OT - 60th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz

[NoMyths]

Please take a moment from your day to reflect on the millions of people who suffered unendurable torment because of anger and hatred, and rededicate your life to making sure that you never allow, contribute to, or approve of any part of similar tragedies.

[Flasch186]

May we never allow it to happen again to anyone anywhere.

[MIJB#19]

For what it's worth. here in the Netherlands people have been reading up names of 102,000 Auschwitz victims. It took six days to read up the entire list...

[Lathum]

Some of my grandfathers family perished there and what makes me sick is there are still people today who say it never happened.

[Loren]

Originally Posted by MIJB#19

For what it's worth. here in the Netherlands people have been reading up names of 102,000 Auschwitz victims. It took six days to read up the entire list...

That's a very respectful thing for a country to do..I agree it's pretty sick that people will argue The Holocaust ever happened, and schools truly dont spend the time they should on teaching kids about this part of history..

[bob]

Originally Posted by Loren

That's a very respectful thing for a country to do..I agree it's pretty sick that people will argue The Holocaust ever happened, and schools truly dont spend the time they should on teaching kids about this part of history..

I agree that schools don't spend enough time on this... It always irritated me as a student in high school and younger that by the end of the year, you barely got to the civil war since you start WAY far back in history. Seems to me that at least a quarter of the time should have been spent on WWI - now, since at lot of the issues and hatred that caused many of the wars during that period still exist and influence issues today.

[Qwikshot]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

May we never allow it to happen again to anyone anywhere.

Bosnia
Rwanda
Cambodia
Darfur Region


While not on the same scale, history does repeat itself.

[weinstein7]

Originally Posted by Qwikshot

Serbia
Rwanda
Cambodia
Darfur Region


While not on the same scale, history does repeat itself.

Bosnia, not Serbia.

Serbs were the ones committing the genocide. But the point still stands. And I'm sure there are a lot more examples too.

[Qwikshot]

Originally Posted by weinstein7

Bosnia, not Serbia.

Serbs were the ones committing the genocide. But the point still stands. And I'm sure there are a lot more examples too.

True, I'll make the correction.

[weinstein7]

Finally that MA in Central European Studies pays off!

[rdomico]

about 35 million babies have been killed in legal abortions in the US.

[stevew]

Is price Harry playing the part of an SS soldier in the Re-enactment?

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by rdomico

about 35 million babies have been killed in legal abortions in the US.

Even if this were true, it's not the same as a state-sponsored, systematic program of genocide designed to erase an entire race of people.

Don't use the Holocaust to advance your own personal agenda.

[weinstein7]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Even if this were true, it's not the same as a state-sponsored, systematic program of genocide designed to erase an entire race of people.

Actually, to be more accurate they were trying to kill off TWO races of people, roma (gypsies) being the other one. If anyone has been to Auschwitz in the last couple of years, there's a really good exhibit on this. It's far and away the most interesting part of the museum, as the rest of it is horribly done (blame the Communists for that).

Also homosexuals were a target as well, although they're obviously not a "race."

[JeeberD]

Originally Posted by rdomico

about 35 million babies have been killed in legal abortions in the US.

Oh boy, here we go...

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Even if this were true, it's not the same as a state-sponsored, systematic program of genocide designed to erase an entire race of people.

Don't use the Holocaust to advance your own personal agenda.

Amen to that

[cartman]

Originally Posted by lighthousekeeper

not to take away from anything - but 60? Since when was 60 a newsworthy milestone?

When you still have people alive who experienced it first hand, all of them are newsworthy, considering each year there are fewer and fewer left.

[Sun Tzu]

Can't you people just pay homage to those who died without putting your own political bullshit $0.02 into it?

Thank god for those who lived, and may god be with those who didn't. I'm happy my family made it out before it was too late.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Even if this were true, it's not the same as a state-sponsored, systematic program of genocide designed to erase an entire race of people.

What's this, Animal Farm for atrocities? "All murder is equal, but some murders are more equal than others?"

Are you seriously suggesting that there's a line across which it becomes acceptable to take lives on a mass scale? 9/11, Auschwitz and Treblinka were wrong, but Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and "I'm not ready to be a mother" abortions aren't? I'm not getting into the abortions of medical necessity - that's a whole different can of worms that I'm not prepared to debate right now - but surely you accept that when abortion is available on a mass scale, it gets used for convenience as well as health issues.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

Are you seriously suggesting that there's a line across which it becomes acceptable to take lives on a mass scale? 9/11, Auschwitz and Treblinka were wrong, but Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and "I'm not ready to be a mother" abortions aren't?

