Trayvon Martin

[Soxbadger]

What would have happened had you tried to use words against Stalin?

 

Interestingly enough the Soviet Union was eventually beaten by words, not by guns.

[StrangeSox]

"blame the marginalized minority for society's problems" wasn't exactly some new innovation Hitler came up with

[Soxbadger]

"blame the marginalized minority for society's problems" wasn't exactly some new innovation Hitler came up with

 

Its unlikely it was even Hitler. Far more likely was Goebbels.

 

But the fact is, Hitler didnt use guns to rise to power, he used ideas.

 

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/paul_von_hindenburg.htm

 

That was the man with the most guns in 1930 Germany. He lost, because all of the guns in the world dont mean a thing if I can convince you not to use them.

 

Hence why the pen is mightier than the sword.

[StrangeSox]

He also used guns, though.

[Soxbadger]

He also used guns, though.

 

And Ive never said he didnt.

 

Ive just said all things being equal, a pen will ultimately beat a sword. And Hitler is proof of this. Hitler had no sword to start, only a pen. And he was able to topple all of the swords/guns of Germany, not with a gun, with an idea.

[Jenksismyhero]

If you look at the situation in the narrowest possible way, sure. But you seem to ignore the entire aftermath once someone gets into power. They use force. Hitler and the Nazi's used force. That's when words stop meaning anything and it shifts towards those who have guns and the means to inflict the most damage and control the masses.

Edited November 22, 2013 by Jenksismybitch

[Jenksismyhero]

And Ive never said he didnt.

 

Ive just said all things being equal, a pen will ultimately beat a sword. And Hitler is proof of this. Hitler had no sword to start, only a pen. And he was able to topple all of the swords/guns of Germany, not with a gun, with an idea.

 

Germany had no guns to stop him when he rose to power though.

[Jenksismyhero]

SB I think you're technically right that words could have stopped Hitler, but it's sort of a meaningless point. At the time you needed to stop the Nazi's (i.e., after it was too late) you needed more than words to do it. I'm sure 6 millions Jews would have liked the opportunity to have a gun and fight back instead of being put into small districts and camps where they complained and argued (i.e., used words) to no avail.

[StrangeSox]

Germany had no guns to stop him when he rose to power though.

What?

[Balta1701]

Germany had no guns to stop him when he rose to power though.

He was named prime minister following a closely-divided election after his party kept coming closer and closer to actually being able to put him as prime minister. How would guns have played into that at all? Shooting people as they attempted to vote? Shooting Hindenberg before he could name Hitler PM?

[Jenksismyhero]

What?

 

It's not like Germany had a major standing army to stop Hitler or the Nazi party once is started to gain influence. The country was in shambles for the better part of the 20's and 30's.

[Soxbadger]

SB I think you're technically right that words could have stopped Hitler, but it's sort of a meaningless point. At the time you needed to stop the Nazi's (i.e., after it was too late) you needed more than words to do it. I'm sure 6 millions Jews would have liked the opportunity to have a gun and fight back instead of being put into small districts and camps where they complained and argued (i.e., used words) to no avail.

 

But here is the odd thing Jenks, I know these people and most of them dont agree with you.

 

There was no standing up to Hitler after he gained control of the Govt. That was the moment you could have stopped Hitler, with words and ideas. If the German people would have said "NO", if they would not voted for Nazis, if they had revolted against the disbanding of govt and the institution of emergency powers.

 

That was the time when you had a chance.

 

Once Hitler took power, guns werent going to save Jews. Even if every German Jew had a gun, they couldnt stop the German Army. The French Army couldnt, the British Army barely could, there is nothing that 6 million civilians could have done to fight a govt with tanks and the support of the other tens of millions of Germans.

 

This wasnt a majority oppressed by a minority with weapons. This was a majority with weapons oppressing a very small minority that could never fight back.

 

And you are also wrong about:

 

complained and argued (i.e., used words) to no avail.

 

This part you just cant understand. But their words did have meaning, their struggle, their lives in concentration did mean something. Sometimes simply surviving is a win, because as Jews we live in the shadow of Masada. { http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masada }

 

Im not sure people can really understand this. There is an extreme sorrow and guilt that hangs over the head of all of those who survived. But to suggest their struggle was for not, is terrible. They survived, it was not to no avail, they survived and their survival means something.

Edited November 22, 2013 by Soxbadger

[Jenksismyhero]

He was named prime minister following a closely-divided election after his party kept coming closer and closer to actually being able to put him as prime minister. How would guns have played into that at all? Shooting people as they attempted to vote? Shooting Hindenberg before he could name Hitler PM?

 

Hitler and his brown shirts drummed up a lot of "support." An armed uprising might have stopped him, but I don't think there was a group with guns to do that. That's my point.

[Soxbadger]

It's not like Germany had a major standing army to stop Hitler or the Nazi party once is started to gain influence. The country was in shambles for the better part of the 20's and 30's.

 

But even amongst the Nazis the side with the guns lost.

 

The SA controlled by Rohm (military) lost to the SS controlled by Himmler. Once gain, ideas proved more powerful than sheer guns.

