FLOSI
Nerf Herder
I have something evil in my pants....
How Evil Is Too Evil: Collectibles and Nazis
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Joker is more of a Nihilist, Nazi's are Fascist. I think Nihilism takes the cake, plus my HT Jokers look better on my shelf then my DID and Dragon Nazi's.
DinoLast
Super Freak
I will put a question out there.
So would an Osama Bin Laden figure be offensive to own?
Or any type of figure that depicts a terrorist/Hijacker?
So would an Osama Bin Laden figure be offensive to own?
Or any type of figure that depicts a terrorist/Hijacker?
Voorhees27
Super Freak
Same thing would apply, its a historical "display" So you'd have him on display along with say U.S. soldiers capturing him.
For the record, they DO make a Bin Laden figure already.
DinoLast
Super Freak
I think this is an interesting thread.
Yes you can say it's just a Toy, but MW2 came under attack last year even though people were saying it was just a game.
I also think that if somebody asks a question on here that another disagrees with, it would be nice to read the counter argument without them adding insults to it. Just because people have different viewpoint to others doesn't necessarily make them stupid.
Yes you can say it's just a Toy, but MW2 came under attack last year even though people were saying it was just a game.
I also think that if somebody asks a question on here that another disagrees with, it would be nice to read the counter argument without them adding insults to it. Just because people have different viewpoint to others doesn't necessarily make them stupid.
DinoLast
Super Freak
FLOSI
Nerf Herder
Reinhardt
Super Freak
I'm sure this has been said before, but for me, if it's a fictional character, then it's not evil. If it were, I'd be psychotic by now considering I own too many bad guys.
devilof76
Super Freak
This is exactly what I was talking about when I told Wofford his underlying premise was wrong. Just because you can sit and point out evil on two sides of a conflict, that does not make any act of evil less evil, or any act of good less good. Has subjectivism really made intellectuals this lazy? Or is there an ulterior motive to painting Axis and Allies in a morally equivalent light?
thecapn said:
I had breakfast with Howard Zinn once, the day before he gave a lecture in which he spelled out why the U.S. deserved what happened on 9/11. Personally, after listening to so much Marxist drivel about how economic necessity is the prime mover of history, and how the true producers are people who work in factories, I wouldn't give his opinions on history a second thought. Marx was a rotten historian, and Zinn is no better.
I'm fairly certain that I have NEVER had a history teacher in all of my years of education tell me that America is infallible. I'm fairly certain that the internment of the Japanese (even if it was committed by one of the most anti-American Presidents ever---and he did it because his viewpoint was evil) and the persecution of Communists by McCarthy (even though the Communist party should be illegal---because the Communist viewpoint is evil) was covered every year that most students were old enough to understand what was being taught. So were the Indian Wars. So was slavery.
What I have had history teachers tell me is that America is good. In fact, they've gone so far as to call it the best. Which is a pretty clear objective assessment of the country's history, even after taking into account all of the bad things done by Americans. I imagine that it would not be an assessment possible to those who think that because Americans have done evil, it somehow invalidates everything of value the existence of the country has been the cause of over the last 234 years.
thecapn said:
I think they just asked them to pay the bill and not arm themselves. Yeah, poor Germany. Treated like a villain. There is no justice in the world.
thecapn said:
They didn't have to be killers to be morally culpable. Where is any party without the support of the rank-and-file?
thecapn said:
Feelings aren't cognitive tools. They had a choice, but they were either too weak, too stupid, or too...um...evil to make the right choice. Over and over again, one after another, they did it. F---them.
thecapn said:
I don't.
thecapn said:
They lose points right off the bat for that one. They didn't bother to understand what their country stood for, what the motives of their neighbors were, what their own motives were, what serving their country would entail, what was truly right, and what was truly wrong. They didn't bother to think at all. They got exactly what they deserved.
When it comes right down to it, all Hitler wanted to do was serve his country. But he's crazy, and they were all sane, right? I don't think it's proper to categorize Hitler as insane. He had beliefs, and he followed them to the letter. He was remarkably consistent, and if you measure integrity by loyalty to principles, he had it in spades.
What the gray approach to beliefs is incapable of grasping is that the beliefs he held were wrong. Not true. False.
thecapn said:
More excuses. Real life does work that way. Too many people think they can get off the hook by pleading that 'no one is perfect'. That statement is nothing but a confession that they have no intention of making the effort to be good, or to be right, and that they don't want to be judged for it.
Well, they were wrong, and what they did was unforgivable. F--- them.
