In Defense of Hitler (and Mao and Obama)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael,

I'm not going to argue it because competence/incompetence is not all there is to human nature where violence is concerned. You apparently hold that it is.

That view is incomplete.

All I will say is that violence is almost always manifest where tribes form and this has been present throughout 100% of human history.

The trick for you will be to show how to stop all those little suckers from making tribes all the time. Then maybe the competence/incompetence standard can apply.

But even then, I still don't see it.

Michael

[tjohnson]

I think the best way to look at this is called 'mob logic' or 'mass hypnosis'. The conditions in Germany were ideal for an outbreak of this magnitude. This is always possible when you have a large, ignorant, unhappy population grasping at straws. This is one thing the internet may save mankind from in the furure because it has the potential to open the eyes of so many people kept in the dark by an "evil" ruling class.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

GS,

There's an old argument in the Objectivist/libertarian world that people group together solely because of exchanging values (whether by force or trade).

You will only see that view in the Objectivist/libertarian world, too. And even then, it is not held by all.

This is fruit of deducing human nature from political principles (especially NIOF and inherent rights) instead of understanding it from observation and testing (when possible).

This leads to some really weird oversimplifications at times.

Michael

[John Day]

My questions are:

At what point in his life would he have deserved that punishment?

What did he do to earn it?

I look to the Toland biography. Hitler was the same person at 45 that he was at 14 or 7. Should he have been killed while in Landsberg writing Mein Kampf? After Munich? Rheinland? If invading Poland was wrong, what about invading the USSR? (Poland, by the way, was a military dictatorship. You know that, right?)

Then, like all second-handers, Adolph Hitler did not actually do anything himself. He "ordered" other people to do it, but he did not threaten them. He was powerless. He was only the highest expression of the Historical Idea of the Moment. Other people voluntarily did the things he suggested. In fact, if you read what he demanded and commanded, he was never very specific. "We must destroy our enemies!" is not a plan of action. The Wahnsee Conference was a plan of action. Operation Sea Lion was a plan of action. Hitler just ranted on stage and other people took that as their cue. Without followers, leaders are helpless. If you want to punish anyone, punish the millions of Germans.

Draw and quarter six million Nazis and what have you become?

Objectivists who think that retribution is justice are committing errors of social metaphysics and altruism by making the other person the object of justice. When you inflict suffering on another person, the harm is not just to them (though there is that), but the harm that you do to yourself.

I'm not in favor of draw-and-quartering anyone, but I would support hanging him as was done with the ten men convicted at Nuremberg and like the State of Israel did with Adolf Eichmann.

"Should he have been killed while in Landsberg writing Mein Kampf?" Perhaps, but not for his propagandizing, but for having attempted to overthrow the Bavarian Government by force. The argument has often been made that Hitler came to power through legal and democratic means, but that was only after he tried to come to power through illegal and violent means. In my mind, anyone who tries to obtain power through physical force is a person who must be wiped out, not so much for retributive justice, but for one's own defense. Certainly, by the time Hitler initiated force against the Republic of Poland, he was worthy of execution. The use of warfare for expansionist purposes, as opposed to self-defense, is completely unacceptable and that's why the United Kingdom and France went to war with Germany.

Edited January 6, 2010 by John Day

[Christopher]

What is Betty's responsibility for Wilma's killing Fred?

We should turn the tables. If every time Bill tells his neighbor that he wishes someone were dead, then that person Bill wished dead turns up dead, are you suggesting Bill is morally immune and can continue making suggestions to his neighbor about people he wish dead? I would venture that in today's justice system, Bill would lawfully share responsibility.

Got to remember that moral judgments are a combination of both action and intention. This policy is recognized in today's law (first-degree, second-degree, third-degree...).

I don't think a stronger case can be made for social groups other than to say that there exists intersubjective reality, and we do not deny this intersubjectivity in the realms of love, friendship, human bonding, and ultimately human action. It is a force, and anyone who knowingly uses and abuses this force maintains responsibility for the use of this force.

[syrakusos]

I'm not going to argue it because competence/incompetence is not all there is to human nature where violence is concerned. You apparently hold that it is.