Are you seriously suggesting that Hiroshima & Nagasaki are the same thing as Auschwitz?

Please, for the love of God, tell me you didn't just try to draw that parallel.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Are you seriously suggesting that Hiroshima & Nagasaki are the same thing as Auschwitz?

Please, for the love of God, tell me you didn't just try to draw that parallel.

We dropped two atomic bombs on civilian cities, not military targets. Expedience != moral justification, Jon. I understand that dropping the bombs ended the war sooner and saved American lives, but that doesn't mean the death of 300,000 civilians (not to mention those who died from radiation poisoning in subsequent years) is inherently any more right than Auschwitz.

Both Hiroshima+Nagasaki and Auschwitz are deplorable from where I'm sitting.

[sabotai]

I wish I could say that I'm surprised this became about abortion..... *sigh*

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

What's this, Animal Farm for atrocities? "All murder is equal, but some murders are more equal than others?"

Are you seriously suggesting that there's a line across which it becomes acceptable to take lives on a mass scale? 9/11, Auschwitz and Treblinka were wrong, but Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and "I'm not ready to be a mother" abortions aren't? I'm not getting into the abortions of medical necessity - that's a whole different can of worms that I'm not prepared to debate right now - but surely you accept that when abortion is available on a mass scale, it gets used for convenience as well as health issues.

You know, I looked back over my post and I don't remember comparing the Holocaust to Dresden, Hiroshima & Nagasaki.

You've taken what I said and made me out as a person who couldn't care less about the lives of innocent German and Japanese civilians.

For that, I want an apology, and I want it now.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

You know, I looked back over my post and I don't remember comparing the Holocaust to Dresden, Hiroshima & Nagasaki.

You've taken what I said and made me out as a person who couldn't care less about the lives of innocent German and Japanese civilians.

For that, I want an apology, and I want it now.

No, you're absolutely right. You didn't compare the Holocaust to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You never indicated you couldn't care less about the lives of innocent Japanese and German civilians.

Instead, you displayed a similar callousness towards the lives of innocent unborn children, who aren't even able to protest as the Jews did during World War II, and as the Japanese did after the dropping of the atomic bombs.

Is that the apology you were looking for?

Maybe not.

Maybe you need to understand that what I said is that the taking of ANY life is equally horrendous, and that when you split hairs between actions taken by a sovereign goverment in wartime, and people who don't want to deal with an inconvenience, and try to say that one is somehow not that bad relative to the other, we aren't talking about what you are. "We're just negotiating the price," as Winston Churchill is reputed to have once said.

[weinstein7]

Here's the thing though: regardless of whether you're pro-choice or pro-life, abortion and genocide are simply two completely different things. There's no reason to bring a discussion of abortion into a discussion of genocide. And war crimes, which Hiroshima/Nagasaki and Dresden arguably were, are still another issue altogether.

[flere-imsaho]

OK, so Abortions = Hiroshima = Nagasaki = 9/11 = Dresden = The Holocaust.

I get it.

Fuck You Asshole. May you rot in your own benighted, ignorant, idiotic, self-righteous stupor, dribbling away the rest of your days to a slow and painful decay.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

OK, so Abortions = Hiroshima = Nagasaki = 9/11 = Dresden = The Holocaust.

Murder is murder. The scale on which it happens doesn't make it any less reprehensible.

I get it.

Fuck You Asshole. May you rot in your own benighted, ignorant, idiotic, self-righteous stupor, dribbling away the rest of your days to a slow and painful decay.

I'm sorry, did I touch a nerve?

[judicial clerk]

What's this, Animal Farm for atrocities? "All murder is equal, but some murders are more equal than others?"

Are you seriously suggesting that there's a line across which it becomes acceptable to take lives on a mass scale? 9/11, Auschwitz and Treblinka were wrong, but Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and "I'm not ready to be a mother" abortions aren't? I'm not getting into the abortions of medical necessity - that's a whole different can of worms that I'm not prepared to debate right now - but surely you accept that when abortion is available on a mass scale, it gets used for convenience as well as health issues.

I read this to mean that you think all killing is inappropriate and the reasons for killing are not important. I disagree with this as there are valid reasons for killing. Defending yourself or others from the imminent threat of great bodily injury or death are common examples. Executing people pursuant to death penalty statutes is another examply of sanctioned killing. The purpose behind the act is very important and should not be so casually dismissed.

Other examples of geonicide that often times get overlooked would be Nanking during WWII and Armenians at the hand of the Turks.

[NoMyths]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

Murder is murder. The scale on which it happens doesn't make it any less reprehensible.

