Michael Goldfarb’s Strange Complacency About Nazis
I think he may want to think harder about this:
Here’s a clip of Rep. Pete Hoekstra at the presser this morning explaining to a particularly thick reporter why the threat posed by al Qaeda detainees is different, and far more serious, that that posed by German prisoners of war. As Hoekstra explains, the Germans didn’t kill three thousand American civilians as they went to work.
The difference between al-Qaeda and the Nazis is that Nazis didn’t kill civilians? Really?
This is via Conor Friedersdorf.
Meanwhile, the underlying assumption that the United States of America is incapable of building a secure prison physically located on the North American continent is really strange. If there’s anything we know how to do in the USA it’s lock people up. Everybody knows that.
146 Responses to “Michael Goldfarb’s Strange Complacency About Nazis”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
May 8th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
I can knock off for the weekend now. That is the stupidest thing I will see for the remainder of the month.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
“Nazis didn’t kill civilians? Really?”
German POWs held in the USA were held, many times, under a work release program and often mingled with the local townspeople. I read about this somewhat, and never read a story of any American being hurt by them.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Yes well, if Goldfarb thought before he wrote he wouldn’t be Goldfarb. What sort of trade-off is that?
May 8th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
This entire “we don’t dare bring these prisoners to our shores” argument is so stupidly childish I am baffled how anyone would dare to discuss it in public.
What can you do, offer to change someone’s diapers if the boogey man scares them too much?
May 8th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Well, you can’t really blame Goldfarb. All he knows about the Nazis is what he learned from watching Hogan’s Heroes.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
This entire “we don’t dare bring these prisoners to our shores” argument is so stupidly childish I am baffled how anyone would dare to discuss it in public.
Unless, of course, the person making the argument was stupidly childish. Then it’s not baffling at all.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
All the guys at Gitmo could be in the US already and none of us would even know. Where their holding cells are located will change absolutely nothing.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
It continues to amaze me that conservatives and their enablers in the press brand themselves as the tough, manly ones while their defense and social policy frameworks are entirely based on being giant pussies.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Fuck the Jews, they don’t vote for us anyway.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
You’d figure a guy named Goldfarb might be passingly familiar with the Nazis and killing prisoners.
Even if American POWs weren’t slaughtered wholesale, there is the whole issue of the Russian POWs, not to mention that little thing called the Holocaust.
Who knew an Afghani goatherd was more dangerous in the scheme of things than the entire Third Reich?
May 8th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Yup.
Well, let’s be real here: Gitmo is in Cuba, and the sea between us and them is, like, tooooootally uncrossable. It’s not like Cubans have ever made a boat out of a bathtub and some newspapers and crossed it. So we’re safe with them there.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
This stupid is the stupid that burns all who read it to ashes. It is the universal all-encompassing stupid, the Form of the Stupid, God’s very own idea of stupid.
Oh, and if killing thousands of civilians is the test, then we probably shouldn’t let our Irafghapak veterans back in the country either.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
It’s worse than that, Notorious. Remember your official, reactionary loony world-view, in which Cuba is the next-greatest threat to our wayoflife (after same-sex marriage, of course). Why, these nefarious Islamofascist terrorists could escape from Gitmo and quickly find themselves in the homeland of their natural allies, the commiefascists!! Next stop, Managua, and then a quick 24-hour drive to Brownsville, TX*!
*note: Brownsville, TX, not guaranteed to be a part of the USA by the time this happens (see, Perry, Rick, Governor and Chief Asshat).
May 8th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Killing American civilians is, obviously, the test. Even Hoekstra is surely not stupid enough to say the Nazis didn’t kill civilians. Just that the civilians they killed didn’t matter.
Notorious, the boats that launch from Cuba to get to Florida don’t launch from anywhere near the vicinity of Guantanamo Bay — they’d never make it. You might be able to make it from Gitmo to Haiti, thOugh.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
“I read about this somewhat, and never read a story of any American being hurt by them.”
I’d agree, but I do have a friend whose grandmother was impregnated by a German POW. He worked as butcher in her store. When she said she loved his sausage, she really meant that as a double entendre. But that’s a bizarre aspect of the POW camps in America. All the young American men are overseas fighting the war, and the only eligible bachelors are the German POWs. What’s a young lady to do?
“All the guys at Gitmo could be in the US already and none of us would even know.”
That is more true than you think. They occasionally let reporters see Gitmo, but that is not the case with Colorado’s SuperMax facility. Only once have reporters ever been let into that place.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
How long before the right-wingers start up with “Well, technically he’s right: the Nazis DIDN’T kill 3,000 American civillians”? Sort of like the “George Will was not denying climate change” people.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
“Well, technically he’s right: the Nazis DIDN’T kill 3,000 American civillians”?
What would it mean if they did? That we should have took Nazis to Gitmo and gave them enemas and kept them in the cold and water tortured them?
May 8th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
The difference between al-Qaeda and the Nazis is that Nazis didn’t kill civilians? Really?
Huh? Matthew thinks the Germans targetted American civilian office buildings? Really?
May 8th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
“Well, technically he’s right: the Nazis DIDN’T kill 3,000 American civillians”?
Well, they would be sort of right, the Germans only killed about 1,800 American civilians on ships in US territorial waters. Of course, if you add in American civilians killed outside US territorial waters, you’re over 3,000. And then there are probably a bunch of American expats who were killed as well.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Ahh, but Al comes to the rescue, it’s only the American civilians in office buildings. I guess ships just don’t count.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
He’s just reiterating the traditional Republican view that WWII in Europe was a Democratic war of choice, not a American war of necessity. Fighting Germans who had the right idea about Negroes while we could have been fighting only the Japanese for Empire in the East…
May 8th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Sure the nazis did some bad shit, but if they target an American office building…..that would be inexcusable.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Goldfarb:
Yglesias:
Usually Yglesias quotes someone in one post, then misquotes that person later in another post. I wonder why he’s decided to misquote Goldfarb only one sentence later.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Listen you idiots, the Nazis didn’t kill people while they were at work. There are some lines you just don’t cross.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Objectively pro-Nazi.
Such absurd partisan hackery, these people will defend the honor of Nazis if a Democrat denounces them.
What clowns. I’m so glad conservatives stopped mattering three months ago.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
SteveAR seems to be saying that the important bit isn’t that they killed civilians, it’s that they killed them on the way to the office.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
I get approximately 1700 US civilian casualties in WWII.
Presumably, the Brits might feel differently about this than the Americans, given the rocket attacks on Great Britain. Heck the Germans themselves might feel differently, given the firebombing of Dresden – same as the Japanese, with the A-Bombs dropped by the war criminal (according to the Left Wing) Harry S Truman.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I keep waiting for some idiocy to be so embarrassing the trolls won’t touch it and it never happens.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
The German POWs, by and large, were civilised beings who had tolerable attitudes toward Americans and the British, so forth. They had not existential hatred toward Americans or the British. If they escape out of prison, you can count on them not making themselves visible by killing innocent people for no reason.
Religiously motivated terrorists, however, are another matter.
The Russian POWs were altogether another matter. The Soviet treatment of POWs was even worse than the Nazi treatment of Soviet POWs, and thus there exists no reason for the Germans to compassionately treat the enablers of an uncivilised and barbarous regime. (the Russian Communists)
May 8th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Not that you’d know, Al, but actual Americans don’t like the Nazis and their civilian-killing very much.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Well, at least Al begins to recognize one little problem here: the Brits. The Nazis killed about 43,000 British civilians — some even while they were on the way to work! — yet somehow the Brits managed to house hundreds of thousands of German POWs on their soil. According to the BBC, as of 1946 there were still 400,000 of them.
I guess, though, the Brits aren’t quiverling little pisspants like Americans. Or, at least, like American conservatives.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
the meme to come: FDR caused 9/11, when he tricked us into WW2, because he knew the Nazis and Japanese were willing to do what it took, without flinching, and the Democrats had to prevent that frame of mind from spreading.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Sorry, the 43,000 number I cite is just the number killed during the Blitz. Total Brit civilian dead — per Al’s Wikipedia link — over 60,000.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
The German POWs, by and large, were civilised beings who had tolerable attitudes toward Americans and the British, so forth. They had not existential hatred toward Americans or the British. If they escape out of prison, you can count on them not making themselves visible by killing innocent people for no reason.
Religiously motivated terrorists, however, are another matter.
You are being much too reasonable. It’s best to be like Matthew and not understand the difference between the Germans in WWII and al Qaeda.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Myles and Al, objectively pro-Nazi. I love it.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
‘The German POWs, by and large, were civilised beings who had tolerable attitudes toward Americans and the British, so forth.”
