Is history relevant?

[spindoc]

Boy, I hope we don't get to count that nasty old abortion number in our total of how many of our own we've killed. We are gonna be at the top of that totem pole if that's true. God help us.

[Cats3x]

While, not anywhere near Nazi Germany, I firmly believe this adminstration is little by little taking more and more of our individual rights and freedoms away and making society more and more reliant on the government to get by. It's a scary time IMO.

 

True. I often wonder if we are becoming less and less of a free country.

 

Before I get blasted (and I'm sure I will anyway) I'm not saying any current Democrats are Nazis or that Obama is Hitler.

 

I'll be the first to admit I'm only a casual follower of history but I'm seeing parallels to what's happening in this country and what happened in Germany prior to WWII.

 

Exploiting a terrible economy to push an agenda.

 

Masterful manipulation of current media to get their message out. The German Propaganda Ministry had nothing on the White House Press Office. Couple that with a willing to be led mainstream media and masterful use of the internet and television in much the same way the Nazis used radio and I don't see how the similarity can be denied.

 

The constant barrage of campaign style speeches where all the ills of society are blamed on those that oppose them.

 

Scapegoating a segment of the population by blaming them for current problems. (Jewish then, Corporate interests now)

 

Attempts to use current events to pass legislation that COULD ultimately be used to take power away from the citizenry.

 

For a takeover of a country like Third Reich Germany you need conditions to be right. We're not quite there IMO. While you drew parallels when looking at Nazi Germany you also have to include:

 

-Embarrassment and shame from Treaty of Versailles

-Disarming the German army when Germany had been the most militant country in the world for decades

-extreme economic disaster during the Great Depression

-Hitler's extremely nationalistic message

 

None of those match up and you would need similar conditions for Americans to blindly give up all of their rights. Or at least I'd hope so. Just my $.02.

[doomer]

I don't believe Obama is Hitler, I believe he is the Manchurian candidate. He was the perfect candidate at the perfect time to push the agenda of powerful people who have their interests at heart and can get them implemented by appealing to the emotional nature of those dependent on the government and self-declared liberals and other gathered voting blocks while not at all representing the interests of the majority of American citizens.

[Jim Schue]

Democide - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Democide is a term revived and redefined by the political scientist R. J. Rummel as "the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide and mass murder."

 

Further down...

 

"One of his main findings is that liberal democracies have much less democide than authoritarian regimes.^[10] He argues that there is a relation between political power and democide. Political mass murder grows increasingly common as political power becomes unconstrained. At the other end of the scale, where power is diffuse, checked, and balanced, political violence is a rarity. According to Rummel, "The more power a regime has, the more likely people will be killed. This is a major reason for promoting freedom." Rummel concludes that concentrated political power is the most dangerous thing on earth.""

 

Emphasis added.

 

Genocide Versus Democide | DemocraticPeace Blog

 

"...democide as any murder by government, including this form of genocide. This understood, governments murdered about 170,000,000 people in the last century, 1900-1987. Around 38,000,000 of that was genocide."

 

 

Fitting the the theme of the thread it is a term not formally taught. But it is real.

 

 

We reel in horror at the thought and images of 'genocide'. That term has made its way into the vocabulary. But it is only a small subset of 'democide'. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc were far more active in democide than typical genocide.

 

Love it when people make up new words.

 

Genocide is genocide, no matter if it's your government or someone else is doing it.

Edited February 23, 2013 by Jim Schue

[bballfamily]

True. I often wonder if we are becoming less and less of a free country.

 

 

 

For a takeover of a country like Third Reich Germany you need conditions to be right. We're not quite there IMO. While you drew parallels when looking at Nazi Germany you also have to include:

 

-Embarrassment and shame from Treaty of Versailles

-Disarming the German army when Germany had been the most militant country in the world for decades

-extreme economic disaster during the Great Depression

-Hitler's extremely nationalistic message

 

None of those match up and you would need similar conditions for Americans to blindly give up all of their rights. Or at least I'd hope so. Just my $.02.

