"20 worst people in U.S. history" (understanding left- and right-wing bloggers)

[Ladewig]

In the old Ann Coulter thread, BryanLower said

One exercise I find useful is to try stating, fairly, honestly, and completely, the opposing viewpoint. If you can't, you don't know enough about it to really criticize it.

That sounded reasonable enough to me, but I just came across an opposing viewpoint that I cannot understand at all. While looking for a good list of crooked politicians (In September, I am hosting a costume party with the theme "Politicians and Crooks"), I came across this list of the 20 worst people in U.S. history as decided by bloggers. They have a right wing list (http://www.rightwingnews.com/special/worstfigures.php) and a left wing list (http://www.rightwingnews.com/blogsel/leftworst.php). Here is how the right-wingers weighed in:

1) The Rosenbergs (15) & Julius Rosenberg (5) (20 total votes)
2) Benedict Arnold (19)
3) Bill Clinton (15)
4) Jesse Jackson (14)
4) Jimmy Carter (14)
6) Noam Chomsky (13)
7) Alger Hiss (12)
8) Timothy McVeigh (10)
8) Lyndon Johnson (10)
8) Hillary Clinton (10)
8) John Wilkes Booth (10)
12) Al Sharpton (9)
12) Charles Manson (9)
14) Richard Nixon (8)
14) Aaron Burr (8)
16) Aldrich Ames (7)
17) Franklin Delano Roosevelt (6)
17) John Walker (6)
17) Lee Harvey Oswald (6)
17) Robert Byrd (6)

I can understand disliking Bill Clinton, but ranking him as worse than Richard Nixon or John Wilkes Booth?! Jimmy Carter is worse than Timothy McVeigh?! Hillary is worse than Aldrich Ames or Lee Harvey Oswald?!

Can someone explain that logic to me?

[Darat]

No - but can I ask why your party theme is "Politicians and Crooks"? Surely that's a tautology? ;)

[Darat]

A slightly more serious answer I would say it is because these people are ideologues who cannot or at least find it very difficult to view the world without their ideological filters.

I've had arguments with ardent communists who have tried to argue that Stalin wasn't "that bad"; and the reason they argued for that was because he espoused communism. (Which is absolutely ridiculous because by his actions Stalin is hard to beat as being an evil person.)

In other words if a politician agrees with the person's ideology that is more important then the actions of that politician in determining if they are good or bad.

[TobiasTheViking]

Hell, even I wouldn't try to argue that Stalin was anything other than a dictator. I completely agree with Darat on this one(actually, i think i do that pretty often, scary).

The list is made through an ideological filter.

For eds sake, Noam Chomsky is worse than Charles Manson.

[Ausmerican]

I have to wonder if Chelsea would've come in at around #22 or if she would've been the only Clinton not on there. It seems that while Clinton and Carter are among the most evil people the U.S.A ever produced names like Capone, Lansky and eventhe lesser Gotti don't rate. Odd priorities.

[Tirdun]

Because people are ignorant of history and vote for notable people they remember. The "best presidents" list and "worst presidents" list will always contain presidents within the last 2 generations. Ford will show up on the "best presdient" list because people remember him. In 50 years people won't be able to pick him out of a lineup.

There was a "most important americans" tv show recently and 70% of it was people who were either still alive or who had died within the last 25 years. Why? Because there were exactly zero historians involved in the selection process.

[Ausmerican]

Because people are ignorant of history and vote for notable people they remember. The "best presidents" list and "worst presidents" list will always contain presidents within the last 2 generations. Ford will show up on the "best presdient" list because people remember him. In 50 years people won't be able to pick him out of a lineup.

There was a "most important americans" tv show recently and 70% of it was people who were either still alive or who had died within the last 25 years. Why? Because there were exactly zero historians involved in the selection process.

While I agree with your post totally Tirdun it raises another point. Of the 19 who voted to put him on the list, how many do you suppose could tell you exactly what Benedict Arnold did as opposed to recognizing the name?

Also I would say another reason a few of the names I mentioned didn't make the list is that for some reason people like Capone have acheived some sort of folk hero status.

[Chaos]

Is that just take on it, or is any person who thinks Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson and Jimmy Carter are worse the Timothy McVeigh a bit sick in the mind?

[Kerberos]

Is that just take on it, or is any person who thinks Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson and Jimmy Carter are worse the Timothy McVeigh a bit sick in the mind?
that's true enough, but noone actually said that. They just made a list of who they disliked and more people picked Clinton than McVeight. That doesn't automatically mean that Clinton would have "won" in a poll of "who is worst, Clinton or Mcweight?".

[Chaos]

that's true enough, but noone actually said that. They just made a list of who they disliked and more people picked Clinton than McVeight. That doesn't automatically mean that Clinton would have "won" in a poll of "who is worst, Clinton or Mcweight?".

Well, the poll says clearly that *at least* five people voted for either of Clinton, Jackson and Carter who didn´t vote for McVeigh.

[Luke T.]

I can understand disliking Bill Clinton, but ranking him as worse than Richard Nixon or John Wilkes Booth?! Jimmy Carter is worse than Timothy McVeigh?! Hillary is worse than Aldrich Ames or Lee Harvey Oswald?!

Can someone explain that logic to me?

The link to your left list doesn't work.

20) The Rosenbergs (3) + Julius Rosenberg (3) (6 total votes)
20) Pat Robertson (6)
20) Oliver North (6)
20) William Randolph Hearst (6)
20) Aaron Burr (6)
20) Aldrich Ames (6)
18) George Lincoln Rockwell (7)
18) Robert McNamara (7)
14) Richard Mellon Scaife (8)
14) Lee Harvey Oswald (8)
14) Charles Coughlin (8)
14) Strom Thurmond (8)
13) Ronald Reagan (9)
12) George Wallace (10)
11) Andrew Jackson (12)
9) Jefferson Davis (13)
9) George W. Bush (13)
6) Benedict Arnold (14)
6) Henry Kissinger (14)
6) John Wilkes Booth (14)
3) Timothy McVeigh (16)
3) Nathan Bedford Forrest (16)
3) J. Edgar Hoover (16)
2) Richard Nixon (25)
1) Joseph McCarthy (26)

[Luke T.]

Richard Mellon Scaife is one of the 20 worst people in American history? And worse than Hearst?

[Ladewig]

I agree with many of the replies so far.

After sleeping on it, I realized that perhaps the instructions given to the respondants were a bit vague. If the pollster simply said "name the 20 worst people in U.S. history" then some of the 39 respondants might have said, "I'll list assassins, murderers, and treasonous criminals," while others might have said, "I'll list only politicians and people who shape culture or politics." If that were the case then it is very possible that no single individual said Clinton is worse than McVeigh (as Kerebros pointed out).

However, if that were the case, one is still left with Clinton being worse than Nixon. Is that, as was pointed, out a myopic view of history's timeline? Is it a case of people claiming to be politically knowledgeable not understanding the events of only 30 years ago?

Or do these people really believe that Clinton's actions are worse than Nixon's actions? If so, then they must be making some assumptions about both men that I am missing. Even if their opinions are colored by their ideologies, how do they rationalize such a comparison?

[Random]

Richard Mellon Scaife is one of the 20 worst people in American history? And worse than Hearst?
I don’t get that either. Scaife and his antics are a pale shadow of Hearst. I mean come on, spending years investigating Clinton’s sex life vs. starting a war with Spain? I view this poll as an indication of the sad state of the US education system in regards to history.

[Tony]

Or do these people really believe that Clinton's actions are worse than Nixon's actions? If so, then they must be making some assumptions about both men that I am missing. Even if their opinions are colored by their ideologies, how do they rationalize such a comparison?

I think you're trying to find logic/reason/intelligence where none exists.

[BPSCG]

Is that just take on it, or is any person who thinks Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson and Jimmy Carter are worse the Timothy McVeigh a bit sick in the mind?No; they're very sick in the mind.

[Chaos]

No; they're very sick in the mind.

Good point.

I stand corrected.

[Skeptic]

Richard Mellon Scaife is one of the 20 worst people in American history? And worse than Hearst?

I presume the reason they dislike Thurmond is for his racist views; but to rank him higher than George Lincoln Rockwell, the leader of the American Nazi party?! Thurmond was never a Nazi or even close to it.

I think the issue here is that they rank the "worst" by votes, and "name recognition" therefore plays a huge role. A well-known jerk will be "worse" than a little-known serial killer.

[BPSCG]

This is really kinda stupid.

The righties named five presidents and the lefties named four. Nixon made both lists, making eight unique presidents among the worst people in American history, meaning 19% of the presidents have been among the very worst people that America has produced.

There were three or four other names that made both lists - a quick check turned up McVeigh, Booth, Oswald, the Rosenbergs - so there are about 35 unique names, meaning that 23% of the very worst people America has produced have become President of the United States. Spare me.

Where is Al Capone on either list? Where is David (Son of Sam) Berkowitz? I'd put John C. Calhoun on the list, as well as Thaddeus Stevens. If Lee Harvey Oswald and John Wilkes Booth belong there, why not Charles Guiteau and Leon Czolgosz (sp?). And I'd add Oliver Stone and Michael Moore for achievement disgrace in the arts.

[Polaris]

This is really kinda stupid.

The righties named five presidents and the lefties named four. Nixon made both lists, making eight unique presidents among the worst people in American history, meaning 19% of the presidents have been among the very worst people that America has produced.

There were three or four other names that made both lists - a quick check turned up McVeigh, Booth, Oswald, the Rosenbergs - so there are about 35 unique names, meaning that 23% of the very worst people America has produced have become President of the United States. Spare me.

Where is Al Capone on either list? Where is David (Son of Sam) Berkowitz? I'd put John C. Calhoun on the list, as well as Thaddeus Stevens. If Lee Harvey Oswald and John Wilkes Booth belong there, why not Charles Guiteau and Leon Czolgosz (sp?). And I'd add Oliver Stone and Michael Moore for achievement disgrace in the arts.

The lack of Michael Moore in the right-wing list surprised me too.

Found it interesting that the top 3 worst on the left wing list were the strongest anti-communists.

Where is John D. Rockefeller? John Walker Lindh even (since most of the people are recent anyway)? Spirow Agnew? William Calley? Richard Hansen? OJ?

[Kerberos]

The lack of Michael Moore in the right-wing list surprised me too.
He was one vote shy, but he got a honourable mention.

Where is John D. Rockefeller? John Walker Lindh even (since most of the people are recent anyway)? Spirow Agnew? William Calley? Richard Hansen? OJ?
What would OJ's claim on a list like that be? Didn't he "just" killed somebody? That might not exactly be nice, but it's not top twenty material either.

[Kerberos]

Well, the poll says clearly that *at least* five people voted for either of Clinton, Jackson and Carter who didn´t vote for McVeigh.
which still isn't the same thing. I think using opposed tests, or asking people to grade how horrible a named person was would give significantly more reasonable results because it would eleminate much of the name recognition factor. If I had to make a list of "worst" heads of state, I'd rank bush far higher than he deserved, largely because I don't know the name of most African or Asian dictators. These kinds of tests are 100% meaningless.

[Random]

What would OJ's claim on a list like that be? Didn't he "just" killed somebody? That might not exactly be nice, but it's not top twenty material either.
OJ wasn’t really one of the twenty worst Americans, although he is one of the most annoying. He didn’t get into the Spy top one hundred list that year, instead getting a rating of “Off the Scale” with a note that any one of the myriad of people associated with that case could easily occupy the top one slot uncontested.

[Darat]

Ignorance could also be a factor - I mean if I had to name "the worse 20 British people" I would of course be limited to giving a list of the worse 20 British people that I know about.

(Mind you as much as I hate her and think she damaged this country in ways we will be paying for in a hundred years time I couldn't put Margaret Thatcher on such a list.)

[Hutch]

I think I have to give the left a slight edge in knowledge of American History.

Taking out the eight names common to both lists (Rosenbergs, Benedict Arnold, Tim McVeigh, Booth, Nixon, Burr, Aldrich Ames and Lee Harvey Oswald), the remaining 12 on the right's list are all from the 20th Century and 8 of the 12 are within the last 30 years (Clintons, Jesse Jackson, Carter, Chomsky, Sharpton, Walker, Byrd) and the oldest would be F.D.R. from the 1930's

On the left side of the ledger, there are 18 names (they had 25 names due to ties on the list LukeT provided), of which only 5 are within the last 30 years (Bush II, Reagan, Schaife, North, and Pat Robertson), with 3-4 from the 19th Century (Forrest, Jeff Davis, and Andrew Jackson-not sure if you want to count Hearst as 19th or 20th century).