If you cannot see a difference between what happened to the millions of people who were forcibly taken from their homes and families, tortured for periods of time ranging from days to years, and being systematically murdered through gassings, shootings, and beatings, and abortion, then you have no respectable understanding of the Holocaust. There is no equivocation between what happened to those people and anything else that you have listed. Your time would be better spent educating yourself about the scope of the tragedy. It is not as much an issue of scale as it is an issue of reason and method.

And if this discussion continues in this vein, people will most assuredly lose posts. Silence would be preferable to argument in this thread.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by judicial clerk

I read this to mean that you think all killing is inappropriate and the reasons for killing are not important. I disagree with this as there are valid reasons for killing. Defending yourself or others from the imminent threat of great bodily injury or death are common examples. Executing people pursuant to death penalty statutes is another examply of sanctioned killing. The purpose behind the act is very important and should not be so casually dismissed.

Other examples of geonicide that often times get overlooked would be Nanking during WWII and Armenians at the hand of the Turks.

Absolutely agreed. However, I think the common thread in the examples I cited were that in each of those cases, innocents (or non-combatants, if you prefer) were the ones being killed. Defending yourself when attacked, or from an imminent threat, sure, that's one thing. The death penalty, eh, you could have every bit as spirited a debate on its appropriateness as we're having about this tangent of the discussion, but sure, okay. Again, though, you have a direct cause and effect. Soldiers taking up arms against you (or an individual threatening your life in some other way), or somebody who has broken a rule so egregious that society has dictated that the penalty for that transgression is death.

I don't see the examples I cited - or your examples of the Rape of Nanking and the Armenian slaughter - as fitting into that scenario, though.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by NoMyths

If you cannot see a difference between what happened to the millions of people who were forcibly taken from their homes and families, tortured for periods of time ranging from days to years, and being systematically murdered through gassings, shootings, and beatings, and abortion, then you have no respectable understanding of the Holocaust. There is no equivocation between what happened to those people and anything else that you have listed. Your time would be better spent educating yourself about the scope of the tragedy. It is not as much an issue of scale as it is an issue of reason and method.

And if this discussion continues in this vein, people will most assuredly lose posts. Silence would be preferable to argument in this thread.

Seems to me people are zeroing in on the 'abortion' part of it, and ignoring *EDIT* the rest of the examples I cited */EDIT* because it's politically expedient. That said, no, I don't see a difference. Those killed in the Holocaust were living, breathing humans, the same as you or me...except the Nazis didn't see it that way. By portraying the Jews as something less than human, they were able to propagate an incredible atrocity upon the European continent.

It's a little bit of a troubling parallel, wouldn't you say, that the frequently-cited justification for abortion is that "it's not a human being yet," that it can't live outside of the mother's body? The first step towards making an atrocious act towards other humans somehow more palatable is to reduce the humanity of that which you would exterminate.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

Both Hiroshima+Nagasaki and Auschwitz are deplorable from where I'm sitting.

Then I'm glad we don't sit in the same place.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Then I'm glad we don't sit in the same place.

Really? Does that mean it would be okay, Jon, if the remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime were to acquire nuclear weapons and use them against American cities, if they thought it would bring the American government to abandon the Iraq conflict?

But NoMyths is right. This isn't the place for this discussion. I'll happily continue it via PM - with anybody - if you so desire.

[sabotai]

Did I mention how I'm not surprised someone went and made this about abortion? Just checking.... (can't even have a thread on the Holocaust without someone drawing a parallel with abortion.....geez)

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

Seems to me people are zeroing in on the 'abortion' part of it, and ignoring *EDIT* the rest of the examples I cited */EDIT* because it's politically expedient.

I wonder why? Maybe because you made such a big deal of it and because not everyone shares your asinine views on abortion.

It's a little bit of a troubling parallel, wouldn't you say, that the frequently-cited justification for abortion is that "it's not a human being yet," that it can't live outside of the mother's body? The first step towards making an atrocious act towards other humans somehow more palatable is to reduce the humanity of that which you would exterminate.

And, for this, you would deny abortions to 14-year-old rape victims whose chance of surviving childbirth is nil? Do you also preach abstinence to the exclusion of all other forms of avoiding unwanted pregnancies, such as prophylactics?

As NoMyths said, if you don't understand the difference between genocide and abortion then you don't understand the subject matter of this thread.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

Really? Does that mean it would be okay, Jon, if the remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime were to acquire nuclear weapons and use them against American cities, if they thought it would bring the American government to abandon the Iraq conflict?

