Holocaust Denial

[Peter666]

The state may not have the moral right to confine whom it wills, but it always has the unlimited legal right to do so unless the state somehow subjects itself to an even higher authority.

[BCPVP]

Why, then, are we arguing about legal authority if the state can do whatever it pleases? What are your intentions in aruging this?

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
You ... accused me of using "platitudes" in this thread - and then refused to offer a single example of the 'platitudes' to which you took such great offense.

[/ QUOTE ] On the contrary, I responded by pointing out that your whole post (which you placed as a response to mine) is full of platitudes. And again, I say, pick one phrase at random : voilà, a platitude.

If you choose, now, to see your output in a more kind light, that's your parental prerogative. I see it differently. I see it as platitude-fest.

[ QUOTE ]
You asserted that I made some kind of argument for Israel in this thread, and I did no such thing.

[/ QUOTE ] You wrote a long thumbsucker about anti-semitism and placed it under my post. I took it to imply that I am an anti-semite. And I responded that, for you, most probably, anyone who dares say anything that is not "good" to Jews or to Israel must be an anti-semite. That's how Israel got into this.

[ QUOTE ]
My posts simply exposed you for what you are.

[/ QUOTE ] And this is precisely what I have been challenging you to come out and say: Are you accusing me of anti-semitism ?

Let's see you say so, clearly. And then try to prove it.

[ QUOTE ]
This thread wasn't about Israel - either you weren't paying attention, or your preconceptions are clouding your judgment... It was about the holocaust ... Why on earth are you bringing Israel into this discussion?

[/ QUOTE ] It was not me who brought Israel into the forefront of this thread, which is about the Holocaust. Either you weren't paying attention, or your preconceptions are clouding your judgment. It was actually Gamblor who disputed my point about the astonishing, if limited, approaches made by Zionists towards the Nazis, in order to collaborate in evacuating Europe towards Palestine.

But it was you who chose to extend this into a dozen posts about "anti-semites"!

Keep posting.

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
>>If you do, you better make it absolutely clear.<<

Or what? You'll have me dragged off and gassed?

[/ QUOTE ]

Woa, I missed that gem! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

...Keep posting.

[Cyrus]

What has disappeared even more "mysteriously" than the Polish Jews from Poland is the mention of the long-standing and extremely harsh anti-semitism "tradition" in Poland! A significant number of Poles were enthusiastic collaborators of the Germans in the hunting down, betraying to the authorities or participating in the killing itself of Polísh Jews.

If things had improved in post-WWII Poland, at least as much as things have improved in post-WWII West Germany, for Jews, then one could allow bygones to be bygones. But the Poles have a lot of catching up to do, so this hush-hush remains a "mystery"...

[ QUOTE ]
Over 3 million documented Jews lived in Poland at the start of the war. After the war less than 3,000. This is documented.

[/ QUOTE ] I recall no reliable census for such a figure. Could please provide a reference ?

[Cyrus]

I disagree with Gamblor on almost anything about the modern state of Israel and its politics -- but on this, Gamblor is absolutely correct. The deaths of the Jews caused by the Nazis in WWII are murder. Arguing against this is not even good shysterism.

Hypothetical scenario, even on the individual (as opposed to mass) level of murder:

- I shoot you with a gun.
- I force you to march across two countries. You die from exhaustion.
- I force you to march across two countries and place you in internment in a third, inside a decrepit "house" and have you work 12 hours a day (did I say 12 hours? make it 16 hours). You die as a result.
- I beat you to death.
- I conduct scientific experiments on your body, such as repeatedly choking you to near asphyxiation, plunging you in iced water for long periods of time, etc. (Note : I did not put the words "scientific experiments" in the previous phrase inside quotation marks because there have been, alas, scientific discoveries made out of those beastly affairs. But we are not supposed to get our scientific discoveries that way.) You die in the course of such an experiment, even though I considered you to be an interesting human specimen.
- You are forced by me to live in sub-zero degrees Celsius conditions for months. You are being fed and sheltered, albeit poorly. You die as a result.
- You are made by me to live in crowded, extremely unhealthy conditions, where you are continuously harassed physically and psychologically, so your health deteriorates to the point of dying. You do die eventually, either from an epidemic that breaks out in your quarters or from your own health failing.

...Each of the above is murder.

And when conducted in the course of a war, it is a war crime. In a mass scale, it is mass murders. In a huge scale, it is a crime against humanity.

The latter describes the holocaust of the Jews, and other unfortunates, at the hands of the Nazis in World War II.

--Cyrus

[BCPVP]

Is the apocalypse near? Gamblor and Cyrus (and me) in agreement on something?

This is why I am curious as to what Peter's intentions are with his persistent claim that the those who died in prison camps because of the Nazis' crimes are not victims of first degree murder. The aggravating circumstances certainly outweigh any mitigation by the indirectness of their death.

[Darryl_P]

I think his intentions are to get the facts straight when there are so many powerful entities who have distorted them for so long.

I'm no expert on the Holocaust but I'm pretty damn good at logic and I do understand what first degree murder is.

If it's true that the purpose of keeping the prisoners was mainly to get free labor out of them, then the purpose of the camps was not to kill them. If you kill someone without that being your intention then you are not guilty of first degree murder. It's really not that hard and so I don't see the point of bringing in all the legal gobbledygook, although I did get a chuckle from the Canadian code getting copied here.

The only point worth debating, and the crux of it all, is what really happened at the camps, what were the Nazis' genuine intentions etc. Trying to show off by how much legal mumbo jumbo we've packed into our state-obedient, non-independent-minded heads is less than constructive if our goal is to come closer to finding the truth.

[Darryl_P]

This concept of "war crimes" is a farce and just illustrates the pathological self-righteousness of America and other western powers who endorse it.

War is a state of affairs in which there are no rules -- anything goes, kill or be killed, use everthing you've got to destroy the enemy.

When there are no rules, there is no such thing as a crime. The definition of a crime is relative to a set of rules.

Of course if the masses will buy it and therefore you can get mileage out of it, there's no reason why you couldn't pretend there's something called war crimes and use it to manipulate people to behave as you'd like them to behave. Propaganda is, after all, an important element of overall strategy and a so good warrior is wise to use it whenever it's advantageous.

But to believe such a thing exists as an objective concept universally applicable to all parties is simply deluded.

[BCPVP]

[ QUOTE ]
If it's true that the purpose of keeping the prisoners was mainly to get free labor out of them, then the purpose of the camps was not to kill them.

[/ QUOTE ]
That wasn't the sole purpose and many camps had several functions. Almost all (if not all) were designed to dispose of the inhabitants when they were no longer useful at the whim of a few men.

[ QUOTE ]
If you kill someone without that being your intention then you are not guilty of first degree murder.

[/ QUOTE ]
Intentionally putting someone in a situation from which there is slim to no hope of escape/life and often times being directly responsible for the death is first degree murder. And even if you don't believe they're first degree, the sheer number and methods of people being killed wipe out any mitigation of guilt from the murders not being first degree.

[ QUOTE ]
The only point worth debating, and the crux of it all, is what really happened at the camps, what were the Nazis' genuine intentions etc.

[/ QUOTE ]
Then please, debate. What were the Nazis' intentions?