I thought I told you to go fuck your mother.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
And frankly, I am sick of the WWII German-bashing. If we had let the Germans march all the way to Moscow without delivering help in material to the Russians, we wouldn’t have had the whole trouble of the Cold War and the specter of Communism.
As General Patton said, we ought to have turned the Germans right around after winning and marched them to Russia, instead of playing nice to a bunch of barbarians. And the Soviets were barbarians.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
I thought I told you to go fuck your mother.
Liberal manners. Classic. And wholly ignoble.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
This goes beyond the meaning of “objectively pro-Nazi.” It’s just pro-Nazi.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
If we had let the Germans march all the way to Moscow without delivering help in material to the Russians, we wouldn’t have had the whole trouble of the Cold War and the specter of Communism.
Yeah, and we wouldn’t be having to deal with those annoying French either!
May 8th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
A question, then. If Republicans don’t give a fuck about terrorists killing anybody besides Americans (who are on their way to work), then what exactly is their problem with Hamas suicide bombers? They only kill Jewish civilians, and if the Nazis who killed six million of them were no big deal, then the thousand-odd killed in the intifada aren’t even a blip on the radar.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Myles and Al, objectively pro-Nazi.
Well, little-shit Myles is already on record as an admitted fascist sympathizer, so it isn’t surprising he would jump to the defence of the Nazis’ good name…
May 8th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
American civilians. European citizens don’t count.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Myles is it ignoble to call you a stupid git?
May 8th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
I’m just pissed at Jon Stewart for getting to the “Magneto” joke first. seriously, the right-wingers get this idea that the people we’re holding in Guantanamo are superhuman beings for whom places like Supermax or even Leavenworth are not strong enough to imprison these superhuman terrorists.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Re: As General Patton said, we ought to have turned the Germans right around after winning and marched them to Russia,
No, Myles. We should have let the Russians take the entire German nation and deport them to bloody Kazakhstan, and give all the land from the Rhine to the Oder to the Jews. Then we could jeer at them and ask them how much their bloody “Aryan Superiority” helps with fending off bears in the dead of winter and growing handfuls of barley in the desert. Same goes for the bloody Afrikaners who were coddled by Mandela’s government beyond all rhyme or reason.
Now, I’m not really being serious here. But if Myles can exaggerate to make a point, so can I. The Germanic peoples were barbarians when they sacked Rome under Alaric, barbarians when they sent the Teutonic Knights rampaging over Russia, barbarians when they murdered the Herero in 1904, barbarians when they embraced the ravings of Calvin and Zwingli, and barbarians when they murdered the Jews. I see no good word to describe Germany other than a barbaric nation full of Barbarians. The only thing Germany has going for them is that German-American women are hot, but even there the Poles have them beat.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Yeah, and we wouldn’t be having to deal with those annoying French either!
Well, the upshot would be Petain being able to reform the French identity and eradicate the harm done by, and since, the French Revolution.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Get off it, Hector. The Germans were widely admitted, by an American commission no less, to have established the best and most effective education system in Africa, far superior to the British or the French. Windhoek, the capital of Namibia (spelled Windhuk formerly), has the most impressive architecture and civil works of all colonial settlements.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
The only thing Germany has going for them is that German-American women are hot, but even there the Poles have them beat.
Too bad you won’t get any, you being a raving ultra-Catholic lunatic and all.
And you seem to curiously forget that Mainz was the supreme See, primas Germaniae, north of the Alps. Or that Bavaria is Catholic.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Re Myles SG
And frankly, I am sick of the WWII German-bashing. If we had let the Germans march all the way to Moscow without delivering help in material to the Russians, we wouldn’t have had the whole trouble of the Cold War and the specter of Communism.
Fucktard Myles is full of shit. It was the former Soviet Union that occupied most of the Germany Army in 1942 and 1943, allowing the US to build up its forces. Defeat of the former Soviet Union in 1941 would have been followed by defeat of Great Britain in 1943, leaving the US to face Hitler and Tojo alone with no allies. The number of German troops killed by Soviet forces greatly exceeded the number killed by the US and Great Britain.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
I should have said defeat of Great Britain in 1942, not 1943.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
It probably also bears mentioning that other than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, we don’t actually know that anyone in Gitmo actually had anything to do with killing three thousand americans (at work, no less). If the government has any evidence to this effect, they’re not showing us. We don’t even know if they’re al qaeda. I’d hazard to guess with the possible exception of a few accused spies, we knew pretty definitively that all the german detainees were nazis.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Oh, and I forgot in my screed against the Germans, that they had the insolence and temerity to crown an illiterate warlord “Emperor” in defiance of the real Empress Irene. If power had been divided between Rome and Byzantium, as it was meant to be in the beginning, the abuses of ultramontanist Catholicism would probably never have originated.
And you seem to forget that the Poles are extremely ultra-Catholic, Myles. Thank God, Poland is a nation that hasn’t been corrupted by secularists like yourself. You silly person, what good does it do to have nice architecture and civil works if 40% of your entire population has been murdered in a war of extermination?
May 8th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
“I see no good word to describe Germany other than a barbaric nation full of Barbarians.”
That’s going a little far, in my opinion. They just seem to be unusually susceptible to fascist and imperialistic arguments. But in troubled times, we are all susceptible to such arguments. Look how popular Father Coughlin was in the US. And the Cambodians are basically good people, but they sure went nuts when they were being bombed into the Stone Age. I think all human beings are basically good people who are just a few traumatic experiences away from crossing into barbarism. The Germans just seem to require fewer bad experiences to cross that line. And the Indians apparently require many more than the rest of us.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Yeah. And now we’ll never get rid of the USSR
May 8th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Ah, the left-wing, objectively pro-al qaeda.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
And Myles,
Figures you would bring up Petain. Your precious Petain epitomizes the definition of the word “p*ssy” for at least the next thousand years. A real man, unlike Pussy Petain, would have fought the Germans to the last man, until the streets of every city in France ran red with blood, instead of retreating to a spa town in the South of France and banging out a compromise. But of course, Myles also approves of other decadent elites like those of Edwardian Britain, Afrikaner South Africa and the Arab Gulf states, so why am I not surprised that he approves of the decadent and cowardly Quislings of France.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Well, in this case, I appreciate Hector for being one of the few people who realize that Charlmagne’s crowning of himself “Holy Roman Emperor” was actually an act of spitting at Byzantium, if not an outright attempt at usurpation.
Except that it was the Frankification of the Papacy is basically what created the medieval Catholic Church which you lionize.
I can’t help but love Hector for these moments.
Myles is still an annoying ignorant git, though.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
What about psycopathically-motivated serial/spree killers? No one minds that the DC sniper, for instance, is housed in a US prison. And I don’t know about you but I didn’t wet my bed at night when Tim McVeigh was in a US prison.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Nothing says “pro al-Qaeda” like “put our al-Qaeda prisoners in a supermax prison”.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Get off it, Hector. The Germans were widely admitted, by an American commission no less, to have established the best and most effective education system in Africa, far superior to the British or the French. Windhoek, the capital of Namibia (spelled Windhuk formerly), has the most impressive architecture and civil works of all colonial settlements.
Okay, Myles conversing with Hector is an instance of the insane arguing with the insane which is amusing and yet also mildly disturbing.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Is that the new millenium’s “he made the trains run on time”?
May 8th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
“you being a raving ultra-Catholic lunatic and all”
Hector is Anglican.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Michael Goldfarb: Third-string Date Rapist who played too much ‘Castle Wolfenstein.’
Can someone turn that into a haiku, please?
May 8th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Hector:
Aren’t you the virgin dude who’s afraid of vaginas? Or is that someone else?
Could have sworn it was you. Well, one of you castrati trolls at least.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Is that the new millenium’s “he made the trains run on time”?
Have you been to Windhoek? It is probably the most beautiful town in Africa, after Cape Town. The Afrikaners and the Germans did a decent job of colonising Africa (I have a Blood River poster in my room), although the Afrikaners were rather irrational and insensitive to common sense when they went nuts and did the apartheid.
But the Germans were quite decent colonisers. Afrikaners, another matter.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Well, one way of interpreting this is that, although the Nazis did kill European civilians, and did kill U.S. civilians in Europe and on some ships, and did kill U.S. soldiers, they were nonetheless safe enough if you didn’t fall into one of those categories. So if you were what nowadays is called a chickenhawk[*], the Nazis weren’t that bad.