Jeez, make up arguments and shove them in other people's mouths much? Let's check your tally so far:

1. flere-imsaho thinks it's OK to kill Germans and Japanese.
2. JoninMiddleGA thinks it's OK for Baathist remnants to acquire nuclear weapons and use them on American cities.

Seriously, your inability to understand simple, basic concepts astounds me.

But NoMyths is right. This isn't the place for this discussion. I'll happily continue it via PM - with anybody - if you so desire.

Oh I see. It's OK to brand some people as ogres, as devoid of humanity and then say "I don't want to talk about it in public anymore." If your thoughts are worth any intellectual rigor at all, you'll defend them in public. However, as we've all seen so far, your thoughts are a lot of unfounded bullshit.

[Jesse_Ewiak]

Ah, I don't have a problem with people who don't like abortions. I have a problem with people who want to outlaw them. I have a bigger problem with people who want to restrict access to/education about contraception and the "morning after pill" and who want to outlaw abortion.

I have no problem with people who don't like abortion. I have no problem with people who think that the number of abortions should be reduced by finding ways to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies.

I have no problem with people who think that those who have abortions have committed an evil act, as long as they don't demand that I feel the same way or aggressively try to shame those who have them.

As long as you don't believe that politicians or judges should be trying to stop legal abortions, there is no tension between your political beliefs and the beliefs of the mainstream of the Democratic party.

But, if you're a relatively informed voter who thinks the best way to reduce abortions -- especially abortions internationally, not just locally -- is to vote for the anti-contraception, abstinence-only teaching, global gag rule supporting, Antonin Scalia loving Bush administration, then frankly I don't give a shit what you think. I have no desire to reach out to you. That is, if you're relatively informed and you believe these things then I assume your "pro-life" position is motivated by something other than the simple desire to reduce abortions. The number of abortions went down under Clinton administration policies, and up under Bush-administration ones.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by NoMyths

And if this discussion continues in this vein, people will most assuredly lose posts. Silence would be preferable to argument in this thread.

I certainly hope so, because the posts of rdomico and SackAttack don't deserve the electrons with which they're stored.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Jeez, make up arguments and shove them in other people's mouths much? Let's check your tally so far:

1. flere-imsaho thinks it's OK to kill Germans and Japanese.

I never said that. You jumped straight to that conclusion.

What I took offense to, originally, was the marginalization of one type of tragedy in favor of another. If you'll note, my original post basically said "Look, here are all these other examples of innocents dying on a mass scale, don't marginalize this."

You got pissed off, assumed I meant you thought it was okay to kill German/Japanese civilians, and flew off the handle with your "demand" for an apology. And you've only gone downhill from there, what with your wish that I

rot in [my] own benighted, ignorant, idiotic, self-righteous stupor, dribbling away the rest of [my] days to a slow and painful decay.

Right after you called me an asshole.

That's an incredible level of vitriol to be directing towards me, when all I originally said was that I had a problem with your distinction between two different forms of murder.

2. JoninMiddleGA thinks it's OK for Baathist remnants to acquire nuclear weapons and use them on American cities.

Once again, I never said this. I asked Jon how he felt about such a scenario, because that's essentially what we did to the Japanese. If it was okay for us to do, does that mean there's a justification for them to do it? As I've said repeatedly, murder is murder. Whether it's expedient in a military sense or not really has no relevance in my view. But I never asserted that Jon believed this.

Seriously, your inability to understand simple, basic concepts astounds me.

Hi, pot.

Oh I see. It's OK to brand some people as ogres, as devoid of humanity and then say "I don't want to talk about it in public anymore." If your thoughts are worth any intellectual rigor at all, you'll defend them in public. However, as we've all seen so far, your thoughts are a lot of unfounded bullshit.

Oh, no, I'll happily continue the discussion in public, if that's what you want. My offer to take it private was meant as a courtesy to others not involved in the discussion.

[Buccaneer]

Respect life and love one another.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

I never said that. You jumped straight to that conclusion.

Whatever. This is what you wrote:

Are you seriously suggesting that there's a line across which it becomes acceptable to take lives on a mass scale? 9/11, Auschwitz and Treblinka were wrong, but Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and "I'm not ready to be a mother" abortions aren't?

Clearly English isn't your first language. I never mentioned those other tragedies. All I said was abortion isn't the same as genocide. You're the one jumping to conclusions.

That's an incredible level of vitriol to be directing towards me, when all I originally said was that I had a problem with your distinction between two different forms of murder.

Guess what? Abortion isn't genocide. You can't compare abortion to the Holocaust, and it's an insult to all victims of genocide to do so.