Plus the left list does show a bit more imagination--I mean, outside of Civil War geeks like BPSCG and I, who among you knew that Nathan Bedford Forrest is given credit (debatable) as the founder of the Ku Klux Klan? Or know about Father Coughlin, the "Radio Priest" of the 30's?? I mean, some folks did think about this--the right's list is just a reiteration of the "usual suspects" IMHO.

Press on.

[BPSCG]

the remaining 12 on the right's list are all from the 20th Century and 8 of the 12 are within the last 30 years (Clintons, Jesse Jackson, Carter, Chomsky, Sharpton, Walker, Byrd) and the oldest would be F.D.R. from the 1930's...which just goes to show that the left is getting eviler and eviler while the right is getting gooder and gooder...

[O]utside of Civil War geeks like BPSCG and I,
[Grammar]
You wouldn't say "Outside of Civil War geeks like I..."
So why do you say, "Outside of Civil War geeks like BPSCG and I..."?
Should be, "Outside of Civil War geeks like BPSCG and me..."
Carry on.
[/Doctor]
who among you knew that Nathan Bedford Forrest is given credit (debatable) as the founder of the Ku Klux Klan? Most people probably have no idea who Forrest was at all. I suspect the left's list was heavily skewed somehow.
Or know about Father Coughlin, the "Radio Priest" of the 30's?? What I said about Forrest, except more so.

[Ladewig]

Ignorance could also be a factor - I mean if I had to name "the worse 20 British people" I would of course be limited to giving a list of the worse 20 British people that I know about.




On the other hand, you don't write a blog about British politics. These people are writing American political blogs. They expect their opinions important enough that they expect thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people to pay attention to their insights and observations on U.S. political culture.

[Chaos]

I just thought I´d merge both lists to see which people are, overall, considered to be worst...

Richard Nixon (33)
*Benedict Arnold (33)
Timothy McVeigh (26)
Joseph McCarthy (26)
The Rosenbergs (18) + Julius Rosenberg (8) (26 total votes)
Nathan Bedford Forrest (16)
J. Edgar Hoover (16)
Bill Clinton (15)
Jesse Jackson (14)
Jimmy Carter (14)
*Aaron Burr (14)
Lee Harvey Oswald (14)
Henry Kissinger (14)
John Wilkes Booth (14)
*Aldrich Ames (13)
*Jefferson Davis (13)
George W. Bush (13)
*Noam Chomsky (13)
Andrew Jackson (12)
*Alger Hiss (12)
*George Wallace (10)
Lyndon Johnson (10)
Hillary Clinton (10)
John Wilkes Booth (10)
Ronald Reagan (9)
*Al Sharpton (9)
Charles Manson (9)
*Charles Coughlin (8)
Strom Thurmond (8)
*Richard Mellon Scaife (8)
*George Lincoln Rockwell (7)
Robert McNamara (7)
FD Roosevelt (6)
John Walker (6)
*Robert Byrd (6)
Pat Robertson (6)
Oliver North (6)
*William Randolph Hearst (6)

I also, on a whim, marked all those names where I have no idea at all who that person is. A hint or two would be appreciated.
On the other hand, for those names I recognize, the composite list looks a lot less biased then either of the separate ones.

[Giz]

I just thought I´d merge both lists to see which people are, overall, considered to be worst...

Richard Nixon (33)
*Benedict Arnold (33)
Timothy McVeigh (26)
Joseph McCarthy (26)
The Rosenbergs (18) + Julius Rosenberg (8) (26 total votes)
Nathan Bedford Forrest (16)
J. Edgar Hoover (16)
Bill Clinton (15)
Jesse Jackson (14)
Jimmy Carter (14)
*Aaron Burr (14)
Lee Harvey Oswald (14)
Henry Kissinger (14)
John Wilkes Booth (14)
*Aldrich Ames (13)
*Jefferson Davis (13)
George W. Bush (13)
*Noam Chomsky (13)
Andrew Jackson (12)
*Alger Hiss (12)
*George Wallace (10)
Lyndon Johnson (10)
Hillary Clinton (10)
John Wilkes Booth (10)
Ronald Reagan (9)
*Al Sharpton (9)
Charles Manson (9)
*Charles Coughlin (8)
Strom Thurmond (8)
*Richard Mellon Scaife (8)
*George Lincoln Rockwell (7)
Robert McNamara (7)
FD Roosevelt (6)
John Walker (6)
*Robert Byrd (6)
Pat Robertson (6)
Oliver North (6)
*William Randolph Hearst (6)

I also, on a whim, marked all those names where I have no idea at all who that person is. A hint or two would be appreciated.
On the other hand, for those names I recognize, the composite list looks a lot less biased then either of the separate ones.

Well Jefferson Davis was the President of the Confederate States of America, so I'm kind of surprised that he didn't rank more highly... I mean if being the head of a rebel govt trying to keep (and expand) slavery doesn't get you noticed what will?

Benedict Arnold was an American revolutionary general who went over to the British. I believe in America "Benedict Arnold" is synonymous with "Judas".

Hearst was a newspaper baron credited with manipulating the USA into war against Spain, "you furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war" is apparnetly what he cabled his correspondent in Cuba. Think the evil Media Baron Elliot Carver in the James Bond flick Tomorrow Never Dies.

[Hutch]

I also, on a whim, marked all those names where I have no idea at all who that person is. A hint or two would be appreciated.

*Benedict Arnold (33)--American Revolutionary War figure, at one time a better-than -average American General, he tried to betray his command to the British and ended up fleeing to Britain, is still the definition of traitor to most Americans (like Quisling to the Norwegians)

*Aaron Burr (14)--Onetime Vice President of the United States, nortorioius for (1) trying to sneak in as President due to an electroal college loophole (2) killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel and (3) tried to break off the Northwest Territories as a new country (with himself in charge)

*Aldrich Ames (13)--FBI agent who recently was exposed as a longtime spy for the Russians.

*Jefferson Davis (13)--Onetime US Senator and politician who became the First (and last) President of the Confederate States during the Civil War.

*Noam Chomsky (13)--A writer of some note, who apparently has the ability to well and truly hack people off with his writings/comments.

*Alger Hiss (12)--Depending on your polticial outlook, a victim of the 50's Communist hysteria or a Soviet Agent. As of this time, Agent seems to be the most favored therory.

*George Wallace (10)--Governor of Alabama in the 1960's, known for "standing in the doorway" to try and prevent black students from registering at the Univ of Alabama. "Segregation then, segregation now, segrgation forever." Also known for running for President, getting shot, and in a twist, making his piece with the African-American community and being re-elected Governor of Alabama with substantial black support. (I would have picked Lester Maddox or Orval Faubus if I had to choose Governors)

*Al Sharpton (9)--Preacher best known for showing up at controvesial and racially-tinted events and basically being an @ss. First came to public notice in the Tawana Brawley (should be on wikipedia) case. Now just another face when the networks need a red-meat quote.

*Charles Coughlin (8)--Known as the "Radio Priest" during the 1930's, he had an audience of millions (not just Catholics) and preached a Gospel to end the Depression that sounded to many like the same book Mussolini was reading about the same time. As the Depression ended and WWII began, he faded away.

*Richard Mellon Scaife (8)--I really don't know much about this character either. What I gather is that he is very rich, very conservative, and spent a great deal of dough trying to hang something on the Clintons. Somebody elese may be able to provide more.

*George Lincoln Rockwell (7)--Founder? and primary name associtated with the American Nazi Party. Nuff' said.

*Robert Byrd (6)--Senator (Dem) from West Virginia. Not really sure while he is on this list, probably for corruption and contributions to liberalism.

*William Randolph Hearst (6)--Editor of the New York World (IIRC), famous for rather dubious journalism (think Rupert Murdoch). Best known for the quote re: Spanish-American War "You provide the writing and I'll provide the war."

[Mike B.]

*Alger Hiss (12)--Depending on your polticial outlook, a victim of the 50's Communist hysteria or a Soviet Agent. As of this time, Agent seems to be the most favored therory.


I would hope it wouldn't depend on your political outlook.
I think the fairly recent work in the Soviet archives have blotted out any doubt of his guilt except for the most hard-core deniers.

It is a shame, that things like this have to depend on political outlook.

I mean it IS possible to believe that McCarthey was a hardcore demagogue and Alger Hiss was guilty.

[BPSCG]

I would hope it wouldn't depend on your political outlook.
I think the fairly recent work in the Soviet archives have blotted out any doubt of his guilt except for the most hard-core deniers.

It is a shame, that things like this have to depend on political outlook.

I mean it IS possible to believe that McCarthey was a hardcore demagogue and Alger Hiss was guilty.So when McCarthy said there were communists in the U.S. government, he was right?

[Beerina]

Well Jefferson Davis was the President of the Confederate States of America, so I'm kind of surprised that he didn't rank more highly... I mean if being the head of a rebel govt trying to keep (and expand) slavery doesn't get you noticed what will?

Eh, he was just the bozo in charge. Robert E. Lee was in charge of the military and warfare. IIRC, they seized Lee's house and lands there and said, "We're gonna bury all the dead you caused right there."

Benedict Arnold was an American revolutionary general who went over to the British. I believe in America "Benedict Arnold" is synonymous with "Judas".

Correct, er, spot on!

Hearst was a newspaper baron credited with manipulating the USA into war against Spain, "you furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war" is apparnetly what he cabled his correspondent in Cuba. Think the evil Media Baron Elliot Carver in the James Bond flick Tomorrow Never Dies.

Ya, and arguably the greatest movie ever made was based unofficially on his life.

[Mike B.]

So when McCarthy said there were communists in the U.S. government, he was right?

Yes, there were, especially during the New Deal years.

Was the US Army infested with communists?

Nah.

[Polaris]

So when McCarthy said there were communists in the U.S. government, he was right?

Yeah, but he also had a nasty habit of ruining the lives of several non-communist spies/subversives for every one he helped out.

[BPSCG]

Yeah, but he also had a nasty habit of ruining the lives of several non-communist spies/subversives for every one he helped out.Why should I care if a spy/subversive was a communist or a non-communist?

[seayakin]

One problem with lists like this is that the criteria for worst is undefined. Are the worst the ones who killed the most people or caused the most deaths? Caused the greatest suffering (how do you define suffering)? Set the nation on a horrible political course? I would have to do a lot of research before I could honestly come up with my list.

What other criteria might be used?

[Giz]

Eh, he was just the bozo in charge. Robert E. Lee was in charge of the military and warfare. IIRC, they seized Lee's house and lands there and said, "We're gonna bury all the dead you caused right there."



Y'know you could be right. I hadn't thought of Lee, I guess he gets that "Rommel" effect (i.e. the good German/chivalrous opponent) so you (i.e. I) don't neccesarily think of him as a bad guy, though he undoubtably fought on the bad side. Does that make him a worse person than an malign, but relatively incompetant soldier/statesman?... interesting...

Officialdom is definately on your side as I think (dredging memory cells long unused) that Jeff Davis was pardoned for being bozo of the CSA in the 1870s (or maybe 1880), whilst Lee was only pardoned in the 1970s.

[Polaris]

Why should I care if a spy/subversive was a communist or a non-communist?

Emphasis on "spy/subversive" rather than on "communist". The point is that there were plenty more people, communist or otherwise, who had their lives ruined by McCarthy, who weren't spies/subversives. There were plenty of real spies/subversives that McCarthy never knew about. And there were a handful that he got right.

The witchhunt was for communists - which assumed that "communist" automatically equalled "spy/subversive". There wouldn't have been a Red Scare if Reds were accused of soaping car windows.

This was the height of the Cold War - obviously communists would be the main enemy (though I grant you that there can be more than one enemy at a time - as evidenced by the high number of communist spies in the US and UK, versus the number of Axis spies/saboteurs).

[UserGoogol]

You mean non-(communist spy/subversive)? If so, yeah, I'd probably agree with you.

It should probably be noted that (1) because this was based merely on how many votes they recieved, a person's relative position on the rankings does not indicate that they were worse or better than others, but rather that more people thought they were bad "enough" (2) it seems that people probably voted for people who they wanted to be on the list rather than people who they thought were legitimately the worst. I mean, if Jeffrey Dahmer gets on the list, who cares? But if Hillary Clinton gets on the list, lolololol democrats are teh suck.

