Don't Leave The Kids Hanging

H/T Ace Of Spades who goes off on a tangent and finishes with some details on the advert. Let me add that this seems to fit in well with the recently pulled 10:10 campaign (which other than to reference I refuse to post on or link to because it is so terminally vile. Watts Up With That has done it to death - yeah - a really bad pun in really bad taste).

You Can't Do It At Random

Commenter CJ Yetman had this to say in my post Paying For Social Security that discussed how Hitler Saved Social Security (for at least a year) by killing a lot of Jews. Actually he probably just moved some paper between file cabinets and spent the money on the war. Still the numbers were adjusted on paper at least. Oh. Yeah. CJ's comment.

So, it would have been completely rational if he had randomly selected a few million people to slaughter?

If I owed a bunch of money to a bunch of different people, would it be rational to murder all of them to relieve myself from the debt?

CJ,

You can't pick them at random. That just gets people riled up.

You have to pick a group everyone hates. Dopers are the only group where the hate is sufficient but that is declining. Although the war on fat people and tobacco smokers is ramping up.

Second off I'm warning against it. Now it may be just a little paranoia on my part. But it goes with my territory. You see I'm Jewish and some of us get twitchy about these things.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

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.

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.

My answer to Brett is as follows:

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

Genocide Is Alright With Me

Actually genocide is not all right with me. Our esteemed Junior Senator from Illinois has a different opinion.

SUNAPEE, N.H. - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there.

Then he brings up Sudan and the Congo and says we have no interest in those places and need do nothing about genocides taking place there.

I think he misses one important factor: we are not already in the Congo and Sudan.

H/T Instapundit

A. Jacksonian has some further thoughts on the subject of American tolerance for genocide.

I Support Democracy In Iraq

Genocide Question

America left South Vietnam to its own devices in 1975, leading to 2 1/2 million deaths and totolitarian governments in Cambodia and Vietnam.

So I assume the anti-war mantra now is: if it turns out no worse than 'Nam every thing will be fine.

Also note that in '75 all the South was asking for was material support and airstrikes against the invading North.

The anti-war folks who constantly scream about genocide now want to enable another one.

OK.

So the question is: if our leaving initiates a genocide in Iraq should we go back to save the people we once promised to protect?

Cross Posted at Classical Values and at The Astute Bloggers