Does that piss me off? You bet it pisses me off. You're using a horrific tragedy to advance your own petty bullshit agenda.

Once again, I never said this. I asked Jon how he felt about such a scenario, because that's essentially what we did to the Japanese. If it was okay for us to do, does that mean there's a justification for them to do it? As I've said repeatedly, murder is murder. Whether it's expedient in a military sense or not really has no relevance in my view. But I never asserted that Jon believed this.

Of course not, you wouldn't assert anything. Because that would take balls. You'll just imply it until the cows come home.

Well guess what, I'm not implying anything. I'm asserting something. I'll come right out and say it. Anyone who compares the Holocaust to the serious question of abortions has absolutely no clue about what they're talking and should really attempt to educate themselves and attempt to develop some semblance of a grasp upon reality.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Does that piss me off? You bet it pisses me off. You're using a horrific tragedy to advance your own petty bullshit agenda.

Now, see, that's interesting, because I didn't even enter the discussion until the comparison had already been made.

And, I say for the final time, I have not been the one to zero in on abortion. Genocide is a terrible thing, but what it boils down to in the end is straight murder. The fact that it's the murder of a specific race of people doesn't make it any less terrible or horrific than any other mass extermination, and I'm not trying to make excuses for any of those events.

Hell, I even qualified my abortion statement - I didn't condemn abortions for the health of the mother, and I didn't condemn them for "14 year old rape victims," although I do have serious issues with the use of "tugging the heartstrings" to justify a practice I find morally reprehensible. I have repeatedly tried to include all of the atrocities to which I refer in this discussion, not just abortion, and yet again and again the vitriol is coming my way because abortion has been mentioned at all. In fact, for those views, I've been called an uneducated asshole with no grasp of the English language. Oh, and no balls. Don't let me forget that one.

Why does abortion touch a such a nerve for you, flere? Why are you so ready and willing to distinguish between the taking of a life that cannot come to its own advocacy, and a life taken because of the color of one's skin, or one's religion, or whatever other difference sets them apart? Why are you so passionately in defense of those of the latter who are extinguished, but not of the former?

[Glengoyne]

Well just because I can.

I agree with Flasch that we should stand up and stop anything that even resembles this horrible bit of history. Whether it be ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, Kosavo, Rwanda, or the Sudan. Anywhere tyrants use the rule of Arms to supress or extinguish a segment of the population, we should be willing to stand in their way.

As for the rest of the thread.
I think abortion is a deplorable thing. I believe that it is, at least in many cases, the taking of a human life. I Don't think it equates to the Holocaust by any realistic standard of comparison.

I think History has a distinctly different opinion on Hiroshima/Nagasaki and the Holocaust. That alone should dispell any notions they are comprable.

I also Don't think the "mainstream" of the Democratic party believes in the manner that Jessie describes. I'd say that is the position of many moderate Democrats and well moderate Republicans as well.

[NoMyths]

For the last time: please either start a separate thread or continue the abortion discussion through PM.

[Flasch186]

Originally Posted by NoMyths

For the last time: please either start a separate thread or continue the abortion discussion through PM.

i did

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

And, I say for the final time, I have not been the one to zero in on abortion.

Well, I've just re-read the thread again, and I'd have to say that in fact, you have. You've consistently called others to task for not considering abortion to be the same horror as genocide.

Genocide is a terrible thing, but what it boils down to in the end is straight murder. The fact that it's the murder of a specific race of people doesn't make it any less terrible or horrific than any other mass extermination, and I'm not trying to make excuses for any of those events.

I'm somewhat appalled that you don't understand the true horror and danger of genocide.

Why does abortion touch a such a nerve for you, flere? Why are you so ready and willing to distinguish between the taking of a life that cannot come to its own advocacy, and a life taken because of the color of one's skin, or one's religion, or whatever other difference sets them apart? Why are you so passionately in defense of those of the latter who are extinguished, but not of the former?

Sorry pal, I'm not going to have the abortion debate here. You may have missed this, but this was a thread to commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz, not a free pass for anyone to push their own agenda on abortion.

[Ragone]

I believe a drunk truck driver said it best

"Can't we all just.... get along?"

[flere-imsaho]

Well, I'm done for the night anyway, so maybe it'll drop off the front page and into obscurity, where this train wreck should be.

[miked]

It takes a real asshole to equate the Holocaust to abortion.

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by NoMyths

For the last time: please either start a separate thread or continue the abortion discussion through PM.

Seriously, if I were you I'd just delete this thread (I would have long before now probably). It's already gone well overboard imho.