Re: And how did you celebrate 1 May?

In article <481bfd5a$0$240$804603d3@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
 "Dan Goodman" <dsgood@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> David Friedman wrote:
> 
> >  "Dan Goodman" <dsgood@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > 
> > > David Friedman wrote:
> > > 
> > > > What's the date for the Horst-Wessel-Lied?
> > > 
> > > If I recall correctly, Hitler's birthday is April 20th.
> > 
> > And what would be the response to a poster who, on that date, posted 
> > that he sang the Horst-Wessel-Lied, of course?
> > 
> > Roughly speaking, communist governments killed ten times as many of
> > the people they ruled--I'm excluding combat deaths in both cases--as
> > the Nazis did. Of course, it's true that they ruled more people for a
> > longer time, so had more opportunities for mass murder. 
> 
> With the Nazis, it was a matter of principle.
> 
> And, to be cynical for a moment, they lost the war.

I don't think that's the difference--after all, the communists 
eventually lost the cold war, even if it was a more gradual process. And 
liquidating anti-social elements was in the same sense a matter of 
principle with them too.

I think the difference is that there were lots of people in 
non-communist countries who to varying degrees identified with the 
communist ideology--some approving of communist governments, some 
regarding them as examples of a good system that somehow went wrong, 
some starting with the one position and shifting to the other. There 
still are, although I suspect a much larger proportion of the second 
category.

And, of course, they could be right, although I don't think they are.

There were some Nazi supporters outside of Germany, but I don't think 
they were ever anything close to comparable in number or importance.

-- 
 http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
 Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
 Published by Baen, paperback in bookstores now