Everything Hitler did was legal...

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here is a 1963 quote from Martin Luther King: Letter from Birmingham Jail.

We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal."

To paraphrase this, what Hitler did was legal and what the USA Founding Fathers did was illegal.

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

Here is a 1963 quote from Martin Luther King: Letter from Birmingham Jail.

We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal."

To paraphrase this, what Hitler did was legal and what the USA Founding Fathers did was illegal.

Michael

The specific event early in Hitler's reign was the enabling act. The only party in the German legislature that was not allowed to attend was the Communists. I think most of the other parties went along with this act.

I wonder if Hitler's combining of the office and Chancellor and President was allowed even under the enabling act.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Chris,

Here's a better paraphrase:

Hitler worked within the system. Our Founding Fathers did not.

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

Chris,

Here's a better paraphrase:

Hitler worked within the system. Our Founding Fathers did not.

Michael

Michael; Very well put.

[Brant Gaede]

Under anarchy everything I do will be legal.

--Brant

making plans

[John Day]

While I disagree with the pro-redistribution positions King took late in his life, "Letter From Birmingham Jail" is a incredible piece of work showing King as a rigorous philosophic thinker.

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, it is rather strange and paradoxical to find us consciously breaking laws. One may well ask, "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: there are just laws, and there are unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "An unjust law is no law at all."

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine when a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law, or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality ...

[Max Eichelberger]

King's means and ends were just a smarter, more trendy, version of the forces he was battling. Southern Segregationists maintained that to not segregate would degrade Southern Culture, while King argued the exact opposite with the same evidence. Neither Thurmond's concepts of "protecting white womanhood," or King's "bank of justice," carry much weight. On one side, only someone who is horribly illiterate would ever read both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, then think they are the same idea. Yet that is what King does. Then Dixiecrats ride down with barely concealed racism, then make a mockery of state's rights.

In any event, I give credence to MLK's ability to refrain from violence. Certainly, the South often employed nonchalance to deadly effect on the enthusiasm of Freedom Riders, but there was always that eccentric super-traditionalist sheriff who whacked about some NAACP carpetbagger. Thereby giving MLK another few percentage points of approval.

Certainly, history is written by the victors and usually for a good reason. For that rule only, I'll always give Martin Luther King and his associated enterprises a warm nod. Yet I'll always be too contrariwise to give them a complete pass.

[JordanRHughes]

Deep....

Here is a 1963 quote from Martin Luther King: Letter from Birmingham Jail.

We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal."

To paraphrase this, what Hitler did was legal and what the USA Founding Fathers did was illegal.

Michael

[Christopher]

Moral development theory by Lawrence Kohlberg explains this quite clearly:

Pre-conventional morality is based on pure selfishness/punishment: "I want"

Conventional morality is based on lawfulness to the system: "That's the rules"

Post-Conventional morality is based on universal principles irrespective of law: "Because it is right"

Hopefully we all can figure out which way development flows.

[algernonsidney]

The specific event early in Hitler's reign was the enabling act. The only party in the German legislature that was not allowed to attend was the Communists. I think most of the other parties went along with this act.

I wonder if Hitler's combining of the office and Chancellor and President was allowed even under the enabling act.

They had the Communist Party members arrested, which meant that their seats were open. The Social Democrats were all opposed to the act.

The real appeaser in all this was the Catholic Centre party. They gave Hitler the 2/3 vote that he needed.

I often take it one step and say things like: "The Third Reich was a democracy."

The main "useful idiot" in all this was the party chairman Ludwig Kaas. He gave the Nazis legitimacy that they never could have gotten on their own. Unfortunately, Kaas never saw a concentration camp or even jail time. The pope, of course, had his body laid to rest in Saint Peter's Basilica.

William Shirer's book Rise and Fall of the Third Reich probably influenced me to leave the Catholic church as much as any book.

Edited May 27, 2010 by Chris Baker

[Brant Gaede]

Here is a 1963 quote from Martin Luther King: Letter from Birmingham Jail.

We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal."

To paraphrase this, what Hitler did was legal and what the USA Founding Fathers did was illegal.

Michael

Then why did Hitler spend time in prison?

--Brant