On the other hand, the al-Qaeda attack could have killed anyone, even if they were careful to avoid military service. So they’re far more dangerous than the Third Reich.
[*] After the “teabag” fiasco, perhaps I should clarify that I mean “chickenhawk” in the political sense.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Re Hector
The Germans are certainly a schizoid nation. They produced a Bach, a Beethoven, a Wagner, a Planck, an Einstein, a Born, a Heisenberg while at the same time producing an Eichmann, a Hitler, a Heydrich, etc. Certainly the alpha and the omega of humanity.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Al is just phoning it in. Or else he’s admitting that the whole Nazi thing is just a ruse to get liberals to say “Al-Qaida isn’t as bad as…” so they can interrupt and say “You said al-Qaida isn’t bad!!!”
May 8th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Re: But the Germans were quite decent colonisers.
Myles, do you deny the fact that the Germans exterminated 40%-50% of the population of German Southwest Africa, or do you just not care?
May 8th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
And I don’t think anyone sufficiently appreciates how corroded the French character has been by the Revolution. It lost its imperial touch, and the French Church lost its (Gallican) independence from Rome, which, until then, allowed it to retain a theological stance far more reconciled to Protestantism than ultramontane Catholicism. The quid pro quo of the post-Revolution government did away with that.
The dispossession of the aristocracy, in addition, yielded a constant source of resentment for the next 100 or so years. Fact of the matter is, I view the Revolution as having been a disaster for the great France of Charlemagne and Henri le Grand.
But the loss of the Gallican stream of Catholicism was a serious blow for the entire Catholic Europe. It reduced Catholicism to pure reactionary rubbish.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
joe from Lowell:
daveNYC:
I find that you on the left can’t think for yourselves, parroting your master’s misquoting capabilities.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
“Except that it was the Frankification of the Papacy is basically what created the medieval Catholic Church which you lionize.”
I don’t think that’s fair to Hector. He’s a huge fan of St. Augustine, who predated Charlemagne by a few centuries. Most of his Christian references come from the period between the First and Second Councils of Nicaea.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Here’s a clip of Rep. Pete Hoekstra at the presser this morning explaining to a particularly thick reporter why the threat posed by al Qaeda detainees is different, and far more serious, that that posed by German prisoners of war. As Hoekstra explains, the Germans didn’t kill three thousand American civilians as they went to work.
Mein Gott, have the Republicans been slipping mercury into their caucus coffee machine? They’re still comparing the threat of a rag-tag gang of failed terrorist to one of histories greatest military powers? And people on this blog are still wasting time debating petty details about this ludicrous comparison?
Hitler had a whole file of nifty plans for making war across the Atlantic but had to shelve them when the Brits and Russians didn’t fold up and surrender after their first military defeats, like he expected them to.
The Nazis didn’t shell and bomb New York because the British sank their navy and they underfunded their 4-engine bomber program in favor of weapons they could use against the Soviets.
Okay, any more stupid historical comparison talking points?
May 8th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
“The dispossession of the aristocracy, in addition, yielded a constant source of resentment for the next 100 or so years.”
Yeah, but it created one of the most bizarre effects in the history of European royalty: Balthazar Napolean de Bourbon. He is apparently the heir to the French Crown. He lives in Bhopal, India and doesn’t really look very French. It would take DNA testing to verify his claim, but he doesn’t really care. Like any good Indian, he is merely and merrily amused by it. He describes his branch of the royal family as “Bourbon on the rocks.” In nothing else, this proves one thing about human sexuality: we’ll screw anyone. And Hector’s desire for a German-American woman only serves to drive that point home. As does my desire for a Japanese woman.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Get off it, Hector. The Germans were widely admitted, by an American commission no less, to have established the best and most effective education system in Africa, far superior to the British or the French. Windhoek, the capital of Namibia (spelled Windhuk formerly), has the most impressive architecture and civil works of all colonial settlements.
Well, the Germans didn’t have any zoning issues to deal with, having deliberately exterminated the native inhabitants of the region . . .
The Herero and Namaqua Genocide occurred in German South-West Africa (modern day Namibia) from 1904 until 1907, . . . von Trotha defeated the Herero and drove them into the desert of Omaheke, where most of them died of thirst. In October, the Nama also took up arms against the Germans and were dealt with in a similar fashion. In total, between 24,000 and 65,000 Herero (all values are estimated as being 50% to 70% of the total Herero population), and 10,000 Nama (50% of the total Nama population) perished. Two characteristics of the genocide were death by starvation and the poisoning of wells used by the Herero and Nama populations that were trapped in the Namib Desert.
You gotta raise an eyebrow at that Prussian attention to detail. You don’t just drive them off into the desert to die, you poison the wells to make a thorough and complete job of extermination.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
To be fair to the Prussians, there was quite a bit of outrage back home as people found out about the atrocities, committed by an old East Prussian badger without appreciation for subtleties.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Balthazar Napolean de Bourbon. He is apparently the heir to the French Crown. He lives in Bhopal, India and doesn’t really look very French.
It seems extremely dubious. And in any case, continental European marriage laws mean that unequal marriages of the nobility (i.e. marriage out nobility of equivalent ranks) can only be deemed to be morganatic, and thus invalid whatsoever for purposes of succession rights, or even noble status.
Looks like this Balthazar chap had quite a few morganatic marriages back through the family tree; by marriage law, he isn’t even noble.
Exactly as I had thought.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Windhoek, the capital of Namibia (spelled Windhuk formerly), has the most impressive architecture and civil works of all colonial settlements.
Now, in German East Africa, the Kaiser’s people took the opposite tack. They exterminated a large tribe of harmless farmers, destroying their homes and fields so completely their ancient homeland is now one of Tanzania’s largest national parks and wildlife preserves. The tourists who don’t read the guidebooks think they are snapping photos of untrammelled wilderness.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
The tourists who don’t read the guidebooks think they are snapping photos of untrammelled wilderness.
I would see no objections to ignoring the guidebooks. These sort of things tend to be useless bosh anyways. I almost never read the guidebooks.
May 8th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
In any case, the point is to admire the scene, not to waste time poring over some awful guidebook written up by some underpaid bureaucratic bore in a crumbling office without air conditioning.
Guidebooks in America and Europe are back enough; guidebooks in the developing world (or in Africa’s case, the un-developing world) are even more gruesome.
May 8th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
“You gotta raise an eyebrow at that Prussian attention to detail.”
That’s one thing the Prussians always had over the British. If they did something, they’d have the details worked out in advance. I’m currently reading a great book on the end of the Mughal Empire and the transition to The Raj (The Last Mughal, by William Dalrymple). One of the weird things that happened prior to the Sepoy Rebellion was that both the British Army and the East India Tea Company’s army switched to the Enfield rifle. Rifling was still kind of new to the British, and the rifle was still a muzzle loading version. Because of a design defect, they had to grease the barrel to get the ball down. So what did the British chose as a grease? A mixture of beef and pork fat, thus deeply offending both their Hindu and Muslim soldiers. That’s a really dumb thing to do when the vast majority of your soldiers are either Muslim or Hindu. Needless to say, that didn’t do much to keep the Sepoys from rebelling. A Prussian would never have missed that detail. But the British were so god-damned arrogant that they didn’t think it would matter. They found out otherwise. They were able to prevail anyway because they were better organized and had better communication. But even when the telegraph proved to be a tremendous advantage, they still didn’t try to advance the technology. And eventually, it was an American who saw the value in telephony. It’s truly amazing that the British could even run an empire.
May 8th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
“Looks like this Balthazar chap had quite a few morganatic marriages back through the family tree; by marriage law, he isn’t even noble”
Yeah, but everyone else in the Bourbon family has done the same. They aren’t nobles, either. But it matters nothing to me. Aside from the royalty in Thailand, all of the royals of the world can wipe my ass after I’m done crapping on them. Any assertions of their genetic superiority are nothing but pure nonsense. And I only give the Thai royalty a pass because they are the only thing that holds Thailand together.
May 8th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
“I would see no objections to ignoring the guidebooks.”
I’m with you Myles. I just travel at random and with no particular concern about which countries I’ll even go to. I often end up in places where people get scared of me because the only white guys whoever go there are CIA. Granted, my method of travel involves having guns pointed at me, bribing my way out of jail, and drinking really sketchy moonshine to hopefully kill whatever is in the water, but it’s always been enlightening. I’m guessing that somewhere between guidebook travel and my method is a form of travel that can be fun, semi-spontaneous, and safe. But I’ve never been one for either safety or planning while trying to have fun. I do that stuff for my job.