That view is incomplete.

Competence is not enough to counter violence? That is illogical. Suppose the proposition were "the inability to fly is cause by incompetence." Would you point to the tribal preference for walking?

You have said that you refuse to be persuaded and that you refuse to reveal your standard of judgment, though you do hint that you weigh heavily the tribal nature of humanity. From a National Lampoon cover of 35 years ago: an idiot is smashing baby chicks with a hammer. Who cares? Baby chicks don't have rights! (Even human babies don't have rights and certainly adult chickens don't have rights). See? We are missing the essential here: anyone who would smash baby chicks with a hammer lacks much, intelligence, perhaps, empathy, certainly. So, too, with violence.

John Day wrote: "... anyone who tries to obtain power through physical force is a person who must be wiped out, not so much for retributive justice, but for one's own defense. Certainly, by the time Hitler initiated force against the Republic of Poland, he was worthy of execution. The use of warfare for expansionist purposes, as opposed to self-defense, is completely unacceptable ..."

One man's self defense is another man's Lebensraum. Hitler only claimed that the survival of the German people depended on the creation of eastern estates. These other peoples threatened the existence of the Aryan race (or so it was claimed). Thus, the war was entirely defensive, as so many wars are.

Also, would you hang George Washington and the Declaration Gang? How do you imagine the Native Americans viewed the conflict between the colonies and Britain?

Brant Gaede: (I wish I had umlauts, or should that be a glide, of 1.5 syllables, ga-ede?) Charles Manson might be insane (whatever that might mean), but he was not at the scene of the crime. He gets off scot free, at least for the murders of Sharon Tate, et al. Reprehensible as they are, and perhaps even calling for the death penalty (on humanitarian grounds), he was not there. Bottom line.

"To be logical is not to be right." Judge Hayword to Ernst Janning in Judgment at Nuremberg.

"Logic is the art of non-contradictory thinking." -- Ayn Rand.

Edited January 7, 2010 by Michael E. Marotta

[9thdoctor]

Anyway, the argument made by the justices is that under German law, Hitler was the Supreme Judge and they were powerless to ignore his orders.

“I was just following orders” was a defence attempted at Nuremberg and by Eichmann. Were there any examples of “I was just issuing orders” used as a defence? I’m not up for reviewing Nuremberg cases at this time.

How, then, do you view the many exonerations for murder and rape?

The examples cited were Timothy McVeigh and Adolf Hitler. There was no doubt about their guilt (until now in the case of Hitler, but I disagree with your argument). I deliberately avoided doubtful cases, and picked out the most egregious ones.

Giuliani, in particular, is easy to single out because he prosecuted Michael Milken in a classic case of wrongful conviction. But the jury convicted... and the judge sentenced... So, who is to be punished by that international tribunal?

Michael Milken wasn’t tortured to death; sometimes in cases like his you'll see civil restitution and criminal charges against the prosecutor as happened with the Duke LaCrosse team case. International tribunal? Are we being invaded and occupied?

you and the others did not truly learn those values but only revealed your own...

I’ve already explained this, and I find this annoying, but here goes again: I’m against stoning, drawing and quartering, bloody eagles, tar and feathering etc. I think humanely performed capital punishment is morally acceptable, and the case of Timothy McVeigh was a good example. I recognize that there are good arguments against capital punishment, such as that it fails as a deterrent and that life imprisonment is a worse punishment. There are good counter arguments to those but I’m not interested in drawing it out. MSK is against capital punishment, but quipped that if he were in favour he wouldn’t mind if Timothy McVeigh were stoned. I countered (note again the exact phrasing) about Hitler being drawn and quartered. Let it go and quit reading into it.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

You have said that you refuse to be persuaded and that you refuse to reveal your standard of judgment...

Michael,

No I didn't.

I said I am not going to argue it.

There's a reason, too. Look at your quote above, for instance. I wasn't talking about persuasion, nor was I talking about normative abstractions (judgment). Identification is a cognitive abstraction. That includes identification of human nature. This is a premise I hold that needs correct identification for judging the place force has in human affairs.

