Racism

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Originally Posted by Brian Bean

Obviously lost the argument.




You really should stop believing popular misconceptions and get to grips with the facts. Hitler came to power when emergency powers, known as an enabling act, giving virtual dictatorial powers to the Chancellor, had already been enacted under former Chancellor General Schleicher. He couldn't deal with the communists until after he had been elected. There is some doubt about the "big lie" theory as to whether it was uttered by Hitler or Goebels but, like so much attributed to those times, it may be apochryphal.
Whether you, or anybody else, like it, he came to power legally due to the extreme conditions of the early 1930s.

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Funny that, the popular misconceptions I seem to have come from my eminently qualified lecturers and text books on the subject. I'm sure they don't deal in facts, but must bow to your superior knowledge. Hitler was dealing with any opposition to him even before he was "elected". His method was to wipe out any opposition, by having his bully boys, the SA, "help" any of the public who didn't go along with him, by persuading them otherwise. It's easy to get elected when you've used strongarm tactics on a massive scale to help ease your way. As for the quote, well, of course if it wasn't Hitler but Goebbels, well that makes everything alright then doesn't it, citing it to one evil psychopath instead of another?

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He couldn't deal with the communists until after he had been elected

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Of course Hitler (I guess you mean pars pro toto the nazis) dealt with communists before he was elected. Street disorders between SA and NSDAP members and communists/socialdemocrats, among them the paramilitary communist Rotfrontkaempferbund, were quite normal from the late 1920s on.

But I suppose my opinion is completely superfluous here.

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Originally Posted by MarkBastable

The argument was about the extent to which the principle of free speech ought to be mitigated by circumstances - which began with your absurd assertion that no one should try to persuade anyone of anything. That argument seems still to be going on.

The argument about Hitler coming to power is a side issue, and what was silly was your suggestion that you have some kind of insight because you knew a German bloke once who thought something. If that were any way to run an argument, I'd simply cite my time in Germany and I'd quote another couple of Germans who think something else. And where would that get us?

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There is nothing silly about a statement of fact.

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Originally Posted by amarna

Of course Hitler (I guess you mean pars pro toto the nazis) dealt with communists before he was elected. Street disorders between SA and NSDAP members and communists/socialdemocrats, among them the paramilitary communist Rotfrontkaempferbund, were quite normal from the late 1920s on.

But I suppose my opinion is completely superfluous here.

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You have explained the situation admirably and saved me the trouble of answering for myself.

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Originally Posted by amarna

Of course Hitler (I guess you mean pars pro toto the nazis) dealt with communists before he was elected. Street disorders between SA and NSDAP members and communists/socialdemocrats, among them the paramilitary communist Rotfrontkaempferbund, were quite normal from the late 1920s on.

But I suppose my opinion is completely superfluous here.

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No, your opinion is not superfluous amarna, and I agree with you. The Munich Putsch was in 1923, when Hitler and his thugs attempted a coup with intimidation. Just one example of his dealing with opponents long before his "legitimate" election.

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Originally Posted by Brian Bean

There is nothing silly about a statement of fact.

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If it were a statement of fact, I think you'd have a better support for it than some bloke you knew once. Actually, it's an interpretation of events - and many others are possible.

Your notion of what constitutes a 'fact' is telling though. I quote established figures figures from the Office of National Statistics which contradict your argument, and you dismiss them with a cliche, saying you prefer to rely on the evidence of your own eyes. So - statistics aren't facts. However, an interpretation of history expressed by a German you worked for once - that apparently is a fact. Though it's not, actually, the evidence of your own eyes.

Joined-up debate is not your long suit, is it?

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Originally Posted by Brian Bean

After a dispute with the staff at my usual pub, I have recently been drinking at various other venues...

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Then again, this is becoming more and more self-explanatory...

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Originally Posted by wessexgirl

The Munich Putsch was in 1923, when Hitler and his thugs attempted a coup with intimidation. Just one example of his dealing with opponents long before his "legitimate" election.

