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Imagine there had been no Nuremberg trials. The Nazis just got a slap on the wrist and almost immediately let back into politics as usual. That's how we got her

Imagine there had been no Nuremberg trials. The Nazis just got a slap on the wrist and almost immediately let back into politics as usual. That's how we got here. We're still fighting the remnants of the confederacy. Germany and Japan in particular purged most of those elements from their society. Here we built statues to the evil fucks.

bigfatkitten 22d ago
The United States must be one of the only nations on earth that names its own military bases after enemy commanders.
archonis 22d ago
>> We're still fighting the remnants of the confederacy. Consicely put, and not nearly present enough in contemporary discourse.
0xDEAFBEAD 22d ago
Here's a map which attempts to estimate when slavery was abolished across various parts of the world: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/zsnr8q/year_of_abolition_of_slavery_by_country/#lightbox https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/zsnr8q/year_of_abo... The US wasn't much of an outlier. As a general rule, anyone who tries to use slavery as a skeleton key to understand US politics is most likely an ideologue with an agenda. Sane people don't propose struggle sessions for events which happened 100+ years ago when everyone involved is long dead. You wouldn't point to a gigantic statue of Genghis Khan to explain what's wrong with modern Mongolia. I don't think this is a slavery thing. Trump just sucks.
- ModernMech 22d ago
  Genghis Khan died 800 years ago. The last American to have born into slavery died in the ~1970s~ 1960s.
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 22d ago
    The 1970s were 50 years ago. "Long dead", in other words. Did you know that Brazil didn't abolish until 1888? They also imported far more than the US: https://www.slavevoyages.org/static/uploads/01.jpg https://www.slavevoyages.org/static/uploads/01.jpg
    - ModernMech 22d ago
      It's recent enough that people living today knew former slaves. That's not ancient history at all, so I think the comparison is not good. I'm sure Brazil also has to deal with fallout of their practices, but I don't see how it changes how the fallout of US slavery impacts the US.
      - 0xDEAFBEAD 22d ago
        >It's recent enough that people living today knew a slave. Slavery ended in 1865. That's 161 years ago. So maybe there are a few modern 80-year-olds who interacted with 80-year-old former slaves when the modern 80-year-olds were infants. Those 80-year-old former slaves would themselves have no memory of slavery since it would've ended before they could form memories. And the modern 80-year-olds would have no memory of the interaction, since they themselves were infants when the interaction happened. In other words: There aren't very many of these people, and it's unclear if most of them would count. You know something which happened more recently in the US than slavery? Prohibition. A trendy, self-righteous moral crusade which didn't accomplish what it set out to achieve, and ended up creating a bunch of problems instead. I think Prohibition is a pretty good template for understanding the form and tendencies of modern left-wing activist movements. But--at least reducing alcoholism was a good cause that we had a shot at doing something about! Short of inventing a time machine, crusading against slavery from centuries ago seems rather pointless. That's not a problem for activists whose primary goal is to be trendy and self-righteous, of course.
        ModernMech 22d ago
        That's not the point, it's that people who were slaves died in a time when color TVs existed. This woman died in 1964! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_J._Cooper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_J._Cooper That's not long enough ago to call it ancient history.
- dataflow 22d ago
  You don't seem to believe that something like generational wealth makes much of a difference?
  - hackernud3s 22d ago
    It makes a difference at a demographics level but I don't think that's what we're discussing here.
- TheOtherHobbes 22d ago
  Some people believe they have a right to land based on claims from millennia ago. I suppose you could question their sanity, but the point stands - history has a short memory, and a few generations are nothing. Especially when the after-effects of slavery, including segregation, disenfranchisement through gerrymandering and for-profit imprisonment, and other forms of continuing violence, are still live issues today.
- tstrimple 22d ago
  Sounds like you’re completely ignorant to US history post civil war. You seem to know nothing about the daughters of the confederacy. Know nothing about segregation and Jim Crow. You have no idea that conservatives fight to this day to maintain monuments to literal traitors to the country. Or that they still routinely fly the flag of traitors to the country. Or more likely you do know about all of that and agree with it and just want to white wash conservative history in the US.