May 8th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Perhaps Hoekstra (and Al) have been waxing nostalgic lately by replaying some fuzzy, shopworn Beta recordings of “Summer of My German Soldier.” I mean, come on, that little Nazi Anton was so adorable the only thing he posed an “existential threat” to was Kristy McNichols’s virginity!
May 8th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
“I often end up in places where people get scared of me because the only white guys whoever go there are CIA”
I guess I should mention that I’ve been in places in Southeast Asia where they aren’t even remotely concerned about the CIA anymore, it’s the DEA they’re worried about now. If you ever thought the DEA was concerned primarily with the US, think again. They are everywhere, and they make the CIA look like a bunch of pussies. And they’re harassing people who can barely scrape a living off this earth growing opium. It’s scary when you see some guy with a nice weapon, a satellite phone and the ability to call in air support; and he’s picking on some poor guy who can’t even read, but knows that his entire crop will soon be eradicated. And now he’ll be lucky if the Hmong let him pick lychees.
May 8th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
To be fair, Hoekstra and Goldfarb are not saying what Matt is trying to portray them as saying.
Essentially, what they are saying is that the Germans did not attack us on our own soil the way that Al Qaeda did, so the threat of terrorist attacks from them was judged to be lower.
On the other hand, there were some German saboteurs who tried to attack us on our own soil (we foiled the plot), so the idea that there was no terrorist threat (or “saboteur threat” that amounted to the same thing) is not quite accurate.
But then again, the fact of the matter was that with German POWs, we were primarily dealing with normal soldiers, whereas with Al Qaeda, all of our prisoners are (presumably) at least suspected of being spies.
So in short, what they are saying is not as mind-numbingly dumb as it is being portrayed, although it is highly debatable. Still, while I would agree with Hoekstra and Goldfarb that I would not want to put any suspected Al Qaeda members into a work release program, I seriously doubt that anyone is actually proposing that.
As for closing Gitmo? Truthfully, I don’t care one way or another if our prisoners are held in Gitmo or the U.S. What I do care about is that we make certain that anyone we take prisoner gets a fair trial to determine their guilt or innocence. If they are POWs, or if they are unlawful combatants, either way the “war” in any real sense of the term is long over (and has been since May 2003) and it is time to treat these people as criminal defendants or let them go (not in the U.S. though, unless they are citizens or lawful permanent residents).
May 8th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Re: And Hector’s desire for a German-American woman only serves to drive that point home.
As I made clear, Fostert, German women can be quite pretty but Polish women (or at least Polish-American ones) have them beat hands down. I really have a thing for the Polonaises.
RE: They exterminated a large tribe of harmless farmers, destroying their homes and fields so completely their ancient homeland is now one of Tanzania’s largest national parks and wildlife preserves
Midland,
I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that the depopulation of Tanzania happened because introduced European diseases wiped out the people’s livestock and caused them to die of famine, rather than being a deliberate genocide a la Namibia. You may be right however. And of course allowing your subjects to starve to death is hardly better than letting them die of thirst.
Re: So what did the British chose as a grease? A mixture of beef and pork fat, thus deeply offending both their Hindu and Muslim soldiers.
As for this, Fostert, it’s highly dubious. It’s never been proven that this was anything but rumor and propaganda spread by rebellious agitators. The British military at the time vociferously denied it, and in fact the British high command offered to let the troops grease their own casings with substances of their choosing. Ultimately I suppose it comes down to who you trust more: the British, or the rebel princes who made the Mutiny. And I don’t trust the rebels (in fact, three quarters of India including the entire South didn’t trust them either, and stayed loyal to the Brits).
May 8th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
“As I made clear, Fostert, German women can be quite pretty but Polish women (or at least Polish-American ones) have them beat hands down. I really have a thing for the Polonaises.”
Fair enough, Hector. My point was more about how you are of Indian decent and favor Northern Europeans; and I’m Scots-Irish, and I favor Japanese. But let’s face it, you’ll settle for a German, and I’ll settle for a Thai. Hell, some of those Delhi women are pretty hot, maybe we’ll both end up there.
May 8th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
“Ultimately I suppose it comes down to who you trust more: the British, or the rebel princes who made the Mutiny”
I don’t trust either of them. I trust the newspapers of the day. And the stories of the grease come from both English and Urdu newspapers. Both of which are more reliable than the British military. The stories of allowing soldiers to use what they wanted come from the British military, who obviously wanted to cover up the scandal. And let’s face it, the soldiers did come up with their own grease (chicken fat), but there is no evidence that either the British Army or the East India Tea Company ever officially allowed it*. Those soldiers did so at the risk of being forced out of the armies they served in, but what they didn’t know was that the British were so underfunded that they’d just let it pass. As for the rebels, yes, I wouldn’t trust them. But I don’t have to. Their story is consistent with the independent reporting. Only the British military says otherwise. And given that it was a complete fiasco, the British had every reason to lie. So until you can provide some facts, you cannot assert that the British Army was telling the truth. All the evidence points the other way.
But I’m not really sure who these ‘agitators’ were. The legitimate government was the Mughal Empire. Against them were two and a half factions. There were the British Empire, the East India Tea Company, and the Sepoys who fought both sides. Within that, the Mughal Court was clearly divided on who they thought they should support. The East India Tea Company really didn’t care as long as they made money. And The British Empire was mainly there because the East India Tea Company bribed the politicians of the British Empire.
*Show me a British Army document allowing the use of the chicken fat, and I’ll grant you this argument. But you can’t do that, can you? In the end, this was an obvious solution that the British should have started with, but would still be good enough as a fallback position. But there is no document showing they did it at either point, is there? I know you like to defend the British against your own ethnic identity, but there’s a point where you just push it too far.
May 8th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
There are some quite useful and reliable travel guidebooks published in London and by the AAA and so forth, but I meant to say, I avoid those ‘official’ guidebooks put out for no other reason than that some people are underpaid to do useless stuff, like put out government guidebooks.
Now, some of them found in America are actually not terrible; some can be even useful sometimes. But Africa? Forget it, unless you are talking about South Africa. And same with Asia. There is no more useless a bureaucrat than an Asian one in a tourism bureau. The Thai ones couldn’t even tell you which hookers are good. And that’s the whole point of Thailand. Cheap hookers.
May 8th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Re: The legitimate government was the Mughal Empire.
“Legitimate”? Give me a break. They won power by brutal conquest and oppression, and when they got too decadent and degenerate, they lost their empire. The Mughal Empire was a joke long before the Mutiny, and for the most part it was dismantled by native Indians- the Sikh Empire and Maratha Confederacy- not to the British. Defend the mutiny if you want (although I don’t think you’ll want to defend butchers like the late and unlamented Nana Sahib of Kanpur) but please don’t defend the bloated, effete, opium-addicted Mughal heir who had the nerve to call himself ‘Emperor of Hindustan’. He was simply a joke, and any Mutiny that proclaimed him as their leader (even if it was a mere formality) was also a joke.
As for the British newspapers who ran with the story, they were simply the postmodernists of their time, doing whatever they could to be ‘transgressive’ and piss off the military, never mind if it led to a war that cost vast numbers of British and Indian lives.
May 8th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
A bit more about the ‘legitimate’ Mughal empire: the only photo ever taken Bahadur Shah, last of the Mughals, shows a doddering roué reclining in bed smoking hash from a hookah. Tells you all you need to know about the martial vigor of the Mughal Empire.
May 8th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Re: The Thai ones couldn’t even tell you which hookers are good. And that’s the whole point of Thailand. Cheap hookers.
Myles,
Are you seriously defending prostitution? On either Christian or conservative grounds? You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
May 8th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
“I would not want to put any suspected Al Qaeda members into a work release program, I seriously doubt that anyone is actually proposing that.”
