Genocide, The Jews, And The Six Million
I was having a discussion of a post at Classical Values My People with Brett. Let me reprise the gist of the short post:
If Hitler put them in camps they are my people. Count me with the Jews, the gays, the mental defectives, and the drug users.Brett then asks:
What I don't understand is why so few see something so obvious.My answer to Brett is as follows:
As infected by New Deal collectivism as they were, the G.I. generation were born close enough to the Republic to admonish their children to "mind your own business!"
This folk phrase sums up the ideals of the American Revolution, enjoining us at once to take care of ourselves and to leave others alone, that they may do so.
For some reason, the postwar generations have not been able to stomach this concept.
I've been trying to figure out where we went wrong. I blame it on the Jews (I'm Jewish myself so hang on a minute).
The genocides of WW2 were emphasized as against the Jews and solely promoted by the evil mad man Hitler. "Never again" was only about the Jews. The Jews made the mistake of only talking about the six million and not the twelve. I always thought it was a mistake to elevate Jewish suffering over the suffering of all of Hitlers victims. Jews in general still do it and it is wrong.
Instead of studying genocide as a process we have conceived of it as merely a historical event. Instead of seeing the roots in human nature, it was seen as particular to that time in history.
It all comes from the Jewish conception of man as inherently good. Such a view lets them forgive their enemies as misled. However, it opens the door for the next time.
I think the Catholic view of man as "fallen" comes closer to the truth. The tendency to genocide is in all of us and must be monitored in order to prevent its expression. We must stop looking for devils. Demon rum, demon drugs, demon people. Every instance of good and evil must be dealt with on its own merits.
We are hard wired to ascribe to the group the behaviors of individuals. To be civilized we must watch ourselves as much as we watch others. In a way we must all be Zen Masters if we wish to be and remain civilized.
Cross Posted at Classical Values
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5 comments:
Again, you display phenomenal ignorance. You blame the Jews themselves for the the Holocaust? Try taking the reefer out for awhile, learn some history and realize that our own blessed country, the one you so proudly wave the flag (especially for 9/11™ tributes), played a significant role in allowing Hitler to proceed with his Final Solution.
For example, when Hitler offered to let German Jews leave Germany, the U.S. government used immigration controls to keep them from immigrating here. In fact, as Arthur D. Morse pointed out in his book "While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy", five days after Kristallnacht, which occurred in November 1938, at a White House press conference, a reporter asked Roosevelt, “Would you recommend a relaxation of our immigration restrictions so that the Jewish refugees could be received in this country?” The president replied, “This is not in contemplation. We have the quota system.”
Let’s also not forget the infamous 1939 (i.e., after Kristallnacht) “voyage of the damned,” in which U.S. officials refused to permit German Jews to disembark at Miami Harbor from the German ship the SS St. Louis, knowing that they would be returned to Hitler’s clutches in Nazi Germany.
I'm sure this info has disturbed your delicate senses...I guess it's time to give in to our genetic drug predispositions and snort a few lines of blow????
I think you missed the point.
No man is immune from the call of evil.
If we pay attention we need not respond.
To that I agree wholeheartedly.
You hit exactly the right note when you said the tendency to genocide is in all of us. Contemporary reports from all over the world underscore the universal nature of this remarkable and ugly side of human behavior. Narratives from Rwanda and Darfur are shocking, but at some level we are participating in a similar enterprise in Iraq...except we can't decide which group is to be eliminated. I have the suspicion that what's going on in Burma may have roots in tribal genocidal ambitions, although a modern refinement on the part of tyrants and war lords to train children into warriors, no matter what their origins, may be making adult genocide old-fashioned.
And yes, that first comment did miss the point.
Not two minutes passed after I left that comment before I came across this in the Atlantic.
As one area expert who has spent years on the Thai-Burmese border told me: "It’s not about democracy; it’s about tribes." While the media concentrate on marching monks in Rangoon, ethnic minorities in the north of Burma, far from the television cameras, are slowly being annihilated by the Burmese military.
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