4 ms·

Saving the Germans from genocide and exploitation by the Jews is exactly the justification Hitler used

beaconstudios 5y ago
except that Jewish Germans weren't calling for the genocide of Christian Germans. The premise was a lie, constructed to scapegoat the Jewish population for the Germans losing the Great War [1]. Banning people from calling for genocide doesn't apply to governments committing genocide to back up a lie. That's a pretty obvious distinction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth
- defaultprimate 5y ago
  You made my argument for me. When those in power use the justification above and the justification is not based on reality, it has disastrous consequences. It's not a valid justification, and authoritarians don't care about objective reality or rationality.
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    when authoritarians get into power they can do whatever the hell they want. That's why the point is to stop that happening in the first place. Hitler turned himself into a dictator pretty much immediately after (possibly staging) the Reichstag fire and declaring a state of emergency. The whole point is to stop people like him getting in in the first place, and you don't do that by making calls to genocide viable.
    - defaultprimate 5y ago
      Hitler was elected based on the premise that he would save the German people from destruction, the exact justification you excuse, not simply because he hated Jews.
      - beaconstudios 5y ago
        and making it illegal for parties to call for genocide would've helped his campaign, how? It doesn't necessarily harm his campaign as he could/did just dogwhistle instead, but it certainly wouldn't help it. FWIW Hitler wasn't the example I was thinking of when using that example. He didn't AFAIK explicitly call for genocide but he did dehumanise Jewish people with propaganda.
        defaultprimate 5y ago
        Uh it would have been a good legal basis to seize property from and criminalize the Jews since it was "easy to prove" that's what they were doing. You know... Exactly what actually happened.
        beaconstudios 5y ago
        > making it illegal for parties to call for genocide would've helped his campaign, how? I don't know if you're arguing in bad faith or just not responding to what I'm writing, but this is pretty clearly a waste of time.

except that Jewish Germans weren't calling for the genocide of Christian Germans. The premise was a lie, constructed to scapegoat the Jewish population for the Germans losing the Great War [1]. Banning people from calling for genocide doesn't apply to governments committing genocide to back up a lie. That's a pretty obvious distinction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth

defaultprimate 5y ago
You made my argument for me. When those in power use the justification above and the justification is not based on reality, it has disastrous consequences. It's not a valid justification, and authoritarians don't care about objective reality or rationality.
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  when authoritarians get into power they can do whatever the hell they want. That's why the point is to stop that happening in the first place. Hitler turned himself into a dictator pretty much immediately after (possibly staging) the Reichstag fire and declaring a state of emergency. The whole point is to stop people like him getting in in the first place, and you don't do that by making calls to genocide viable.
  - defaultprimate 5y ago
    Hitler was elected based on the premise that he would save the German people from destruction, the exact justification you excuse, not simply because he hated Jews.
    - beaconstudios 5y ago
      and making it illegal for parties to call for genocide would've helped his campaign, how? It doesn't necessarily harm his campaign as he could/did just dogwhistle instead, but it certainly wouldn't help it. FWIW Hitler wasn't the example I was thinking of when using that example. He didn't AFAIK explicitly call for genocide but he did dehumanise Jewish people with propaganda.
      - defaultprimate 5y ago
        Uh it would have been a good legal basis to seize property from and criminalize the Jews since it was "easy to prove" that's what they were doing. You know... Exactly what actually happened.
        beaconstudios 5y ago
        > making it illegal for parties to call for genocide would've helped his campaign, how? I don't know if you're arguing in bad faith or just not responding to what I'm writing, but this is pretty clearly a waste of time.