We are not proposing the work release program that truly was granted to the Nazis. We are proposing SuperMax detention. That’s 23 hours a day in isolation, and one hour total to eat your three meals. And you won’t be allowed any contact whatsoever with your fellow prisoners. That’s how SuperMax works. The only human contact you get is with the guards, and they ain’t exactly nice people. Here in Colorado, it will be in Florence, whose inmate population vastly exceeds it’s regular population. And the regular population is almost entirely prison guards. Yeah, they have to have a convenience store and a few restaurants to sustain themselves, but there’s not much more than that. We’re talking about the kind of folk who would have shot an Arab on sight even when they didn’t have Arabs in their prisons. Now they get to beat the shit out of them because they are in their prisons. And who can say what happens there? Nobody. The prisoners aren’t ever getting out, and the press will never get in again. The press had their one shot, and they were bamboozled. What is being done to the original World Trade Center bombers will never be known. If anything, those of us who are concerned about torture might consider the fact that we at least have some concept of what’s happening in Gitmo. Once you go to the SuperMax in Colorado, you will never be heard from again. Charles Manson get’s to talk a lot, but he isn’t rotting in Colorado, is he? If he were in Florence, we’d never hear from him again. Ever, ever, ever. And what happens behind closed doors always stay behind closed doors. What’s weird here is that Republicans have a sadistic desire to abuse these prisoners, and that desire would be more easily carried out in the SuperMax in Colorado. Yet they don’t want to put them into the even blacker hellhole that the Colorado SuperMax is. Can some Republican explain why this is so? You obviously want more media and Red Cross attention for these guys, but that really doesn’t help them anyway. There’s only one thing that I can see: many torture techiniqes are perfectly legal but some are specifically illegal with real case law to back it up. In the Colorado facility, they will be tortured, but we won’t use waterboarding because there’s enough case law against it to even think that it might be legal. Is waterboading the only reason you want these guys to be held out of legal jurisdiction? Can’t you even accept that submitting someone to simulated crucifixion might be a harsh enough alternative? And that’s already cool in the federal prison system. Now, under the Military Commissions Act, both are perfectly legal, but that’s an act we might reconsider.
May 8th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
“Legitimate”? Give me a break. They won power by brutal conquest and oppression, and when they got too decadent and degenerate, they lost their empire.
On this one I agree with Hector. The term “legitimate” doesn’t mean the same in past centuries as it does now. By our standards, there was never a “legitimate” regime in India at any point between the Books of the Rig Veda and 1948.
The Mughals were one of the world’s great powers in the 17th Century. In the 18th Auranguzeb destroyed the “legitimacy” of his empire, in practical terms, by his brutality, intolerance, and extravagance. His feeble successors were supplanted by a mixed bag of local rulers and foreign adventurers, most notably the British East India Company. “John Company” came out on top because they had better soldiers and leaders, slightly better weapons, and slightly less contempt for the welfare of the peasants than the native lords.
John Company’s conquests were illegitimate by European standards, of course, but Europeans overseas always seemed to find some way around their scruples when there was money to be made.
The Great Mutiny came about when the British got too arrogant and too bigoted to provide good government and mind the opinions and pride of their native subordinates and soldiers. The cartridge grease issue just lit fuse an already explosive situation.
Two other over-simplified points: the British newspapers who pushed the grease story were not radical in any modern sense. At no point in the four hundred year history of the British Empire was there any permanent majority in favor of imperialism. There were always opponents and critics–several famous ones, in the case of that little revolution that sprang up in Massachusetts in the 1770s. There was always a running debate among literate Britons over the morality of conquest. The Great Mutiny led to the end of John Company’s political power and a power shifting temporarily towards the anti-imperialist faction, leading to the establishment of the technocratic government that runs India (under local management) to this day.
The other point: when you are discussing “a war that cost vast numbers of British and Indian lives,” I would clarfy thusly:
– Several hundred British were killed in the fighting or murdered by mutineers. Several tens of thousands of Indians were killed in battle or slaughtered in reprisal by company armies.
– A few hundred British had their personal personal stolen or vandalized in the fighting. A few hundred thousand Indians saw their cities sacked, their villages razed, their livestock slaughtered, and their crops destroyed.
All a matter of perspective.
May 8th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
On either Christian or conservative grounds?
On economic and realistic grounds.
May 8th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
doddering roué
I take quite a fancy to such things.
May 8th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
By the way, Hector’s sanctimony about hoes is near hilarious. They sell access to certain body parts for cash. Have been for centuries. What does he think harems were for? What does he think Charlemagne did in his spare time? Where does he think Baroque popes went through the palace back doors? What does he think Russian serf-owners did with pretty serf girls? (Hint: not Bible lessons)
I am perfectly at ease with the existence of prostitution. Now, that means there will always be a class of degraded, immoral, and ungodly people, but it’s not like it’s anything new or rare.
Get real. Even in Tehran, there are bunches of hookers. In fact, in the holy city in Iran, student clerics have been known to bed hoes (I see no point in euphemising the name) in graveyards, for convenience. The world is full of hoes. Either use them to your benefit, or just ignore them.
May 8th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
“In the 18th Auranguzeb destroyed the “legitimacy” of his empire, in practical terms, by his brutality, intolerance, and extravagance.”
That’s a good point, but It’s really his father Shah Jahan who ruined the empire. Shah Jahan inherited a great and noble empire, but it was Shah Jahan who neglected the desires of his predecessors who tried to create a legitimate empire based on religious plurality and modern thought. Shah Jahan instead put the empire into serious debt building the Red Fort, the Taj Mahal, and many other ostentatious and irrelevant structures. Auranguzeb was faced with an empire that was seriously in debt when he inherited it. And it was his father’s extravagance that created that debt. But Auranguzeb made the situation much worse. He tried to save the empire by imposing a special tax on non-Muslims. The imposition of Dhimmitude destroyed India. Later Mughal emperors woud later try to pull back, but the damage was already done. And in a large and diverse place like India, once you start a problem, no army can control it. After Shah Jahan’s fuck-up, there was no stopping the decline of the Mughals. By The time of Shah Zafar II, even if he were a good leader, there was still no hope for the regime. And it’s too bad, Mizra Mughal might have been a good ruler had he been given the chance to rule over something. Instead, the British created the hellish situation that is currently India. And I fell sad about that, the Indians are good people, they shouldn’t have to build themselves out of the hellhole the British put them in. The Mughals were incompetent in the later years, but at least they didn’t deliberately try to screw the Indians like the British. But the British get one point of praise: they developed the Darjeeling tea plantations. As a tea fan, I can say that was a good thing. But the Nepalis who run that show now are doing an even better job. And they’ve planted tea in places where even Margaret’s Hope wasn’t supposed to grow.
May 8th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
There is an interesting irony here . . .
But if Myles can exaggerate to make a point, so can I. The Germanic peoples were barbarians when they sacked Rome under Alaric . . . I see no good word to describe Germany other than a barbaric nation full of Barbarians.
That’s one thing the Prussians always had over the British. If they did something, they’d have the details worked out in advance
In the first place, any time you try to describe a “nation” or even a “culture” over a period of more than a century or two, you are probably going to say something untrue. “Nations” aren’t that solid a concept to begin with and cultures/societies change too much over time to describe without major caveats.
Charlemagne, for instance, was not a “German” as we understand the term nowadays. He was a Frank, originally the King of Austrasia, which included chunks of Belgium, northern France and western Germany. His native dialect probably Germanic, but when he wanted to sound intelligent, he spoke Church Latin. He couldn’t write or read well in any language.
While Germans nowadays have inherited a reputation for militarism, they were not culturally homogenous in medieval and early modern times nor were they considered more nor less “barbaric” or militaristic than anyone else in Europe. They got their modern notoriety from the Prussians, a self-created martial aristocracy from the German-settled Baltic lands, who built up a warlike reputation no later than the 18th Century. In the 19th Century the Prussians unified some of the German states and communities of Europe to create the modern nation of Germany, impressing on it that cultural trait of ruthless efficiency and military prowess we all think we know about.
A reputation so terrifying that, in 1947, the occupying powers in Germany, as part of their clean-up after World War II, went out of their way to declare that Prussia no longer existed.
Germany, what is left of it, gets stuck with the tradition and the bad rep.
May 8th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
I think you ought to look up the Prussian Crusade and the Ostsiedlung.
That’s the reason I admire Germany; they have always been the conquerors.
