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Never forget, the Jews say of the Shoah. It becomes harder to keep that promise if it's seen as uncivil merely to draw comparisons to that era. And it's importa
by hirundo 13y ago
Never forget, the Jews say of the Shoah. It becomes harder to keep that promise if it's seen as uncivil merely to draw comparisons to that era. And it's important that the promise be kept. One can accuse someone of an intolerance akin to Nazi supporters without accusing someone of wanting to re-enact the Shoah. And it's certainly reasonable to analogize contemporary attempts to level the 1% with the corollary attempts in Germany in the 1930s. That analogy is not the same as to depict Occupy sympathizers as Nazis. When it is taken that way it's likely simply an attempt to divert serious contemplation of the actual similarity between the motivations driving those two movements.
- ItendToDisagree 13y agoHow is asking for 'the rich to pay their share' a corollary to any Nazi actions? Am I missing some examples that I should know about of the Nazi's exterminating wealth and industry (rather than what they misguidedly considered 'undesirables' for racial purity reasons)?
- hirundo 13y agoNowadays the language of 'social justice' (e.g. asking the rich to pay their share, when in a progressive tax regime they pay far more than that) is used to justify leveling behavior whereas in Nazi Germany the language of 'racial purity` was used towards the same ends. The verbal justifications change, but the underlying urge to evade one's own accountability for one's relative lack of success does not.
- ItendToDisagree 13y agoIt sounds like you're implying that enforcing 'racial purity' through genocide is somehow analogous to having rich people (no strike that, unbelievably rich people) pay more taxes? That train of thought seems... frightening? (I really hope you didn't make that comment seriously.) Edit: And as pointed out in the article, many pay less than their share in the current tax regime. Many high-income earners pay a lower effective tax rate than low-income earners
- vezzy-fnord 13y agoActually social justice nowadays very rarely addresses economic disparities, but rather focuses on identity politics. Unless you're referring to an alternate definition of SJ.
- hirundo 13y agoAbove a commenter says "How is asking for 'the rich to pay their share' a corollary to any Nazi actions?" How is this not using a social justice argument to address economic disparities? Do you really claim that such statements are rare?
- wonderzombie 13y ago"evade one's own accountability for one's relative lack of success does not." — this is it, in a nutshell. Those who earned deserve it. Those who didn't done. How do you know whether someone earned their success? Well, they're successful. Calvinism, just world fallacy, circular logic, and on and on.
- ItendToDisagree 13y agoBut do those who were successful (and success requires luck, not just a motivation, even Warren Buffet says this), deserve to pay less than those who are mildly successful, or poor? Because that is a thing and was pointed out in the article specifically. Many of the highest earners pay less proportionately than those in the middle class (or poor in some cases). Finally Successful does not necessarily mean it is earned success. Inheritance (or just being born into an upper class family and all of its benefits) is not earned and can in many cases lead to being 'successful'.
- hirundo 13y agoThey didn't necessarily earn it. They inherited it. They got it by luck. They're not good Germans. They are a degenerate race. Their tax rate wasn't high enough. <- Excuses for taking other people's stuff.
- ItendToDisagree 13y agoYou do not address the point that has been brought up many times so far; why should anyone (especially those people who are 'successful' and have arguably benefited most from society) pay a smaller portion than anyone else. Reducing to absurdity seems to be your only way to respond to anyone in this thread. It makes you sound pretty trollish and makes your comments hard to take seriously.
- winstonsmith 13y ago>And it's certainly reasonable to analogize contemporary attempts to level the 1% with the corollary attempts in Germany in the 1930s. It's not reasonable; it's quite perverse -- you seem to be confusing the Nazis with the opposing parties of the time. The opposing parties were for the elimination of class differences while the Nazis where explicitly for preserving them. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism : This involved the idea of uniting rich and poor Germans for a common national project without eliminating class differences (a concept known as "Volksgemeinschaft", or "people's community"), Essentially, the Nazis suppressed class based anger and encouraged homicidal racism and xenophobia. The Nazis were the defenders, not the oppressors, of the wealthy.
- hirundo 13y agoThey simply found an alternative richer class to steal from, so found it convenient to become national socialists instead of communists. It's Willie Sutton's (apocryphal?) logic that he robbed banks because that's were the money is. Though the Jews didn't have all the money, they were the ones most politically convenient to take it from. A bank with fewer guards, so to speak. The rhetoric is far more fluid than the motivation.
- walshemj 13y agoAnd they had decades of background Antisemitism in both Germany and Austria Karl Lueger in Vienna is one earlier example.
- chetanahuja 13y ago"And it's certainly reasonable to analogize contemporary attempts to level the 1% with the corollary attempts in Germany in the 1930s" Yeah... I don't think you understand what the words "certainly" or "reasonable" mean if you feel that statement counts as "certainly reasonable".