The Wussification of America

[Y2HH]

we're saying they were normal in the sense that most people under THOSE CIRCUMSTANCES would have done more or less the same thing. And by this I don't mean the higher ups, as I'll agree that those people were a special breed of evil - all we're saying is that people in groups are capable of really horrific things, and the circumstances of 1930's Germany lent themselves to the desensitization of the German people - thus why there were so many who were capable and willing to be a part of things like the SS.

 

Even under those circumstances, the SS were NOT normal, and there weren't many willing, nor capable of being SS, either. Not sure where you heard that. The higher ups in Hitler's military are the ones who carried out his most heinous orders, not regular military, as many of you seem to believe.

[Reddy]

Even under those circumstances, the SS were NOT normal, and there weren't many willing, nor capable of being SS, either. Not sure where you heard that. The higher ups in Hitler's military are the ones who carried out his most heinous orders, not regular military, as many of you seem to believe.

 

Ok, but it was the prison officers who actually PUT people in the ovens, is what we're saying. I'm not talking about the person to give the order.

[Y2HH]

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

 

We don't really know how we'd act if we were in 1930's Germany, or the Antebellum South, or apartheid South Africa etc.

 

This is, without a doubt, 100% true. I'd give it more than 100%, but that's an impossibility, so you'll have to settle with 100.

 

But I can guess how we'd act.

 

Like the most heinous, evil, son of a mothers the world ever saw to that point.

 

Lord of the Flies isn't actually about children, either. Unfortunately, we'd be savages. And I'll be the first to admit it.

[Reddy]

ANYWAY - 4 people got shot at gun shows today.

 

lolz

[Y2HH]

Ok, but it was the prison officers who actually PUT people in the ovens, is what we're saying. I'm not talking about the person to give the order.

 

Like I said, coming from a rather unique perspective...they didn't do that because they were evil pieces of garbage...they did it because if they didn't, they'd watch their 2 year old daughters, sons, and wife burn instead. Again, this all came from the very top...who had the power and control to carry it out.

 

In this world, with the sheer size of our military, if anything like this started to occur, you'd see anarchy and revolt from the soldiers within minutes. Information travels rather fast these days. Back then, the only people who knew the consequences of not following the mans orders were the people involved...and that wasn't many in comparison to today. Oh, and they had no phones, etc...either. So word traveled...quite...slow.

Edited January 20, 2013 by Y2HH

[Y2HH]

ANYWAY - 4 people got shot at gun shows today.

 

lolz

 

Dude, why is that funny to you?

 

Seriously.

[Reddy]

Like I said, coming from a rather unique perspective...they didn't do that because they were evil pieces of garbage...they did it because if they didn't, they'd watch their 2 year old daughters, sons, and wife burn instead. Again, this all came from the very top...who had the power and control to carry it out.

 

In this world, with the sheer size of our military, if anything like this started to occur, you'd see anarchy and revolt from the soldiers within minutes. Information travels rather fast these days. Back then, the only people who knew the consequences of not following the mans orders were the people involved...and that wasn't many in comparison to today. Oh, and they had no phones, etc...either. So word traveled...quite...slow.

 

yeah i literally said the same thing a page or two ago. we agree.

[Reddy]

Dude, why is that funny to you?

 

Seriously.

 

none died. thus it's just funny and ironic and well timed for folks on my side of gun rights.

[Soxbadger]

Sorry guys, but I have to chime in again.

 

I have quite a unique perspective on what life was like in Nazi Germany, as my dad actually lived in it, so I have been privy to what life was actually like from a person that actually lived it until his teens. Also, for full disclosure, and don't hold this against me...my grandfather (my fathers father), fought in WWII on the Nazi side.

 

Like Ptac said, no, these were NOT normal people, because the time, and mostly, the situation in which they lived made them different people. In ways none of you could imagine. People were starving to death in Germany, so to quote the phrase, 'don't bite the hand that feeds you', fits more so than it would here, at this present time. If Hitler commanded one of his people to do something heinous, they did it, not only out of fear of the man that went from a being a lowly Private in WW1 to leading that entire country by WW2, but because he owned them to the point that he'd slaughter their families for disobeying. Hitler also had something pretty infamous called the SS...and THOSE were the people that carried out his most heinous orders. And again, the SS were NOT ordinary people, so please, can it.

 

That s*** wouldn't happen here. Some of you may hate Obama with every fiber of your being, but I guarantee the man would NEVER order his military to airstrike his own civilians. But again, that's Obama, in 2013. We don't know who will come into power in 2090 or what the state of the world will be like at that time...and the point is, we are a completely different people, living in a completely different world than the people who lived in Nazi Germany, following Hitlers command to the most minute detail.

 

Hitler commanded a rather small, well trained military in his time, in addition to an even smaller and super well trained to the point of being robotic SS. Our current military, by size alone, would be IMPOSSIBLE to control in the same manner. So please, let's stop pretending otherwise.