Why didn't they have food? Oh, right. The economy that they instituted for themselves after the Weimar Revolution was custom designed to destroy wealth. The loans floated to them by the U.S. were wasted. By 1923, it cost 4.23 trillion Deutschmark to purchase one U.S. dollar.
And when their utopia failed, did they turn the other direction? Did they change their economic philosophy? No. They threw all of their support behind the man and party who promised to bring them true socialism. Again, f--- them.
Propaganda is nothing more than therapy for the converted. They know damned well that the point of view they are attempting to live by is a lie, and they need regular doses to help them maintain their conviction. Propaganda is epiphenomena; it's not a cause.
Germany believed in what Hitler was selling. Period.
thecapn said:
Which would mean that if someone were to paint Hitler in a positive light, their evaluation would be no more right or wrong than someone who painted him in a negative light.
History isn't a viewing of Avatar where people win points for leaving their brain at the door.
thecapn said:
You were not able to point and say "bad guy" while you were throwing up? I understand. Sometimes, vomit-inducing atrocities are committed by good guys.
thecapn said:
Shades of gray only exist in a mind that can't make a decision. Because reality is what it is. There are no two ways about it.
The German people---morally and intellectually---had been destroyed for the greater part of the 19th century. Their performance in the early 20th century was proof postive of that. If you want to blame someone other than Hitler for his own actions, or someone other than the German people for their own actions, you might want to look at the philosophers who shaped the culture in every field and discipline over the century prior to those events which defined the country. Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Fichte, Marx, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, etc. I'm sure you could go back even further, to the thinkers who influenced them. Luther, Rousseau, Augustine, Plato.
The whole story is sitting right there. The beliefs are laid out with little obfuscation. It's not hard to see how the beliefs ran through every corner of German culture in the 1920's. But, at a certain point, you have to stop looking past a person to explain why they did what they did. No one made those philosophers invent their systems. No one made the people who adopted the systems accept the ideas, and then act on them. Human action has a single cause and it is free will. A bullet cannot make me think. It's just an incentive. It is not the cause.
We were not responsible for Nazi Germany. Neither were England or France (though we could have refrained from offering them loans, England could have refrained from appeasing their military build up, and France could have refrained from bending over for them; none of those are fundamental causes). The only people responsible for the actions of the Germans were the Germans. F--- them.
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Mesa
Super Freak
Wow. Just wow.
My mother and her mother/father fled Germany during WWII. They left with all the possesions they could carry. My mom was 9 at the time. My mom's younger sister, Anna, died on the journey on the boat to the US. Germany did a lot of evil things, no doubt, but not all of them were doing it willingly.
How is an individual supposed to go against a majority when it means they risk their own life and the life of their family? That's what it was. You oppose Hitler, you're dead. He was a disguised monster promising prosperity to a devastated people after WWI who Blindly and unquestionly followed and believed in his socialist utopian ideas and once his true colors and motives were shown, it was too late for an individual to do anything to change it.
I'm not excusing the German's actions, but you should consider the fact to oppose Hitler meant death to you and yours, or leaving in middle of the night at risk of being caught and shot, or dying in the journey to someplace less evil.
My mother and her mother/father fled Germany during WWII. They left with all the possesions they could carry. My mom was 9 at the time. My mom's younger sister, Anna, died on the journey on the boat to the US. Germany did a lot of evil things, no doubt, but not all of them were doing it willingly.
How is an individual supposed to go against a majority when it means they risk their own life and the life of their family? That's what it was. You oppose Hitler, you're dead. He was a disguised monster promising prosperity to a devastated people after WWI who Blindly and unquestionly followed and believed in his socialist utopian ideas and once his true colors and motives were shown, it was too late for an individual to do anything to change it.
I'm not excusing the German's actions, but you should consider the fact to oppose Hitler meant death to you and yours, or leaving in middle of the night at risk of being caught and shot, or dying in the journey to someplace less evil.
devilof76
Super Freak
I didn't say that those who opposed him were evil. Those who actually were trapped in the machinery cannot be held responsible.
But there was little restriction on cross-border movement for a significant period of time after Hitler became Chancellor. Most people chose to stay. And that's the issue here. The greater majority of Germany was pro-Hitler, and not because they were brainwashed. Hitler was not in disguise.
Of course an individual in a sea of 'majority rules' is helpless. My point is that the majority who backed the Third Reich is as guilty as their rulers. The few who were genuinely innocent do not render clean the masses who were not.
But there was little restriction on cross-border movement for a significant period of time after Hitler became Chancellor. Most people chose to stay. And that's the issue here. The greater majority of Germany was pro-Hitler, and not because they were brainwashed. Hitler was not in disguise.