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 22d ago
    I know that stuff happened, but I don't think it's some sort of universal explanation for everything which happens in US politics.
    - tstrimple 22d ago
      I'm sorry you're too dense to see why "The Party of Lincoln" is defending the confederate flags and confederate monuments. They must just really believe in states rights except where it actually helps people. Sort of like the confederates who pretended to be about states rights while demanding other states return their "escaped property". And it doesn't explain everything in US politics. I never claimed your strawman. It explains US conservative's degeneracy. Their complete lack of shame or civility. They never had any.
      - 0xDEAFBEAD 22d ago
        >"The Party of Lincoln" is defending the confederate flags and confederate monuments I think the obvious answer here, insofar as that's true, is that historical continuity is simply not as strong as you are assuming. I mean you've basically admitted it yourself. In 1860 would you vote for the Democrats or the Republicans?
- antonvs 22d ago
  As a general rule, someone trying to use a simple single numerical measure as a skeleton key to understand politics across nations is an ideologue with an agenda. As for the Genghis Khan comparison, I may have made an error. We may just be dealing with severe cognitive limitations here.
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 22d ago
    If you think slavery is the key to explaining everything about the US, the burden of proof is on you to show that. Just because something gets discussed a lot does not prove that it's important. Donald Trump is himself the child of immigrants who immigrated to the US well after the end of slavery, and maintained a residence in a state (New York) which opposed slavery. The relevance of slavery to his presidency is at best unclear.
    - anon84873628 22d ago
      No one even mentioned the Trump administration. The major connection is through the Supreme Court.
    - antonvs 18d ago
      The burden is on you to have studied the subject in even the slightest detail before you mouth off with your ridiculous hot takes. There are plenty of discussions of this available. Do you need me to spoonfeed you about where you can find them? Or do you not actually have the intellectual capacity to be able to use a search engine, or a chatbot?
- Chermska1 22d ago
  The poster you responded to did not mention slavery, they mentioned the confederacy, which held a variety of views, many of which still inform the politics of many Americans today. Acknowledging this reality seems reasonable. Your replies indicate your disdain for appeals to the history of American slavery in political discussions, yet you were the one who brought it into the conversation, diverting the thread by initially straw-manning the parents view.
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 22d ago
    This is bad faith hair-splitting. You know perfectly well what tshrimple thinks "Nuremberg trials" were needed for, or why they think confederates were "evil fucks".
    - tstrimple 22d ago
      They were evil fucks. Slavery was one among many deplorable things conservatives supported and still mostly support to this day. They also opposed women's suffrage. They opposed civil rights and fought to maintain segregation. They fought against gay rights. They fight against trans rights. They literally fight against any minority who might land on an equal playing field. Hey... guess who has been stating lately that women shouldn't be allowed to vote? They are always the first to cast someone as an "other" and scapegoat for all of their problems. You're the type of person to hear "Haitians are eating their cats and dogs!" or "Mexico is sending us rapists and murders" and say "That guy has a good point!". It's pretty fucking gross and you're a clown at best for defending them.
      - 0xDEAFBEAD 22d ago
        >They are always the first to cast someone as an "other" and scapegoat for all of their problems. No kidding amigo.
      - bluGill 22d ago
        That is revisionist history. Republicans are very proud of their opposition to slavery, and the Democrats were the ones opposing civil rights. There have been some changes in alignment over the years, but every Republican I've every talked to remains proud of their historic roles above.
- deleted 22d ago
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- nephihaha 22d ago
  That map is inaccurate. Unfortunately slavery is still very much a thing in many parts of the world, including forced labour, prostitution and some sweat shop labour. The PRC and North Korea still use slave labour as do some other countries. The Soviet Union had slavery with the Gulag system during the 20th century, and other places such as East Germany had some within living memory.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 22d ago