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Prior to the Munich putsch. the communists, led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, had attempted to overthrow the Weimar republic by their putsch of 1918 which resulted in over 1000 people being killed. In 1920 Wolfgang Kapp, a right-wing journalist, attempted to do likewise using elements of the Freikorps. So, clearly, it wasn't only Hitler who was using bully boy tactics to gain power. Factions from all the political parties were engaged in street fighting throughout the 1920s and it ended when Hitler came to power and was able to use exisiting emergeny powers legislation to ban the communist and other parties.

As to the racism of the german nazis, it was a derivate from French and British racial theories of the 19th century, "Essai sur l’inégalité des races humaines" by Arthur de Gobineau for instance, which assumed an inferiority of africans and asians and served as a legitimation for colonial ambitions of the "whites". German nazi ideologists (actually the racial theory of the German nazis was invented by a British citizen, Houston Stewart Chamberlain) expanded the existing racial theories by the idea that the hegemony of the "white race" should exclude jews and slavs. Ideologically this was fitting much better now for the colonisation of eastern europe the nazi gouvernment planned. (Germany had lost all its overseas colonies in 1918 and was looking for new ones) Nazi Germany wasn't a closed system, as it is considered today, it was ideologically and politically cross-linked to its european neighbours in many and complex ways.

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So, clearly, it wasn't only Hitler who was using bully boy tactics to gain power.

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True. Hitlers personal influence on history is absolutely overrated.

Oh dear, do we really have to stray into Nazi Germany to talk about racism? The fact that Rosa Parks incurred 'civil disobedience' when in 1955 she refused to give up her seat for a white person is, for me, unbelievable. Or that South Africa had apartheid until 1994. Or have you guys been over these already? I've only read the last 4 pages of this thread.

(on Hitler: I agree that he's incredibly overrated. Basically what happened was that he managed to combine evil intentions with powerful means. I'm sure there are people living today who would have done far worse had they had all the power Hitler had.)

So.
Like it has been mentioned, we should neither say 'what the hell, we're all racists and there will always be racism, so why bother', nor 'we are all the same', but 'we are different, and we ought to not only tolerate but accept and celebrate difference'. This was I believe MarkB's point in page 7 and I fully agree with it.

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Originally Posted by amarna

as to the racism of the german nazis, it was a derivate from french and british racial theories of the 19th century (by arthur de gobineau for instance), which assumed an inferiority of africans and asians and served as a legitimation for colonial ambitions of the "whites". German nazi ideologists (actually the racial theory of the german nazis was invented by a british citizen, houston stewart chamberlain) expanded the existing racial theories by the idea that the hegemony of the "white race" should exclude jews and slavs, which ideologically fitted better for the colonisation of eastern europe the nazi gouvernment planned, sinde germany had lost all its overseas colonies in 1918 and was looking for new ones now. nazi germany wasn't a closed system, as it is considered today, it was ideologically and politically cross-linked to its european neighbours in many and complex ways.



True. Hitlers personal influence on history is absolutely overrated.

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I don't understand your last statement. While everyone knows that racial and anti-semitic views weren't only the province of Hitler, but stemmed back over hundreds of years throughout Europe, no-one else acted on them with such catastrophic consequences as he did. A Second World War which led to the deaths of millions of people, and involving many countries is hardly something which leads us to think his influence was overrated. The systematic destruction of the Jews, the Final Solution, which he propounded with his henchmen, cannot seriously be considered as something which was not important, as your last sentence seems to suggest.

Oh, welcome back, Mr. Endon. :)
Sure we don't have to stray into Nazi Germany to talk about racism, but it may be useful for you'll find racism there in one of its purest and unconcealed forms.

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Originally Posted by MarkBastable

If it were a statement of fact, I think you'd have a better support for it than some bloke you knew once. Actually, it's an interpretation of events - and many others are possible.

Your notion of what constitutes a 'fact' is telling though. I quote established figures figures from the Office of National Statistics which contradict your argument, and you dismiss them with a cliche, saying you prefer to rely on the evidence of your own eyes. So - statistics aren't facts. However, an interpretation of history expressed by a German you worked for once - that apparently is a fact. Though it's not, actually, the evidence of your own eyes.

