead to death like economic or social violence like what we see from united health and nazis.
At this point it’s just semantics between physical violence and actions that lead to death like economic or social violence like what we see from united health and nazis.
A discussion that no self respecting regime would permit in a broad day light…
So writing the policy that deliberately withholds rightful treatment, causing thousands of people to die, is not similar to actively strangling them? And a self respecting regime shouldn’t be having a discussion about how people with power use that power to the detriment of their fellow man and what the consequences should be to prevent the fallout of more luigis?
I think the key difference is that no one was bringing Brian Thompson to justice.
Who is bringing Putin, Trump or Netanyahu to justice?
One is a corporate executive, the other three are sovereigns.
Your point is?
Asterion enters the chat
If Hitler was assassinated before he started the war, millions wouldn’t die.
If Hitler had been assassinated right before the war, it might have been infinitely worse.
The Nazis weren’t predicated solely on Hitler. He actually was meant to be just a speechmaker while the smarter people made all the important decisions, because he was kind of an aggressive moron. Things got out of hand, though, and he was able to take over and to a large extent fuck everything up. A few of the attempts on his life were from other committed Nazis of a pretty high rank. The allies thought about trying to assassinate him, but decided ultimately that it was way better for the war effort if he was in charge.
I don’t think the movement would have petered out without Hitler and constitutional order restored. Not by 1939. They might not have exterminated the Jews quite so completely, but they might have, and they also might have stayed allied with the Soviets and won the war in spades. I think one of the few saving graces about the way it all went down was that Hitler was in charge, fucking everything up.
The parallels to Trump are uncanny.
Not by 1939. They might not have exterminated the Jews quite so completely,
You don’t have a clue.
While the nazis obviously didn’t rely solely on Hitler, in 1939 holocaust plans weren’t even drafted.
Plus, we are not in 1939 quite YET. If Hitler was killed after he came to power, war wouldn’t even start.
The parallels to Trump are uncanny.
Of course sweetie. Keep telling yourself that until it is too late.
I’m not sure if you are being condescending because you think you are right, or for some other reason. I wasn’t even saying whatever you thought I was saying about 1939. You also have some of your history wrong.
The camp system started instantly after Hitler came to power, as did sterilizations and abortions. Things ramped up from there. Systematic mass killing of Jews started in 1941, but it wasn’t something that was off the table until “plans were drafted” to do something that they hadn’t been ramping up towards. The plans that they drafted were systematic expansions of what had already been happening in a less organized fashion for years.
Hitler didn’t invent the idea of starting a war with all of the rest of Europe. He picked it up, along with a lot of other Geopolitik ideas, apparently from Karl Haushofer. That was back in the days when Hitler wasn’t unequivocally in charge or even close to. How things would have played out without Hitler at the helm is totally uncertain of course, but plenty of other people had the ideas that became World War 2, and they appeared in Hitler’s works all of a sudden in 1923 when he picked them up from Haushofer at the same time Hess and Ribbentrop did.
It’s possible that if he was killed in 1933 that we wouldn’t have had the big war, just internal misery everlasting within Germany’s borders or a ways beyond them. Like I say, it’s also possible that the Nazi operation would have played out the same but been far more effective, if a little slower and less stylish without Hitler’s high-octane speeches.
We are clearly in early 1933 right now. Ten metaphorical days away from the Reichstag Fire, a little more than a month from the Enabling Act. Of course, we’re not bound for things to play out in exactly the same fashion, but that’s where we are on the timeline.
Of course sweetie. Keep telling yourself that until it is too late.
Not even sure what to make of this.
Systematic mass killing of Jews started in 1941, but it wasn’t something that was off the table until “plans were drafted” to do something that they hadn’t been ramping up towards
I wasn’t planning to have historical debate here but you are clearly misinforming anyone who reads your comments.
“Final solution” — mass murder — wasn’t planned until 1941 and in 1940 Nazis were still toying with the idea of mass deportations to Madagascar instead.
Just remind me, what is Trump trying to do at the moment?
Not even sure what to make of this.
Go figure.
Holocaust as a mass murder wasn’t planned until 1941
400,000 people were sterilized in 1933. Gas vans were killing mental patients in 1939. The Einsatzgruppen were traveling with the army in 1939, shooting Jews en masse in some cases. “Aktion T4” was put into practice in 1940, also with mental patients. Eugenics scholars had been talking about exterminating those with inferior genes since 1920. The deportation to Madagascar was talked about under the assumption that the harsh conditions and lack of civilization would leave most of the Jews to die “naturally.” Deliberate starvation in the ghettos killed tens of thousands of Jews before a formalized “final solution” was planned for. And so on.