  Someone replied to my comment. I composed a reply, then they deleted their comment. Since I already put in the effort to write my reply, I will paste it here. * * * Trump outperformed with black people relative to Romney and has appointed black people to his cabinet. >problems going on to the present day Often more noise than substance, e.g. the odds of a black man being unarmed and killed by cops in the US are something like one in a million annually. >The white vote in the US was a solid majority for Democrats before the Civil Rights Act and is now a solid Republican majority. Ethnic bloc voting is not at all unusual by international standards. I might as well interpret black loyalty to the Democrats as racism against white people. >Those who "deserve it" are usually not white. Trump has had many many "beefs" with white people such as Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Mike Pence, James Comey, Mark Milley, Anthony Fauci, Megyn Kelly, Joe Scarborough, Rosie O'Donnell, etc. What frustrates me is when activists take an issue which should be a winner ("Trump is corrupt, let's do something about government corruption, all Americans can unite around this") and immediately pivot to handwavey, divisive race-baiting and talking about how utterly depraved conservatives supposedly are. Sometimes it seems like you guys are determined to lose.
- anon84873628 22d ago
  You seem to be missing important parts of US history, not least of all the century of Jim Crow. I mean, come on, my Boomer parents were already alive to see the Civil Rights Act passed. For a trace of the thread directly from the civil war to the current Supreme Court, check out this podcast episode: https://youtu.be/1i2VuPACBbU?si=8jv8XrRTLHJ9hHTu https://youtu.be/1i2VuPACBbU?si=8jv8XrRTLHJ9hHTu
hackernud3s 22d ago
Comparing MAGA to Nazis is a bit much, and I would argue that this kind of hyperbole is a better example of how we got here.
- mjmsmith 22d ago
  True, in the sense that right wing extremists apparently have no agency and no responsibility for their actions or beliefs.
  - hackernud3s 22d ago
    I was thinking more that Nazi's rounded up and gassed a million Jews. So I'm not in a forgiving mood if you're making joking comparisons or trying to be cute.
    - kevin_thibedeau 22d ago
      They did that in the end. In the decade leading up to the final solution they engaged in a lot of shenanigans that have already been replicated by maga.
      - 0xDEAFBEAD 22d ago
        Many governments engage in "shenanigans". One of the biggest mass deportations in US history was directed by Eisenhower, the same guy who beat the Nazis. Switzerland just recently considered a more severe halt to immigration than anything contemplated by the US.
        hackernud3s 22d ago
        Eisenhower did not gas Jews. Please fuck off with your weak ass what about Eisenhower bullshit. I know you think you're being cute but some of us had grandparents that had to flee that shit and do not find quite so hilarious as you and your mates.
Hikikomori 22d ago
I mean that is what happened. Most of the politicians and bureaucrats in Germany post WW2 were Nazis.
nephihaha 22d ago
West Germany and Japan did not purge "most of those elements". Both places retained a surprising number of people from the early 1940s, for the simple, cynical reason that many of these people had skills and experience in administration. Many Nazis ended up in significant positions in NATO and even NASA, and some such as Walter Debus and Klaus Barbie ended up in American employ. A few examples of prominent Nazi officials who worked in West Germany: Reinhard Gehlen, Albert Schnez, Adolf Heusinger (Inspector General of the West German Army), Hans Speidel (major NATO commander), Johannes Steinhoff (Chairman of the NATO Military Committee from 1971–1974), Johann von Kielmansegg (Commander in Chief of Allied Forces Central Europe), Ernst Ferber, Karl Schnell, Franz Joseph Schulze, Ferdinand von Senger und Etterlin etc. “Researchers found that some 77 percent of senior officials in the [West German] Justice Ministry had once identified as Nazis, a portion higher than during the Third Reich, the period between 1933 and 1945 when Adolf Hitler controlled Germany, and much higher than researchers expected. The group included Nazi-era prosecutor Eduard Dreher, a man who sought the death penalty for petty criminals, and Max Merten, who played a role in deporting Jews from Greece.” – 2016 Christian Science Monitor Study East Germany did purge most of its Nazi elements, but became a dictatorship in its own right. When Germany reunited, there was a purge of East German judges but a number of people involved in the old system continued in the new Germany. (Even Angela Merkel who had a significant position in the FJD.) Most of former Soviet Union made a limited attempts to remove Communist era officials. Some of those responsible for Stalin era atrocities died in their beds. Russia is still full of them, and age, not officialdom . Even people like Valentina Tereshkova the former cosmonaut. PR China has never purged itself fully of Maoism, and Chairman Mao's picture still pops up everywhere despite being arguably the biggest mass murderer in history.