May 9th, 2009 at 12:00 am
“By the way, Hector’s sanctimony about hoes is near hilarious. They sell access to certain body parts for cash. Have been for centuries”
I’m sorry, Hector is not to blame for that. He’s not selling body parts. I may disagree with Hector, but I would never claim that he has these kind of evil propensities. And you should not think that because he has Indian heritage should mean that he’s in any way related to the market in live organs. This market is real, and the main players are the United States, India, and China. But these countries are the main players in any market. But you should not assume that Hector is somehow part of this market because he’s of Indian heritage. Maybe you’d be better to assume that you are part of it because you are American. And let’s face it, in this market, the Indians are more likely to be sellers, but the Americans are more likely to be buyers. And if you’re buying, how can you possibly criticize those that are selling? I used used to deal drugs, and now I just buy them, so I know this this game. It comes out the same way. Everyone is culpable, but not everyone is guilty. There really are some old grandmothers who just need some money to keep them going. But that makes me no less guilty for buying from her. And when you’re guilty of buying an organ from someone who didn’t want it taken from them, you are a guilty person. And if the donator died in the process, you are guilty of felony murder. I’m really sorry if your daughter needs a kidney, but you can’t just kill someone to take that kidney. And yes, they really do that in India, but they do that so some American can get it. They do this for two reasons: India is fucked up, and America is fucked up. But asking ourselves which country is more fucked up only ignores the real question. But the answer to that real question is something Americans will never address. It comes down to the real point of how we value human beings. And that’s not a pretty answer given that we keep borrowing other people’s organs. And we aren’t just borrowing them, we kill teenage children to get those organs.
May 9th, 2009 at 12:05 am
I think you ought to look up the Prussian Crusade and the Ostsiedlung . . . That’s the reason I admire Germany; they have always been the conquerors.
. . . And Myles jumps in to prove my point. I’ll leave it to Hector to point out that the Lithuanians, the Poles, the Swedes, the Danes, and the French not only beat the Germans in the majority of their wars since the Visigoths moved to Spain, they spent centuries using Germany as a floormat while fighting amongst themselves.
May 9th, 2009 at 12:07 am
Re: 103 Comment
Wow, that was probably the most poorly written statement I’ve ever made. I do a better one when after I get to relax. For those of you who don’t know me, that means a few bong hits.
May 9th, 2009 at 12:12 am
Instead, the British created the hellish situation that is currently India. And I fell sad about that, the Indians are good people, they shouldn’t have to build themselves out of the hellhole the British put them in.
“Hellhole?” What “hellhole?”
India is the worlds largest functioning democracy. It has a reasonable efficient economy, government, and military. The British, for all their other faults, broke the caste system and the power of the traditional aristocracies. Religious tolerance is iffy in India, at this time, but it wasn’t all that much better in the old days. It just seemed that way because it was subordinate to the class system. That was also true in the Islamic and mixed Christian countries. You had some freedom of religion, as long as you understood your inferior position to the state faith and didn’t try to rise above it.
In the As in the Islamic world, other
May 9th, 2009 at 12:22 am
Can you read, for God’s sake?
They sell access to certain body parts for cash. Have been for centuries
Access to body parts, not body parts themselves. I would have spelled out vagina, but then realised that some hoes also sell access to the oral and anal openings.
That was certainly a lot of wasted air you just did.
May 9th, 2009 at 12:23 am
There’s nothing quite like an illiterate liberal…
May 9th, 2009 at 12:23 am
Absurd! Goldfarb talks about GERMANS, Yglesias talks about NAZIS. Clearly Yglesias thinks that these two are interchangeable. Lots of people in the German army hated Nazis.
May 9th, 2009 at 12:26 am
Germany, conquered twice in the last century. Man, they are always the conquerers.
May 9th, 2009 at 1:06 am
“The British, for all their other faults, broke the caste system and the power of the traditional aristocracies.”
The British did that by imposing their own aristocracy and promoting the caste system to divide the Indians. If you ever thought that the British broke the system, I’d recommend that you go there and see for yourself. It’s still there in the North. But it’s progressing into a class based system like we have in the US. It’s mostly gone in the South, but the South never really has a strong caste system anyway. I’d like those castes to go away altogether, but sometimes that system creates some cool things.
But in Varanasi, it get’s a lot more real. There’s family there that buries many of the dead. Well, they cremate them, and throw the ashes into the Ganga (Ganges). They’ve been doing this for three thousand years. Their caste will never change, and they would fight hard to prevent any change. But they are Dalits. They are untouchables. And they are the lowest of untouchables, only they can handle dead bodies. But they are revered deeply, because only they can give your loved one the proper burial. And that family of untouchables in Varanasi carries their own respect. They may be nothing, but they are everything as well.
May 9th, 2009 at 1:09 am
For the millionth time, the 3000 people killed in the WTC attack were not all Americans. The point is worth making. This was an attack on American soil but on people from all over the world.
As for all this attempts at categorizing nations, how about this: Everybody is capable of everything.
May 9th, 2009 at 2:01 am
I’d like those castes to go away altogether, but sometimes that system creates some cool things.
What’s wrong with castes? Seems perfectly rational to me.
May 9th, 2009 at 2:02 am
“Access to body parts, not body parts themselves.”
For some of us, that concept is the same. You try to stay out of these issues when you’re an engineer, but sometimes you really do have to buy body parts. And I really do mean parts of bodies. How do you think we do medical research? It ain’t by guessing, that’s for sure. It get’s a little gruesome at times. When we want a piece of ass, we’re not looking for a prostitute. Well, unless she’s dead already. But we’re still looking for only a part of her. Other researchers can have the rest of her. But at least I don’t deal in brain surgery. You can guess what you’ll find in a box when you do that kind of work.
May 9th, 2009 at 2:17 am
“You can guess what you’ll find in a box when you do that kind of work.”
You know, in most work places, having a human head shipped to you in a box is bad thing, and it tends to really freak people out. But in some workplaces, it’s like Christmas. “Oh cool, we got the head!” I’ve only formally dealt with torsos, abdomens, arms and legs; but I’ve seen heads. And they’re pretty freaky. I think it’s the fact that they’re eyes are removed. You’d think that the eyes staring at you would be freaky, but they aren’t there because they’re too valuable. And that’s really freaky.
May 9th, 2009 at 2:57 am
Look. I referred to access, by your sexual organ, to the sexual orifices of the hoe in question; i.e., ramming your sausage in her hole.
God damn it. Literal-mindedness.
May 9th, 2009 at 5:23 am
“What’s wrong with castes? Seems perfectly rational to me.”
Well that’s fine, you’re a Dalit, now work for me, bitch. If you don’t have a ton of sand for me tomorrow, there will we fifty lashes. You certainly wouldn’t think there’s something wrong with that. After all, this is the caste system you have already agreed to and think is perfectly reasonable. So fucking work, you worthless piece of shit! Ooohh, now you don’t like it, well work more! Work harder! Want to give up you worthless piece of white trash? Well admit that the caste system ain’t so cool. That’s when I’ll loosen the lashes.
The very idea that a person is born into supremacy while a superior person is born into servitude is the very worst concept in any religion. It is bad enough in Hinduism, and it is exactly what the Buddha denied vehemently, but the idea that you think it’s cool in your religion is just crazy. And I’d hate to think that the religion you worship is Christianity, but it’s probably true. And it would only reinforce the negative attitudes I already have about that religion. Hector has already solidified those concepts. Now you want to put those concepts into the kiln. Please tell me that you aren’t a Christian, because Christianity already has enough negative Karma. But hey, you have waterboarding in your favor. Negative Karma for sure, but an effective innovation. You can get anyone to convert to your religion with that technique. Sorry you can’t do it by persuasion.
May 9th, 2009 at 6:00 am
I’d almost like to think that the direction this thread took says something interesting, but I haven’t decided what yet.
May 9th, 2009 at 6:05 am
But seriously, wouldn’t it be cool if there were a religion that followed the teachings of Jesus Christ? Islam tried, but it didn’t really get there didn’t it? Buddhism is cool, and Jesus was a good Buddhist, but he tried to create a religion, but it didn’t happen. And then there is Paulism, the world’s largest religion. But Paul never met Jesus and he really got the message mixed up. But they called it Christianity anyway. And once the Romans took over the religion, they really started killing people. It’s too bad, the religion had promise. But no religion can ever succeed when people are forced to convert. And pretty much every Christian on this earth is a descendant of someone who was forced to convert or face death. It’s pretty much the only religion where nobody actually chose to be in it. It’s just because their parents raised them that way. hector is an exception, but he’s a rare one. I chose to be a Christian myself, but that didn’t last long. The dichotomy between the message of Jesus and any Christian church was just too hard to bear. I tried a different church every Sunday for a year just to find one that I thought was real. And two years in that one had me completely disillusioned. But that’s the great thing about being raised Atheist, you can search for your own path. And it’s a good thing that Jesus guided me, but it’s also a good thing that Christianity didn’t.
May 9th, 2009 at 7:17 am
brewmn’s mother was a pretty lame fuck
his dad on the other hand was very enthusiastic
May 9th, 2009 at 8:03 am
A stateside Supermax is going to make Guantanamo look like a tropical resort. How many people escape from them?
May 9th, 2009 at 8:12 am
“How many people escape from them?”