[Ohmer]

Emphasis on "spy/subversive" rather than on "communist". The point is that there were plenty more people, communist or otherwise, who had their lives ruined by McCarthy, who weren't spies/subversives. There were plenty of real spies/subversives that McCarthy never knew about. And there were a handful that he got right.

Indeed. His overzealous, irrational approach ended up destroying his credibility and probably helped the real spy/subversives that were here.

An important lesson we should not forget in the war on terror.

[The Painter]

Is that just take on it, or is any person who thinks Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson and Jimmy Carter are worse the Timothy McVeigh a bit sick in the mind?

If it wasn't for Bill Clinton, there would not have been a Timothy McVeigh.

[Hutch]

If it wasn't for Bill Clinton, there would not have been a Timothy McVeigh.

Oh man, that so calls for a Claus Larsen....EVIDENCE??

[Giz]

If it wasn't for Bill Clinton, there would not have been a Timothy McVeigh.

Are you suggesting that McVeigh is Clinton's natural son?

[The Painter]

McVeigh’s bombing of the Government building in Oklahoma was a direct act of revenge for the Governments siege of the Branch Dravidians at Waco, TX. Janet Reno approved and lauded this assault at Waco. Bill Clinton appointed Janet Reno. No Bill Clinton, then no Janet Reno, then no assault on Waco, then no revenge bombing at Oklahoma City, then no McVeigh.

[Kerberos]

McVeigh’s bombing of the Government building in Oklahoma was a direct act of revenge for the Governments siege of the Branch Dravidians at Waco, TX. Janet Reno approved and lauded this assault at Waco. Bill Clinton appointed Janet Reno. No Bill Clinton, then no Janet Reno, then no assault on Waco, then no revenge bombing at Oklahoma City, then no McVeigh.
I guess Bush senior is also worse than OBL then.

[Polaris]

McVeigh’s bombing of the Government building in Oklahoma was a direct act of revenge for the Governments siege of the Branch Dravidians at Waco, TX. Janet Reno approved and lauded this assault at Waco. Bill Clinton appointed Janet Reno. No Bill Clinton, then no Janet Reno, then no assault on Waco, then no revenge bombing at Oklahoma City, then no McVeigh.

How dare the US government restrict the freedoms of a millenarian fanatic cult!

Seriously, it's twisted logic - that's why it was the logic McVeigh used as justification. I'll grant you that Waco was a disaster of epic proportions on the part of the government, and I'm not even convinced the fires were started by the Branch Davidians. I think they were accidentally set by the CS gas canisters - that building didn't exactly scream "fire prevention" - and accelerated by the huge gaping holes poked in the sides by the CRV.

But saying that Clinton is worse than McVeigh because actions under Clinton's responsibility resulted in actions that were directly McVeigh's responsibility is patently unfair. Blowback is blowback - it doesn't have to be international. McVeigh was a nut, who was heavily involved in right-wing underground militia lunacy, who was not a stranger to killing, and who honestly believed in the ZOG and the NWO (you know, like the LC CTs do). That'd be like saying (as was pointed out), that George HW Bush was worse than Osama bin Laden because he led the war on Iraq that was the catalyst for the creation of al-Qaida and both strikes on the WTC, as well as all its other atrocities.

[The Painter]

Hey, I’m just giving a sequence of events that lead to McVeigh’s action. Clinton is in the chain. Personally, I don’t think Clinton should be on the list of the 20 worst. He is not the greatest, and he’s not the worst. He’s in the middle.

[Elind]

Can someone explain that logic to me?

The simple logic comes from math (perhaps you call it arithmetic).

When you try to explain worldviews and similarly pretend cosmic conclusions based on the voting results of mostly less than 2 digit number from who knows what bar, then you don't make any point worth making. Does that logic resonate with you?:confused:

[Skeptic]

That'd be like saying (as was pointed out), that George HW Bush was worse than Osama bin Laden because he led the war on Iraq that was the catalyst for the creation of al-Qaida and both strikes on the WTC, as well as all its other atrocities.

Some people like to argue like that. Say group X is fighting group Y. They support group X, so every atrocity of group X is due to the "root cause" that group Y did something, while every atrocity group Y does is sui generis. So group Y is at fault for both group X and for group Y's atrocity.

Sometimes this IS justified: for example, the Germans are responsible, morally, for Dresden, since (a) it is them who started a war of annihilation against the world and cannot complain if the world fought back in similar ways, and (b) their crimes made them deserve such, and far worse, punishment.

But often it is not, as in this case.

[CapelDodger]

While I agree with your post totally Tirdun it raises another point. Of the 19 who voted to put him on the list, how many do you suppose could tell you exactly what Benedict Arnold did as opposed to recognizing the name?
He was a Quisling, wasn't he?

[CapelDodger]

I just thought I´d merge both lists to see which people are, overall, considered to be worst...

Richard Nixon (33) ...
You have to think he was doing something right. Nixon went to China - only Nixon could, as they say. Nixon got the US out of Vietnam. He was a pragmatist, not a visionary - which is what the Right and Left hate him for. LBJ served two visions - the Great Society at home and Drawing the Line abroad. They cancel each other. The political equivalent of diffraction.

[Ladewig]

You have to think he was doing something right. Nixon went to China - only Nixon could, as they say. Nixon got the US out of Vietnam. He was a pragmatist, not a visionary - which is what the Right and Left hate him for.

You think that's why people from both sides of the aisle hate him? Might it, instead, having something to do with him being a racist? or his willing to break the law to acheive his ends?

[ImaginalDisc]

Some people like to argue like that. Say group X is fighting group Y. They support group X, so every atrocity of group X is due to the "root cause" that group Y did something, while every atrocity group Y does is sui generis. So group Y is at fault for both group X and for group Y's atrocity.

Sometimes this IS justified: for example, the Germans are responsible, morally, for Dresden, since (a) it is them who started a war of annihilation against the world and cannot complain if the world fought back in similar ways, and (b) their crimes made them deserve such, and far worse, punishment.

But often it is not, as in this case.

Skeptic, this is special pleading.

[Chaos]

Skeptic, this is special pleading.

Don´t even bother. He´s not gonna listen.

BTW, do you have any German ancestors? Because, if you do, then you´re not allowed to disagree with him on that topic.

[Skeptic]

Skeptic, this is special pleading.

It would be special pleading if I thought that *only* Dresden is a case where the agressor has no right to complain of him getting hit back. I don't think so--I think there are other cases like that, I merely used Dresden as an example.

In any case, even if I was thinking only of Dresden, it would not be special pleading since there is an excellent case to be made that the Nazis terror, and in particular the holocaust, were sui generis--different in kind, not only in magnitude, from other atrocities in human history.

If that is so, and I believe it is, there is good reason to think the allowed, or recommended, reaction to it should also be different in kind from the allowable reaction to other evils, and that Dresden was a allowable reaction to it.

[ImaginalDisc]

It would be special pleading if I thought that *only* Dresden is a case where the agressor has no right to complain of him getting hit back. I don't think so--I think there are other cases like that, I merely used Dresden as an example.

In any case, even if I was thinking only of Dresden, it would not be special pleading since there is an excellent case to be made that the Nazis terror, and in particular the holocaust, were sui generis--different in kind, not only in magnitude, from other atrocities in human history.

If that is so, and I believe it is, there is good reason to think the allowed, or recommended, reaction to it should also be different in kind from the allowable reaction to other evils, and that Dresden was a allowable reaction to it.

In retaliation for the acts of a people's government, it is allowable to kill thousands of their civilians?

[Huntster]

...I can understand disliking Bill Clinton, but ranking him as worse than Richard Nixon or John Wilkes Booth?! Jimmy Carter is worse than Timothy McVeigh?! Hillary is worse than Aldrich Ames or Lee Harvey Oswald?!

Can someone explain that logic to me?

Two words:

Political partisans.

They're dangerous. They're either only interested in gaining and keeping power, or they're gullible and stupid.

Either way, they're dangerous..................

[Huntster]

.....Plus the left list does show a bit more imagination--I mean, outside of Civil War geeks like BPSCG and I, who among you knew that Nathan Bedford Forrest is given credit (debatable) as the founder of the Ku Klux Klan? Or know about Father Coughlin, the "Radio Priest" of the 30's?? I mean, some folks did think about this--the right's list is just a reiteration of the "usual suspects" IMHO.....

Good point.

[Huntster]

So when McCarthy said there were communists in the U.S. government, he was right?

Yup.

But that doesn't matter. Just ask George Clooney, the actor who thinks he's an elected leader.

[Huntster]

In retaliation for the acts of a people's government, it is allowable to kill thousands of their civilians?

In a total war scenario, during that technical era of military aerial bombing, and unfortunately; yes.

It was Hitler who started it with the bombing of London. Right or wrong, it came back at them.

[ImaginalDisc]

In a total war scenario, during that technical era of military aerial bombing, and unfortunately; yes.

It was Hitler who started it with the bombing of London. Right or wrong, it came back at them.

So, how is that any different from 9/11?

[Huntster]

Originally Posted by Huntster :
In a total war scenario, during that technical era of military aerial bombing, and unfortunately; yes.

It was Hitler who started it with the bombing of London. Right or wrong, it came back at them.
So, how is that any different from 9/11?

Can you name any buildings bombed or kamakazed in Saudi Arabia before the 9/11 terrorist attacks?

[Libertarian]

If you think W trashes the Constitution, look at Lincoln. Of course, the winners write the history books, so Lincoln ends up on the "best" list, not the worst.

[Tony]

Can you name any buildings bombed or kamakazed in Saudi Arabia before the 9/11 terrorist attacks?

This is irrelevant. Is it, or is not ok to kill thousands of civilians?

[Tony]

If you think W trashes the Constitution, look at Lincoln. Of course, the winners write the history books, so Lincoln ends up on the "best" list, not the worst.

And as we all know, Lincoln was such a prodigious writer of history books. :rolleyes:

[Skeptic]

In retaliation for the acts of a people's government, it is allowable to kill thousands of their civilians?

The holocaust of the jews, the enslavement of the Slavs, and the rest of that were not the actions of the "Nazi Government". That is a post-war lie, or rather self-delusion, by the Germans to assure themselves that they were somehow the "victims" of a few evil people, namely, Hitler and his top leutenants.

In reality, it was the German people who committed those atrocities, not "the Nazi government". Hitler was, until the end of the war, idolized and reveared by the German people--not just party members--and they quite openly welcomed his view that they, the Aryan Volk, are infinitely superior to all other humans (or non-humans such as jews) and therefore deserve to rule the world.

In addition, it is obvious that Hitler could not have achieved all the atrocities he did do without the enthusiastic support of the Germans as a whole. Had Hitler had to rely on party members, let alone "members of the government"--the only ones who are really to blame, according to the popular German view--none of it could have possibly occured.

No, the "it was their government's fault" excuse is nonsense, when it comes to crimes of such enormity. It is simply not true.

[ImaginalDisc]

So Skeptic, you claim that the German people deserved to die, because they idolized a leader who commited attrocities. Do we all deserve to be killed for idolizing FDR, in revenge for the Japanese-American interment camps?

[Chaos]

The holocaust of the jews, the enslavement of the Slavs, and the rest of that were not the actions of the "Nazi Government". That is a post-war lie, or rather self-delusion, by the Germans to assure themselves that they were somehow the "victims" of a few evil people, namely, Hitler and his top leutenants.

In reality, it was the German people who committed those atrocities, not "the Nazi government". Hitler was, until the end of the war, idolized and reveared by the German people--not just party members--and they quite openly welcomed his view that they, the Aryan Volk, are infinitely superior to all other humans (or non-humans such as jews) and therefore deserve to rule the world.

In addition, it is obvious that Hitler could not have achieved all the atrocities he did do without the enthusiastic support of the Germans as a whole. Had Hitler had to rely on party members, let alone "members of the government"--the only ones who are really to blame, according to the popular German view--none of it could have possibly occured.

No, the "it was their government's fault" excuse is nonsense, when it comes to crimes of such enormity. It is simply not true.

I would have a thing or two to say about this BS, if you hadn´t declared me unfit for disagreeing with you about it.

[Skeptic]

So Skeptic, you claim that the German people deserved to die, because they idolized a leader who commited attrocities. Do we all deserve to be killed for idolizing FDR, in revenge for the Japanese-American interment camps?