Of course an individual in a sea of 'majority rules' is helpless. My point is that the majority who backed the Third Reich is as guilty as their rulers. The few who were genuinely innocent do not render clean the masses who were not.
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So wait. My premise was that it's no less evil to have a collectible of Hitler than one of Washington for these very reasons. You argued no equivalence, and now today evil is evil?
devilof76, I don't think I've ever had anyone pull apart a post of mine like that before. I will give you kudos for sparking a discussion and upholding your viewpoints, even if I don't agree with them. I'm going to sit down and read over your post in detail and get together a return volley as soon as I finish my coffee
What, pray tell, is your definition of "good?" I personally don't agree with our war in Iraq, though I refuse to get into politics here.
And yet, I still feel support for our troops. Why? Because it's NOT THEIR FAULT THAT THEY ARE THERE. There are many young people I remember from High School who couldn't afford to go to college; the military was their only option to better their lives. I had another friend who decided at a very early age that he wanted to be President, and because of the patriotism in our country he decided to go into the military, because a record of service would put him in a better position to run someday. JFK joined the military, not because he wanted to go, but because his Dad was grooming him for public office. And all of these people, pushed by their own dreams, their status in life, or family pressures, went into conflicts that they themselves have no stake in, and may not even agree with. Is it THEIR fault that the U.S. went into Iraq? Not. one. bit.
And yet the soldiers are there in Iraq. Because the people at the top decided they wanted them there. Do you put that choice on the soldiers? Do you put it on the people of the U.S.? The "rank and file"? How could you?
Now relating it back to Hitler and Nazism, can you really blame everyone in the country for what the people in the top tiers of government decided to do? Can you blame the young men and women stuck in the country?
Propaganda films show us how the Germans were trained to believe in their cause, blindfolded, not allowed to see the realities of what was happening. If I was a German youth, I probably would have been swept up. And based on your intense patriotism for the U.S. I would expect that you would have been too. And in the U.S. today we have freedom to CHOOSE what we want to believe. The German everyday person didn't.
Not if you don't have any choice BUT to follow it. And if you were in poverty and you were told another country was at fault, backed by all the claims and newspapers you have access to, when all the news is skewed and no truth ever reaches your ears, you’d be sucked up to. No doubt in my mind.
Again, why do you have this strange idea that the PEOPLE were to blame? Did the PEOPLE get that loan from the U.S.? Um. No. The Government did. As I've already said, I don't see HOW you can blame the people for what a Government in power does, especially when what they tell you they’re doing is different from reality.
It's very funny to me that both I and Mesa, who both have had personal, family relationships with what happened, are more open to other viewpoints than you.
I...don't even know quite what to say to some of this. Please explain to me how FDR was evil? Evil is a harsh word that would have to be saved for the dregs of humanity. The Japanese internment camps were horrible, to be sure, but FDR also enacted legislation that put many people back to work following the Great Depression. He leaves a legacy of community service and helping people during economic disaster. He started Medicare, and Social Security, which helps people to this day. Granted, his policies were, generally, a failure overall. The war was really what brought back the economy from disaster. But how can you call trying to help people Anti-American? And the people of the time obviously disagree with you, since they elected him FOUR times. Today, most historians say he was one of our greatest presidents. And yet he did awful things, too, exemplified by his agreement to the camps.
Back to my definition of "good," no, FDR doesn't apply. "Good" does not allow for doing bad things in my opinion. So, therefore, none of us are "good," or "bad," just people. Oh, some people are better than others, no doubt, but I would not be able to pass judgment as quickly as many do (and heck, honestly, I wouldn’t even say the Biblical God is “good,” massacring men, women, and children by the thousands to get “his people” to “the Promised Land”).
And now you say communism is evil? Is that just because it's viewpoint is different than yours? I, for one, think that communism AS AN IDEAL is a great thing, and very much in keeping with the most lofty ideals of society. The tenet of communism boils down to one simple rule: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." That's Marx, your "rotten historian."
Now, I don't agree with a lot of what Marx said. But that, the basic rule of communism, boiled down, is a really interesting ideal. Each person does what they can to help, and they get what they need, and want, to live a successful life. If you're older and can't help anymore, no problem, you still are ok, because the younger folks take over and help you. If you have an injury, or a condition, you don't have to worry. You're helped too. People are a community, helping others. The Native Americans did that, and they lived a much more peaceful existence before we free market people came around. There’s no poverty, no homelessness. If you're a religious person, look at the teachings of Jesus, sounds similar, doesn't it? Helping the poor, giving of oneself to the community? While I would not go so far as to say Jesus was a communist - the idea wasn't even in early stages back then - THE BASIC IDEA IS A GOOD ONE. Why is it that the President of my company makes over $300k a year, while I'm barely scraping by and didn't even get a raise? Yeah, she did a lot of work to get that position, and I won't argue she's not a hard worker who has a hard job. But no one needs that kind of money to live comfortably. These millionaires who waste millions on fancy clothes, cars, Cristal champagne...sickening when teachers, policemen, and firemen are barely scraping by.
