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I didn't "accuse others", I gave a long list of Nazi policies that coincide with leftist policies and the historical close connections between fascists and leftists.

You are exactly correct with your original post and the points you made there.

When Mussolini took power and turned Italy fascist, Lenin congratulated him. They are both at their core a Marxist/Leninist ideology, differing only that by either the state owning factories, railways, etc outright, or under fascism, the entities already in charge were simply placed under government control.

Those who disagree can compare for yourselves the Nazi's own 25 point declaration of their platform against any socialist regime's core principles you'd like. If you are being intellectually honest in the slightest one would have to recognize the obvious and glaring similarities in the majority of principles declared if one simply puts them all into contemporary terms, but yet people insist otherwise.

http://www.historyplace.com/wo...

Strat

Good thing this is a republic then!

See my other reply, but also see e.g.

• Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "The Great Arsenal of Democracy" speech
• Dwight D. Eisenhower: "We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow."
• John F. Kennedy, “For, in a democracy, every citizen, regardless of his interest in politics, 'holds office'; every one of us is in a position of responsibility; and, in the final analysis, the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those responsibilities."
• Lyndon B. Johnson: "There is no cause for self-satisfaction in the long denial of equal rights of millions of Americans. But there is cause for hope and for faith in our Democracy in what is happening here tonight" (from the We-Shall-Overcome-Speech)
• ...and, skipping a few:
• Ronald Reagan: "Democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man."

But then, these are all dead white men, so what do they know!

> Are you seriously comparing a US electoral reform debate to Robert Mugabe?
> Maybe I'm just getting old, but trolls seem to be getting stupider on Slashdot.

Actually, Mt. "young" "one", he's probably referring to an event before your time; i.e. Stalin's artificial famine that killed off 7 million people in the 1930's http://www.historyplace.com/wo... but the lib-left idolizes "Uncle Joe", so you never hear this inconvenient truth.

You Have no idea , What Communists , Have done..

Here is the actual Nazi platform:

http://www.historyplace.com/wo...

Points 9-17, 21, and 25 are straight up socialist, direct from Marx.

hell, the Nazis had the German people convinced they were Socialists...

Do you think it had anything to do with their program and how they interacted with other socialists?

Before you take too much at face value from him you might want to watch: The Soviet Story - an award winning documentary supported by the European Parliament. (A library copy would be better so the subtitles are available, but it is still well worth the time.)

There is more to the Night of the Long Knives than a hard core Leftist like dunkelfalke cares to let on. The actions of the leadership of the SA were a direct threat to continued Nazi rule and threatened a revolution.

Communist and fascist regimes are well known for faction wars, including the brutal extermination of enemies in other factions of the party. Just for starters you can look at the Soviet treatment of the Mensheviks, the Old Bolsheviks, the Trotskyites, and others.

National Socialists repressed international socialists, a.k.a. Communists, as well as a faction within the Nazi party that both threatened Nazi rule and pursued a more radical ideology. Faction wars are a common part of rule by communists, fascists, and various other ideologies. Maybe you should look into how the Soviets treated other socialists, such as the Mensheviks, the Old Bolsheviks, the Trotskyites, and various other factions in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

You do know that early Nazi propaganda declared Lenin a great man second only to Hitler?

There are a few other things you skip over, such as the non-aggression pact with the Communists in the Soviet Union, the subsequent division of Europe, and partitioning of Poland. There was also the cooperation with French communists after the invasion and occupation of France.

The European Parliament supported the production of this documentary, you might want to watch it sometime. (A copy from the library would be better so the subtitles are available.)

Fact check failure - Hitler actually lost the election to Paul von Hindenburg in 1932, who died in 1933 after Hitler was named chancellor and the president seat declared vacant.
"On a dark, rainy Sunday, April 10, 1932, the people voted. They gave Hitler 13,418,547 or 36%, an increase of two million, and Hindenburg 19,359,983 or 53%, an increase of under a million.". I don't think he ever won a popular vote unless something later was staged.

What happened shortly thereafter, however (and this may be what you were thinking of, but your number is off), is parliament was dissolved and the Nazis won 37% of the Reichstag (the largest majority). Hitler was then offered vice-chancellorship. When a false rumor in 1933 appeared saying Hindenburg was going to be arrested, Hindenburg conceded and made Hitler Chancellor and Hitler took absolute power from there, mainly after Hindenberg, already in poor health, died as I previously said.