bigfatkitten 22d ago

The United States must be one of the only nations on earth that names its own military bases after enemy commanders.

archonis 22d ago

>> We're still fighting the remnants of the confederacy. Consicely put, and not nearly present enough in contemporary discourse.

0xDEAFBEAD 22d ago

Here's a map which attempts to estimate when slavery was abolished across various parts of the world: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/zsnr8q/year_of_abolition_of_slavery_by_country/#lightbox https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/zsnr8q/year_of_abo... The US wasn't much of an outlier. As a general rule, anyone who tries to use slavery as a skeleton key to understand US politics is most likely an ideologue with an agenda. Sane people don't propose struggle sessions for events which happened 100+ years ago when everyone involved is long dead. You wouldn't point to a gigantic statue of Genghis Khan to explain what's wrong with modern Mongolia. I don't think this is a slavery thing. Trump just sucks.

ModernMech 22d ago
Genghis Khan died 800 years ago. The last American to have born into slavery died in the ~1970s~ 1960s.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 22d ago
  The 1970s were 50 years ago. "Long dead", in other words. Did you know that Brazil didn't abolish until 1888? They also imported far more than the US: https://www.slavevoyages.org/static/uploads/01.jpg https://www.slavevoyages.org/static/uploads/01.jpg
  - ModernMech 22d ago
    It's recent enough that people living today knew former slaves. That's not ancient history at all, so I think the comparison is not good. I'm sure Brazil also has to deal with fallout of their practices, but I don't see how it changes how the fallout of US slavery impacts the US.
    - 0xDEAFBEAD 22d ago
      >It's recent enough that people living today knew a slave. Slavery ended in 1865. That's 161 years ago. So maybe there are a few modern 80-year-olds who interacted with 80-year-old former slaves when the modern 80-year-olds were infants. Those 80-year-old former slaves would themselves have no memory of slavery since it would've ended before they could form memories. And the modern 80-year-olds would have no memory of the interaction, since they themselves were infants when the interaction happened. In other words: There aren't very many of these people, and it's unclear if most of them would count. You know something which happened more recently in the US than slavery? Prohibition. A trendy, self-righteous moral crusade which didn't accomplish what it set out to achieve, and ended up creating a bunch of problems instead. I think Prohibition is a pretty good template for understanding the form and tendencies of modern left-wing activist movements. But--at least reducing alcoholism was a good cause that we had a shot at doing something about! Short of inventing a time machine, crusading against slavery from centuries ago seems rather pointless. That's not a problem for activists whose primary goal is to be trendy and self-righteous, of course.
      - ModernMech 22d ago
        That's not the point, it's that people who were slaves died in a time when color TVs existed. This woman died in 1964! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_J._Cooper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_J._Cooper That's not long enough ago to call it ancient history.
dataflow 22d ago
You don't seem to believe that something like generational wealth makes much of a difference?
- hackernud3s 22d ago
  It makes a difference at a demographics level but I don't think that's what we're discussing here.
TheOtherHobbes 22d ago
Some people believe they have a right to land based on claims from millennia ago. I suppose you could question their sanity, but the point stands - history has a short memory, and a few generations are nothing. Especially when the after-effects of slavery, including segregation, disenfranchisement through gerrymandering and for-profit imprisonment, and other forms of continuing violence, are still live issues today.
tstrimple 22d ago
Sounds like you’re completely ignorant to US history post civil war. You seem to know nothing about the daughters of the confederacy. Know nothing about segregation and Jim Crow. You have no idea that conservatives fight to this day to maintain monuments to literal traitors to the country. Or that they still routinely fly the flag of traitors to the country. Or more likely you do know about all of that and agree with it and just want to white wash conservative history in the US.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 22d ago
  I know that stuff happened, but I don't think it's some sort of universal explanation for everything which happens in US politics.
  - tstrimple 22d ago
    I'm sorry you're too dense to see why "The Party of Lincoln" is defending the confederate flags and confederate monuments. They must just really believe in states rights except where it actually helps people. Sort of like the confederates who pretended to be about states rights while demanding other states return their "escaped property". And it doesn't explain everything in US politics. I never claimed your strawman. It explains US conservative's degeneracy. Their complete lack of shame or civility. They never had any.
    - 0xDEAFBEAD 22d ago
      >"The Party of Lincoln" is defending the confederate flags and confederate monuments I think the obvious answer here, insofar as that's true, is that historical continuity is simply not as strong as you are assuming. I mean you've basically admitted it yourself. In 1860 would you vote for the Democrats or the Republicans?