Zero. Unless you count those that are transferred to other SuperMax facilities, of course. That’s the only way you leave if you’re not leaving in a casket.
May 9th, 2009 at 8:39 am
I guess that’s the one real issue. If you’re in Gitmo, escape is still possible. If you’re in ADX Florence, that’s really not an option. Even if you could escape, you’d still be trapped in a high security complex. And even if you got out of that, you’d face a highly armed local populace that consists of prison guards who are off duty. If you got beyond that, you’d face your typical Colorado redneck with an assault rifle. After that, you’re looking at Nebraska, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Utah or New Mexico. When New Mexico is your best option, you have no option but to try to make it to the Mexican border. You may fool the police there, but you won’t fool the Native Americans. And they have better guns than the rednecks and would love to collect a bounty. Why we would hold prisoners in a low security facility like Gitmo means only one thing: we don’t think they are dangerous. If we thought they were some kind of dangerous freaks like Terry Nichols or Ted Kaczyncski, they’d be in a cell right next to Omar Abdel-Rahman, right here in Colorado.
May 9th, 2009 at 8:49 am
But seriously, wouldn’t it be cool if there were a religion that followed the teachings of Jesus Christ?
Get off it, man. If we actually followed the teachings of Christ, we wouldn’t have capitalism and the modern economy. In fact, we almost nearly did not, due to the idiotic church restrictions on usury.
For god’s sakes, the liberal sanctimony is stupifying and stupid. Get off your high horse and start grubbing for money like everybody else.
May 9th, 2009 at 9:02 am
What’s wrong with castes? Seems perfectly rational to me.
Now this is just an out-and-out trolling of the audience here.
May 9th, 2009 at 9:44 am
Re: – A few hundred British had their personal personal stolen or vandalized in the fighting. A few hundred thousand Indians saw their cities sacked, their villages razed, their livestock slaughtered, and their crops destroyed.
Midland,
The mutineers committed terrible atrocities against the British at Kanpur, Jhansi, and other places, and you’ve forgotten that many Indian loyalists were killed by the mutineers as well. To herd 120 British women and children into a castle on promises of safe conduct, and then send in butchers with meat cleavers to dispose of them, isn’t an act of freedom fighting, it’s a massacre.
Ultimately your view of the Mutiny is going to depend on whether you think the cause of the Mutiny was justified. I’m Indian, but I don’t think the mutineers were heroic independence fighters. India needed to be ruled by the British in 1857, only the British could establish a modern infrastructure and educational system, and only the British could break the ancient oppressive structures that held the poor and the peasantry in bondage. If there had been no Clive, there could have been no Nehru.
Some of the mutineers were no doubt good people with mistaken ideas, but for the most part they were made up of reactionary forces who wanted to get back the power and privileges that they had lost under the British. They wanted to reestablish a society where a Dalit could be murdered for drinking from a Brahmin well, where farmland was monopolized by landlords and moneylenders, and where widows could be burned alive. The British were bad, but the Mughals, Rajputs and Marathas were undoubtedly far worse.
May 9th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Re: Get off it, man. If we actually followed the teachings of Christ, we wouldn’t have capitalism and the modern economy. In fact, we almost nearly did not, due to the idiotic church restrictions on usury
Christ: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Myles SG: Show me the money.
I leave it up to the reader’s discretion.
May 9th, 2009 at 10:01 am
What’s wrong with castes? Seems perfectly rational to me.
Now this is just an out-and-out trolling of the audience here.
Speaking of castes, Illinois is in the middle of its first state high school bass fishing tourney. Finals are at Lake Carlye, west of Springfield, this weekend. St. Charles North, Moline, and Woodlawn are in the lead.
For those not familiar with the art of bass fishing, winners will be casting, not trolling.
May 9th, 2009 at 11:25 am
Their former propaganda would have had you believe that, but they certainly got beat pretty badly in 1918 and 45. Not to mention the 30-years war. They seem finally to be wiseing up.
C. 1850 the German people voted in their parliament against militarism, and the King of Prussia promptly dissolved parliament and that was the end of that. At that time in the territories that are now called Germany, the most thoroughgoing censorship in Europe prevailed. Citizens (you could scarcely call them that) were successfully browbeaten into the belief that they ought not to concern themselves with the dirty business of politics and they retained this sheep-like attitude until 1914 (or even 1945). They were not Calvinists (except in Prussia), they were Lutherans (or a mix of Lutherans and Catholics).
Only after 1945 was was there an attempt include Germany as a part of “The West” — the term hitherto referred to the parliamentary democracies of France, Holland, Scandinavia, and Britain that Myles despises.
The British were brutal and ghastly, but India arguably has benefited from “Western” ideas — i.e., parliamentary democracy and due process — more than the Africans have benefited from German militarism. As has been pointed out, they created a desert in Africa and called it peace — that seems to be Myles’s ideal, too.
Myles (Miles Gloriosus) has revealed a great deal about himself and his — Tim McVeigh type, neo-Nazi fantasy subculture — on this thread. I hope he is employed as a designer of video games and is not working for any branch of our government or its security apparatus.
May 9th, 2009 at 11:35 am
em>But no religion can ever succeed when people are forced to convert. And pretty much every Christian on this earth is a descendant of someone who was forced to convert or face death. It’s pretty much the only religion where nobody actually chose to be in it.
That . . . that is bone ignorance and bigotry right up there with the “the Germans have always been barbarians” and “the Jews killed Christ.”
On a point of elementary logic, I note that your first and second sentences blatantly contradict each other. If no religion can succeed where people are forced to convert, and every Christian on this earth is a descendant of someone who was forced to convert, then it follows that Christianity has failed . . . in what way? There are about 2 billion Christians on earth, and the number is growing.
The fuzzy definition problem cuts in when discussing religious conversion. The direct separation of religion and politics was a rare idea before the European Enlightenment, so religious oppression for political purposes is more common than religious oppression for religious purposes. Put them together, of course, and you get a great potential for mass slaughter—which is why religious tolerance became an Enlightenment ideal in the first place.
Religious “tolerance” also has a fuzzy definition. The old pagan Roman empire and the Arab Caliphate were both religiously tolerant, but only as long as none-state religions knew their place. The Romans didn’t oppress the Jews because of obscure theological disputes. Roman political dominance required that non-Roman religions declare themselves subservient to the Roman state religion, and that local cultural elites meld themselves into the Roman cultural elite. The Jews, and later the Christians, had problems being theologically and culturally subservient, and that got them suppressed and prosecuted.
Likewise, the Arab Caliphate, and Islamic and Hindu realms in India, could (but often were not) be very tolerant of Christianity, Judaism, and other sects, as long as they kept their subservient place in the imperial power structure. When leaders like Auranguzeb went beyond that, the result could be catastrophic for the state and the populace.
Christianity had no significant political means of oppressing other religions until it became the state religion of the Roman Empire in the 4th Century AD. By then, Christians constituted about a quarter to a third of the population of Eurasia between the Irish Sea and the Persian Gulf. Political oppression of paganism by Christian monarchs became common after Constantine, along with suppression of pagan aristocracies, but forced mass conversions of peasants and tribesmen usually weren’t necessary or cost-effective. In general, during the medieval period, a ruler established himself as being Christian or Moslem, the local elites were beaten into submission and the peasants, as long as they didn’t make trouble in public, were ignored and left to be assimilated over time.
Of course, there were plenty of horrible exceptions. Charlemagne set the precedent for brutal mass conversions when he conquered the Saxons around 800 AD. The Crusaders in the Middle East ruled over Moslem populations with some degree of tolerance, but Crusaders in Europe had the means to practice total forced conversion and they did so with appalling results.
The brutal practices of the European crusades and the Inquisition were carried to the New World after 1492, where the populace had only stone-age technology and could not put up a decent resistance. In the Old World, however, European imperialists rarely had the military strength (or motivation) to forcibly convert large populations to Christianity. Christian communities in Africa and Asia exist, for the most part, because of missionary work, done with or without government support.
Whatever you may think of missionaries, they don’t fit your model. The model can be said to apply to big chunks of Latin America and bits and pieces of Europe and Oceania, but almost nowhere in Africa or Asia. That’s a pretty gaping hole in anyone’s prejudices.
May 9th, 2009 at 11:48 am
Absurd! Goldfarb talks about GERMANS, Yglesias talks about NAZIS. Clearly Yglesias thinks that these two are interchangeable. Lots of people in the German army hated Nazis.