Note that Germany had a democracy for 14 years at that point, and all it brought them was poverty - fascism was pretty much what they knew had brought them prosperity. Hitler promised them food and to get them back to work. He actually accomplished those things by creating a commodity based co-currency and borrowing heavily. I agree with you on the sci-fi plot of killing Hitler being pointless. The Nazi chant had words saying they would destroy "that goddamn Jewish republic" - they basically accused the republic itself of being run by Jews. The people supported Hitler also because of the other problem, which was the rise of communism in the east which they feared. Hitler purged communist parties after taking power. Basically, they chose fascism over communism (by choosing the Nazis in the reichstag elections when there also was a big push by communists). The nail in the coffin, though, is Hitler didn't have anything to do with creating the death camps. That was Goebbels with the help of Himmler (Goebbels thought it up, Himmler had complete control of the SS and implemented it). Hitler mostly had Jews taken out into fields and shot, but mostly he tried to get them deported (but lacking a state, nobody would take them).

So providing education for poor people and recognising gay marriage lead inevitably to the Khmer Rouge?

First of all, corrections:

• Not "providing education for poor people", but "forcing taxpayers to provide education for poor people". Tax-collection happens at gun-point — using thus-collected monies for benevolence is tyranny — and decidedly against the intent of Constitution-framers.
• Not "recognizing gay marriage", but "forcing people to consider gay unions equivalent to married couples".

And now, yes, the above are made possible by the Collectivist sentiment — that the Individual's interests and desires are inferior to those of the Collective. Once that sentiment is adopted, there is no longer a legal barrier to prevent some future Khmer Rouge from killing millions. All they have to be able to claim is, it is done for "General Welfare".

If millions of victims is too stunning for you to be believable, try to think, how is Lynching somebody not a manifestation of "the will of the people"?

"COMMON GOOD BEFORE INDIVIDUAL GOOD" — sounds familiar? Godwin's Law my tail — you aren't the first Collectivist in history...

ultra right wing paranoid stupid

Please, don't hate.

here you go

http://www.historyplace.com/wo...

It's one thing to have a famine, it's another when someone uses it to eliminate people they don't like.

Who said anything about Italy being in Germany? Did you get confused when I didn't spell it out for you?

But if you really do think I was talking about Hitler with the trains, you can check this out and suck on it.

Section B4 of the Gestapo dealt exclusively with the "Jewish question" and came under the permanent control of Adolf Eichmann. This energetic and efficient organizer would keep the trains running on time from all over Europe to Nazi death camps located in occupied Poland during the Final Solution of the Jewish question.

It's not a question of that, it's a question of wholesale exportation of jobs overseas to get 1) cheaper labor 2) avoid government regulation 3) dodge taxes. There's lots of reasons why things cost more to produce in some countries vs. others. Because kids are small, they can get into small areas so why not use them in the manufacturing process for say ships? I can see Korean kids getting into all of those nooks and small areas. That's a niche market isn't it?

It's not like it hasn't all been done before.

I'm not arguing against globalization, far from it. US Consumers have also wrought most of this on themselves because that $19.99 thing from China is a must have item or a new Walmart opened up down the street so everybody has to shop there. Competition is healthy when everybody is playing by the same rules, not when one country dumps products and blocks its markets from US product . Or when it happens in other economic areas.. surprise!.

So, greed is everywhere from the consumer to the companies that export jobs to nations with policies to undermine entire industries. It's time people woke up and started smelling the cat shit otherwise it'll be cat food that you'll be eating when you get too old and can't retire comfortably.

Transportation: I can and do walk, rarely needing a vehicle. No need for mass transport either. I live on a farm and work there as well as in the forest. No need to drive. I often go months without getting in a car or truck.

Great, so you're a hermit who doesn't enjoy easy access to modern conveniences. Meanwhile, people live in cities because there are jobs there and not everybody wants to live on a farm.

The only question is where else do we put all those people?

Exactly, which is why cities are better than human sprawl for the environment and society. You might want to read up on the horror story of Pol Pot: "An attempt by Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot to form a Communist peasant farming society resulted in the deaths of 25 percent of the country's population from starvation, overwork and executions."

I wouldn't call it voter apathy. I would simply say most voters are more concerned[...]When ordering priorities for a lot of people[...]falls pretty low on the list.