antonvs 22d ago
As a general rule, someone trying to use a simple single numerical measure as a skeleton key to understand politics across nations is an ideologue with an agenda. As for the Genghis Khan comparison, I may have made an error. We may just be dealing with severe cognitive limitations here.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 22d ago
  If you think slavery is the key to explaining everything about the US, the burden of proof is on you to show that. Just because something gets discussed a lot does not prove that it's important. Donald Trump is himself the child of immigrants who immigrated to the US well after the end of slavery, and maintained a residence in a state (New York) which opposed slavery. The relevance of slavery to his presidency is at best unclear.
  - anon84873628 22d ago
    No one even mentioned the Trump administration. The major connection is through the Supreme Court.
  - antonvs 18d ago
    The burden is on you to have studied the subject in even the slightest detail before you mouth off with your ridiculous hot takes. There are plenty of discussions of this available. Do you need me to spoonfeed you about where you can find them? Or do you not actually have the intellectual capacity to be able to use a search engine, or a chatbot?
Chermska1 22d ago
The poster you responded to did not mention slavery, they mentioned the confederacy, which held a variety of views, many of which still inform the politics of many Americans today. Acknowledging this reality seems reasonable. Your replies indicate your disdain for appeals to the history of American slavery in political discussions, yet you were the one who brought it into the conversation, diverting the thread by initially straw-manning the parents view.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 22d ago
  This is bad faith hair-splitting. You know perfectly well what tshrimple thinks "Nuremberg trials" were needed for, or why they think confederates were "evil fucks".
  - tstrimple 22d ago
    They were evil fucks. Slavery was one among many deplorable things conservatives supported and still mostly support to this day. They also opposed women's suffrage. They opposed civil rights and fought to maintain segregation. They fought against gay rights. They fight against trans rights. They literally fight against any minority who might land on an equal playing field. Hey... guess who has been stating lately that women shouldn't be allowed to vote? They are always the first to cast someone as an "other" and scapegoat for all of their problems. You're the type of person to hear "Haitians are eating their cats and dogs!" or "Mexico is sending us rapists and murders" and say "That guy has a good point!". It's pretty fucking gross and you're a clown at best for defending them.
    - 0xDEAFBEAD 22d ago
      >They are always the first to cast someone as an "other" and scapegoat for all of their problems. No kidding amigo.
    - bluGill 22d ago
      That is revisionist history. Republicans are very proud of their opposition to slavery, and the Democrats were the ones opposing civil rights. There have been some changes in alignment over the years, but every Republican I've every talked to remains proud of their historic roles above.
deleted 22d ago
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nephihaha 22d ago
That map is inaccurate. Unfortunately slavery is still very much a thing in many parts of the world, including forced labour, prostitution and some sweat shop labour. The PRC and North Korea still use slave labour as do some other countries. The Soviet Union had slavery with the Gulag system during the 20th century, and other places such as East Germany had some within living memory.
0xDEAFBEAD 22d ago
Someone replied to my comment. I composed a reply, then they deleted their comment. Since I already put in the effort to write my reply, I will paste it here. * * * Trump outperformed with black people relative to Romney and has appointed black people to his cabinet. >problems going on to the present day Often more noise than substance, e.g. the odds of a black man being unarmed and killed by cops in the US are something like one in a million annually. >The white vote in the US was a solid majority for Democrats before the Civil Rights Act and is now a solid Republican majority. Ethnic bloc voting is not at all unusual by international standards. I might as well interpret black loyalty to the Democrats as racism against white people. >Those who "deserve it" are usually not white. Trump has had many many "beefs" with white people such as Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Mike Pence, James Comey, Mark Milley, Anthony Fauci, Megyn Kelly, Joe Scarborough, Rosie O'Donnell, etc. What frustrates me is when activists take an issue which should be a winner ("Trump is corrupt, let's do something about government corruption, all Americans can unite around this") and immediately pivot to handwavey, divisive race-baiting and talking about how utterly depraved conservatives supposedly are. Sometimes it seems like you guys are determined to lose.
anon84873628 22d ago
You seem to be missing important parts of US history, not least of all the century of Jim Crow. I mean, come on, my Boomer parents were already alive to see the Civil Rights Act passed. For a trace of the thread directly from the civil war to the current Supreme Court, check out this podcast episode: https://youtu.be/1i2VuPACBbU?si=8jv8XrRTLHJ9hHTu https://youtu.be/1i2VuPACBbU?si=8jv8XrRTLHJ9hHTu