Not sure how you got that my “ramping up” description was misinforming people. That’s what happened. As much fun as this is, I have completed as much of this conversation as I want to have.
400,000 people were sterilized in 1933. (…)
Again, your point is? Mass murder of Jews wasn’t planned until 1941. In 1940 Nazis were planning mass deportations to Madagascar. These are facts, I am not sure what is you are trying to achieve here?
Furthermore, your comments only support my point as the goals escalate: Trump is attempting mass deportations now - like nazis were going to just before Final Solution
If someone was to kill Hitler, neither WW2 nor Final Solution would have happened.
The same if he had been detained.
Not really. He was in charge of Germany, there was no chance for him being detained. Draw the conclusions yourself.
In germany we say ‘heul leise’ and i think this is beautiful.
Being real, it looks like your entire point in posting was to have an excuse to continue talking about the subject. Which isn’t against the rules of the C/, but I seems kinda weird. There’s plenty of places where you can talk about hating nazis and what you wish you could do to them.
Realized I should probably add the post as context In Munich, Vance accuses European politicians of censoring free speech
And this context is FRICKING important.
One of the best things that happened in the 20th century was the firm reaffirmation, after the war was over, that Nazi lives do have value.
The allies would have been within every reasonable right to just string up the Nazi leadership like Mussolini, make a new treaty of Versailles, and mime tiny violins any time one of the citizens of Germany raised the alarm that their kids were starving. And, a lot of the people on the ground basically did exactly that. But the word from the top is: They are humans. They have rights.
The ones we think are guilty get lawyers and trials, no matter what we’re pretty sure they did. That’s what humans have to do for each other, in a just world. It doesn’t mean you don’t set things right, but you still give them human value and rights, even the worst, before you put them to death if that’s justice.
The whole roots of the war lay in misery and hate. What are we going to be reaping in 20 years if we just replant it all because it’s “what they deserve?” Let’s put an end to it.
It doesn’t mean we didn’t do terrible things in the war, or kill in self defense. Even kill whole cities in an instant, if you need to. But the killing isn’t the point. It’s just a protection, and it needs to end as soon as you can see a way to end it.
And then, back to human life and value. That is, in fact, what separates us from the Nazis, is that we’re not looking to throw it away.
This is absolute bullshit. What the west did wasn’t to generously allow Nazis to reinsert themselves in society after education, but to do a few show trials and allow Nazis to maintain their previous positions. Ex-Nazi party members composed the majority of embassies of Western Germany, operation paperclip brought thousands of Nazis to US soil with immense benefits to produce weapons, a normalization of relations with fascism such as with Fascist Spain ensued, and the US directly sponsored fascist coups such as that of Pinochet in Chile.
“The West” is a massive mob of people with a lot of variation within them, both in motivation and action.
Some parts of it did full-throated support for fascism of all varieties, before, during and after the war. Some parts of it were against the Nazis (because, more or less, they were competition), but fully in favor of other fascism like Pinochet. Some parts of it were breaking their backs to try to save as many innocent people from the Nazis as they could, simply because of concern for human rights. Some parts of it continued that same opposition to fascism, even the flavor of it that the State Department likes, in the decades that followed, even including hearings to try to stop the fascism our people were doing in Central America, and trying very hard to send some high-ranking people in the US to prison for their embrace of fascism in Nicaragua. It didn’t work (except in the case of Thomas Clines, which I don’t consider much of a success), but it wasn’t for lack trying. By some people.
We don’t need to have a big argument over which of those is the “real” face of the US. They’re all real. The second grouping is probably the dominant grouping as far as representation inside the State Department and actual control of the US’s foreign policy, yes, which is a god damned shame. We can agree on that. The vast majority of Nazi war criminals were never punished, just kind of went on about their business.
For the most part, the people who set up Nuremberg were best buds with the people who helped Pinochet later on, but the sins of the second doesn’t completely cancel out the virtues of the first.
When I say “the west” I was talking about western governments, of course I applaud everyone in the west who opposed all of this (shoutout to communists like Michael Parenti).
My point with the comment wasn’t a blanket condemnation of the people in the west, but rather a rebuttal to the fake historical view that Nazis actually generally paid for their crimes through the legal system and Nazism was removed from power.
My point is, the people who put Thomas Clines in prison were also in the government.
You’re not wrong, really, about the sum output of the system in aggregate, viewed from the outside, though.
Thank you for saying this. It needs to be said over and over. It’s the only way forward.