I think the distinction is academic. Whether you don't care, or don't care enough the end result is the same: Inaction. Now, I'm going to come dangerously close to Godwinning the discussion here, but I feel an excerb from Elie Wiesel's speech The Perils of Indifference sheds some light on this distinction. Keep in mind that what he was discussing was many orders of magnitude more severe than what we are talking about, but the principle is the same.

What is indifference? Etymologically, the word means "no difference." A strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur between light and darkness, dusk and dawn, crime and punishment, cruelty and compassion, good and evil.

What are its courses and inescapable consequences? Is it a philosophy? Is there a philosophy of indifference conceivable? Can one possibly view indifference as a virtue? Is it necessary at times to practice it simply to keep one's sanity, live normally, enjoy a fine meal and a glass of wine, as the world around us experiences harrowing upheavals?

Of course, indifference can be tempting -- more than that, seductive. It is so much easier to look away from victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes. It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person's pain and despair. Yet, for the person who is indifferent, his or her neighbor are of no consequence. And, therefore, their lives are meaningless. Their hidden or even visible anguish is of no interest. Indifference reduces the other to an abstraction.

[Source]

- He is already a real dictator.

So, you're thinking they couldn't do worse?

Nasser’s Biggest Crime - December 19, 2005

“In Egypt you can walk wherever you want,” he said. “There are no rules or laws here.”

Well, I thought. There are laws against involvement in politics. But I knew what he meant. The Egyptian government doesn’t micromanage its citizens. Good on Hosni Mubarak for that one, at least. Egypt may be a police state, but at any given moment it doesn’t feel like one......

Can we talk about politics out in the open?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “We can say whatever we want.”

“Is it because we’re speaking in English?”

“No,” he said. “We could do it in Arabic, too.”

“You’re not worried about the secret police?”

“Not any more,” he said. “It is a real change from last year. Last year there was no way. But it’s better now, more open. Do you know why?”

“No,” I said. “Tell me.”

“Because of pressure from George W. Bush.”....

I wanted to know what he thought of the Muslim Brotherhood. Was it even possible that they are as moderate as they want everyone to believe?

“They are moderate because they don’t have guns,” he said. “They don’t kill people. It’s true. But most of the armed terrorist groups we see now were born out of the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

“At some point,” I said, “if you want to live in a democracy you’re going to have to accept the fact that conservative religious political parties exist. You may never like them, but they won’t always be a terrorist threat. Democracy has mellowed out the Islamists in Turkey, for example.”

“Yes,” he said. “But Turkey has a secular constitution. They want to enter the EU, so the Islamists are forced to play by the rules of the game. They cannot step on the freedoms that the Turkish people take for granted. The Egyptian people, though, since the time of the Pharaohs, have been a flock. They follow the shepherd.”

“My biggest fear,” he continued, “is that if the Muslim Brotherhood rules Egypt we will get Islamism-lite, that they won’t be quite bad enough that people will revolt against them. Take bars, for example. Most Egyptians don’t drink, so they won’t mind if alcohol is illegal. The same goes for banning books. Most Egyptians don’t read. So why should they care if books are banned? Most women wear a veil or a headscarf already, so if it becomes the law hardly anyone will resist.”

“How many people here think like you do?” I asked him.

“Few,” he said. “Very few. Less than ten percent probably.”

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood eyes unity gov't without Mubarak
The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition group,is in talks with other anti-government figures to form a national unity government without President Hosni Mubarak, a group official told DPA on Sunday....

Gamal Nasser, a spokesman for the Brotherhood, told DPA that his group was in talks with Mohammed ElBaradei - the former UN nuclear watchdog chief - to form a national unity government without the National Democratic Party of Mubarak.

Oh - I don't know about that. All Russia needed to do was wait for the idiots in Germany to launch a couple more winter campaigns against Moscow.

Your right, you don't know about it. The Soviet Union's entire logistical apparatus was dependent on lend-lease. They brought American supplies to the front using American trucks. Their fighters flew with high octane gasoline that was refined in American refineries. Their trains were pulled by American locomotives. Their troops were fed American rations.

For the most part they made their own weapons (though in some instances these with combined with American material aid, i.e: Katyusha rockets that were launched from the back of Studebaker trucks) systems but in so doing they neglected the rest of their economy. That's where lend-lease came in. Don't take my word for it though, ask Uncle Joe: "Without American production the United Nations could never have won the war."

I hate when my fellow Americans take the attitude that we won the war after Europe lost it.

