Mudflappus Posted October 20, 2011 Share Posted October 20, 2011 I don't know about you folks but I am getting really tired of hearing the name Hitler. It seems that every where you turn, this name is being used as a measure of the greatest evil that mankind has ever produced. Every time some self righteous nut takes it upon him or herself to compare someone they disagree with over the most mundane political / ideological disparity, they dive into a barrel of Godwin and yet again diminish the truly heinous acts that were perpetrated by his regime. Using Hitler as the sole measure of evil ignores the nature of evil and it's many faces to begin with. A four year old girl beaten to death by her enraged father is no less a victim of a foul deed than any other innocent intentionally killed by another human being. I'm fairly certain that the name Hitler never crosses her mind as the blow that takes her consciousness cruelly finds it's mark. On a state sanctioned level, many millions have died by a variety of tyrannical dictators including those history has all but forgotten. It has become far too easy to casually invoke a single name in a debate as if that name represents all of the inequities the counter argument is perceived to bear. The term Nazi is almost interchangeable at this point and is bantered about freely as if it were simply another adjective in the tool box of debate. While Adolf Hitler should never be forgotten or forgiven, his name should not be used as a simple tool to gain intellectual leverage over an opponent. His name is not an atomic bomb that can be dropped as a counter point in an attempt to discredit an opposing position in a single stroke. History has been rendered less relevant by the fact that this tactic is utilized frequently and by so many and it's a slap in the face to those who still have the stench of death from that terrible point in time in their nostrils. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yask Posted October 20, 2011 Share Posted October 20, 2011 I think Hitler would laugh at the impact his short reign of terror has made decades after he's turned to dust. Making the goal of that thousand year reign of his Reich in some small way continue,each and every time his name and by proxy his National Socialist agenda, is mentioned today and in the years to come. Godwin's Law was even invented so as to identify Hitler on board. He's love it, no doubt. Meanwhile, all those other terrorist dictators have to take second place. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Margee Posted October 20, 2011 Moderator Share Posted October 20, 2011 We can never forget all the torture that any war, person, institution has used to create nightmares on this earth that should have NEVER happened because of greed and power. Maybe it is time to put Hiltler to rest and concentrate on one of the worst nightmares we have right now.... poverty. An earth that grows an abundance of food...........and people are dying every second because of lack of concern on everyone's part...................... I've heard it said that we could end world hunger in one afternoon if the whole world participated............ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIFOA3ufKSA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hereticzero Posted October 21, 2011 Share Posted October 21, 2011 Protestants and Catholics murdered more people throughout history than Hitler, yet Hitler is the one despised and the religious are sanctified. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mudflappus Posted October 21, 2011 Author Share Posted October 21, 2011 I think the greatest irony of all is that the people so ready to use Hitler as a standard to attack others typify the mental ideology that allowed the rise of National Socialism in the first place. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yask Posted October 21, 2011 Share Posted October 21, 2011 Protestants and Catholics murdered more people throughout history than Hitler, yet Hitler is the one despised and the religious are sanctified. Perhaps. But I think the Godwin offenders would have a hard time changing their rhetoric. "You're fucking Protestant! You know that?! " "The only difference between Obama and and Catholics is the mustache!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
older Posted October 21, 2011 Share Posted October 21, 2011 Well stated, Mudflappus. Your comments should be published to a wider audience than those of us here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted October 21, 2011 Super Moderator Share Posted October 21, 2011 It's just an entrenched quirk of the language. Nobody actually thinks about it and compares the Holocaust to other crimes against humanity. The name "Hitler" took on special meaning a long time ago. It's similar to referring to a fancy toaster as "the Cadillac of toasters" when everyone realizes a Cadillac is far from the best car ever produced if they stop to think about it. These are just references we all understand, and it's language, not social comment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ireckinso Posted October 21, 2011 Share Posted October 21, 2011 We can never forget all the torture that any war, person, institution has used to create nightmares on this earth that should have NEVER happened because of greed and power. Maybe it is time to put Hiltler to rest and concentrate on one of the worst nightmares we have right now.... poverty. An earth that grows an abundance of food...........and people are dying every second because of lack of concern on everyone's part...................... I've heard it said that we could end world hunger in one afternoon if the whole world participated............ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIFOA3ufKSA I always wondered why there are so many starving people when I was growing up. I grew up in the corn and bean fields of Illinois, I would drive the grain truck to the scales and empty them and drive back to the fields to get more. While doing this I would pass a huge mound, I mean huge, of corn just sitting on the ground, uncovered, and rotting. I asked my father what it was and he said it was overflow, they will use some of it for dog food and such but most of it will rot away. Also many farmers would be paid by the government not to plant, or not to harvest to keep the market from getting flooded. A lot of food goes to waste in this country, if our government would just take the excess to help the starving it would help immensly. By the way, I do know that it would cost with shipping and processing and it would mess up the economy and yata yata yata....I'm not an economics major, but it seems like our government wastes so much money on frivolous things that people suffer needlessly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JadedAtheist Posted October 21, 2011 Share Posted October 21, 2011 Being a descendant of Holocaust victims, I'm glad that Hitler's name is now synonymous for evil. The next best thing would've been to dance on his grave but this'll do have to do for me. Anyways, that's the thing with words, they lose meaning with time. You know, when everything is amazing, nothing is. People readily say that some beverage or meal is incredible, or awesome, or fantastic or astonishing and so on and so forth. We go for the biggest and the best at the drop of a hat. We don't know anything about reserving the best till last. We want the best NOW. Likening people to Hitler or to Nazis is simply the way to say something is very bad, like florduh mentioned. Nothing gonna stop it now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ireckinso Posted October 21, 2011 Share Posted October 21, 2011 For one I think that Hitler was horrible, but far from the worst in history. Maybe its our school system and the way our history books are written. The Worst people in history are all lumped into Hitler but names are just glanced at. For instance, -Joseph Stalin; Premiere of the Soviet Union. 20 million + deaths are estimated under his regime. - Mao Zedong; Chairman of the communist party of China. Though numbers differ some attribute 46million to 77million deaths to his name. That’s if you are counting bodies. Hitler may have been cruel himself but a lot of what occurred in the camps was due to the sicko’s under his command. Although it was ultimately Hitler who allowed and encouraged this acts. Some other horrible people in history who may not have killed as many, but per capita did what they could at the time. Ivan the Terrible. Pol Pot, my favorite… Vlad the impaler, or Vlad Dracula. He was a sick SOB and deserves to have his name become one of the most monstrous and infamous names today and always. Although most people dismiss him because of the Hollywood Dracula, he was real and very demented. Impalement was Dracula's preferred method of torture and execution. His method of torture was a horse attached to each of the victim's legs as a sharpened stake was gradually forced into the body. The end of the stake was usually oiled, and care was taken that the stake not be too sharp; else the victim might die too rapidly from shock. Normally the stake was inserted into the body through the anus and was often forced through the body until it emerged from the mouth. However, there were many instances where victims were impaled through other bodily orifices or through the abdomen or chest. Infants were sometimes impaled on the stake forced through their mother's chests. The records indicate that victims were sometimes impaled so that they hung upside down on the stake. It is said that he would have 20 to 30 thousand people impaled at a time, and it would take some hours or days to die. With it being so close to Halloween just had to throw that in there! Genghis Khan was another, its hard to estimate how many people he killed, but he is know in the east to be the most destructive and genocidal warlord to live. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ireckinso Posted October 21, 2011 Share Posted October 21, 2011 Also funny, that one web site lists Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Franklin D. Roosevelt in the list of the 25 most evil people of the 20th century due to their assistance to Hitler and the Nazis. http://one-evil.org/default.asp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator buffettphan Posted October 21, 2011 Super Moderator Share Posted October 21, 2011 Vlad the impaler, or Vlad Dracula. He was a sick SOB and deserves to have his name become one of the most monstrous and infamous names today and always. Although most people dismiss him because of the Hollywood Dracula, he was real and very demented. Impalement was Dracula's preferred method of torture and execution. His method of torture was a horse attached to each of the victim's legs as a sharpened stake was gradually forced into the body. The end of the stake was usually oiled, and care was taken that the stake not be too sharp; else the victim might die too rapidly from shock. Normally the stake was inserted into the body through the anus and was often forced through the body until it emerged from the mouth. However, there were many instances where victims were impaled through other bodily orifices or through the abdomen or chest. Infants were sometimes impaled on the stake forced through their mother's chests. The records indicate that victims were sometimes impaled so that they hung upside down on the stake. It is said that he would have 20 to 30 thousand people impaled at a time, and it would take some hours or days to die. And xtians have the audacity to say that their sweet jeeeezus suffered the worst possible death. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike D Posted October 22, 2011 Share Posted October 22, 2011 I think the reason Hitler gets invoked so often is because he is one of those rare individuals in life that we find repulsive, yet at the same time oh so fascinating. So many people have studied him over the years and continue to study him to death, that you can't escape it: From his charisma to his ideology to the control and power he had over his country - and he was very intelligent. Charles Manson is another man with a similar personality - demented but intensely fascinating.... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlphaToOmega Posted October 22, 2011 Share Posted October 22, 2011 I find the sith Pope more scary than Hitler and he was part of Hitlers youth group. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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