The above manner of discourse is too imprecise for us to find much common ground. We can find some, I suppose, but with imprecision we will always be talking past each other.

Michael

[John Day]

One man's self defense is another man's Lebensraum. Hitler only claimed that the survival of the German people depended on the creation of eastern estates. These other peoples threatened the existence of the Aryan race (or so it was claimed). Thus, the war was entirely defensive, as so many wars are.

Also, would you hang George Washington and the Declaration Gang? How do you imagine the Native Americans viewed the conflict between the colonies and Britain?

Well, that claim was obviously not true because the history of Germany over the last 65 years has shown that the German people (at least those in West Germany) did just fine with their current space. But even if that claim was true, it would still be immoral to invade a country on such grounds because a need is not a claim. A country is not free to invade another country for the purpose of gaining resources. Poland had not initiated force against Germany or any other country, therefore, their sovereignty was in tact.

As for the Founding Fathers, the Revolutionary War was retaliation for force that had been initiated against the colonialists. The Founders sought to achieve their ends through peaceful, political means, but they were blocked at every turn and they came to the conclusion that the only way to exist as a free people was to declare independence from Great Britain. This was not a move that was taken lightly. As Jefferson wrote in the Declaration:

..."That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

..."Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends."

[Christopher]

Objectively Rand stated that people are responsible for their own behavior even if they were acting under social metaphysics or at the advice to others. This is the main point. Rand said this to ensure that individuals still maintained moral responsibility for their actions regardless of the reasons they performed those actions. Rand did not say this in order to alleviate responsibility on those parties who act indirectly.

There is no conflict in holding both the leader and the actor accountable for an action that was mutually planned. I agree that if Betty suggests at first ways to kill Wilma, Betty is not responsible if Wilma follows Betty's advice. But now if Betty knows (this is key) Wilma will follow her advice, then Betty has sufficient awareness and therefore responsibility to not take action that she knows will lead to certain consequences. Betty has just as much moral responsibility to being aware about the consequences of her actions as a social-metaphysical Wilma does.

Likewise and more Objectively powerful as an argument, Rand asserted that no person shall be used to meet the ends of another person. A Hitler (or any crazy maniac) knowingly uses people for their own ends. It is immoral to use a voluntary slave, and that's key. If Betty knows social-metaphysical Wilma will do what Betty asks, Betty absolutely has a moral responsibility not to command Wilma to do Betty's bidding.

[syrakusos]

Christopher, thanks. You basically repeated what you said above and I am not going to basically repeat what I said above.

However, I will say that I take your point.

Especially in the context of international justice tribunals, it is directly applicable.

It was nice of you to take the time and make the effort on my behalf.

I'm smarter now.

[RagJohn]

Borman and the others would have just found another orator to spellbind the masses for them. Little Adolf was a pathetic man, and killing him would have changed nothing. Keeping the US out of ww1 would have done much more. Without us, the allies would have been unable to force Germany into paying their war reparations debts, by printing worthless marks. That,income tax, the Federal Reserve,the general weakness left by WW1, and the flu epidemic, caused the Great Depression, which then caused WW2. USA has been a bully in the world, for 100 years. We took Cuba and the Phillipines from Spain, took Hawaii at gunpoint, put Batista then Castro, then the Shah, then the Ayatollah, then Saddam in power, etc. We need to get rid of the ICBM'S, the surface Navy, 90% of the nuke warheads, the Army, and the Marines. Let the NG defend our borders, and quit messing around in world matters that are none of our business.

[RagJohn]

Better yet, block his strike and rip off his testicles. Better even that that, however, is showing him your pistol, and not having to waste $50,000 in court, for having shot him, trying to stay out of prison, and not lose everything to a civil suit. Just ask OJ about winning the criminal case, and losing the civil one! 90+% of the time, show them the gun, SOON enough in the fight, and they run off. End of problem, for you, at least. Unfortunately, next time, he'll have a gun, and his victims won't,but that's their problem, not yours.

[BaalChatzaf]

Draw and quarter six million Nazis and what have you become?

.

The winner. Next question?

One should not sink to the level of the enemy. One should sink lower and attack him from beneath.

Ba'al Chatzaf