I didn't take that attitude. I just pointed out that the Soviet Union would have not survived without Western material aid. That's a historical fact that isn't in much dispute -- even most Russian historians will acknowledge it.

Those people forget that we actually helped to enable Hitler in his earlier years. How 'bout those IBM contracts, that helped to chart all those Jew's geneology?

Peacetime trade is not the same thing as enabling. The real enabling occurred in Paris and London. If the French had marched into the Rhineland and enforced the Versailles treaty the war might never have happened. Ask the man himself:

Once again, the whole world waited to see how the French and British would react. German troops entering the Rhineland even had orders to scoot back across the Rhine bridges if the French Army attacked. But in France, the politicians were simply unable to convince their generals to act, and were also unable to get any British support for a military response. So they did nothing. The French Army, with its one hundred divisions, never budged against the 30,000 lightly armed German soldiers occupying the Rhineland, even though France and Britain were both obligated to preserve the demilitarized zone by the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact of mutual assistance.

It had been a tremendous gamble for Hitler, one that might have cost him everything if his troops had been humiliated by their old enemies. Later, Hitler would privately admit: "The forty-eight hours after the march into the Rhineland were the most nerve-racking in my life. If the French had marched into the Rhineland, we would have had to withdraw with our tail between our legs, for the military resources at our disposal would have been wholly inadequate for even a moderate resistance."

Simplification of historic events leads to wrong conclusions. I recommend post http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1683756&cid=32549066 as a quick introduction, along with http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/elect.htm .

I agree we should undo all the damage that union's have done to our great country.
For example, the evil unions forced our country to pass socialist laws like:
40 hour work weeks
Overtime
Safe workplaces
Fair wages/ no company store money
Minimum Wage
and of course, Child Labor.

Wouldn't we be lucky to be in a business friendly country that employs children and doesn't let them waste the day in some silly school environment?
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/

I assume that it was chosen to conjure images of sparking off or kindling an e-book revolution.

Or perhaps it was meant to conjure images of Nazis burning books in Germany??? Muhahaha... :/

We went from nothing to the Moon in under ten years; it's taking us four years between test launches of something that we've done before?

September 12, 1962. President John F. Kennedy says "We choose to go to the Moon". Nine years later Alan Shepard is playing gold at Fra Mauro.

Fast forward to 2009, when President Barry Obama says "Well, I guess you can go to the Moon, but I can't pay for it. Maybe you could go to an asteroid or play some chess instead." NASA starts looking for loose change in the couch to finance the next test launch.

"So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this state of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward--and so will space."

...just not today, so maybe we should wait and rest and look behind us for a while, until that darn economy fixes itself.

But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

from http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/jfk-space.htm In case you are wondering, Rice is a small university in Houston, TX, and gets regularly squashed by the University of Texas in football, and was the site of that speech.

You do realize that Nixon was impeached, right?

How can you expect anything you say to be taken seriously when you don't even have basic history right? It isn't like Nixon was another no eventful minor era in the history of the united states. You should at least have a basic understanding of it if your going to open your mouth on it.

April 12, 1861 - At 4:30 a.m. Confederates under Gen. Pierre Beauregard open fire with 50 cannons upon Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. The Civil War begins.

Every single other source of information I can find supports that the Confederates were the first to open fire on anyone in this civil war. Here is the link where that came from. The Confederacy attempted to lay claim to federal forts, and that is a big no-no, then and now and forever.

I stopped reading when you made the massively stupid comparison between salaries today and "feeding slaves" or "feeding cattle".

It's amazing to see someone so jealous of the wealthy that such an idiotic comparison makes sense.

A more apt comparison would be the "company store".

Let me ask fuckwit, how many slaves owned homes, cars, and had 401k's?

The concept of "wage slaves", where workers made just enough money to survive, meant that they could afford housing and transportation (more or less to and from work), but not ever afford to leave. The comparison with actual slaves is wrong, I'll agree with that much.

God damn you made a ridiculous attempt to support your world view.

Not that 401k plans aren't kind of like college as well -- you're placing a bet with your discretionary money that you'll get a net gain out of it. Right now that "benefit" isn't looking so hot ...

Regardless of your disagreement with the poster's argument using "slaves" as a comparison, it's a pretty well known fact that there is a horrible gulf between executive pay and workers' pay in America which isn't echoed elsewhere in the world.