 

Not to be a dick, but as soon as I read the first post by you that I quoted, I knew you were German. You obviously have a much different perspective, part of my family were Germans who escaped from Germany on the famous last boat out. They described it much differently. They are the minority obviously, most of the Germans who survived, were the Nazis, not the Jews. So history will be rewritten, eventually the German people will be victims just like the Jews.

 

Its okay, normal people do bad things. You dont have to further the myth.

 

It could happen here. It could happen here. It could happen here.

 

Under the right circumstances, it could happen here.

 

If you want to make sure it never happens again, if you want to make sure then you have to believe it could happen here.

 

Anything else and we start down the path again. You just dont understand, I dont even understand.

[Soxbadger]

And at this point I probably should stop posting. Im going to get way to nasty.

 

Normal people can do bad things. I think I am a normal person. I know I can do bad things. When I read about someone fighting for the Nazi's I want to hurt them. I think of all the people they killed, I think of my Great Uncle who died on D-Day, I want to get my pound of flesh.

 

That doenst make me a bad person, it makes me a human. But I admit I can do terrible things, I admit I am capable of great evil. I just try really hard not to let that happen.

 

[Texsox]

I guess to avoid this wussification we need more duels in the streets! We need more shootouts between neighbors. Once again some of the Republicans on the board want to return to days gone by. Gun slingers, no gay people, minorities out of sight and out of mind, women at home having babies, wearing a dress and cookin' dinner. They believe in evolution on everything except civilization.

To prove I'm not a wuss I'll kick anyone's ass who dares to challenge me!

 

Again I ask, what does well regulated mean? I thought it may have something to do with having regulations on arms.

 

 

[Y2HH]

Not to be a dick, but as soon as I read the first post by you that I quoted, I knew you were German. You obviously have a much different perspective, part of my family were Germans who escaped from Germany on the famous last boat out. They described it much differently. They are the minority obviously, most of the Germans who survived, were the Nazis, not the Jews. So history will be rewritten, eventually the German people will be victims just like the Jews.

 

Its okay, normal people do bad things. You dont have to further the myth.

 

It could happen here. It could happen here. It could happen here.

 

Under the right circumstances, it could happen here.

 

If you want to make sure it never happens again, if you want to make sure then you have to believe it could happen here.

 

Anything else and we start down the path again. You just dont understand, I dont even understand.

 

I have to correct you on one thing.

 

I'm not German, I'm American. Please don't refer to me as German. I've never been to Germany, I don't speak German, either. And my father and his family also escaped Germany much in the same way as your family did, by boat. And Jews did survive, friendo...they still exist.

 

[Y2HH]

And at this point I probably should stop posting. Im going to get way to nasty.

 

Normal people can do bad things. I think I am a normal person. I know I can do bad things. When I read about someone fighting for the Nazi's I want to hurt them. I think of all the people they killed, I think of my Great Uncle who died on D-Day, I want to get my pound of flesh.

 

That doenst make me a bad person, it makes me a human. But I admit I can do terrible things, I admit I am capable of great evil. I just try really hard not to let that happen.

 

...and I agree with you.

 

But I didn't do it...so try to not take it out on me like you are.

[mr_genius]

This thread gone off the rails, like the finance one did.

 

 

Edited January 20, 2013 by mr_genius

[Reddy]

This thread gone off the rails, like the finance one did.

 

was... this thread ever ON the rails?

 

pretty sure it started with Clint Eastwood yelling at a chair...

[kapkomet]

was... this thread ever ON the rails?

 

pretty sure it started with Clint Eastwood yelling at a chair...

 

 

[Quin]

[Soxbadger]

Y2hh,

 

I didnt mean you were German that way. Just that you were likely of German descent. And I have no problem with anyone. Its the past.

[iamshack]

Y2hh,

 

I didnt mean you were German that way. Just that you were likely of German descent. And I have no problem with anyone. Its the past.

Hmmm...I don't think the Germans were all quite lining up like you seem to argue...many of them were really afraid to step out of line, because if you did, you ended up getting beaten and in a hospital bed somewhere.

 

And it wasn't just Germans that were somewhat complicit in all of this...there were quite a few Americans and American politicians who did the exact same thing as the Germans did.

[caulfield12]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parent...article4247325/

 

 

Essentially, what this whole conversation is getting at is fine line between accountability/responsibility and a government that's too soft/compassionate/caring.

 

I would ask Duke and some of the more conservative members of the forum if they agree that this Chinese Tiger Mom method of parenting is what they would like to see in American parents today?

 

It could be parenting, it could be teaching (if you're too soft or too lenient or too friendly with students, they will run all over you and take advantage....if you're too strict, too demanding, too harsh and you don't show any love or compassion in the way you instruct, then you'll also lose students and make them hate learning just as much)...it could be the way in which government deals with or doesn't deal with social problems, and whether philosophical it should have the mission to do so.