Sure, you would--if the interment camps had gas chambers where all subhuman Japanese were to be sent to, after putting all Japanese in ghettoes to slowly starve, after shooting million of Japanese out of hand, after... you get the point.

I would certainly say that if the USA, instead of interning the Japanese-Americans, had starved, shot, gassed, and killed them all--women and children included--then a Japanese firebombing of, say, Los Angeles in revenge, would have been richly deserved by the USA--even if the city has no military importance--and tht the USA would have had no right to complain.

But of course, the whole point is that nobody in the USA, FDR included, had ever imagined--let alone planned--anything like that.

[ImaginalDisc]

Sure, you would--if the interment camps had gas chambers where all subhuman Japanese were to be sent to, after putting all Japanese in ghettoes to slowly starve, after shooting million of Japanese out of hand, after... you get the point.

I would certainly say that if the USA, instead of interning the Japanese-Americans, had starved, shot, gassed, and killed them all--women and children included--then a Japanese firebombing of, say, Los Angeles in revenge, would have been richly deserved by the USA--even if the city has no military importance--and tht the USA would have had no right to complain.

But of course, the whole point is that nobody in the USA, FDR included, had ever imagined--let alone planned--anything like that.

How is this not special pleading again?

[Skeptic]

I would have a thing or two to say about this BS, if you hadn´t declared me unfit for disagreeing with you about it.

Wait, don't tell me: as it happens, by a curious coinicidence, everybody in your family who was an adult at the time was never really a supporter of Hitler, and in fact were against the whole thing from the start and would have joined the resistance if they only could.

Got it about right?

Well, if that (or the equivalent) is your claim, I am certainly not saying that you or anybody in your family are lying--I don't know who they are and for all I know they were, in fact, anti-Nazi--but the problem is, of the dozens of young Germans I know, every single one whom I asked about this told me the same thing.

If all those stories are strictly according to the fact, then nobody in Germany ever supported Hitler, and the whole country was, in effect, a huge concentration of anti-Nazis united in their unending desire to fight against / ridicule / stop the disgusting Nazis.

One only wonders, in that case, how much Hitler managed to get done, if for evil pruposes, considering the fact that he had to do the whole thing by himself, completely against the population's wishes.

[Skeptic]

How is this not special pleading again?

Er, because I am saying that had *any* country acted the way the Nazis did, their country would deserve what the Nazis got.

[ImaginalDisc]

Er, because I am saying that had *any* country acted the way the Nazis did, their country would deserve what the Nazis got.
But you didn't accurately explain what the Nazis did. You seem to paint a picture in which every man woman and child dersrved to die horribly in an inferno because they all idolozed Hitler (false) and they were all complicit in the Holocaust (false) some were genuinely ignorant of what was going on, such as the kindergarteners. Did the kindergarteners in Dresden deserve to burn alive?

[Skeptic]

But you didn't accurately explain what the Nazis did. You seem to paint a picture in which every man woman and child dersrved to die horribly in an inferno

Let us take the LA example again. Suppose that FDR butchered, with the support of the American people, Armed forces, etc., millions of Japanese-Americans.

Would everybody in LA, personally, deserve to die in an inferno had FDR done what I imagined him doing? No.

Would the firebombing of LA have been an appropriate punishment to the USA for supporting such an enormity? Yes.

Would American have the right to complain about the Japanese retaliation or call it a war crime? No.

But what I don't understand is why you call my view "special pleading". Maybe you think I'm wrong, but that is a different point. What do you mean by, "special pleading"?

[UserGoogol]

In reality, it was the German people who committed those atrocities, not "the Nazi government". Hitler was, until the end of the war, idolized and reveared by the German people--not just party members--and they quite openly welcomed his view that they, the Aryan Volk, are infinitely superior to all other humans (or non-humans such as jews) and therefore deserve to rule the world.

Since when does enthusiastically supporting murder suddenly mean that you are deserving of death? Tons of people enthusiastically support murder, that's just human nature: human beings are horribly cruel creatures. You can't kill people just because the murder they supported actually happened.

Would everybody in LA, personally, deserve to die in an inferno had FDR done what I imagined him doing? No.

Would the firebombing of LA have been an appropriate punishment to the USA for supporting such an enormity? Yes.

The "USA" is a social construct. There is a definite United States Government, but the United States itself is just a collection of people who happen to be united by a common government and area of land. You don't punish vaguely defined social constructs, you punish people.

[Huntster]

Originally Posted by Huntster :
Can you name any buildings bombed or kamakazed in Saudi Arabia before the 9/11 terrorist attacks?
This is irrelevant. Is it, or is not ok to kill thousands of civilians?

No, it is not irrelevant, and here is my answer again:

In a total war scenario, during that technical era of military aerial bombing, and unfortunately; yes.

For an in-depth analysis of the question, I highly recommend "War and Anti-War", (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446602590/qid=1148505321/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-1260538-8409423?s=books&v=glance&n=283155) by Alvin and Heidi Toffler.

[ImaginalDisc]

Would American have the right to complain about the Japanese retaliation or call it a war crime? No.


That's not what I asked. Did the kindergarteners of Dresden deserve to be burned alive?

[Giz]

Since when does enthusiastically supporting murder suddenly mean that you are deserving of death? Tons of people enthusiastically support murder, that's just human nature: human beings are horribly cruel creatures. You can't kill people just because the murder they supported actually happened.



Usages of support:

A) To argue in favor of; advocate:
B) The act of supporting.

If the "Tons of people [Germans] enthusiastically support murder" had kept themselves to merely theorising that murder was OK (i.e. A) then firebombing their towns would perhaps have been an over-reaction. However, much as I hate to bring this to your attention, the "enthusiastically support" sometimes veered into type B.

Which is rather different to someone in the pub hoping someone dies and then firebombing his town when they just so happen to expire.

And - speaking to ID - who is morally responsible for the kindergarteners? Perhaps their parents....?

[CapelDodger]

You think that's why people from both sides of the aisle hate him? Might it, instead, having something to do with him being a racist? or his willing to break the law to acheive his ends?
Nixon's racism wasn't particularly overt, as I recall, and the Left hated him before Watergate. I certainly did, mostly because of his association with that scumbag Kissinger. What a piece of crap that man is - the personification of Skeptic's caricature "German".

[ImaginalDisc]

And - speaking to ID - who is morally responsible for the kindergarteners? Perhaps their parents....?

Who is morally responsible for the bombs which killed them?

[Giz]

Who is morally responsible for the bombs which killed them?

Did the Allies drop their bombs in a moral vacuum? Or was perchance the Allied strategic bombing campaign a legitimate - and effective - part of the Allied war effort (that was called into being by German aggression)?

[ImaginalDisc]

Did the Allies drop their bombs in a moral vacuum? Or was perchance the Allied strategic bombing campaign a legitimate - and effective - part of the Allied war effort (that was called into being by German aggression)?

They dropped those bombs on civilian targets with the goal of demoralizing the German people with total destruction.

[Tony]

No, it is not irrelevant, and here is my answer again.

So you do think it's ok to bomb civilain targets like The WTC and Dresden.

[Giz]

They dropped those bombs on civilian targets with the goal of demoralizing the German people with total destruction.

Partly. And partly to impede German production. And what production there was got skewed away from artillery and bombers to AA guns and fighters. And it made the Luftwaffe concentrate on the air defence of Germany, making a gift of air superiority to the USSR on the east front. And it kept 2 million labourers working on clearing up after the raids, rather than manufacturing/fighting.

I have seen a stats that estimate that 7% of the UK/US war effort went into the strategic bombing campaign, given it's effects I'd consider that a bargain.

[Chaos]

Did the Allies drop their bombs in a moral vacuum? Or was perchance the Allied strategic bombing campaign a legitimate - and effective - part of the Allied war effort (that was called into being by German aggression)?

Excuse me, but that is not the point.

We could argue back and forth about the strategical significance of terror bombing - as opposed to bombing factories, refineries and so on - but that would not change the fact that neither I (or ImaginalDisc, if I understand him correctly) nor Skeptic have been disagreeing about that. Maybe we would disagree, but *that* aspect of the matter wasn´t ever raised.

What *was* raised was the questions of (1) if the people who died in, for example, Dresden were victims or punished war criminals and (2) what exactly it takes for such people to deserve what they get.

Wait, don't tell me: as it happens, by a curious coinicidence, everybody in your family who was an adult at the time was never really a supporter of Hitler, and in fact were against the whole thing from the start and would have joined the resistance if they only could.

Got it about right?

Well, if that (or the equivalent) is your claim, I am certainly not saying that you or anybody in your family are lying--I don't know who they are and for all I know they were, in fact, anti-Nazi--but the problem is, of the dozens of young Germans I know, every single one whom I asked about this told me the same thing.

Well, your complete and utter ignorance of my family certainly did not prevent you from stating as a fact that my parents and grandparents were Hitler´s murderers. For all that YOU, personally, know, I could be the son of immigrant who came to Germany from, well, anywhere in the world. My parents and I could even be jews for all you know, which would have made your accusations... embarassing, to say the least. Of course, you did not know... but you still made these accusation despite not knowing, which shows me that you did not *want* to know. You simply wanted to attack me for disagreeing with you, and for being what you hate - a German.

The point is, you have accused my parents and grandparents of taking part in the Holocaust, which in the case of my parents is absolutely impossible, as they were born years after the end of the Holocaust. As for my grandparents, as far as I could ever find out (like, for documents about my grandfathers´ time in the Wehrmacht) none of them were involved in any war crimes. I can´t ask them now, as they´re all dead.

The other point is, you have stated that I may not disagree with your assessment of the guilt of the Germans of that time. This is, in fact, the worst kind of guilt by association; I was born more than 30 years after the Holocaust ended and thus have never taken part in it nor had any opportunity to do anything against it. Any attempt to deny my right to form whatever informed opinion I form about is is nothing more than a transparent attempt at stifling discussion and beating dissenters into submission - a behavior that, I should not have to point out, is unworthy of anyone who calls himself "Skeptic".


If all those stories are strictly according to the fact, then nobody in Germany ever supported Hitler, and the whole country was, in effect, a huge concentration of anti-Nazis united in their unending desire to fight against / ridicule / stop the disgusting Nazis.

One only wonders, in that case, how much Hitler managed to get done, if for evil pruposes, considering the fact that he had to do the whole thing by himself, completely against the population's wishes.

I suppose you are familiar with the "fallacy of the excluded middle"? Neither I nor anyone else I´m aware of in these debates has *ever* proposed the utter crap that *you* claim must be the opinion of anyone who proposed that not every German was participating in the Holocaust. This, again, is a much-used but very transparent tactic designed to destroy any honest debate.

As you are aware, or should at least be aware, reality isn´t black and white. There were those who avidly supported the Holocaust, even delighted in the destruction of the jews (BTW these were/are monsters, in any aspect except genetics, if you ask me); there were those who were so deluded (the "Dolchstoß-Legende", if that rings a bell) that they thought the Holocaust was necessary to win WW2 (no better than the monster, IMHO); then those who simply followed orders (again, no better than the monsters). But, if you actually are the skeptic you claim to be, you should also know how powerful the mechanism of belief is, of self-delusion, of not being able to believe people are actually capable of doing something like the Holocaust - seriously, if you had not seen the evidence, and (I presume) had family and relatives among the victims, could you *really* believe that a modern, civilized Western nation is capable of something like the Holocaust? Especially, could you believe that *your* modern, civilized Western nation is capable of that?
I don´t want to completely excuse these people; I merely say that they did *not* deserve to be murdered indiscriminately, without a chance to defend themselves against the charges brought against them. Yes, that is exactly what happened to the jews - but I would like to believe that Americans, then and now, are better than the Nazis. Not just "not quite as bad", but really better.
And after all, everone who managed to survive did indeed get something they deserved - de-nazification, and the Nuremberg trials. As it happens, I think these procedures where not quite strict enough in many cases; however, even if they had been far too strict, they would still have been a lot fairer than anything *you* have proposed.

[Giz]

Excuse me, but that is not the point.

We could argue back and forth about the strategical significance of terror bombing - as opposed to bombing factories, refineries and so on - but that would not change the fact that neither I (or ImaginalDisc, if I understand him correctly) nor Skeptic have been disagreeing about that. Maybe we would disagree, but *that* aspect of the matter wasn´t ever raised.


Far be it from me to get between you and Skeptic, I was responding to ID's "who is morally responsible for the bombs being dropped?". To which the answer is; whoever invaded Poland.