1. Sodamn Insane caused the terrists to destroy America.
2. He's buddies with Bin Laden, bin Hidin or somethin like that.
3. We (USA) needs to kick his (Sodamn Insane)ass... cause he's also got lots of oil.

Last I saw over 50% of American population thought that Saddamn Hussein was behind the terrorists that brought down the towers.

Look up the reichstag that GERMANY burned down to start world war 2. It's called a false flag operation. http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/burns.htm

I have said it before.

The geek is libertarian only when it is convenient.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Bill of Rights

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution applies only to suppression of speech by the federal government - state governments were bound through the application of the fourteenth amendment.

Frederick Douglass had this to say about the pre-war South:

There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of these same crimes will subject a white man to like punishment.
What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments, forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read and write. When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. Frederick Douglass: The Hypocrisy of American Slavery [Rochester, New York, July 4, 1852]

If the Pope decrees that discussion of the ordination of women is off the table within a Roman Catholic Church - then it is off the table within a Roman Catholic Church.

He has the right to keep order within his own House.

You have no right of appeal.

No private individual or institution is legally obliged to provide you a forum.

If you are a drunken fool mouthing off at the local gin mill - and disturbing the paying customers - you won't be asked to leave, you will be booted out the door.

At the risk of Godwin-ing this post, Hitler was originally elected by popular vote.

Actually, Hitler was appointed by President Hindenburg to avoid a threatened coup. The Nazi party was elected by popular vote, but only after a long campaign of intimidation, vigilante violence and obstruction of democratic processes.

We've had a "color" president since the sixties:
before: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/images/jan-june04/ads_dwight.jpg
after: http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/speechgfx/nixon-8-8-74.jpg

his prison term was commuted by the president, which left standing the other penalties imposd by the judge - fine, public service, and supervised probation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Libby>

And the $2 Trillion+ cost of the war you cite is more like a half Trillion dollars: http://zfacts.com/p/447.html>

Bill Clinton also left a lot of evidence (including a wad of DNA) to support his impeachment: http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/impeachments/clinton.htm>

The only public utterance Hitler made during the Olympics was the simple message: "I proclaim the Games of Berlin, celebrating the eleventh Olympiad of the modern era, to be open." http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/triumph/tr-olympics.htm. If that's enough to tick off the aliens, then we're toast no matter what we do.

I don't think the GP was "excusing" religion. He was just including motivations for atrocities that come from outside of religion. Scope is important, too.

7,000,000:100,000 is kind of a big difference.

> Why are we waiting until it's a crisis to deal with it?

Because that's just human nature -- we're all procrastinators -- some of us admit it -- others are putting that admission off.

History is replete with situations where timely action would have saved piles of money and/or lives -- have we ever acted at the right time? No -- we wait until something like http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/dday.htm is necessary.

So I think we can all safely predict that it will be a crisis before we do anything about it.

And remember -- never put off until tomorrow that which can be put off until the day after. :-)

I am reminded of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin meeting at Yalta in 1945 as they start to pre-emptively divide up their mutual enemy, while declaring that they'll all cooperate in the future.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but at that point I believe the soap box had been used quite a bit, the ballot and jury boxes were not available, leaving only the final option.

um ...

The Pilgrims weren't all Puritans. In fact, the Mayflower Compact was writtten on board the Mayflower to try to prevent mutiny by the majority on that ship who were not in it for religious reasons but rather, for profit (which was the primary motivation for almost all colonies.

Converting the people living in the Americas to some kind of faith or another was more the motivation of Spain, who had (in 1492!) only just rid the Iberian Penninsula of non-Christians. Occasionally, some of the English Colonists would pay lip service to this ideal, but it was rarely policy.

The 37 Separatists (Puritans) fleeing religious persecution who were on board the Mayflower had set about trying to convert their fellow shipmates. And when it was discovered that they were strongly desirous of creating a theocratic movement in the new colony, their shipmates immediately threatened to let them off right where the boat was at the time (in the middle of the Atlantic) where they could set up their government in any way they preferred.

Since the victors tend to write the history books, we tend to be particularly focused on these particular Separatists who narrowly missed setting up a theocracy in salt water. Over the course of the years following the original Mayflower landing, more Puritans emigrated and it is these people who began linking governance with their religion. They were primarily interested in making money, realizing the trade in shipbuilding timbers and exploitation of the costal fisheries was making a number of the colonists wealthy and land in the colony was available at low cost.