The whole roots of the war lay in misery and hate. What are we going to be reaping in 20 years if we just replant it all because it’s “what they deserve?” Let’s put an end to it.
I really wanted you to be wrong, but you’re not, and that quote is the crux of the matter. I would just add we need to get really aggressive with re-education. I know you mentioned it elsewhere, but we need to be like dogs with t-bones, with it.
Can you give an example for implementing “aggressive reeducation”?
Regular, daily deprogramming with people trained. Aggressive daily therapy at not acting on hateful impulse. Actual critical thinking, critical reading, and logic classes, to start.
What happens if people don’t show up for classes?
Then they are segregated from society and will attend classes like people currently do.
Gulags are a terrible idea.
I agree we need to overhaul our current prisons, and get rid of the clause
showingallowing forspaceyslavery in our 14th amendment.
I’m so glad we gave the Germans a pat on the back instead of being mean to them. Who knows, maybe the new Nazi government highly likely to be elected this week will use a less painful gas to kill minorities.
The Nuremburg Trials still falls within the determination that Nazi lives did not matter. The executions were definitely the point.
The key example for this was Julius Streicher. He didn’t plan the Holocaust, implement it, or get involved in any military action of World War 2. He just spread antisemitic and genocidial vitriol through the press.
Nazis and the ideologies they spread are a Crime against Humanity for Incitement of Genocide.
Not all Nazis at Nuremberg were condemned to death. The most prominent examples are Rudolf Hess and Albert Speer.
Yep. The point though is the case of Julius Streicher, which demonstrated that someone uninvolved with military operations of world war 2 and the holocaust could still get executed.
Most defenses of Nazis attempt to separate the ideology from perpetration of the Holocaust and World War 2, (Clean Wehrmacht myth for example) which I try to refute with this example.
All this means is to show there was a point when being enough of a Nazi in and of itself meant the death penalty. That is to say: the Nazism itself, not just the acts of genocides and crimes against humanity it carried out, deserved capital punishment.
The Nuremburg Trials still falls within the determination that Nazi lives did not matter. The executions were definitely the point.
Maybe it’s just a question of semantics. But to get at the point I was trying to make, you can try a thought experiment:
Imagine someone brings in a big leaking bag of garbage off the street. They haul it into the courtroom, get a lawyer for it, spend months making sure it’s resupplied with water when it stops leaking and gets good housing, repeatedly had experts come in and examine it and look up the records of what type of garbage it had inside it. And then, everything having been satisfied to everyone’s satisfaction, they take it out and toss it in the dump.
Or, someone puts leaking garbage on a truck, drives it to a place where it’s stored until they can get themselves organized to get rid of it, and then they burn it. It’s given an asset tag, but mostly just so they can make use of a system to count the garbage and make sure there’s nothing of value in any of the bags.
You get my point, I think. My point is not that you need to be tolerant or soft about people who are going to try to kill you. My point is that they are (depressingly enough) very much human beings, the whole time they’re doing that, and the allies did good by vigorously rejecting the “anyone who wrongs me stops being a person” model.
That is two scenarios where garbage is disposed of. At no point is the garbage status questioned: because it is established it is garbage.
I don’t think that thought experiment refuted anything.
Nazis are humans. Humans who perpetuate crimes against humanity. The crime against humanity that is Nazism carries the death penalty–as it should. It’s a ideology predicated on lives not mattering.
There is a reason one of the most prominent acts of Nazi leadership is suicide.
I don’t think that thought experiment refuted anything.
This speaks to a difference of mindset about talking about stuff on the internet.
I wasn’t trying to “refute” anything. I was just trying to say what I was trying to say. You can believe it, or not, or partially with caveats, or have some kind of rebuttal, it’s all fine. In no way was I trying to refute anything you were saying. It’s not necessary for one of us to “win.” Sometimes, I’ll be trying to prove someone wrong when I send comments to them, but this absolutely was not that.
It seemed like maybe you were hearing something different than what I was saying, and so I tried a different way of explaining it that hopefully would make it more clear. Then, after reading it and understanding it, there’s a whole different step where maybe if you decide to you can agree with it. Or not. Honestly, that part’s not completely my business. I’m just trying to explain what I meant. Along with acknowledging (if this wasn’t clear) that, yes, in another sense, any Nazis are human garbage, and who really cares what happens to them at the end of the day.
If your model is that we have to “refute” until one of us wins, I think I will not take part. I made multiple efforts to say what I was trying to say. If you want to take it on, or not, is entirely up to you, and I think I will cease with any continued effort to put it across.
Oof, let me rephrase:
I don’t think the thought experiment reinforced or helped explain the refutation of “Nazi lives don’t matter” with the claim “Nazi lives do have value.”