[Ladewig]

Nixon's racism wasn't particularly overt, as I recall, and the Left hated him before Watergate. I certainly did, mostly because of his association with that scumbag Kissinger. What a piece of crap that man is - the personification of Skeptic's caricature "German".


I don't know enough U.S. political history to challenge in any way the idea that Nixon's racism was not overt during his presidency. However, I was arguing that one reason to hate him from our 21st century perspective is all the racist comments that appear on the released audio tapes.

[bigred]

Can someone explain that logic to me?
There is very little if any logic or objectivity when it comes to most people's views nowdays on politics IMO, so don't bother looking for any. It almost makes people's stances on "racism" nowdays look sane.

:hurl:

[Chaos]

Far be it from me to get between you and Skeptic, I was responding to ID's "who is morally responsible for the bombs being dropped?". To which the answer is; whoever invaded Poland.

Whoever starts the war is responsible *that* bombs are dropped, not where.

When Allied aircrews in Allied bombers operating from Allied bases drop Allied ammunitions on targets selected by Allied officers answering to Allied heads of state, then, sorry, I cannot help but put *some* of the blame on the Allies.

Yes, it was the Nazis´ fault that there was WW2 in Europe - but they did not *force* the Allies to attack residential areas.

[BPSCG]

But, if you actually are the skeptic you claim to be, you should also know how powerful the mechanism of belief is, of self-delusion, of not being able to believe people are actually capable of doing something like the Holocaust - seriously, if you had not seen the evidence, and (I presume) had family and relatives among the victims, could you *really* believe that a modern, civilized Western nation is capable of something like the Holocaust? Especially, could you believe that *your* modern, civilized Western nation is capable of that?Rare that I agree with something Chaos posts, but here it is. A great many people will deliberately close their eyes to monstrosity, rather than have to confront it. The monstrosity could be the puzzling new growth on the side of their neck, it could be a government that is systematically destroying their neighbors. Today, it is a country that is building long-range missiles, building nuclear weapons, and making bellicose noises about exterminating one of its neighbors. People will close their eyes and close their minds, will do almost anything rather than concede the existence of the monstrosity.

I don´t want to completely excuse these people; I merely say that they did *not* deserve to be murdered indiscriminately, without a chance to defend themselves against the charges brought against them. Yes, that is exactly what happened to the jews - but I would like to believe that Americans, then and now, are better than the Nazis. Not just "not quite as bad", but really better.
And after all, everone who managed to survive did indeed get something they deserved - de-nazification, and the Nuremberg trials. As it happens, I think these procedures where not quite strict enough in many cases; however, even if they had been far too strict, they would still have been a lot fairer than anything *you* have proposed.Do people who close their eyes and minds to the monstrosity going on around them - but who are not an active part of the monstrosity - deserve to die? That's the question. I would say probably not. But it's a tragic fact that that's what happens when we allow a monstrosity to grow like a cancer in our midst. The guilty are punished, but a great many of the innocent suffer in the process.

[Skeptic]

Who is morally responsible for the bombs which killed them?

Adolf Hitler, the Nazi party, and--more widely--the German people.

Sorry, Imaginedisc, but they had it coming, and it was no more, in fact far less, than the Germans deserved.

As for my grandparents, as far as I could ever find out (like, for documents about my grandfathers´ time in the Wehrmacht) none of them were involved in any war crimes.

Well, there is the tiny fact that it was Hitler personally who was the commander-in-chief of your grandfather's army, and who directed its acts of agression against Poland, Russia, the Balkans, France, Belgium, England, etc.

The idea that the Whermacht was somehow non-Nazi--when Hitler was its commander in chief and it was deeply, deeply implicated in the war crimes during the war--is absurd. The Wehrmacht was far *more* important to Hitler's goals of destruction and agression, once the war started, than the party's forces.

Had all Nazi party members (apart from Hitler and a few others) disappeared the day the war was declared, but with Hitler keeping control of the Wehrmacht, the holocaust and all the other atrocities would have continued more or less as they actually did.

It would have been simple: just give the Wehrmacht a bit more of the "embarrasing" and "distasteful" (to use the words of its generals after the war) of killing Soviet prisoners, jews, and so on, behind the lines. The Wehrmacht killed hundreds of thousands and millions of "saboteurs" and "spies" (read: jews and Slavs) as it is, it could just as easily have adapted to kill tens of millions (with great moral reluctance and expressions of sorrow and whines about having no choice but to follow orders.)

On the other hand, the party had little power relative to the Wehrmacht and the people as a whole; if it wasn't for the Whrmacht enthusiastically invading any country Hitler felt like invading, and overtaking it so that the SS and the "special action forces" could move in, the holocaust could not have happened.

You see, Chaos, it is, in fact, *precisely* this I am talking about: the German people, through (inter alia) the Wehrmacht, supported, helped, and abetted everything that Hitler did, including the genocide of the jews and Slavs, the agressive wars, and so on. And they did that knowing full well that Hitler's plans were, at the *very least*, the conquering and subjugations of Europe and the Slavs.

Your granfather's commander-in-chief was Adolf Hitler; your granfather's army invaded and conquered any land Hitler wanted it to without the slightest hesitation, let alone protest or refusal; it killed, directly, millions of innocents; and it protected the SS and "special forces" and the others who were even worse.

And you're telling me that your granfather serving in the Wehrmacht is evidence that he *didn't* support Hitler?

[Darat]

Adolf Hitler, the Nazi party, and--more widely--the German people.

...snip...


This is saying that all matters is who threw the first stone in determining the morality of any consequential act. Is that really what you are saying?

[Skeptic]

This is saying that all matters is who threw the first stone in determining the morality of any consequential act. Is that really what you are saying?

When people say that the "first stone" shouldn't determine the moral responsiblity for all subsequent events, they have in mind usually a relatively small incident that becomes larger and larger due to numerous "reprisals" on both sides.

I certainly wouldn't say that in the first world war, where the war started due to a small incident becoming larger and larger and each side becoming more and more agressive, that such firebombing (had it been technologically possible) would have been justified, even if it could be proved that the first stone was only Germany's fault.

But here, the "first stone" is, from the beginning, an agressive war whose expressed goal is the conquest and subjugations of Europe and Russia, and the eradication, enslavement, and starvation of millions upon millions of "subhumans"--a goal, post-war denials to the contrary notwithstanding, enthusiastically and generally supported by the population, which considered the idea of becoming the new masters of Europe with great favor, and Hitler as the new Messiah who would restore Germany to its "rightful place" in the world.

When this is the "first stone", things are different; the world had the right to fight back in any way against such explicit and monstrous evil.

[Giz]

Whoever starts the war is responsible *that* bombs are dropped, not where.

When Allied aircrews in Allied bombers operating from Allied bases drop Allied ammunitions on targets selected by Allied officers answering to Allied heads of state, then, sorry, I cannot help but put *some* of the blame on the Allies.

Yes, it was the Nazis´ fault that there was WW2 in Europe - but they did not *force* the Allies to attack residential areas.

Part of the Allied campaign was to target factories. These were concentrated in the cities. Precision bombing did not yet exist. This means that any bombing campaign would inevitably incur civilian casualties. Given what was acheived I think that it was both practically expediant and morally correct for the bombing to continue.

To argue that the bombings should not have been allowed is to push for a longer, harder war causing the death of many more innocents from London, Sheffield, Brooklyn, Cleveland etc. Why should they die so that Hitlers willing executioners might live?

[Skeptic]

To argue that the bombings should not have been allowed is to push for a longer, harder war causing the death of many more innocents from London, Sheffield, Brooklyn, Cleveland etc.

...not to mention Auschwitz, Maidanek, Sobibor...

They dropped those bombs on civilian targets with the goal of demoralizing the German people with total destruction.

Somehow I find it hard to feel sorry for architects of the "final solution" when they suddenly feel "demoralized" by the threat of total destruction. If Dresden demoralized the Germans, all the better.

[Huntster]

Originally Posted by Huntster :
No, it is not irrelevant, and here is my answer again.

So you do think it's ok to bomb civilain targets like The WTC and Dresden.

No.

But I do think it's counterproductive to use the "collateral damage" excuse for not employing total war (when necessary) to achieve critical military objectives.

[Chaos]

*snip*Well, there is the tiny fact that it was Hitler personally who was the commander-in-chief of your grandfather's army, and who directed its acts of agression against Poland, Russia, the Balkans, France, Belgium, England, etc.

The idea that the Whermacht was somehow non-Nazi--when Hitler was its commander in chief and it was deeply, deeply implicated in the war crimes during the war--is absurd. The Wehrmacht was far *more* important to Hitler's goals of destruction and agression, once the war started, than the party's forces.

Had all Nazi party members (apart from Hitler and a few others) disappeared the day the war was declared, but with Hitler keeping control of the Wehrmacht, the holocaust and all the other atrocities would have continued more or less as they actually did.

It would have been simple: just give the Wehrmacht a bit more of the "embarrasing" and "distasteful" (to use the words of its generals after the war) of killing Soviet prisoners, jews, and so on, behind the lines. The Wehrmacht killed hundreds of thousands and millions of "saboteurs" and "spies" (read: jews and Slavs) as it is, it could just as easily have adapted to kill tens of millions (with great moral reluctance and expressions of sorrow and whines about having no choice but to follow orders.)

On the other hand, the party had little power relative to the Wehrmacht and the people as a whole; if it wasn't for the Whrmacht enthusiastically invading any country Hitler felt like invading, and overtaking it so that the SS and the "special action forces" could move in, the holocaust could not have happened.

You see, Chaos, it is, in fact, *precisely* this I am talking about: the German people, through (inter alia) the Wehrmacht, supported, helped, and abetted everything that Hitler did, including the genocide of the jews and Slavs, the agressive wars, and so on. And they did that knowing full well that Hitler's plans were, at the *very least*, the conquering and subjugations of Europe and the Slavs.

Your granfather's commander-in-chief was Adolf Hitler; your granfather's army invaded and conquered any land Hitler wanted it to without the slightest hesitation, let alone protest or refusal; it killed, directly, millions of innocents; and it protected the SS and "special forces" and the others who were even worse.

And you're telling me that your granfather serving in the Wehrmacht is evidence that he *didn't* support Hitler?

Once again you move the goalposts. YOU have to provide evidence for YOUR claim that my grandparents - alll FOUR of them - were murderers. *Specific* evidence against *specific* people for *specific* crimes, not the hundredth repetition of "all Germans were evil".

As an aside... my eyesight must be failing, since I cannot seem to find you apology for calling my parents, who were born after the war, "Hitler´s murderers".



Somehow I find it hard to feel sorry for architects of the "final solution" when they suddenly feel "demoralized" by the threat of total destruction. If Dresden demoralized the Germans, all the better.


You know what? NOBODY here feels sorry for the architects of the final solution. Not me, either. The hundredth repetition of your *********** strawmen does not change the fact that what I do, in fact, object to is the indiscriminate murder innocent people who had nothing to do with the Holocaust.

[Giz]

You know what? NOBODY here feels sorry for the architects of the final solution. Not me, either. The hundredth repetition of your *********** strawmen does not change the fact that what I do, in fact, object to is the indiscriminate murder innocent people who had nothing to do with the Holocaust.

Why should they have lived if it meant a longer, harder war causing the death of many more innocents from London, Sheffield, Brooklyn, Cleveland etc (...not to mention Auschwitz, Maidanek, Sobibor...)?

[Chaos]

Why should they have lived if it meant a longer, harder war causing the death of many more innocents from London, Sheffield, Brooklyn, Cleveland etc (...not to mention Auschwitz, Maidanek, Sobibor...)?

Why should they have died, as it did NOT mean a shorter war?

Again, I do not complain about those attacks targetted at factories (regardless of what else got it); I complain about those attacks that deliberately and exclusively targetted residential areas - with the exclusive goal of killing as many civilians as possible.