 

 

Here's a comment I found interesting on this phenomenon.

 

http://www.parenting.com/blogs/parenting-p...er-mom-amy-chua

In it (her book), Chua suggests that Asian children are academically, culturally and mentally superior than American children because their mothers are strict, no-nonsense parents who demand—and get—obedience and perfection from their kids, even if they have to use punishment, excoriation and shame to get it. American children, she compares, stay losing because, well, we moms coddle and worry and fret over our children’s “feelings” and let our kids “give up” easily because we American moms are quitters—too lazy to demand better.

 

...

 

I mean, I’m glad that Chua cheerleads for her people and whatnot, but there are a BILLION people in China. And I can promise you, not all of the kids there are concert-level pianists with 4.2 grade averages who kick ass on standardized tests—even if the cultural norm there is for moms to berate and belittle their children into succeeding.

 

Still, that superior stereotype of the uber smart and talented and perfect Asian (and African, and Caribbean and Indian and insert-your immigrant-of-choice here) child plays big here in America, without any recognition by Chua or anyone else that these kids are the children of immigrants—people who, for whatever reason, found the gumption and wherewithal and mettle to bring their families to this, our vast land of opportunity, to find better lives for themselves—to better their families. And that takes some balls. The same kind of balls that I’m guessing you can find in any community of people—yes, even American ones—hellbent on winning and making sure their children do, too.

 

I see the proof of this up close every year around this time. My husband interviews prospective students for his alma mater, Yale—has for more than 20 years. Kids apply, the college farms them out to alumni for interviews that will determine whether they’re Yale material, and a handful of them wind up on my living room couch, shaking and nervous and praying to sweet baby Jesus/Buddha/Allah/Jehovah/whatever-God-they-pray-to that they can impress my husband—a beautiful, brilliant, successful black man whose parents did NOT have to beat up and yell at and berate and humiliate and threaten their son in order for him to succeed—enough to talk their way into one of the top colleges in the world. And I promise you, those students are not all Asian.

 

They are the children of white blue collar workers whose modest homes butt up against trailer parks in neighborhoods where Wal-Mart is the fancy store. They are the children of Mexicans, whose hardworking parents toil under America’s harsh anti-immigration (read: anti-Mexican) glare, but still insist that their children press on, do their best and succeed—prove wrong everyone lined up against their country and culture and language. They are the children of Ghanaians and Jamaicans and Nigerians and Trinidadians who live in grand houses in expensive neighborhoods, paid for with the salaries afforded doctors and lawyers and entrepreneurs who found success here in the United States when there was none to be had in their own countries. They are the children of African American single moms struggling to make ends meet, and black parents who, too, are Yale and Harvard alums with impressive titles and homes and bank accounts.

 

They are the children of families who parented in all kinds of ways—with too much discipline and not enough, with hugging and with slapping, with encouragement and ridicule, with Helicopter Parent-styled attention and hands-off, Free Range Kids-styled parenting.

 

None of these kids are better than the other. None of them worse. They’re just students who, because of their circumstances or despite it, managed to get what they think they need to be the people they think they want to become. And honestly, I don’t think that’s somehow superior to, say, the kids who skip college altogether and become plumbers and electricians and hairdressers and store clerks and nannies.

 

 

 

Edited January 20, 2013 by caulfield12

[Y2HH]

Hmmm...I don't think the Germans were all quite lining up like you seem to argue...many of them were really afraid to step out of line, because if you did, you ended up getting beaten and in a hospital bed somewhere.

 

And it wasn't just Germans that were somewhat complicit in all of this...there were quite a few Americans and American politicians who did the exact same thing as the Germans did.

 

This is exactly it. Most of them were so afraid of their own shadows and what the consequences of not following strict rules would end up meaning to them and their families that they did things that they'd never be capable of doing under ordinary conditions, even ordinary conditions of that day. But, that's life under a dictatorship.

[Y2HH]

Y2hh,

 

I didnt mean you were German that way. Just that you were likely of German descent. And I have no problem with anyone. Its the past.

 

Can I ask why you felt that I was of German descent, then? Is it the way I talk on the Internet?

[YASNY]

Thank you all for your interesting points of view.

[BigSqwert]

Thank you all for your interesting points of view.

Welcome back to the buster. You're always welcome to voice your opinions.

 

[Texsox]

I'll take a stab at a more thought out and serious post and watch the points get misconstrued, twisted, and lost

 

"Wussification" would indicated American society is becoming less violent, less physical. I'm not certain that is true. Road rage, serial killings, and overall violence all seem to be increasing, not decreasing. Now, some may see any attempt to stop that (watching how children play, well regulating guns, etc) as unnecessary or a bad thing.

 

damn gotta go before I finish. Here's the start