And, rather than indescrimately kill all Native Americans, the earliest colonists were beneficiaries of a French trading mission that had passed through the area five years before the Mayflower landed, unwittingly exposing their trading partners to European diseases. It is said that influenza killed off half of the tribal population in the area the first year and when the Mayflower landed, the colonists found the land empty.

This stands in sharp contrast to the Roanoke colony which lasted some 10 months, the survivors of which were returned to England due to increasingly hostile Native Americans.

If you look at a map of New England, you'll see many towns and cities with the word "field" in the name. The reaon why this reoccurs is due to the habit of the Europeans referring to these areas as clearings. Now these areas wold not have been cleared had the Native Americans cleared them but, due to disease sweeping through the indigenous populations whenever contact was made with the Europeans, these clearings had been abandoned. Europeans called a "clearing" a "field."

The Plymouth colonists' first contact with the Native Americans was in March, 1621, when Samoset, a Wampanouy, entered their encampment and began conversing with them in English, which he had picked up from English sailors in the area. Samoset and later Squanto, a Massasoit, were interested in these new white settlers because they wanted to form an alliance between them and their tribes in order to be able to fend off incursions from other tribes. They figured that the European technology might help them resist encroachment on their lands and that an alliance would help them both from a military standpoint and a trade standpoint. But the Europeans would never have been a consideration had their tribe not suffered substantial losses in population due to disease.

Now, I have read history and part of it is due to my ancestry being from the founders of the Cape Ann colony, which settled in Massachusetts in 1623. Many relocated to Connecticut by the 1680s. While the Puritans were very strict in their adherence to the tenants of their religion, you have to understand that they did not try to convert Native Americans--that was just not their aim. I

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death! Patrick Henry

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. Thomas Jefferson

First, Didn't the neo-nazi youths have this title all wrapped up before there were violent games?

Back then, they weren't "neo-nazi", they were actual Nazis, or Hitler Youth.

There is some interesting original footage of various fascist (German, Italian, Japanese) youth activities in Capra's Prelude to War. It's eye opening stuff.

kill-the-guy-with-the-ball

When I was a kid we called it "Smear the queer" and it had nothing to do with gay people.

You would think a nation like Germany would have learned the lesson better than any other. Limiting access to media and knowledge in order to 'purify' thoughts never ends well. http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/boo kburn.htm

-Rick

• George W Bush is the only president with a criminal record
• Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were impeached, but not convicted
• Richard Nixon was set to be impeached, but had the brains to resign first
• Thomas Jefferson had 187 slaves
• Franklin Roosevelt was a cousin-fucker
• John Tyler was a Confederate and the only president to become a sworn enemy of the Union

Please explain where in the US Constituion/bill of rights etc. it states a right to privacy.

As early as the early 1800s the US Supreme Court has ruled that the right to privacy is part of the First Amendment's right to free speech. And there have been other USSC rulings saying the right to privacy does exist, including one in 1969. If a person can't expect privacy then their freedom of speech suffers. Not all but some of the USA's Founding Fathers knew exactly what privacy meant, otherwise the "Federalist Papers" and many other writings would not of been published anomymously. Not all were as brave as Thomas Paine was when he wrote "Common Sense" or "These are the times that try men's souls" while serving under Washington's command.

No no.. that's not right, our stereotype is Arrogant.

Oblivious would be the European stereotype... http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/ww2 time.htm (as one example.)

But then again... I guess you are doing your best impression of the Arrogant American right now.

LOL.

A trivial search (irish farmer life expectancy) hit this...

http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/famine/in troduction.htm
Ireland in the mid-1800s was an agricultural nation, ... . Life expectancy was short, just 40 years for men.

Hey man-- Irish farmers... great example of how good potatoes are for your health... you go for that 40 year life expectancy. I'm hoping for a little longer myself. Personally, I'm going to avoid the type 2 diabetes with the early heart attacks, amputations, and impotence that go with it.

Granted on your protein mitigating point about totally empty calories. Since the mars bar has 8 grams of protein the same argument would apply to mars bar consumption. Mars bars are not cotten candy or fruit juice.

However, I don't recommend eating potatoes OR mars bars. You really need to be eating reasonable portion sizes of food with much lower ratings (sub 40) for the majority of your diet. There is nothing wrong with candy (or potatoes) as a treat. By treat, I mean under 5% of your diet. Many americans easily consume 600 calories a day of sugar and another 600 calories of "starches" which are really just non-sweet sugar. 1200 calories is about 80% of what most people should be eating.