All of that said, I'm not going to say I advocate Communism, because of the problem of redistribution. Who's to say who "needs" what. A bloated government? We've seen how well that works in current-day Communism. I wouldn't want to live in China, or Russia (even today), or North Korea. It's awful how these governments suppress free speech, and the people suffer as a result. And the fact that we, as humans, are inherently greedy and imperfect makes Communism, especially today in the shadow of free markets, pretty impossible. But I wouldn't call the BASIC IDEA evil. It's just a different viewpoint from yours. And what's wrong with that? Don't we have free speech? Can't we say what we want? And doesn't that cover Communism as well? What you've said here...that the Communist party should be illegal...is very closed-minded and, I would argue, more Anti-American than FDR ever was.
I really hope someone more familiar with German history than I comes in here and says something. Wow.
I will agree with you on one point...and take a step back from my previous statement. It is not *JUST* the signers of the Treaty of Versailles - not *JUST* the U.S., or England, or France, who can take the blame for Germany. That would be shortsighted. Germany did play its part, that's for sure. There were many people in the German government who did horrible, horrible things. But to say that it's *ALL* their fault is silly too. We live ON A WORLD STAGE. Everything each country does is entwined in the fates of every other. We are all humans and all affect each other. Case in point: secret alliances prior to WWI. Or, how about how the economic recession NOW that pretty much started here in the U.S., on Wall Street and with the faults of our financial institutions, affecting the entire world economy? We are all intertwined.
I stand by my principle statement. IT'S ALL. SHADES. OF GRAY.
Now at the end of all this, I just want to say that I do respect your views and I respect the fact that we can both come here, to this neutral stage, share our viewpoints, and then still come away as colleagues with the same hobby. I don’t have anything at all against you, and I hope you don’t against me. I’m enjoying this back and forth. Ha!
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ProgMatinee
circlesendwheretheybegin
"each according to his need" 
I prefer "each according to his merit" personally because do nothing lazy ass people have "needs". Whats a person who has loftier goals than simply meeting "needs" to do if their work and earnings are stolen from them and given to lazy ass people? They themselves get lazy.What type of society is made from lazy people? A good one? I don't think so. If progress = good, lazy communist societies with little incentive to progress can't be good.
The fundamental flaw with communism is that it takes all incentive out of doing something for your own good which might also have positive merits for society at large...such as starting your own business which could employ people and help multitudes prosper. In communism the only way to truly prosper is by being the military backed tax collector and spending other people's money to employ what ever fancy that tax collector has...coincidentally its usually building up the same military that enforces the tax collection so he can further maintain power and corruption.
Seems evil to me.
I prefer "each according to his merit" personally because do nothing lazy ass people have "needs". Whats a person who has loftier goals than simply meeting "needs" to do if their work and earnings are stolen from them and given to lazy ass people? They themselves get lazy.What type of society is made from lazy people? A good one? I don't think so. If progress = good, lazy communist societies with little incentive to progress can't be good.
The fundamental flaw with communism is that it takes all incentive out of doing something for your own good which might also have positive merits for society at large...such as starting your own business which could employ people and help multitudes prosper. In communism the only way to truly prosper is by being the military backed tax collector and spending other people's money to employ what ever fancy that tax collector has...coincidentally its usually building up the same military that enforces the tax collection so he can further maintain power and corruption.
Seems evil to me.
Skiman
Super Freak
This is way beyond collectibles, change thread title to "War History"
"each according to his need"
I prefer "each according to his merit" personally because do nothing lazy ass people have "needs". Whats a person who has loftier goals than simply meeting "needs" to do if they're work and earnings are stolen from them and given to lazy ass people? They themselves get lazy.
The fundamental flaw with communism is that it takes all incentive out of doing something for your own good which might also have positive merits for society at large...such as starting your own business which could employ people and help multitudes prosper. In communism the only way to truly prosper is by being the military backed tax collector and spending other people's money to employ what ever fancy that tax collector fancies...usually building up the same military that collects the taxes to maintain power and corruption.
Pretty sure thats why communism is evil.
Never thought I would belong to any group where Communism was defended. And as far as FDR goes, some people say programs he implemented during the Depression were responsible for prolonging it.
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