 

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/night...long_knives.htm

 

Notice that it wasnt guns that convinced the military to join Hitler, it was an agreement, signed by a pen.

[Soxbadger]

Hitler and his brown shirts drummed up a lot of "support." An armed uprising might have stopped him, but I don't think there was a group with guns to do that. That's my point.

 

Brown shirts were very small compared to the actual military to start. SA was kind of a joke, which is why Hitler got rid of them to gain the army (see above post).

Edited November 22, 2013 by Soxbadger

[Jenksismyhero]

But here is the odd thing Jenks, I know these people and most of them dont agree with you.

 

There was no standing up to Hitler after he gained control of the Govt. That was the moment you could have stopped Hitler, with words and ideas. If the German people would have said "NO", if they would not voted for Nazis, if they had revolted against the disbanding of govt and the institution of emergency powers.

 

That was the time when you had a chance.

 

And again, I don't necessarily disagree, but your point is pretty meaningless here. Words won out in the beginning and then when it was too late words didn't matter.

 

Once Hitler took power, guns werent going to save Jews. Even if every German Jew had a gun, they couldnt stop the German Army. The French Army couldnt, the British Army barely could, there is nothing that 6 million civilians could have done to fight a govt with tanks and the support of the other tens of millions of Germans.

 

This wasnt a majority oppressed by a minority with weapons. This was a majority with weapons oppressing a very small minority that could never fight back.

 

Probably not, but I'm sure they would have liked the opportunity. And some did fight back, with guns, and survived, like the Bielski brothers.

 

And you are also wrong about:

 

This part you just cant understand. But their words did have meaning, their struggle, their lives in concentration did mean something. Sometimes simply surviving is a win, because as Jews we live in the shadow of Masada. { http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masada }

 

Im not sure people can really understand this. There is an extreme sorrow and guilt that hangs over the head of all of those who survived. But to suggest their struggle was for not, is terrible. They survived, it was not to no avail, they survived and their survival means something.

 

6 million didn't. And i'm sure all 6 millions of them protested what was happening to them as it was happening. In that respect, words meant nothing.

[Soxbadger]

And again, I don't necessarily disagree, but your point is pretty meaningless here. Words won out in the beginning and then when it was too late words didn't matter.

 

 

 

Probably not, but I'm sure they would have liked the opportunity. And some did fight back, with guns, and survived, like the Bielski brothers.

 

 

 

6 million didn't. And i'm sure all 6 millions of them protested what was happening to them as it was happening. In that respect, words meant nothing.

 

You dont understand being a Jew . Just because they died, doesnt mean their words meant nothing. Just because they died, doesnt mean their lives were meaningless.

 

They meant something, their deaths meant something, their struggle meant something, their words meant something.

 

Im sorry, but the Anne Frank's diary means something. Her words mean something, her death means something. It probably means more than had she killed 100 Nazis with guns before she died. Because her words will live on, because hopefully her words will make other people better people, hopefully her words will help stop the next Hitler if there ever is one.

 

Because if you can live in an attic, watch your family get murdered, watch your friends turn on you and want you dead, and still believe this:

 

It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually turning into a wilderness, I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us too. I can feel the sufferings of millions, and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.

 

You have power.

Edited November 22, 2013 by Soxbadger

[Jenksismyhero]

We're talking about words and guns in the context of defeating Hitler/Fascism, not whether the suffering of the Jews means something greater in the grand scheme of life.

[Jenksismyhero]

You dont understand being a Jew . Just because they died, doesnt mean their words meant nothing. Just because they died, doesnt mean their lives were meaningless.

 

They meant something, their deaths meant something, their struggle meant something, their words meant something.

 

Im sorry, but the Anne Frank's diary means something. Her words mean something, her death means something. It probably means more than had she killed 100 Nazis with guns before she died. Because her words will live on, because hopefully her words will make other people better people, hopefully her words will help stop the next Hitler if there ever is one.

 

Because if you can live in an attic, watch your family get murdered, watch your friends turn on you and want you dead, and still believe this:

 

 

 

You have power.

 

They haven't, unfortunately.

[Soxbadger]

We're talking about words and guns in the context of defeating Hitler/Fascism, not whether the suffering of the Jews means something greater in the grand scheme of life.

 

Well the only way to have stopped Hitler was with words. Jews were an extreme minority in Germany. Even if every Jew had 6 guns, they would have been able to put up 0 resistance to Hitler.

 

Why?

 

Because for the most part, the Jews in Germany were convinced to give up their rights and never even fought back until it was to late. The Nazi's used words to convince Jews to do things like "Wear a yellow star" so if the Jews had guns, Germany would have just made a law that banned Jews from having guns.

 

Its not reality that the Jews could have fought the Germans.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Germany

 

However, following the growth of Nazism and its antisemitic ideology and policies, the Jewish community was severely persecuted. Over half (approximately 304,000) emigrated during the first six years of the Nazi dictatorship, leaving only approximately 214,000 Jews in Germany proper (1937 borders) on the eve of World War II.

 

What could 200k people do against Millions?

 

People forget that the 6mil figure is mainly Jews in countries that were captured by Germany.