hackernud3s 22d ago

Comparing MAGA to Nazis is a bit much, and I would argue that this kind of hyperbole is a better example of how we got here.

mjmsmith 22d ago
True, in the sense that right wing extremists apparently have no agency and no responsibility for their actions or beliefs.
- hackernud3s 22d ago
  I was thinking more that Nazi's rounded up and gassed a million Jews. So I'm not in a forgiving mood if you're making joking comparisons or trying to be cute.
  - kevin_thibedeau 22d ago
    They did that in the end. In the decade leading up to the final solution they engaged in a lot of shenanigans that have already been replicated by maga.
    - 0xDEAFBEAD 22d ago
      Many governments engage in "shenanigans". One of the biggest mass deportations in US history was directed by Eisenhower, the same guy who beat the Nazis. Switzerland just recently considered a more severe halt to immigration than anything contemplated by the US.
      - hackernud3s 22d ago
        Eisenhower did not gas Jews. Please fuck off with your weak ass what about Eisenhower bullshit. I know you think you're being cute but some of us had grandparents that had to flee that shit and do not find quite so hilarious as you and your mates.

Hikikomori 22d ago

I mean that is what happened. Most of the politicians and bureaucrats in Germany post WW2 were Nazis.

nephihaha 22d ago

West Germany and Japan did not purge "most of those elements". Both places retained a surprising number of people from the early 1940s, for the simple, cynical reason that many of these people had skills and experience in administration. Many Nazis ended up in significant positions in NATO and even NASA, and some such as Walter Debus and Klaus Barbie ended up in American employ. A few examples of prominent Nazi officials who worked in West Germany: Reinhard Gehlen, Albert Schnez, Adolf Heusinger (Inspector General of the West German Army), Hans Speidel (major NATO commander), Johannes Steinhoff (Chairman of the NATO Military Committee from 1971–1974), Johann von Kielmansegg (Commander in Chief of Allied Forces Central Europe), Ernst Ferber, Karl Schnell, Franz Joseph Schulze, Ferdinand von Senger und Etterlin etc. “Researchers found that some 77 percent of senior officials in the [West German] Justice Ministry had once identified as Nazis, a portion higher than during the Third Reich, the period between 1933 and 1945 when Adolf Hitler controlled Germany, and much higher than researchers expected. The group included Nazi-era prosecutor Eduard Dreher, a man who sought the death penalty for petty criminals, and Max Merten, who played a role in deporting Jews from Greece.” – 2016 Christian Science Monitor Study East Germany did purge most of its Nazi elements, but became a dictatorship in its own right. When Germany reunited, there was a purge of East German judges but a number of people involved in the old system continued in the new Germany. (Even Angela Merkel who had a significant position in the FJD.) Most of former Soviet Union made a limited attempts to remove Communist era officials. Some of those responsible for Stalin era atrocities died in their beds. Russia is still full of them, and age, not officialdom . Even people like Valentina Tereshkova the former cosmonaut. PR China has never purged itself fully of Maoism, and Chairman Mao's picture still pops up everywhere despite being arguably the biggest mass murderer in history.