That should’ve been clear, and I think it is for any reading audience? So, uh, yeah.
If it helps, you can think of it not as a statement about the value we give to the Nazis, but the value we hold ourselves to.
A buddy of mine had a relative who was in Germany for the occupation. He was one of the guys I was talking about, miming tiny violins. He fucked a lot of German girls who were half starving. He had money and food and all the armaments of the occupation behind him, so they didn’t really have a choice. He would go into people’s houses and just take stuff, if it looked like something cool he wanted. My friend said he thought that having that experience, having this guy over there in his formative years having all his darkest instincts catered to and amplified, basically ruined him as a person. His whole life he wasn’t able to really be right because of it. But at the time, I guess he thought something along the lines of, “What’s the difference?”
After all, they’re Nazis. Or basically Nazis. Anyway, their lives have no value.
Like I say, I do get what you’re saying. But also… what do you do, when you have a whole population, millions of people, who have all given approval in some way large or small for some kind of monstrous crime?
Some of them deserve to die. Some of them are redeemable. In general, for most of them, I think that kind of question is mostly just not anyone else’s business to get involved in. Whatever they did or didn’t do is going to have to be something that they live with, maybe square up with their maker after if you think of it that way, and nothing you can do can tip the scales of it in any direction. But what about their kids? What about the society they’re now trying to build in the aftermath? It’s so easy and satisfying to say they all have no value, not look at them as human people with all the potential and all the evils and failings that entails, not examine the factors that tipped all so many of them over into taking part in what they did. Not try to make sure you really understand it, try to work it out, so you can see how to work so it doesn’t happen again.
There is an easy answer to all of these questions, of course: “They’re Nazis. Fuck 'em.” In combat, that’s the answer. But out of combat, what future are you building when you write off a whole population because they all took part in a culture that started excusing or committing terrible crimes? Maybe they were confused by propaganda. Maybe they were scared, or just went with the herd. Maybe they had that darkness inside them. Maybe they were creative instigators. How are you going to look into every one of them, and decide what the answer is? Choosing one universal answer is easy, but that doesn’t make it right. And like I say, you are going to lose something of yourself when you start looking at other human beings that way. That’s part of why a lot of people who’ve been in combat come back with bad bad problems.
This whole set of questions about how to relate to that whole population of evil is about to become (or has become) a pretty fuckin’ relevant question in America.
For the record my initial statement regarded the Nuremburg Trials and the outcome that led to a propagandist being executed. I really honestly did not expect referencing the Nuremburg Trials to be so criticized.
Telling me I’d be losing my humanity by finding the outcome of Nuremburg Trials to be just is some wild shit.
I still don’t think we should use the death penalty, even here. It’s all too easy to pick an innocent person, accuse them of being a Nazi, and send them to a short drop and a quick stop. Put them in prison until they can be rehabilitated if possible, and until they’re no longer a danger to society if not (usually due to regular death).
Yeah, this is more the sentiment for expressly virulent, unrepentant Nazis. The kind that went to Nuremburg. Someone who is actually capable of changing and renouncing the ideology isn’t a Nazi.
You know there were some acquittals at Nuremberg, right? Papen, Schacht and Fritzsche all went free.
The second phase, after the first phase had tried the Nazi high command, arrested almost 100,000 people, identified 2,500 who were not just Nazis but actual war criminals, tried 177, and convicted 142. Of those, 25 were sentenced to death.
I’m not saying right or wrong here, since we’re already talking about that and having enough difficulty in it already. But the exact step you are skipping over in creating a class “that went to Nuremberg” whose lives have no value, was a critical, critical part of how the allies ran the trial. It might explain why in the other conversation you are confused about why the allies did it that way, if you are confused about what it was they actually did.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials#Verdict
Someone who is actually capable of changing and renouncing the ideology isn’t a Nazi.
This also irritated me. Who makes this determination, on which life and death are being staked? You? We just bring everyone who’s carrying a Nazi sign in front of you, and you decide whether they are actually capable of changing and renouncing the ideology? Or if not you, who does it?
Look, I didn’t make the statement that Nazis have value.
The basis of all of this was to point out the reason Julius Streicher was executed even though he wasn’t involved with military operations or the Holocaust.
This has gotten you very accusatory with how much you’re reading into that. It really does seem like you’re taking personal issue with it, which is wild. You keep saying this conversation shouldn’t continue, so please.
But no one is going to invade America and put American authoritarians on trial. What choices are left?
Well we also have plenty of fascists and are US vasals after all.
