Perhaps it is a matter of opinion, but I found the comparisons made by Percy and the ones he referenced to be superficial and weak. Trump is clearly a demagogue, but not all of those types deserve to be compared to Hitler. And of course the comparison brought out the expected response, full of even sillier rhetoric.
Yeah, there are some times where the comparison is valid and in fact a useful warning; it is important that history happens never again. But pretty close to 100% of the time, comparisons to Hitler are over the top; this time was no exception. Your own mileage may vary.
ABE:
I did not invoke Godwin's law. I know full well what Godwin's law is.
I don't know. Most of the time when someone creates parallels between Hitler and someone else, usually it is supposed to be tinged with some humor and sarcasm. Most people know that making comparisons to Hitler is obviously hyperbole because there's just so few damn people that could actually be likened to someone who ordered the murder of 6 million people!
With that said, Trump is very clearly an authoritarian and has many of the elements of a dictator. But he's no Hitler... Yet. *gulp*
"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine
Thanks, the official figures for delegates are Cruz 104, Trump 48 and Rubio 3. 155 in total.
Still trying to figure out how they determine the number of delegates as Cruz got around 44% of the vote and 67% of the delegates; Trump got 27% of the vote and 31% of the delegates; Rubio got around 18% of the vote but only around 2% of the delegates. It doesn't make sense.
... there's just so few damn people that could actually be likened to someone who ordered the murder of 6 million people!
I don't think Hitler "ordered" the murder of 6 million so much as he inspired it. It was over-enthusiastic underlings responding to his stupid rhetoric who did the dirty work. Did Hitler ever even visited a concentration camp? I suspect he would have been as appalled as you or I (though he probably would have just turned his back).
That's where I think the parallel with Trump is apt. He himself may just be full of hot air but his hot air inspires people who are a lot worse than he is. When he's elected President, watch him appoint Reinhard Heydrich as head of Homeland Security.
I don't think Hitler "ordered" the murder of 6 million so much as he inspired it. It was over-enthusiastic underlings responding to his stupid rhetoric who did the dirty work. Did Hitler ever even visited a concentration camp? I suspect he would have been as appalled as you or I (though he probably would have just turned his back).
quote:The Holocaust (also known as the "Endlsung der Judenfrage" or "Final Solution of the Jewish Question") was ordered by Hitler and organised and executed by Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich. The records of the Wannsee Conference, held on 20 January 1942 and led by Heydrich, with fifteen senior Nazi officials participating, provide the clearest evidence of systematic planning for the Holocaust. On 22 February, Hitler was recorded saying, "we shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jews". Although no direct order from Hitler authorising the mass killings has surfaced, his public speeches, orders to his generals, and the diaries of Nazi officials demonstrate that he conceived and authorised the extermination of European Jewry. He approved the Einsatzgruppen - killing squads that followed the German army through Poland, the Baltic, and the Soviet Union - and he was well informed about their activities.
Nah, you said "I don't think Hitler "ordered" the murder of 6 million so much as he inspired it."
The evidence is, he did order it. I can see how someone might imagine different --- the Third Reich was such a disorganized clusterfuck one wonders how they could have got anything done at all --- but it does seem to have come from the top.
Still trying to figure out how they determine the number of delegates as Cruz got around 44% of the vote and 67% of the delegates; Trump got 27% of the vote and 31% of the delegates; Rubio got around 18% of the vote but only around 2% of the delegates. It doesn't make sense.
We're all still trying to figure it out.
This is probably largely due to the inherent granularity of representative democracy. States are divided up into districts, and the each district elects convention delegates by popular vote. Inevitably, somebody is going to get screwed over by a rounding error when you translate vote proportions into delegates, and this is likely to be compounded across multiple districts.
Say a certain district awards 5 delegates. In that district, Candidate A gets 50% of the vote, Candidate B gets 30% of the vote, Candidate C gets 15%, and the rest go to minor candidates. Proportionally, you'd give 2.5, 1.5 and 0.75 delegates to the three candidates, but delegates don't come in fractions, so somebody is going to get more and somebody is going to get less than their vote proportion. The formulas are usually set to favor higher-ranked candidates, so the guy in third place is going to get rounded down to 0 most of the time.
I didn't say he didn't know. I said he didn't see.
This came across as excusing Hitler of responsibility for the Holocaust:
ringo in Message 1145 writes:
I don't think Hitler "ordered" the murder of 6 million so much as he inspired it. It was over-enthusiastic underlings responding to his stupid rhetoric who did the dirty work. Did Hitler ever even visited a concentration camp? I suspect he would have been as appalled as you or I (though he probably would have just turned his back).
If I've misinterpreted your words then I apologize, but in case anyone else misinterpreted them similarly I do think it important to be very clear, especially for millennials and anyone unfamiliar with the facts of the Holocaust. Hitler did order the extermination of the Jews, and he wouldn't have been appalled at any part of it. Himmler ran the concentration camps and reported directly to Hitler. From Wikipedia:
quote:Somewhere around the time of the German declaration of war on the United States in December 1941, Hitler finally resolved that the Jews of Europe were to be "exterminated". Heydrich [reported to Himmler] arranged a meeting, held on 20 January 1942 at Wannsee, a suburb of Berlin. Attended by top Nazi officials, it was used to outline the plans for the "final solution to the Jewish question". Heydrich detailed how those Jews able to work would be worked to death; those unable to work would be killed outright. Heydrich calculated the number of Jews to be killed at 11 million, and told the attendees that Hitler had placed Himmler in charge of the plan. ... On 4 October 1943, during a secret meeting with top SS officials in the city of Poznań (Posen), and on 6 October 1943, in a speech to the party elitethe Gau and Reich leadersHimmler referred explicitly to the "extermination" (German: Ausrottung) of the Jewish people. A translated excerpt from the speech of 4 October reads:
... I am now referring to the evacuation of the Jews, to the extermination of the Jewish People. This is something that is easily said: 'The Jewish People will be exterminated', says every party member, 'this is very obvious, it is in our program elimination of the Jews, extermination, a small matter.' ...
Hitler's motivation for authorizing Himmler's speeches was to ensure that all party leaders were made aware of these plans and actions. Thus, it would be impossible for them to later deny knowledge of the killings. Because the Allies had indicated that they were going to pursue criminal charges for German war crimes, Hitler tried to gain the loyalty and silence of his subordinates by making them all parties to the planned genocide.
Still trying to figure out how they determine the number of delegates as Cruz got around 44% of the vote and 67% of the delegates; Trump got 27% of the vote and 31% of the delegates; Rubio got around 18% of the vote but only around 2% of the delegates. It doesn't make sense.
The Establishment is advantaged by promoting the idea that First Past the Post type elections are awesome:
Here, on Megyn Kelly's show tonight, a Navy SEAL named Pete Higbie supports Donald Trump because he is the kind of leader who can lobby for changes to the Geneva Convention, which would make it so American soldiers don't have to go to war "with their hands tied behind their backs."
The war rhetoric in this primary is really getting out of hand. As an example, in the debate last night, Trump said ISIS is laughing at us because we balk at the morality of waterboarding while they chop off heads; and this is reason enough for us to do "a lot worse than waterboarding."
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