Joe Ellis <synthfilker@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> If a criminal gang tem****arily took over your town, should its
>> decisions be honored as the acts of a legitimate government?
> Show me that the Nazi regime was not a "legitimate" government.
As most people here know, I do not think any government is legitimate.
I think they are all criminal gangs, and do far more harm than
good. I know most people disagree. But to even *try* to argue that
governments do more good than harm, one has to start by excluding the
Nazis, the Communists, Islamic fundemantalist regimes, Genghis Khan,
etc., as legitimate governments.
In just 12 years the Nazis murdered at least nine million people
(including six million Jews) in the Holocaust. I'm not counting
battle casualties, not even civilians. I'm only counting people
who they deliberately murdered in cold blood.
If no government had ever locked up any murderer, how long would it
take all the free-lance and gang killers -- Charles Manson's "family,"
the DC snipers, Ted Bundy, the Unabomber, Tim McVeigh, the Son of
Sam, Jack the Ripper, Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer, the Mafia, MS-13, the
Bloods, the Crips, etc. -- to approach this total? Even if none of
them were ever stopped by any of their would-be victims, I expect it
would take thousands of years.
> Demonstrate that, in broad terms, they were not the "legitimate"
> government of Germany at that time. If not them, then who?
Nobody. If you were to machine-gun everyone in the Capitol building
and White House, then sit down in the Oval Office and start issuing
orders, would that make you the legitimate government of the US?
> Yes, they manipulated the people, and murdered. However, the people
> DID put them into power.
That's good evidence that democracy is not a panacea. Just because
a thug is elected like Hitler rather than having simply murdered his
predecessors like Lenin doesn't make him any less of a thug.
>> That's why I think they should all have simply been freed and had
>> their records expunged. Any who were genuine criminals would be
>> back in jail soon enough. If they'd victimize a few innocent
>> people first, well, the damage to innocent German civilians would
>> be far less than the Allies had already done.
> So you think it wise and just to add to the list of victims? That's
> ridiculous. The potential harm far exceeds the perceived benefit.
I think leaving innocent people in prison is harm which exceeds the
harm that would be done by any freed people who were guilty. Except
for those serving life sentences and those who were to be executed
they'd all be freed eventually anyway, and could commit crimes then.
Or do you think no criminal should ever be freed?
> Free Jews? Of course. Free homo***uals? Absolutely.
Why? Homo***ual acts were illegal.
> Free rapists and murderers? Don't be silly..
You mean people who were convicted in Nazi courts of being rapists
and murderers.
> the ONE thing we can agree with the Nazis on is those people were
> bad eggs.
And of course their courts were run without bias or error, right? How
about if the accused claimed to have ten alibi witnesses, but all ten
had been murdered in concentration camps? That's just their bad luck?
Nothing that the Nazi regime did should be accorded any official
respect or legitimacy. Even their medical research turns out to
be garbage.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html
before emailing me.
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