[Kiwiwriter]

In the old Ann Coulter thread, BryanLower said



That sounded reasonable enough to me, but I just came across an opposing viewpoint that I cannot understand at all. While looking for a good list of crooked politicians (In September, I am hosting a costume party with the theme "Politicians and Crooks"), I came across this list of the 20 worst people in U.S. history as decided by bloggers. They have a right wing list (http://www.rightwingnews.com/special/worstfigures.php) and a left wing list (http://www.rightwingnews.com/blogsel/leftworst.php). Here is how the right-wingers weighed in:

1) The Rosenbergs (15) & Julius Rosenberg (5) (20 total votes)
2) Benedict Arnold (19)
3) Bill Clinton (15)
4) Jesse Jackson (14)
4) Jimmy Carter (14)
6) Noam Chomsky (13)
7) Alger Hiss (12)
8) Timothy McVeigh (10)
8) Lyndon Johnson (10)
8) Hillary Clinton (10)
8) John Wilkes Booth (10)
12) Al Sharpton (9)
12) Charles Manson (9)
14) Richard Nixon (8)
14) Aaron Burr (8)
16) Aldrich Ames (7)
17) Franklin Delano Roosevelt (6)
17) John Walker (6)
17) Lee Harvey Oswald (6)
17) Robert Byrd (6)

I can understand disliking Bill Clinton, but ranking him as worse than Richard Nixon or John Wilkes Booth?! Jimmy Carter is worse than Timothy McVeigh?! Hillary is worse than Aldrich Ames or Lee Harvey Oswald?!

Can someone explain that logic to me?

I don't see Joe McCarthy, Ted Bundy, J. Edgar Hoover, John B. Floyd, Ken Lay, Jane Fonda, J.B. Stoner, Richard Girnt Butler, William Pierce, David Duke, or Al Capone on that list. :eye-poppi

[Skeptic]

Once again you move the goalposts. YOU have to provide evidence for YOUR claim that my grandparents - alll FOUR of them - were murderers.

I DIDN'T say they were murderers. I said they SUPPORTED HITLER. One of your grandparents did so by serving in the Wehrmacht.

Serving as a soldier in Hitler's army--which is precisely what it was, Hitler was commander and chief and the Army obeyed all his commands with a "Jawohl!" and without a second thought--is supporting Hitler. Had your father refused orders? Had he joined the resistance? No, he obeyed the orders and did as he was told by his commanders--which is to say, he did as Hitler ordered.

As for my grandparents, as far as I could ever find out (like, for documents about my grandfathers´ time in the Wehrmacht) none of them were involved in any war crimes.

As for MY grandparents, as far as I could ever find out, none of them were ever axe murderers.

Why exactly did you have to CHECK, Chaos? Surely, your soldier granfather--such a moral, non-Nazi individual--would NEVER, say, machine-gun a few dozen "jewish partisans" into a mass grave as part of the Whermacht's "reprisals" behind the lines, to name just one possiblity? Surely you know he would have simply refused to have done so?

The need for such checking is clear. If your grandfather had not committed war crimes, it was not out of any hatered of the Nazis or Hitler, whose every command he obeyed, but simply because he was not ordered to participate in such acts, while others--including some from the same school and town as your grandfather, almost certainly--were.

If your grandfather *had* been told to participate in the murders, expulsions, and starvations, he almost certainly would have--if the tiny percentage of those who refused to do so tells us anything. The only reason relatively few Germans are individually war criminals is that Hitler and his lietenants, for their own reasons, only asked relatively few Germans to *be* individual war criminals.

*That*, Chaos, is part of the reason why the bombing of Dresden gets my enthusiastic support. Germany acted as one doing Hitler's will, and was punished as one. Acting as one man doing Hitler's genocidal will, and then demanding to be considered *individually* when it comes to being punished for it, might make legal sense, but morally it doesn't have a leg to stand on.

[Giz]

Why should they have died, as it did NOT mean a shorter war?


It DID make the war shorter/easier. Are you aware of how much German production skewed from artillery to AA guns, from bombers to fighters, the manpower drain both for air defence and repairs, the benefit to the Red Army of gaining air superiority etc...

[Huntster]

...Again, I do not complain about those attacks targetted at factories (regardless of what else got it); I complain about those attacks that deliberately and exclusively targetted residential areas - with the exclusive goal of killing as many civilians as possible.

And those areas were....................where?

Dresden has become a false rallying cry for apologists. It was a major rail hub, and a legitimate target of war (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060006765/103-1260538-8409423?v=glance&n=283155):

From Publishers Weekly
The allied bombing of Dresden created a massive fire that swept the city center, killing thousands of people and destroying its medieval heart. Debate began almost immediately: Was the destruction of this seemingly civilian city necessary militarily, or was it, some asked, equivalent to a war crime? Not just another in an endless parade of books on Dresden, Taylor's account may go a long way toward putting such questions to rest. It opens with the start, by British bombers, of the nighttime attack, and immediately turns to the past, meandering through several centuries of Dresden history, from its founding in the Middle Ages to the 20th century and the rise of the Nazis. Taylor, translator of The Goebbels Diaries, also covers the history of aerial bombardment and its international laws; gives glimpses of life under the Nazi regime; details the Allied bombing campaign against Germany; and, most excitingly, puts forth new information concerning Dresden's part in the German war effort, which turns out to be much greater than postwar information generally portrays. Five chapters of 30 describe the actual bombing of the city by the British and American air forces, and they do so effectively, weaving first-person accounts of the aircrews with those of the terrified German soldiers and civilians. The aftermath of the raid is concisely dealt with, in the process correcting common perception about the numbers actually killed (approximately 25,000, not up to 250,000, as often cited), and he offers a review of the postwar debate on the morality of the bombing. An afterword describes the author's experience at a recent ceremony for the dead of Dresden, and further corrects some longstanding misinformation that includes the alleged strafing of civilians by American aircraft. Taylor has used a variety of German, as well as Allied, sources to write an account not previously accomplished to this extent in English.

From Booklist
Of all the cities destroyed in World War II, Dresden rivals Hiroshima as a symbol of the war's cruelty. The rationale for the bombing of Dresden has been clouded by distortion of what happened there and has been interpreted as a perfidious British and American war crime by the last gasps of Nazi propaganda; that interpretation was continued by the East German communist regime until its collapse in 1989. Newly opened archives, therefore, presented Taylor with an opportunity to research anew the obliteration of the "Florence on the Elbe." Touching on assertions about the air attack that have made it controversial--that the city was of negligible military significance, or that its destruction was without purpose because the war was almost over--Taylor advances contrary evidence about the mounting of the attack and the cataclysmic firestorm it ignited. Cautious about drawing a particular moral conclusion, Taylor takes care to keep before readers details about the Nazi rule in Dresden, hinting at his own opinion in this professional, accessible review of the controversy over the city's fate.

[Kerberos]

It DID make the war shorter/easier. Are you aware of how much German production skewed from artillery to AA guns, from bombers to fighters, the manpower drain both for air defence and repairs, the benefit to the Red Army of gaining air superiority etc...
Well isn't it possible that Hitler, despite being the great humanitarian he was, would have diverted almost as many resources to protect factories, railroad junctions and such as he did to protect civilians? Isn't it in fact possible that protecting such targets, which were attacked too, was just as responsible for the diverted resources as Hitlers empathy for the sufering of German civilians?

[epepke]

The lack of Michael Moore in the right-wing list surprised me too.

They probably would have, were Moore a better filmmaker.

[RyanRoberts]

As a slight aside, some UK cabinet meeting minutes have recently been released:



Fascinating wartime documents have just been released in Britain that shed light on one of the dark moments of Czech history. On a June morning in 1942 people in the Nazi occupied Czech Lands woke up to a chilling radio announcement. In ice-cold tones a voice in German said that the village of Lidice not far from Prague had been wiped off the map, and all the men shot

Britain's Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, was incensed by the Lidice massacre and he wanted the Royal Air Force to wipe out German villages in retaliation. This sense of fury and shock is palpable in cabinet meeting notes that have now been released by the National Archives {and were taken by the then deputy cabinet secretary Sir Norman Brook.} Churchill called for German villages to be destroyed on a three-to-one basis, but other cabinet members were more cautious. They pointed to the potential danger that air crews would come under, and Clement Attlee, then a minister, but later to succeed Churchill as prime minister, spoke of the dangers of escalation. He warned against entering a "competition in frightfulness with the Germans". It is clear from the notes that cabinet members must have had quite a job to calm the furious Churchill, but in the end, on June 15th he conceded, as he put it "submitting unwillingly to the view of the cabinet" against his own instinct. The revenge air-raids never took place.


From http://www.radio.cz/en/article/74328

Churchill's passion I don't find particularly surprising. Effective cabinet government comes as a bit of a shock after a decade of Labour though :)

[Giz]

Well isn't it possible that Hitler, despite being the great humanitarian he was, would have diverted almost as many resources to protect factories, railroad junctions and such as he did to protect civilians? Isn't it in fact possible that protecting such targets, which were attacked too, was just as responsible for the diverted resources as Hitlers empathy for the sufering of German civilians?

The bombing campaign targeted both poulation centers in an attempt to break Germany's will to resist, and production centers. (Production centers and population centers tended to be the same anyway so overlap was unavouldable - no smart bombs back in 1944).

With hindsight it can be seen that the effectiveness of the bombing was greatest, more bang per buck as it were, when targeting industry rather than residential. This is irrelevant to my point though as I have not been arguing that the Allies after allowing for 20/20 hindsight conducted the best possible, most efficient bombing campaign possible. What I have argued is:

1) The strategic bombing campaign helped to win the war, which saved Allied lives.
2) Given the eras technology large civilian casulaties were inevitable in any strategic bombing campaign.
3) The bombing campaign was morally justifiable. Indeed, not doing it at all might have been morally (and strategically) inexcusable.

If you like I can add, 4) it could have (with hindsight) have been done even better.
... happy?

[epepke]

Plus the left list does show a bit more imagination--I mean, outside of Civil War geeks like BPSCG and I, who among you knew that Nathan Bedford Forrest is given credit (debatable) as the founder of the Ku Klux Klan?

Everyone who has seen Forrest Gump, which did after all win Best Picture in 1994. Even if they didn't remember it.

I am pretty impressed that they remembered 1994, though. I have enough trouble getting leftists to remember 2000.

[Chaos]

Well isn't it possible that Hitler, despite being the great humanitarian he was, would have diverted almost as many resources to protect factories, railroad junctions and such as he did to protect civilians? Isn't it in fact possible that protecting such targets, which were attacked too, was just as responsible for the diverted resources as Hitlers empathy for the sufering of German civilians?

To put it more simply: did Hitler try to save civilian lifes, or did he try to decimate the Allied air force?

In fact, you can very well argue that attacking residential areas prolonged the war, as every bomb dropped on residential areas was one bomb not dropped on a factory - and that every bomber shot down over a city was one bomber that would never be able to attack a factory.

I DIDN'T say they were murderers. I said they SUPPORTED HITLER. One of your grandparents did so by serving in the Wehrmacht.

Serving as a soldier in Hitler's army--which is precisely what it was, Hitler was commander and chief and the Army obeyed all his commands with a "Jawohl!" and without a second thought--is supporting Hitler. Had your father refused orders? Had he joined the resistance? No, he obeyed the orders and did as he was told by his commanders--which is to say, he did as Hitler ordered.


You DID say they were murderers. Your exact words were "you, as the son and grandson of Hitler´s murderers", which, by any sane logical standards, means you claim that my parents and grandparents were murderers.

And I´m telling you for the third time now, my parents were not even born until after 1945, SO ANY CLAIM THAT MY FATHER WAS HITLER`S MURDERER IS A CHEAP AND TRANSPARENT LIE! A lie that you refuse to take back and apologize for.

Listen, Skeptic, if you have anything to contribute to this discussion besides the crudest, black-and-white "EVIL-EVIL-EVIL-KILL-KILL-KILL" style agitation, please do so. If you have any *specific* evidence against FOUR *specific* persons you have accused of murder, bring it on. And I´m NOT interested in the 102nd repetition of "German=Evil, kill them all". Give me the *********** evidence.

[Skeptic]

Well, for starters, Chaos, I couldn't find where I said what you quote. Certainly not in this thread. In any case, I was speaking of the *generation* of Germans in questions, not of every individual.

But now that I think about it, your grandfather *was*--at least--an accessory to murder, was he not?

You see, my grandparents were on the other side, and for some strange reason they kept saying that everybody, certainly all the jews, knew *very* well that at the very least horrible mistreatment, and most likely murder, will await them anywhere the Wehrmacht set its foot. They knew from the moment they saw the non-Nazi, didn't-know-anything, columns of Wehrmacht soldiers passing the village that this means they are condemned to torture and death.

(And indeed, it usually started with the non-political, oh-so-anti-Nazi Wehrmacht soldiers cutting off the jews' beards for fun, or forcing them to clean latrines in their prayer shawls, etc.)