Joined-up debate is not your long suit, is it?






Now that really is silly.

Statistics can be, and often are, used as a means of falsifying what is the true state of affairs. For confirmation I suggest you try Wickepedia under 'False Statistics' where you will find many examples.
Now coming to the my German employer, he fought in the German army during WW11 having been brought up as a child in the great depression of the 1920s, so I would rather trust his "interpretation of history" than that of someone who probably wasn't even born during that time.
Furthermore, an extensive reading of German history corroborates what he said. So if you were to rely more on facts rather than statistics, perhaps you would have a better understanding of the argument




Then again, this is becoming more and more self-explanatory...

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A good example of making a false deduction on the basis of limited knowledge.

I had been using that particular establishment regularly for 15 years before
the dispute that I have mentioned and had, up until that point, never had cause to complain during the whole of that time. Moreover, since you don't know the cause of the dispute you are hardly in a position to draw any valid conclusions from it.

Then again, drawing invalid conclusions would appear to be your forte.

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Originally Posted by amarna

Oh, welcome back, Mr. Endon. :)
Sure we don't have to stray into Nazi Germany to talk about racism, but it may be useful for you'll find racism there in one of its purest and unconcealed forms.

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Before we get too far down this road, we should decide which invocation of Hitler we're using.

Is it Hitler, the individual ("...Hitler had a silly moustache...") or Hitler the personification of a certain kind of conduct ("...Hitler killed six million Jews...")?

If we don't all go for the same usage, we're going to get into pointless crossfire. ("Hitler marched on Moscow." "No he didn't. He was on holiday at the time.")

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Originally Posted by Brian Bean

A good example of making a false deduction on the basis of limited knowledge.

I had been using that particular establishment regularly for 15 years before
the dispute that I have mentioned and had, up until that point, never had cause to complain during the whole of that time. Moreover, since you don't know the cause of the dispute you are hardly in a position to draw any valid conclusions from it.

Then again, drawing invalid conclusions would appear to be your forte.

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Like you I rely on years of experience to reach my conclusions. And I'm pretty sure about that one.

Would you like to address the main part of my post now?

Oh, sorry - you did. But you included it in the quoted passage.

Of course statistics can be used to support a fallacious argument. But they are not necessarily used that way, any more than the witness to a course of events is necessarily the most reliable source of an interpretation of those events.

The question is not whether my fact is more factual than your fact. It's more that you don't seem able to tell the difference between what you believe and what is a fact. That's a very dangerous place from which to argue.

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Originally Posted by wessexgirl

I don't understand your last statement. ...

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It was not Hitler as a single person who did all these things, it were the nazis. He was replacable by any other of his kind.

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Originally Posted by amarna

Oh, welcome back, Mr. Endon. :)

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Thanks, amarna! Now I might come here once a day again, so I look forward to agreeing with you again soon.

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Originally Posted by amarna

Sure we don't have to stray into Nazi Germany to talk about racism, but it may be useful for you'll find racism there in one of its purest and unconcealed forms.

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Absolutely, I just think that more recent displays of unashamed racism are just as fruitful for discussion and had not, to my knowledge, been mentioned.

As for the Gates case, which has been mentioned here, I can see now, well, that doesn't count. It's just too ridiculous for words to express. Nothing really happened, it was just a chain reaction of snappy reactions to inane actions. The policeman acted according to what eye-witness accounts, Gates was hot-headed, the policeman also lost it, Obama made an incredibly naïve comment, and the infamous American 24hmedia preyed on it for lack of something more substantial from his hour-long speech on universal health care.

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Originally Posted by MarkBastable

Before we get too far down this road, we should decide which invocation of Hitler we're using.

Is it Hitler, the individual ("...Hitler had a silly moustache...") or Hitler the personification of a certain kind of conduct ("...Hitler killed six million Jews...")?

If we don't all go for the same usage, we're going to get into pointless crossfire. ("Hitler marched on Moscow." "No he didn't. He was on holiday at the time.")

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Nice idea. You forgot about Hitler, the popcultural jerk-off assistance.