Theos-Talk Archives (June 1997 Message tl00421)

<deletion of really trivial stuff>

(Kym quotes me here)
>  >Excuse me? You have the nerve to claim that I've insulted a certain group

> of
>  >people after the degrading trophy remarks *you* made about minorities in
>  >militias?
>
..and replies...

>  Yes, I do. . .and you are excused.

Let's get something perfectly CLEAR. I was not asking you to excuse me for my
remarks. "Excuse me" is just an expression commonly used when someone makes
an off-the-wall remark as I considered yours to be--as in "Excuse me, did I
hear you correctly?"

This is yet another example of condescending, patronizing behavior on your
part because you know and anyone else reading what I said IN CONTEXT knows
that I was not truly asking YOU to excuse anything!!!!!  In fact, I've
decided that it is a waste of time and bandwidth to respond to you in any
future messages because you don't observe minimal standards of fairness. This
kind of crap is intellectual dishonesty and you know it!!! Or is this some
more of your "humor"? If it is, I'm not laughing.
>
..Kym is quoting me again...

>  >He was describing how the Nazis demonized the Jews prior to WWII so
>  >that the Germans would accept what the Nazis would eventually do to them.

> No
>  >way does this trivialize the monstrous horror of the atrocities committed
>  >upon the Jews, so where is the insult?
>
..then obviously misses the point made by the words "so that the Germans
would accept what the Nazis would EVENTUALLY do to them" by saying...

>  The militia is being required to FOLLOW THE LAW.  They decide to take up
>  arms when things don't go their way.
>
>  This is NOT WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE JEWS.  The Jews did not stockpile arms
or
>  threaten to overthrow the government or refuse to pay taxes, etc. . .

No one said that this is what the Jews were doing. (Though I surely wouldn't
have blamed any of them had they done so. An armed citizenry goes a long way
toward keeping monsters like the Nazis at bay.) The only parallel that we
were drawing was with the preparation that was being made--the demonization
or dehumanization process. At least, that was what *I* meant. The Nazis had
an agenda which was to exterminate the Jews. The U.S. government has an
agenda which is to dismantle (at minimum) the militias. (I think it
ultimately wants to extinguish the ideas animating the militias, but it's
hard to do that without also extinguishing the people who hold them.) The
Nazis villified the Jews so that the Germans would accept the atrocities they
later committed against them. The U.S. government is villifying the militias
so that the American people will not support them but will support whatever
action it decides to take against them. *That's* the parallel. Period. I
can't draw the parallel any further because I am not clairvoyant and cannot
see exactly what the U.S. government will do to the militias if it has the
support of the American people. However, the government had 51 days to
villify the Branch Davidians before it slaughtered them with the consent of a
chillingly large sector of the American sheeple.
>
>  I still maintain that you and Bart comparing the plight of the Jews with
the
>  "plight" of the militia is an INSULT to the Jewish people and a minimizing
>  of the Holocaust.

That's what's so stupid about this whole discussion!!!! Neither Bart nor I
were comparing the plight of the Jews to what was going on with the militias.
We were comparing what the Nazis did in *preparation* (*before* the
atrocities were committed) to what the U.S. government is doing in
*preparation* for moving against the militias. PERIOD. Why is this so
*difficult* to understand????!!!!!!!!!! YOU are the one who is actually
trivializing the horror of what was done to the Jews by seeing insult where
none was intended. Has it ever dawned on you that our even making reference
to the Holocaust in this way, that the very act of doing so, is testimony to
how horribly evil it was? That it is a historical benchmark, emblematic of a
monstrous crime against humanity?  And, being that those who do not learn
from history are doomed to repeat it, I feel that we need to remain
vigililant for repetitions of the steps that the Nazis took in preparing for
it to ensure that it never indeed happens again--with any group of people.

I note that you didn't quote or mention my remarks saying that I would have
agreed with Bart just as strongly if he had used the dehumanization of
Africans as "justification" for slavery for the parallel. Didn't that
parallel of yet another mass genocide bother you? But then, if you had
included those remarks, they would have undermined your whole sense of
outrage because you'd find it a lot harder to accuse me of trivializing
genocide. After all, I wouldn't be likely to trivialize the genocidal
enslavement of my ancestors.

>  >And, just to make sure that you are totally clear about where I stand on
> this
>  >entire issue. None of this is said to justify the actions of that fascist
>  >group that has been terrorizing Jacqi's neighbors or friends.

>  That's wonderful.  And I believe she/he spells her/his name Jaqi.
>
Why does that sound so snide? Anyway, absolutely no slight was intended if I
indeed misspelled the name.

Lynn