Goldfarb, not Matt, is the one being sloppy. It was Japan and Germany that declared war on the United States in 1941, along with their junior partners, Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria.
The Nazis were a polticial party that gained power in Germany because the Germans who were not Nazis thought they had some cool ideas about getting revenge for World War I, getting rid of the Jews, and making Germany a superpower by seizing vast chunks of land and resources from the Poles, Russians, and other inferior nations. If they didn’t understand that creating that Teutonic superpower involved robbing and murdering a couple of hundred million Slavs, Balts, French, Africans, etc., they were doing a fabulous job of denial.
May 9th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Myles SG: Well, the upshot would be Petain being able to reform the French identity and eradicate the harm done by, and since, the French Revolution.
Wow, I thought we were just kidding around here. This guy really is a Nazi.
May 9th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
SqueakyRat,
Petain wasn’t precisely a Nazi, and left to his own devices he probably wouldn’t have murdered the Jews. But when the sh*t hit the fan he was willing to hand over Jews to the death camps rather than annoy his Nazi masters. Even Franco, as much as he despised the Jews, couldn’t bring himself to do that. Petain wasn’t a Nazi, he was just a moral coward and p*ssy of monumental proportions. Not that that’s too much better.
He was sentenced, after the war, to be shot for treason which he certainly deserved, but at that point he was almost 90 and so they decided to let him die in prison instead.
May 9th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
The British were brutal and ghastly, but India arguably has benefited from “Western” ideas — i.e., parliamentary democracy and due process — more than the Africans have benefited from German militarism.
I greatly admire the British Empire, and hold it to the greatest Empire that has ever existed, and believe the Edwardian Empire to be the height of human civilisation.
Petain wasn’t a Nazi, he was just a moral coward and p*ssy of monumental proportions.
Frankly, whatever you say, Petain was still superior to nearly every incarnation of post-Revolution politics. He at least tried to correct the damage done by the French Revolution.
May 9th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
May 9th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Re: If we actually followed the teachings of Christ, we wouldn’t have capitalism and the modern economy. In fact, we almost nearly did not, due to the idiotic church restrictions on usury.
Curiously enough Jesus had no problem with the charging of interest. He told a parable where three servants were given some money to invest and those that realized a return on the investments were praised, while the fearful one who buried his portion in the ground was excoriated for failing to realize a return. The parable is supposed to illustrate how we are expected to make use of spiritual gifts, but if Jesus had a problem with investments he would not have used that example.
Re: Only after 1945 was was there an attempt include Germany as a part of “The West”
Any suggestion that Goethe and Kant were not figures of Western culture is a rather odd one, no?
Re: If no religion can succeed where people are forced to convert, and every Christian on this earth is a descendant of someone who was forced to convert, then it follows that Christianity has failed
Forced conversions were quite rare in Christian history (and for that matter in Islamic history too, and in every other religious history). I’m speaking of actually telling people “Convert or die”. That’s always been very rare, period. Christianity and Islam both did create circumstances where non believers had incentives to convert (higher taxes, discriminatory civil laws etc.), but very rarely did they compel conversions.
Re: Charlemagne set the precedent for brutal mass conversions when he conquered the Saxons around 800 AD.
The Saxon army, defeated, was massacred. But Charlemagne had them all baptized first out of a sort of muddled reflex of Christian mercy. (If you had been alive at the time and subject to the Saxons’ depedations you would have cheered on the massacre and quite likely regretted any chance the Saxons may have had of getting into Heaven.) I don’t know that you can claim this as a forced conversion since the Saxons were going to be slaughtered regardless and their tenure as unwilling Christians lasted only a few minutes.
May 9th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Re: Curiously enough Jesus had no problem with the charging of interest. He told a parable where three servants were given some money to invest and those that realized a return on the investments were praised, while the fearful one who buried his portion in the ground was excoriated for failing to realize a return. The parable is supposed to illustrate how we are expected to make use of spiritual gifts, but if Jesus had a problem with investments he would not have used that example.
JonF,
It’s a stretch to say that Jesus supports investment from the basis of that example. As you point out, the passage is from a parable, and the money is meant to illustrate spiritual gifts. Jesus used the parable of the householder who compelled people to come to the wedding feast, ‘Compel them to come in,” and that passage was historically taken as justification for coercion of heretics to abjure their beliefs. One needs to be careful about interpreting parables.
Now I do agree with you that Jesus probably would not condemn all investment and lending, however that doesn’t mean that all sorts of interest lending are perfectly OK. I think that just as war and police powers are handled by the state, credit and investment should be handled by the state as well (i.e. nationally owned banks). That way, the lending of money can be handled in a socially responsible manner. There should not be an entire class of people who make their entire living through financial manipulation. That’s in my view contrary to Christian teaching about the dignity of labour.
Myles,
One thing I appreciate you do on this blog: you make it perfectly clear that just as there are some liberals who celebrate cowardice, decadence, greed, and sexual licence, there are also conservatives who do precisely the same.
May 9th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Civilizing the Enemy: German Reconstruction and the Invention of the West. By Patrick Thaddeus Jackson. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press
There was plenty of brutality before Charlemagne, what about the suppression of the Arian heretics in the fourth century? Besides, as has been pointed out, Charlemagne wasn’t a German.
The Saxons, on the other hand were arguably Germans, as were unarguably, the victims of the thirty years was.
Here is another view of The Invention of the West. Did Hitler invent it?
May 9th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Hector, you make it all sound so hot.
May 9th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Calvin didn’t have a problem with investing — Geneva became quite prosperous because of it.
May 9th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
I guess this is what Miles Gloriosus envisions for the USA:
May 9th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Oddly enough, from that short description Petain’s France sounds almost attractive in some ways, an agrarian Christian commonwealth. Of course, the reality was that this mirage was fake through and through: all the trappings of medieval French Christendom with none of the content. You can’t claim Christianity while selling your soul to German neo-pagans, you can’t invoke the military virtues in the wake of a rapid and spineless surrender, you can’t invoke the rural peasant while you are serving the interests of the rich and powerful, and you can’t claim virtue while shipping Jews to the death camps. Petain’s France bears the same relationship to real Christianity, that pornography bears to marriage. And his name will justly live in infamy for a thousand years.
May 9th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
The Saxon army, defeated, was massacred. But Charlemagne had them all baptized first out of a sort of muddled reflex of Christian mercy. (If you had been alive at the time and subject to the Saxons’ depedations you would have cheered on the massacre and quite likely regretted any chance the Saxons may have had of getting into Heaven.) I don’t know that you can claim this as a forced conversion since the Saxons were going to be slaughtered regardless and their tenure as unwilling Christians lasted only a few minutes.
There were still Saxons around after the conquest and I am inclined to think that the long term effects of “forced conversion” would be more relevant to the live Saxons, not the dead ones. None the less, you remind me that I need to read up more on early medieval Germany history. Damn hard finding the topic in the public library, I’m thinking.
May 9th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Frankly, whatever you say, Petain was still superior to nearly every incarnation of post-Revolution politics. He at least tried to correct the damage done by the French Revolution.
Sweet mother of Guyuk Khan, I didn’t think there were any Petain fans left in the world.
What next, an envoy from the Vidkun Quisling fan club?
May 9th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Midland, I think the “Saxons” of England were different from those in Eastern Germany. (Both are still around, BTW)
May 9th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Midland, I think the “Saxons” of England were different from those in Eastern Germany. (Both are still around, BTW)
The Saxons were originally a Germanic coalition organized along the North Sea coast between what is now Denmark and the Netherlands. They were a major part of the Germanic invaders of Britannia in the 5th Century AD, making them the Saxon part of Anglo-Saxon England. They also conquered territories to the southeast as far as Bohemia.
After Charlemagne conquered the mainland Saxons, Saxony became one of the great “stem duchies” of the Holy Roman Empire. “Saxon” became who of the major ethnic subdivisions in Germany and the Saxons were an important component of the medieval German migration into eastern Europe. The ancient ruling family of medieval Saxony, the Guelphs, were a important force in European politics in the Middle Ages and are still remembered today.
For reference, query Elizabeth of Windsor, current monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Her family have always considered themselves Guelph. Her father was also the last of the Mogul emperors and could trace his legitimate right to rule to Ghengis Khan, but that is another story entirely.
Anyhow, it isn’t like the mainland Saxons went away or anything. There were, outside of England, hundreds of thousands of Saxons before Charlemagne conquered them and there are several million still around today. The state of Saxony organized around Leipzieg and Dresden just happened to be a part of the Saxon lands that kept its old name into modern times.