5 ms·

At risk of invoking Godwin's Law... The USA and Germany have both done terrible things, claiming moral superiority of one or the other is treading on thin ice.

chc 14y ago
At the risk of invoking common sense: Things that you did nearly a hundred years ago are not especially relevant to the discussion of what you're doing today. If somebody used to smoke in the 60s and now campaigns to help fight substance abuse, can we still not call them an anti-smoking advocate? Would it be accurate to call you a gamete? You used to be one, after all — probably more recently than the terrible things you're talking about Germany doing. It's useful to remember the past, but to excuse present wrongs because of past ones is inane, as is placing equal people on the person who did the deed and his or her grandchildren.
- batista 14y ago
  >At the risk of invoking common sense: Things that you did nearly a hundred years ago are not especially relevant to the discussion of what you're doing today. For a person, yes, for a country, not so much. A country has "continuity of the state" (if I recall the term correctly). Besides that legal difference (under international law), what a country has done in the past cannot be erased from the country. Even if all the old perpetrators are now dead, the deed remains within the country's history, and affects relations within its population (descendants of the perpetrators and/or the victims), relations with other countries if it was a foreign affairs issue, etc. For example you have freed the black slaves. You also stopped segregation (in the bloody 60's !!!). That doesn't mean that there is not a friction between black and white people in the country still, based among other things on historical reasons. And it doesn't mean that the black people that live today have it as if those things did not happen at all. Their past also affects their future. For example, a guy that arrived as a poor _white_ immigrant in the US in the twenties, is far more likely to have made it (and his descendants) than a poor black guy freed from some Southern cotton picking farm and left with nothing + plus the prejudice of the era + plus unfavorable laws (Jim Crow etc). Which kinda explains why blacks are the disproportionate majority of the prison population in the US. Besides that, what a country has done in the past is probably indicative of the idea the country has for itself and it's role. That kind of state and populace thinking doesn't die with a generation or two. For example the US likes to play global cop, Germany has several times brought war to Europe (and the world at large), other countries had colonial history for 3-4 centuries and continue to feel "entitled" to the countries they occupied in the past, etc etc.
  - chmod775 14y ago
    >A country has "continuity of the state" (if I recall the term correctly). If you would recall correctly, you would know that there's a difference between a country and the people in it.
- hej 14y ago
  You are funny. Those stats have always looked quite similar for Germany, back to the fifties. Alone for that reason they cannot be a good indicator for whether a country is civilized. I’m sorry, but state sponsored murder of 11 million innocent people is not outweighed by the police only shooting very few bullets at criminals. Talking in those terms is just bullshit, it’s a weird worldview, one that especially Germans should be ashamed for expressing. But that arrogance is common. It’s annoying.
  - chmod775 14y ago
    Most of the people that where 20 in ~1930 are not alive today. I'm a 17 yrs old German and I can't feel responsible for what some people I dont even know have done a hundred years ago. That would be as stupid as the concept of original sin....
    - hej 14y ago
      You should feel responsible. You should be willing to learn something. I certainly do.
      - chmod775 14y ago
        Have I killed Jews? Did my dad? My Grandfather? Nope. My family lived outside the big cities the entire time. Even so. If your Grandfather killed someone before you even were born. How could you feel responsible? It's not like you were able to whisper: "kill him! Kill him!" But of course we can learn from that tragedy. Everyone can. But learning something and being responsible are two completely different things. It's ok if you say Germany's responsible though.
      - nkoren 14y ago
        The lesson of the Holocaust is "look at the nasty things that Humans can do. Don't do that." It is absolutely not "look at the nasty things that Germans can do." The more that people make the latter argument, the less they've learned the learned the lesson of the Holocaust. NB.: I'm of Jewish ancestry and have counted several Holocaust survivors among my friends. This shit is personal for me.

chc 14y ago

At the risk of invoking common sense: Things that you did nearly a hundred years ago are not especially relevant to the discussion of what you're doing today. If somebody used to smoke in the 60s and now campaigns to help fight substance abuse, can we still not call them an anti-smoking advocate? Would it be accurate to call you a gamete? You used to be one, after all — probably more recently than the terrible things you're talking about Germany doing. It's useful to remember the past, but to excuse present wrongs because of past ones is inane, as is placing equal people on the person who did the deed and his or her grandchildren.

batista 14y ago
>At the risk of invoking common sense: Things that you did nearly a hundred years ago are not especially relevant to the discussion of what you're doing today. For a person, yes, for a country, not so much. A country has "continuity of the state" (if I recall the term correctly). Besides that legal difference (under international law), what a country has done in the past cannot be erased from the country. Even if all the old perpetrators are now dead, the deed remains within the country's history, and affects relations within its population (descendants of the perpetrators and/or the victims), relations with other countries if it was a foreign affairs issue, etc. For example you have freed the black slaves. You also stopped segregation (in the bloody 60's !!!). That doesn't mean that there is not a friction between black and white people in the country still, based among other things on historical reasons. And it doesn't mean that the black people that live today have it as if those things did not happen at all. Their past also affects their future. For example, a guy that arrived as a poor _white_ immigrant in the US in the twenties, is far more likely to have made it (and his descendants) than a poor black guy freed from some Southern cotton picking farm and left with nothing + plus the prejudice of the era + plus unfavorable laws (Jim Crow etc). Which kinda explains why blacks are the disproportionate majority of the prison population in the US. Besides that, what a country has done in the past is probably indicative of the idea the country has for itself and it's role. That kind of state and populace thinking doesn't die with a generation or two. For example the US likes to play global cop, Germany has several times brought war to Europe (and the world at large), other countries had colonial history for 3-4 centuries and continue to feel "entitled" to the countries they occupied in the past, etc etc.
- chmod775 14y ago
  >A country has "continuity of the state" (if I recall the term correctly). If you would recall correctly, you would know that there's a difference between a country and the people in it.
hej 14y ago
You are funny. Those stats have always looked quite similar for Germany, back to the fifties. Alone for that reason they cannot be a good indicator for whether a country is civilized. I’m sorry, but state sponsored murder of 11 million innocent people is not outweighed by the police only shooting very few bullets at criminals. Talking in those terms is just bullshit, it’s a weird worldview, one that especially Germans should be ashamed for expressing. But that arrogance is common. It’s annoying.
- chmod775 14y ago
  Most of the people that where 20 in ~1930 are not alive today. I'm a 17 yrs old German and I can't feel responsible for what some people I dont even know have done a hundred years ago. That would be as stupid as the concept of original sin....
  - hej 14y ago
    You should feel responsible. You should be willing to learn something. I certainly do.
    - chmod775 14y ago
      Have I killed Jews? Did my dad? My Grandfather? Nope. My family lived outside the big cities the entire time. Even so. If your Grandfather killed someone before you even were born. How could you feel responsible? It's not like you were able to whisper: "kill him! Kill him!" But of course we can learn from that tragedy. Everyone can. But learning something and being responsible are two completely different things. It's ok if you say Germany's responsible though.
    - nkoren 14y ago
      The lesson of the Holocaust is "look at the nasty things that Humans can do. Don't do that." It is absolutely not "look at the nasty things that Germans can do." The more that people make the latter argument, the less they've learned the learned the lesson of the Holocaust. NB.: I'm of Jewish ancestry and have counted several Holocaust survivors among my friends. This shit is personal for me.