 

 

[Balta1701]

When George Zimmerman was arrested this time, he was carrying 5 guns, including 3 handguns, the shotgun he is alleged to have pointed at his girlfriend, an AR-15 model, and 100 rounds of ammunition.

[witesoxfan]

When George Zimmerman was arrested this time, he was carrying 5 guns, including 3 handguns, the shotgun he is alleged to have pointed at his girlfriend, an AR-15 model, and 100 rounds of ammunition.

 

This is the kind of person who needs to have their right to bear arms taken away.

[StrangeSox]

 

http://wonkette.com/535255/for-this-beauti...t-dinesh-dsouza

Edited November 27, 2013 by StrangeSox

[DukeNukeEm]

People really shouldnt care about Trayvon Martin anymore.

[Jake]

Jews made up less than 1% of the German population. They were a longstanding, well-assimilated group -- for the most part, people didn't go around noticing which people were Jews and which weren't. Most folks did not ever interact with Jewish people because they were so few in number.

 

This made it easier to get people to go along with anti-Jewish policies being put into place. If there is nobody near you to disprove the things you've been hearing, then you might start to believe them. Of course, Hitler/Nazis innovated very little when it comes to anti-Jewish policy and propaganda. A great deal of the Nazi anti-Jewish policy can be traced back to the policy suggestions of Martin Luther, who became quite the anti-Semite later in life.

 

The Third Reich was not the first to oppress the Jews, but they were perhaps the first to do in great numbers after the widespread acceptance of scientific racism like Gobineau's "Inequality of the Races" -- this means that Germans saw Jews as Semites rather than Jews. Semites refers to a racial and therefore racial identity, meaning Nazi-era beliefs were that Jews could not convert their way out of being Jewish. Due to the fact that German speakers had been spread across different state boundaries for quite a while, there had long been a yearning among the people to unite in a Pan-German state. This was an appeal used to great effect by Hitler, himself an Austrian that yearned to be German.

 

The early rise of Hitler had little to do with Jews. We think about Jews now, because they bore the brunt of the pain later on. People didn't elect Hitler and submit to Nazi rule because of Jews. His message wasn't "the Jews ruined everything and that's all we should bother thinking about." He promoted a message of Pan-Germanism, extolling the greatness of Germans and how the geopolitical situation had been holding them down. Of course, promoting Germans as a genetically superior people does indeed imply an exclusion of others. People are much easier to motivate by self-love than fear, though. Anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism was not a motivating factor so much as pro-Germanism was. Excessive nationalism -- and by nationalism, I mean "nation" in the racial/ethnic sense -- came first, at which point people became more agreeable to things like anti-Jewish policies.

 

With that said, anti-Jewish policy was enacted in a very calculated way. Law after law after law after law after decree after decree were enacted, stripping them of rights bit by bit. With the gift of hindsight, we always notice these things. We know what it means when you tell people they aren't allowed to run a business or live in a certain place or go to a school. At that point, though, those were each minor offenses against a people that few Germans knew personally and had long heard were evil and/or inferior. Many of these policies would have hardly been uncommon in their features and would have seemed relatively tame in the United States where awful anti-black laws were common.

 

On the whole, guns had pretty much next to nothing to do with it. The vast majority of Hitler's agenda was enacted with unbelievable public support because the "enemy" was distant and unfamiliar. Jews in Germany were so few in number and so concentrated and impoverished by the time they knew what was up that there were no legitimate means of resistance. History had told Jews that a little bit of compliance goes a long way, as they are a people that have been oppressed pretty much regardless of where they go. This was Germany, too. People thought very highly of German culture (including Germans obviously) and the thought that they'd do anything barbarous was preposterous. Many Russian Jews died at the hands of German invaders because they didn't believe the Russian press when it warned that Germans were killing Jews -- indeed, Russian Jews thought much more highly of Germans than Russians, at least until the Germans came to Russia.

 

A lot of Germans were willfully ignorant of what was going on. You can pretty much sum up (West) German culture from 1947-1990 as a big denial of guilt over their own role in the Holocaust. In the later years of that period, Germany on the whole embraced their role quite completely. However, that came from the youth that didn't live through it. The people that were adults during the Third Reich were never quite willing to live up to their own compliance. This includes normal, well-meaning people that were simply so self-involved with their daily lives that they failed to act as well as the many former Nazis that ended up running the government without the public knowing their former roles.

 

There was not a lack of guns, but a lack of resistance at fault. A prominent historian once called German resistance to Hitler as "resistance without people." That's what it was. The pockets of resistance were small, isolated, and never gained support. Hitler was no dummy and got rid of political opponents, but this process occurred so early in the process that it could have been snuffed out if anyone had bothered to care. Unfortunately, Germans didn't mind communists, "asocials," and intellectuals going to "labor camps" because they had been told that those people weren't pro-Germany and had led the country into the last World War. The few folks that could have added some people to the resistance were killed off with consent of the rest of the people.

 

I would say it is more likely that a proliferation of guns is more likely to induce the conditions that would allow for people to acquiesce to such a dubious ideology (chaos) than it is to save a tiny minority that is facing a united ideological front against them.

Edited November 30, 2013 by Jake