Then they wonder why they can't lose weight. Sugar, bread, and potatoes are treats-- as in one or two slices at the outback, not 2 mini-loafs-- as in 4 to 5 ounces of potatoes with a meal-- as in total candy per day (if you simply must have it) being 1/3 of a mars bar (so why not go with girhadelli or godiva if you are eating that little). As in averaging under 80 calories a day for these kinds of food.

Caveat being that all this depends on your native stock and is only true for the great majority of people. A large minority of people do better on other specific diets. Some people can't eat grain at all (allergic).. some tolerate salt well... some probably are adapted to a rice diet. A large number of people are bitter tasters and can't stand certain vegetables like brussel sprouts.

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Please note that I'm not against *sweet* or *treats* or indulging. There are many other sweeteners without the issues of sugar. Xylitol (widely used in europe), stevia (widely used in japan), maltitol, malitol, isomalt (europe) and of course the artificial ones sacharine (very safe- victim of a smear campaign by aspartame), aspartame (reasonably safe if you are not an "absorber"-if you get headaches do not use this), and sucralose (reasonably safe if you are not an "absorber" but have your liver checked at your annual physicals). You can make much healthier, delicious ice-cream with xylitol, bake with xylitol and isomalt, and sweeten your coffee or tea with stevia (if you are not a bitter taster- if you are, stevia is out).

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/triumph/tr-b oycott.htm http://www.chgs.umn.edu/Educational_Resources/Curr iculum/Broken_Threads/Boycotts/boycotts.html

"Nazi propaganda claimed that all department stores were in Jewish hands and were a danger to the German middle class."

Here's two. Do yourself a favor and look for the books yourself. They're really not hard to find. Watch some Nazi propaganda flicks. Google for "jewish department store germany", refine the keywords a bit, you get the idea.

Or just stay ignorant. I have the feeling you're leaning towards that. You haven't read the history books until now and yet think you know how National Socialism worked. Go on and pull some more rabbits out of your ass, ok ?

"If we fought in Iraq like we did in WWII when we occupied Germany we wouldn't have these problems of insurgency. Back then if someone exploded a car bomb or shot our soldiers, we just pulled out of the city, shelled it for 24 hours(all of it).... By making it a living hell for everyone, if the enemy attacks our soldiers, then the people stop hiding these insurgents or supporting them."

Oh dear.

I guess we have to blame your teachers for this, "Sir Foxx".

In WWII, we Americans didn't destroy whole villages during occupation: the Germans did that.

German civilians put up very little resistance prior to Germany's surrender, and no real resistance after surrender. No car bombs (indeed, car bombs are really a more recent invention), little or no shooting of American occupiers.

Now, the Nazi Germans did carry out reprisals against civilians in occupied countries. Don't believe me: look up Lidice or Oradour-sur-Glane and educate yourself.

When I was growing up (I'm guessing I'm a bit older than you), Americans took some pride in being the "good guys", pride in not being like the Nazis or the Soviets. We used to be proud that the rest of the world looked to America as an example of a free democracy. That was before we decided to export "democracy" by means of torture and secret prisons and Big Brother-ish spying.

That was before we became mirror images of the totalitarian regimes we had been so proud to fight against.

Like I said, I'm probably bit older than you, "Sir Foxx", and in some way, I guess, luckier, even though I didn't grow up with a computer in the house, much less a PSP or an iPod in my pocket. But I did grow up in an America that had principles. In an America that stood against torture and secret prisons and warrantless searches and unchecked government power. In an America that really was, in some true way, "the land of the free and the home of the brave".

America is no longer the "land of the free" and it's certainly not the "home of the brave". Again, I don't blame you "Sir Foxx", anymore than a Roman of the Republic would have blamed a child who grew up under Caesars for thinking Augustus really was a god.

But trust me, Americans used to be brave. Not your sort of brave, which is just the bravado of the scared bully, of the totalitarian state: "we can bomb you, we can make your life a living hell, unless you do what we say".

Americans used to be brave in that we were willing to die for the liberties our Founding Fathers risked their lives to give us. We were willing to fight and die to protect the right of any knucklehead to criticise the President, because we knew that sometimes the President is a knucklehead.

We used to be brave enough to risk getting on a train or plane without being treated like convicts or slaves or cattle, without being searched by blandly rude security guards.

