Movies and Films
This is the forum for Movie and Film discussions. Again, our topic is naval warfare in WWII for the most part.
Re: I ain't buying any of this crap
Posted by:
cate
()
Date: July 23, 2002 08:36AM
<HTML>Sorry - ???!!!! So it's OK to wipe a people out if they are getting in your way economically, but not if its done for ideological or political motives? Wow! And if your weaponry and technology is superior that somehow makes it acceptable to drive them off their land and destroy them when they have the temerity to resist. Like only people who aspire to indoor sanitation, fence of land, and make marks on bits of paper deserve any rights to the land they and their ancestors were born on? Many people managed to justify that on the grounds that they were sub human vermin. Where have I heard that before?
Don't play numbers. Everyone of those 50 million people was an individual and unique. They deserve to be more than a statistic. The scale of those atrocities make them unique, hopefully forever. It doesn't detract from the seriousness or evil of smaller atrocities that didn't have the force of 20thC industialisation behind them.
Yes there were brave people like your uncle in Russia and Germany who resisted the communists and Nazi's, not enough though to stop them. Once those regimes had their hands on the levers of power resisting them was near on suicidal, and that takes enormous guts that few of us are blessed with. Before it got to that point people acquiesced, because they saw strong leaders who promised an end to anarchy, corruption and social decadence, and offered a new sense of national pride and made the trains run on time. And if a few civil rights got trampled in the process that seemed a price worth paying. It may seem ludicrous and irresponsible to us now that they could believe that crap, but they didn't have the benefit of 20 / 20 hindsight. Do you really think anyone but the true believing fanatics saw it ending in gulags and deathcamps? Be grateful we don't live in societies where we have to find out if we have the courage to make hard moral choices.
> I don't think that something even remotely
> resembling Nazi Germany is possible in this country.
I don't believe something like that would happen in the US either. You have a constitution worth cherishing and fighting for, that puts the individual and his civil rights at the centre of the political and legal process. But I wouldn't get too complacent. People can justify a lot to themselves to help them sleep at night. Evil things are done by evil people, who are not above trying to bend laws and constitutions in the name of expediency. Those people can be ruthless in pursuit of power in a way the rest of us who only want to get quietly on with building a decent civilised life for our families lose sight of. And you have your share of bad guys - we all do.
We weren't ahead of you in Europe on the slavery issue BTW - not really, we just had much less economically invested in it to lose over here, except in our colonies. It's not so hard to let go of something you don't really need. And yet we still dragged our feet.
Well, Bystander, this has been fun. I like a guy with strong views who fights his corner. But it has zip to do with submarines or movies so I guess we should wind it up or find another forum.
Cate.
.</HTML>
Don't play numbers. Everyone of those 50 million people was an individual and unique. They deserve to be more than a statistic. The scale of those atrocities make them unique, hopefully forever. It doesn't detract from the seriousness or evil of smaller atrocities that didn't have the force of 20thC industialisation behind them.
Yes there were brave people like your uncle in Russia and Germany who resisted the communists and Nazi's, not enough though to stop them. Once those regimes had their hands on the levers of power resisting them was near on suicidal, and that takes enormous guts that few of us are blessed with. Before it got to that point people acquiesced, because they saw strong leaders who promised an end to anarchy, corruption and social decadence, and offered a new sense of national pride and made the trains run on time. And if a few civil rights got trampled in the process that seemed a price worth paying. It may seem ludicrous and irresponsible to us now that they could believe that crap, but they didn't have the benefit of 20 / 20 hindsight. Do you really think anyone but the true believing fanatics saw it ending in gulags and deathcamps? Be grateful we don't live in societies where we have to find out if we have the courage to make hard moral choices.
> I don't think that something even remotely
> resembling Nazi Germany is possible in this country.
I don't believe something like that would happen in the US either. You have a constitution worth cherishing and fighting for, that puts the individual and his civil rights at the centre of the political and legal process. But I wouldn't get too complacent. People can justify a lot to themselves to help them sleep at night. Evil things are done by evil people, who are not above trying to bend laws and constitutions in the name of expediency. Those people can be ruthless in pursuit of power in a way the rest of us who only want to get quietly on with building a decent civilised life for our families lose sight of. And you have your share of bad guys - we all do.
We weren't ahead of you in Europe on the slavery issue BTW - not really, we just had much less economically invested in it to lose over here, except in our colonies. It's not so hard to let go of something you don't really need. And yet we still dragged our feet.
Well, Bystander, this has been fun. I like a guy with strong views who fights his corner. But it has zip to do with submarines or movies so I guess we should wind it up or find another forum.
Cate.
.</HTML>