 

Liberals have worked hard to embarrass the US in it efforts to fight the terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Liberals are working to disarm the American people.

Obama is exploiting our current economic problems to promote his socialist agenda.

Liberals are pushing their big government is the answer for our problems, when it is the creator of our problems.

[Bluegrasscard]

Love it when people make up new words.

 

Genocide is genocide, no matter if it's your government or someone else is doing it.

 

Genocide has almost universally been done by the state.

[Cats3x]

Liberals have worked hard to embarrass the US in it efforts to fight the terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Liberals are working to disarm the American people.

Obama is exploiting our current economic problems to promote his socialist agenda.

Liberals are pushing their big government is the answer for our problems, when it is the creator of our problems.

 

All true. But history would suggest the conditions are no where near catastrophic for a drastic change in government. With the growing dissent against government I actually think we'll see the opposite come into affect. I think the current administration is pushing too far and eventually America will fight back.

 

The third reich did originally improve the lives of most Germans. The policies we're seeing now are viewed as having the opposite effect by many, maybe even the majority of Americans.

[Jim Schue]

Genocide has almost universally been done by the state.

 

That's what I meant, but wasn't clear. It doesn't matter if it's your government or someone else's government, be it Stalin v. his own people or Hitler v. the entirety of European Jews. It's still genocide and doesn't need some guy creating words out of thin air.

[bballfamily]

All true. But history would suggest the conditions are no where near catastrophic for a drastic change in government. With the growing dissent against government I actually think we'll see the opposite come into affect. I think the current administration is pushing too far and eventually America will fight back.

 

The third reich did originally improve the lives of most Germans. The policies we're seeing now are viewed as having the opposite effect by many, maybe even the majority of Americans.

 

I hope you are right about a backlash. What I worry about the steady erosion of liberties and morals, slow but steady. The constant growth of government since FDR's time in office, if not before. The constant perversion of standards in the country with the acceptance of homosexuality, transgender, what we see on TV and in movies that would not have been allowed 50 years ago and how young people act today.

Some of the government programs that were created where done so with the greatest intentions, but allow the left today to get ahold of these programs and twist them into a perversion of their original intent.

[PepRock01]

Hitler should have read his history. He followed the same mistake as Napoleon, dont invade Russia.

 

 

To be fair, the Mongols did manage it for quite some time.

[Hatz]

I don't believe Obama is Hitler, I believe he is the Manchurian candidate. He was the perfect candidate at the perfect time to push the agenda of powerful people who have their interests at heart and can get them implemented by appealing to the emotional nature of those dependent on the government and self-declared liberals and other gathered voting blocks while not at all representing the interests of the majority of American citizens.

 

I'm not sure I follow the last part.

 

As much as I can say that Obama does not represent my interests or views, he won the election twice with a majority of the vote. So you can't say he doesn't represent "the majority of American citizens."

[75center]

I'm not sure I follow the last part.

 

As much as I can say that Obama does not represent my interests or views, he won the election twice with a majority of the vote. So you can't say he doesn't represent "the majority of American citizens."

 

More so the majority of American voters, which may or may not be the majority of American citizens. Of course, if you don't vote you don't get a say.

[Hatz]

More so the majority of American voters, which may or may not be the majority of American citizens. Of course, if you don't vote you don't get a say.

 

My feelings exactly. That can be said at any election so I've just always gone with the knowledge that if you win the election, and you have over 50% of the vote then you are what the majority of America wanted. Like it or not.

[doomer]

My feelings exactly. That can be said at any election so I've just always gone with the knowledge that if you win the election, and you have over 50% of the vote then you are what the majority of America wanted. Like it or not.

 

Maybe I didn't verbalize what I meant very well. His win was compromised by winning a collection of special interests, labor, hispanic, black, liberal....I don't believe these groups all have the same common interests. I don't believe he even comes close to representing the best interests of our country. Unfortunately neither of the two parties really convinced Americans of that, but someone had to win. That is why the Rationalist party was started (see that thread:laugh:).