We used to be brave enough to "Live Free or Die", to say "Give me Liberty or give me Death". Now we Americans piss our pants and beg to put up with any indignity, and loss of freedom, for a little security.

Nineteen hijackers didn't do this to us. Saddam didn't do this to us. Osama didn't do this to us. Yes, one terrible day Osama and his hijackers killed a bunch of Americans and shocked us all.

But it wasn't Osama who surrendered our liberty and our principles and our decency. We've done that all on our own.

Again, it's not your fault, "Sir Foxx". I blame your teachers. They never taught you what it really means to be an American.

Yeah, we can make Iraq, in your words "a living hell for everyone". And we're busy doing it right here at home too.

Did I miss anything?

Your post has many details that suggest knowledge of your subject, but you're not a reliable source. I don't have time to fact-check your whole post, but here are two obvious and significant errors:

First, the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment against Nixon, not one. The articles charged obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress - not "telling an untruth on national television."

Second, a majority of the Senate did NOT vote to convict Clinton. There were two articles of impeachment, and the Senate voted 55-45 to ACQUIT on the first article, and 50-50 on the second. I distinctly remember Trent Lott furiously exhorting Arlen Specter (R. Pa.) during the vote, stopping just short of physically twisting his arm, trying unsuccessfully to get a vote for conviction from him so the Republicans could claim a majority vote for conviction on at least one of the counts. Specter proved his integrity to history by voting his conscience, for acquittal.

Should the Executive have the power to ignore the Constitution by detaining people indefinitely without trial, and shall there be no recourse in the courts? Or do the courts have the right to interpret the Constitution and demand that a suspect (like Jose Padilla) be tried or released?

No person should be held without charges brought against them, what's next requiring all Muslims to register? Then make them wear arm bands with a red cresent on their sleeves? Then we can herd them all into a gheto a la Warsaw. Actually this has already been before the USSC when as president Lincoln authorizes the suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus. on 27 April 1861. Then when "Chief Justice Roger Taney declares the president's actions unconstitutional, Lincoln blatantly ignores the ruling."

I find it interesting that those on the right-wing on one hand seem to want an abandonment of case law and at the same time want to see more consistancy in how cases are delt with.

Of course. Much like democrats, republicans want to do what benefits them, so when case law fits it's "good" when it doesn't it's "bad" and needs to be overturned.

I don't know if John Locke or any others smoked pot but Thomas Jefferson along with other Founding Fathers grew hemp on thier farms:

Jefferson is credited with several inventions, including the swivel chair, a pedometer, a machine to make fiber from hemp, a letter-copying machine, and the lazy susan.

Cannabis was brought to America during the early colonial period. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were both hemp farmers. During the early period of settlement of the New World, everyone owned or used something made of its fibers. Hemp fibers were known as the toughest durable fibers around. Hemp was even used as currency in some cases (Abel, 1982). But, Cannabis is mainly used as an illegal drug in the United States today.

The Monticello Textile Factory
Jefferson's annual goal was 1,200 yards of cloth woven from purchased cotton and wool and hemp produced on his farms. He never sought to make fine cloth; coarse cloth for the summer and winter allotments for the 130 slaves on the Monticello plantation was his only ambition.

Common Sense by Thomas Paine ...
In almost every article of defence we abound. Hemp flourishes even to rankness, so that we need not want cordage...

Ralph Waldo Emerson would be object to be categorized along with Ayn Rand.

Just as there are democrats who disagree with with each other and there are republican who do also not all libertarians agree on everything include Ayn Rand. I don't know much about Rand but some I agree with and others I disagree with. No it's my sister in my family that knows about her and she was very much a Randian. That is until she learned about Objectivism, as a Christian this turned her off. Fact is is that you don't have to be a Randian to be a libertarian.

Ooh here's something I found of John Locke's that mentions hemp:

To the Right Honorable Sir John Sommers
...
And a Swede will no more sell you his Hemp and Pitch, or a Spaniard his Oyl, for less Silver;

And with his sayings, John Locke wouldn't of liked laws outlawing hemp seeing as how he was very much a man of liberty and such a law abridges liberty.

The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule.
-- John Locke (1632-1704)

Falcon

Ooh and btw do you know where canvas for painters come from? It got it's name from cannabis. Here's a page listing some of the uses of hemp aka cannabis, Cannabis sativa L.