How come *they* knew that instantly, and your grandfather, who was part of those same Wehrmacht columns, had *no idea* this is what would happen? Were my grandparents psychic? Did they have the gift of seeing the improbable future nobody could guess?

Or is it slightly more likely that your granfather, like everybody else, knew very well what would happen to the jews where the Whermacht set foot... but did nothing and continued to obey orders... and that the "gee, I didn't know" and "gee, I was against it" claims are simply post-war rationalizations?

Of course the latter is far more likely; and your grandfather, serving Hitler loyally in the Wehrmacht, was an accessory to murder.

[Giz]

In fact, you can very well argue that attacking residential areas prolonged the war, as every bomb dropped on residential areas was one bomb not dropped on a factory - and that every bomber shot down over a city was one bomber that would never be able to attack a factory.



1) The factories were in the cities. "every bomber shot down over a city was one bomber that would never be able to attack a factory" - true in that the bomber in question would no longer be able to nobly help the Allied crusade. As it was even odds it was targeting a factory anyway I guess that not what you were - rather emotionally - trying to say.

2) It was - erroniously, in hindsight - thought by some quite intelligent men that bombing population centers would cause the collapse of the German will to fight. If they had been correct, the war would have ended far sooner. Saving countless innocent lives. They were wrong - but given that nothing like that had been tried (or had even been possible before WW2) were they wrong to do so?

[CapelDodger]

Churchill's passion I don't find particularly surprising. Effective cabinet government comes as a bit of a shock after a decade of Labour though :)
That's what Hitler didn't have. That's what someone like Hitler couldn't have. If Churchill had been given his head, drunk and impassioned, there would have been more British military disasters than there have been. Hitler, sober, ran up a good few in a matter of years. Churchill's career spanned decades, and he was nothing if not imaginative.

[Chaos]

1) The factories were in the cities. "every bomber shot down over a city was one bomber that would never be able to attack a factory" - true in that the bomber in question would no longer be able to nobly help the Allied crusade. As it was even odds it was targeting a factory anyway I guess that not what you were - rather emotionally - trying to say.

I am very well able distinguish between attacks on industry, like, say, the Schweinfurth ball bearing plants, and those many attacks which were aimed ONLY at residential areas. I would therefore be very grateful if you could, PLEASE, stop pretending that I do not distinguish between these. THANK YOU.


2) It was - erroniously, in hindsight - thought by some quite intelligent men that bombing population centers would cause the collapse of the German will to fight. If they had been correct, the war would have ended far sooner. Saving countless innocent lives. They were wrong - but given that nothing like that had been tried (or had even been possible before WW2) were they wrong to do so?

Nobody has the right to be a *********** idiot. Especially not decision makers in wartime. Maybe they should have asked the Londoners if aerial bombardement made them more inclined towards surrender, or less? Maybe they should have wondered if a madman like Hitle, who had already sent many hundreds of thousands to their deaths, cared so much about his people that a few hundred thousand more death would convince him to surrender?

Well, for starters, Chaos, I couldn't find where I said what you quote. Certainly not in this thread. In any case, I was speaking of the *generation* of Germans in questions, not of every individual.

You can´t find where or when you said it, but you still know exactly what you were talking about? Amazing.

A generation is made up of every individual of that time - or what else, in your opinion, is a generation?

For your interest, you said here (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=49091&page=2), post #44, "I am not willing to hear from the children and grandchildren of Hitler's murderers".


But now that I think about it, your grandfather *was*--at least--an accessory to murder, was he not?

Equally amazing to your miraculous total recall is how, in your mind, the absolute *lack* of evidence for a person´s guilt somehow, magically, transforms into conclusive evidence for that guilt.


You see, my grandparents were on the other side, and for some strange reason they kept saying that everybody, certainly all the jews, knew *very* well that at the very least horrible mistreatment, and most likely murder, will await them anywhere the Wehrmacht set its foot. They knew from the moment they saw the non-Nazi, didn't-know-anything, columns of Wehrmacht soldiers passing the village that this means they are condemned to torture and death.

(And indeed, it usually started with the non-political, oh-so-anti-Nazi Wehrmacht soldiers cutting off the jews' beards for fun, or forcing them to clean latrines in their prayer shawls, etc.)

How come *they* knew that instantly, and your grandfather, who was part of those same Wehrmacht columns, had *no idea* this is what would happen? Were my grandparents psychic? Did they have the gift of seeing the improbable future nobody could guess?

Or is it slightly more likely that your granfather, like everybody else, knew very well what would happen to the jews where the Whermacht set foot... but did nothing and continued to obey orders... and that the "gee, I didn't know" and "gee, I was against it" claims are simply post-war rationalizations?

Of course the latter is far more likely; and your grandfather, serving Hitler loyally in the Wehrmacht, was an accessory to murder.

I don´t care for the 103rd repetition of "Germans are evil".

And while we´re at it, I am sick and tired of you ignoring everything I write except for the parts which you can use to misrepresent my position and attack me and my family.

YOU claimed I was the son and grandson of "Hitler´s murderers" - don´t deny that. YOU have the burden of proof for that. Your usual generic racist blathering about the collective guilt of all Germans and the undeniable merit of mass murder committed against them are NOT evidence. My grandparents where specific persons. The least that would be expected from any reasonable person is that they provide specific evidence against them.

[Skeptic]

I don´t care for the 103rd repetition of "Germans are evil".

Well, of course you don't. But as far as I am concerned, those who served in the Wehrmacht were evil.

[Chaos]

Well, of course you don't. But as far as I am concerned, those who served in the Wehrmacht were evil.

But you didn´t say "those who served in the Wehrmacht were evil", you said that "Germany" and "the Germans" were.


BTW, I *still* do not see any apology for baseless accusations you have made.

[Huntster]

Originally Posted by Chaos :
I don´t care for the 103rd repetition of "Germans are evil".
Well, of course you don't. But as far as I am concerned, those who served in the Wehrmacht were evil.

Even as a child I wondered how people could commit a crime like genocide. It has intrigued me throughout my life. Imagine my utter delight when Dr. Christopher Browning wrote "Ordinary Men; Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland". I couldn't get it and read it fast enough.

This should be required reading for all. It illustrates just how easily people can be made to do the unthinkable.

Amazon reviews:

Amazon.com
Shocking as it is, this book--a crucial source of original research used for the bestseller Hitler's Willing Executioners--gives evidence to suggest the opposite conclusion: that the sad-sack German draftees who perpetrated much of the Holocaust were not expressing some uniquely Germanic evil, but that they were average men comparable to the run of humanity, twisted by historical forces into inhuman shapes. Browning, a thorough historian who lets no one off the moral hook nor fails to weigh any contributing factor--cowardice, ideological indoctrination, loyalty to the battalion, and reluctance to force the others to bear more than their share of what each viewed as an excruciating duty--interviewed hundreds of the killers, who simply could not explain how they had sunken into savagery under Hitler. A good book to read along with Ron Rosenbaum's comparably excellent study Explaining Hitler. --Tim Appelo

From Publishers Weekly
Browning reconstructs how a German reserve police battalion composed of "ordinary men," middle-aged, working class people, killed tens of thousands of Jews during WW II.

Reviewer: James Ferguson (Vilnius, Lithuania)

Browning's book came as a welcome relief after trudging through much of Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners. It is interesting that he and Goldhagen approached Battalion 101 from diametrically opposite directions. Browning does not try to assess blame, but rather focus on the circumstances which led to the notorious killing spree of this battalion in Poland. Well researched with some very interesting case studies, Browning illustrates how ordinary men can be made into seemingly ruthless killers. Stalin used many of the same tactics in the Soviet Union, pitting one ethnic group against another, knowing that there would be little identification between ethnic groups in times of war.
Browning provides the background of the men that comprised the battalion and the early vascilation and indecision that took place before finally being used as an execution squad in the months leading up to the Final Solution. He takes the readers through the horrific scenes, showing just how easy it was to succumb to the dictates being handed down through a long chain of command. Browning sees it is a fault-line that runs through humanity and is not specific to any one racial or ethnic group, but is an outgrowth of the devastating conditions of war.

Reviewer: R. J Szasz (Tokyo, Japan Japan)

Browning has written a very important book. He looks at the Reserve Police Battalion 101 from Hamburg made up of mostly middle-aged men mostly of artisans and working class non-career police reservists. The kind of men that were either too old for normal front-line service and those who had no desire to persue a career in the police outside their role in this reserve unit.
Browning uses incredible documentation from postwar German interogations of men of this unit involved in wartime attrocities. He had access to more than 400 testimonies of the over 500 men that made up this unit during the war. As such he is able to analyse the actions and thinking in greater detail than most other German units.

He describes the insidious use of even these units as first guards on trains to transport Jews to extermination camps, their eventual use in rounding up Jews in the Polish Ghettos, and their use as actual shootes in the extermination of whole villages.

That this unit of 500 men --- made up of police reservists, not trained in combat, and seeminly tangential to entire holocaust programme --- could be directly responsible for the shooting deaths of 38,000 people and the transportion of 100,000s of thousands of others to their deaths, makes depressing reading indeed.

Unfortunately, although Browning documents the horror of this representative small unit, he does not really answer his question of how a father with loving kids in Germany, with no combat experience could one day, be ordered to a village in Poland and in the small hours of the morning kill women and children just because they are Jewish.

Browning may be begging the question when he says "ordinary men" --- one thing that may have made them far from ordinary was the corroding and infective influence of racialist Nazi claptrap that came to be accepted truth in German society in the years leading up to the war. Browning's book does not go into this question, and it is not covered by the interogators, nor certainly not volunteered by those who were interogated. It is however the central question of how an ordinary husband could walk up to children, women and old men and shoot them on the spot with little remorse or, at best, a casuistic reasoning. It is the central question that needs answering: how much can racialist ideology, condoned and encouraged by society, lead to turning ordinary men into extraordinary monsters. That is the horror of this book and one that one should be encouraged to find out the answer to.

* Note this is not a light read. It will turn your stomach at times and wrench your heart.

Reviewer R. J Szasz has hit the nail on the head. Browning clearly illustrates that ordinary men can be turned into monsters, and done so en masse.

The work that is the natural extension of Browning's book is how pervasive and dangerous ideology is.

We see lots of ideology in this forum. Many of us see danger in other's ideology.

How can we control or reduce it, so that we stop killing each other?

That is the question...................

[Chaos]

*snip*
The work that is the natural extension of Browning's book is how pervasive and dangerous ideology is.

We see lots of ideology in this forum. Many of us see danger in other's ideology.

How can we control or reduce it, so that we stop killing each other?

That is the question...................

Well, I have to say I feel fairly save in the knowledge that *I*, unlike others, don´t encourage and justify mass murder.

Seriously... yes, it´s true that ideology can turn people into monsters. But somehow I don´t think this justifies (or *would* justify) slaughtering a whole nation for the crimes of those who have fallen for this ideology (Not that I´m saying that you, Huntster, think so, but others here obviously do). I, literally *everybody* can fall for ideology. If, as someone here suggested, even people who didn´t do something are guilty of it, because they *would* have done it, given the order - wouldn´t that mean that *everybody* is guilty, because in the end, everybody would, in with that ideology, do it, given the order?

[Giz]

Well, I have to say I feel fairly save in the knowledge that *I*, unlike others, don´t encourage and justify mass murder.


No, you just demand that the Allied fight a limited war against an opponent waging total war.

I would have said that WW2 was close enough, and important enough, that the Allies had to try as hard as they could to win... fighting with one arm tied behind their back would have been the epitome of foolishness.

I am very well able distinguish between attacks on industry, like, say, the Schweinfurth ball bearing plants, and those many attacks which were aimed ONLY at residential areas. I would therefore be very grateful if you could, PLEASE, stop pretending that I do not distinguish between these. THANK YOU.

Chaos, WW2 bombing runs would generally scatter their munitions over a radius of a dozen miles or so! There's a reason they used so many bombs - it was impossible to precision bomb factories... any strategic bombing campaign would have resulted in mass civilian casulaties... even if the purported targets were limited to ball bearing works.


Maybe they should have wondered if a madman like Hitle, who had already sent many hundreds of thousands to their deaths, cared so much about his people that a few hundred thousand more death would convince him to surrender?

Perhaps they thought that if the regime could no longer protect its population then support would waver, and Hitler might be ousted in a coup. After all, the failure of Imperial Germany to feed it's population contributed greatly to the domestic travails of the regime and ultimately the removal of the Kaiser. There was (to return to WW2) the July44 bomb plot. Of course with hindsight we know that Hitler remained in power but the Allied commanders didn't and did what they honestly thought best.

Nobody has the right to be a *********** idiot. Especially not decision makers in wartime.
Humans are fallible, errors of judgement occur. Get used to it. (And grow up.)

[Huntster]

Originally Posted by Huntster :
*snip*
The work that is the natural extension of Browning's book is how pervasive and dangerous ideology is.

We see lots of ideology in this forum. Many of us see danger in other's ideology.

How can we control or reduce it, so that we stop killing each other?

That is the question................... Well, I have to say I feel fairly save in the knowledge that *I*, unlike others, don´t encourage and justify mass murder.

Seriously... yes, it´s true that ideology can turn people into monsters. But somehow I don´t think this justifies (or *would* justify) slaughtering a whole nation for the crimes of those who have fallen for this ideology.

Nor do I accuse you of that, like you realize that I don't advocate that:



I haven't even caught somebody "advocating" that. It's taboo, and well it should be.

[QUOTE]...I, literally *everybody* can fall for ideology....

No doubt. I've fallen for it.

Now, I try to avoid it.

...If, as someone here suggested, even people who didn´t do something are guilty of it, because they *would* have done it, given the order - wouldn´t that mean that *everybody* is guilty, because in the end, everybody would, in with that ideology, do it, given the order?

That's the scope of Browning's book. He didn't start with a theory. He documented what happened. He didn't even theorize. He just presented the evidence. You draw your own conclusions.

From what I've read elsewhere, the conclusions among all peoples are identical. Survivors old enough and literate enough to respond come in with the same answers:

There is evil in this world; you can fall into it, you can resist it, or you can ride it out. Whatever way, you're in for a ride.

[Chaos]

No, you just demand that the Allied fight a limited war against an opponent waging total war.

I would have said that WW2 was close enough, and important enough, that the Allies had to try as hard as they could to win... fighting with one arm tied behind their back would have been the epitome of foolishness.



Chaos, WW2 bombing runs would generally scatter their munitions over a radius of a dozen miles or so! There's a reason they used so many bombs - it was impossible to precision bomb factories... any strategic bombing campaign would have resulted in mass civilian casulaties... even if the purported targets were limited to ball bearing works.

Okay, one last ***ing time, I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT AIR RAIDS TARGETTING FACTORIES (WHATEVER THEY ACTUALLY DO HIT), I AM TALKING ABOUT AIR RAIDS THAT DELIBERATELY TARGET ONLY RESIDENTIAL AREAS! Can you finally get that into your *********** mind, or not? You can either read what I write, and respond to that, instead of making up ********, or shut up. It´s your choice.


*snip*Humans are fallible, errors of judgement occur. Get used to it. (And grow up.)

Maybe if *you* could grow up and debate like a man, instead of bashing strawmen, I could take that request more serious.

I haven't even caught somebody "advocating" that. It's taboo, and well it should be.


Well, Skeptic, has very clearly advocated just that. And he´s proud of it. Think about that what you want. I know what *I* think about it.

There is evil in this world; you can fall into it, you can resist it, or you can ride it out. Whatever way, you're in for a ride.

It´s not quite that simple. There is more than *evil* in the world, there are several evils. And the easiest way to fall for one of them is mindless, fanatical hatred of another of these evils - or for what one believes is such an evil.

[Huntster]

...Nobody has the right to be a *********** idiot.....

Actually, I believe people do have the right to be a *********** idiot if they so choose.

It's not a crime to be a *********** idiot.

[Chaos]

Actually, I believe people do have the right to be a *********** idiot if they so choose.

It's not a crime to be a *********** idiot.

If being a *********** idiot (or any other kind of idiot) gets a lot of people killed, then yes, it is a crime.

People in a position of responsibility have a... well... responsibility. They *have to* make the right decisions, to the best of their ability. And if they know they´re not up to it, of worse, if they *choose* to be idiots, it is their duty to make sure they turn over their responsibility to someone who is actually willing and able to do the job right.

Again - in a position of responsibility, it *is* a crime to be an idiot.

[Giz]

If being a *********** idiot (or any other kind of idiot) gets a lot of people killed, then yes, it is a crime.

People in a position of responsibility have a... well... responsibility. They *have to* make the right decisions, to the best of their ability. And if they know they´re not up to it, of worse, if they *choose* to be idiots, it is their duty to make sure they turn over their responsibility to someone who is actually willing and able to do the job right.

Again - in a position of responsibility, it *is* a crime to be an idiot.

1) So allocating resources in any sub-optimal way is a war crime? (That would just about every general since time began...)

2) Bomber Harris did not "choose" to be an idiot, he took a view - based on the prevailing theories of the day in vogue amongst professional air officers worldwide - that has been since shown to be wrong. If the theory had worked it would have ended the War sooner and saved lives.

3) As a whole the bomber campaign worked. It could have been better - but that could be said of any campaign in history...

(And blaming the Allies for the destruction visited in WW2 is a bit rich IMHO.)

[Huntster]

Originally Posted by Huntster :
Actually, I believe people do have the right to be a *********** idiot if they so choose.

It's not a crime to be a *********** idiot.
If being a *********** idiot (or any other kind of idiot) gets a lot of people killed, then yes, it is a crime....

I believe you are referring to a wrong act or failure to act that might result in human death, not the existence of what someone else calls "idiocy".

Odds are, the person you claim to be thinks that you are the idiot.

People in a position of responsibility have a... well... responsibility. They *have to* make the right decisions, to the best of their ability. And if they know they´re not up to it, of worse, if they *choose* to be idiots, it is their duty to make sure they turn over their responsibility to someone who is actually willing and able to do the job right.

In the Western world, people in a position of responsibility were either voted into or appointed/hired into those positions.

So who's the idiot? The person in that position, or the person(s) who put him/her there?

Again - in a position of responsibility, it *is* a crime to be an idiot.

Query the U.S. Code, or your state administrative code or statutes. See if you can find the crime of "idiocy".

Let me know what you find.

[CapelDodger]

A generation is made up of every individual of that time - or what else, in your opinion, is a generation?
This goes to the heart of the difference between you - and me - and Skeptic. Skeptic thinks in terms of categories, we think in terms of individuals. Skeptic even parcels time into "generations". I lost my last grandparent in March, two weeks after she became a great-great-grandmother. I have an aunt eight years older than me. What the hell is a generation?

[Skeptic]

This goes to the heart of the difference between you - and me - and Skeptic. Skeptic thinks in terms of categories, we think in terms of individuals.

(Yawn)

Don't flatter yourself, CapelDodger; you, too, are quite capable of thinking "in terms of categories" instead of "in terms of individuals" when it comes to passing moral judgement on really evil people--like "zionists" or "conservatives", for example.

It is not that you are incapable of hate or of thinking "categorically"; the difference between you and me is simply in the target of our hate. You have white-hot hatered to those who merely politically disagree with you--such as the two groups I mentioned above. On the other hand, you have a forgiving and understanding attitude towards those--like the Germans in WWII and Islamists today--who would kill you in a second if they have a chance.

(And yes, I mean "Germans", not "Nazis". Or do you think that if the non-Nazi, made-of-good-individuals Wehrmacht had succeeded in conquering England and you were alive at the time, your fate would have been any different than that of the other jews who fell into Hitler's hands?)

For this reason, CD, I consider you morally insane.

[Orwell]

We all think in terms of categories, it often makes life easier. Personally, I know that I do it, and I try to avoid it as much as I can.

"Skeptic" not only does it all the time, but he is proud of it. And if you aim for some nuance, he might even berate you with a self-righteous homily, just so you know how wrong he thinks you are.

"Morally insane"... :rolleyes:

He's a regular church lady, I tell ya!

[Chaos]

1) So allocating resources in any sub-optimal way is a war crime? (That would just about every general since time began...)

*sigh*

You don´t really read what I write, do you?

Okay, for the record: Intentionally allocating resources in a way that is known to lead to sub-optimal result, when there is no overriding reason to do (like to prevent the enemy from noticing you´ve broken their codes), means you are doing your job - if waging this war for your country is your job.


2) Bomber Harris did not "choose" to be an idiot, he took a view - based on the prevailing theories of the day in vogue amongst professional air officers worldwide - that has been since shown to be wrong. If the theory had worked it would have ended the War sooner and saved lives.

3) As a whole the bomber campaign worked. It could have been better - but that could be said of any campaign in history...

(And blaming the Allies for the destruction visited in WW2 is a bit rich IMHO.)

I blame everybody for what themselves did. If YOU decided to kill civilians, then YOU decided to kill them, not someone else, so I will blame YOU, not someone else.


*snip*


And for your enthusiastically supporting the murder of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent women and children, and suggesting that many, many more should have been murdered, I consider YOU morally insane.

And your consistent refusal to take back all the lies you´ve told and to apologize for all the attacks on me and my family, I consider you a troll.

[Giz]

*sigh*

You don´t really read what I write, do you?

Okay, for the record: Intentionally allocating resources in a way that is known to lead to sub-optimal result, when there is no overriding reason to do (like to prevent the enemy from noticing you´ve broken their codes), means you are doing your job - if waging this war for your country is your job.



However as no-one in Bomber Command intentionally mis-allocated forces your point is moot. (And if someone had intentionally misallocated resources, hoping for a sub optimal result then it would have been treason).

[Mike B.]

This goes to the heart of the difference between you - and me - and Skeptic. Skeptic thinks in terms of categories, we think in terms of individuals.

OMFG!

Are you serious?

You, who believes you have unique ability to know what "'Mericans" say or think is claiming you think in terms of "individuals."

I am sorry but you did leave an open flank there. Spare the rod...

[ImaginalDisc]

(Yawn)

Don't flatter yourself, CapelDodger; you, too, are quite capable of thinking "in terms of categories" instead of "in terms of individuals" when it comes to passing moral judgement on really evil people--like "zionists" or "conservatives", for example.

It is not that you are incapable of hate or of thinking "categorically"; the difference between you and me is simply in the target of our hate. You have white-hot hatered to those who merely politically disagree with you--such as the two groups I mentioned above. On the other hand, you have a forgiving and understanding attitude towards those--like the Germans in WWII and Islamists today--who would kill you in a second if they have a chance.

(And yes, I mean "Germans", not "Nazis". Or do you think that if the non-Nazi, made-of-good-individuals Wehrmacht had succeeded in conquering England and you were alive at the time, your fate would have been any different than that of the other jews who fell into Hitler's hands?)

For this reason, CD, I consider you morally insane.

Skeptic, has CapelDodger ever said that it would be good if all "zionists " or "conservatives" were murdered with bombs dropped on them, because you have claimed that murdering all Germans in WWII would have been perfectly justified. If you're going to try to draw an equivilence between you and CD, you'll need more evidence than that he doesn't like people who disagree with him. You'll need to show that he has no problem with killing people who disagree with him.

[Mike B.]

Skeptic, has CapelDodger ever said that it would be good if all "zionists " or "conservatives" were murdered with bombs dropped on them, because you have claimed that murdering all Germans in WWII would have been perfectly justified. If you're going to try to draw an equivilence between you and CD, you'll need more evidence than that he doesn't like people who disagree with him. You'll need to show that he has no problem with killing people who disagree with him.

I will help you out.

Here is CD's take on Serbs.

Quote:

"In the main, those Serbs that could get out of Serbia because they have education and/or skills have done. The remaining population is dross-heavy.

I loved the bombing of Serbia. Given my 'druthers, I'd have bombed it a lot more and a lot earlier. Only when the war came home to Serbia in a way that didn't involve container-loads of looted white-goods would he fall, and sho'nuff when it did he fell."

Amazing that someone who thinks in terms of "individuals" can call all the remaining people there "dross-heavy."

Amazing too how he "loved" the bombing of civilians.

[Chaos]

Got a link for that?

[Mike B.]

Got a link for that?

Here you go:

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1499740&postcount=19

[Chaos]

Thanks.

Yet still his comments - promoting all-out war to topple a tyrant - falls somewhat short of promoting genocide.
Where "dross-heavy" falls in relation to the horse manure presented by others here might be less clear-cut.

[ImaginalDisc]

I certainly don't agree with CapelDodger's opinions regarding Serbia, but I didn't see him say that killing every single Serb would be a good thing, the way Skeptic claimed all Germans deserved to die.