Andew Sullivan on Bush's similarties to Nazis and others

[Indy Coug]

We have infinitely more constitutional mechanisms, safeguards, checks & balances and so forth than 1930 Germany. To assert we're on some slippery slope towards Nazism is ignorant hyperbole at its worst.

[BYU71]

Good post

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

Can you think of why the Germans felt oppressed and were suffering, due to outside intervention? That might be a good place to start.

I figured you would know since you lived through it!

Historians agree that the Treaty of Versailles, for example, was excessive and oppressive and was a primary factor in causing Germany to spiral downward economically in the 1920's and '30's. Germany's depression made ours look like a picnic. The Germans were livid and eventually filled with hate; they felt abused and oppressed, and they did see children die from the economic depression they experienced in the wake of WWI and the Versailles treaty. They were filled with burning righteous indignation, and historians agree this was not without reasonable basis. The problem was that their leaders folded in WWI and lost all leverage that they had to conclude the war on mutually advantageous terms when they really weren't in such extremis that this was necessary. Hitler tapped into the righteous indignation and feeling of betrayal at the government, as well as, quite frankly, a lot of dated superstition that was near and dear to many Germans' hearts. This all sounds familiar to me, anyway.

WWI by the way was not the clear good vs. evil conflict paradigm that was WWII or the Cold War or the Civil War. It was on both sides about power politics. There were no white hats in WWI.

In other words, you could make the case that the Gestapo had at least in their own minds much the same rationalizations cited by those who support Bush's torturing.

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

We have infinitely more constitutional mechanisms, safeguards, checks & balances and so forth than 1930 Germany. To assert we're on some slippery slope towards Nazism is ignorant hyperbole at its worst.

Do you think that the executive declaring an American Citizen an enemy combatant, and taking him into custody and keeping him indefinitely with no oversight from any other branch of govt, or access to counsel or the outside world, is worriesome?

If you say no, then we are at odds.

It baffles me, that a man in a freaking cave in Pakistan has caused some people to throw the Constitution in the toilet.

[creekster]

I am surprised by this thread. BYU71 did you read the Sullivan piece? The simialrities between the Gestapo memo and our approach are startling. Are we Nazis? Of course not but that doesn't detract from the rather disturbing questions being raised here.

POlitically I am relatively conservative. I supported the invasion of Afghanistan and I supported the invasion of Iraq, which I have now come to see as a mistake, but I cannot condmen the deicison to invade (another long story).

The torture issue is very difficult. There is the question of whether or not torture is used. The definition is difficult and I can certainyl see that. But for our governemtn to systematically engage in questionable interrogation techiniques agaisnt incarerated persons over years at a facility established to more easily avoid scrutiny by courts and citizens is very disturbing. There can be no doubt that many people in the world want to hurt "us." And we clearly have the right to defend outrselves, but at what cost? We have lost tremendous respect throughout the world as a result of Iraq and Gitmo. I am afraid that price is already paid to large degree. The cost we are now facing is the loss of commitment to basic principles of freedom within our own society and system. We can be cavalier about this and make jokes about it and assert their are logical fallacies but the fact remains that my kids are growing up in a world where the USA has institutionalized "enhanced interrogation techiniques" and, like it or not, and distinguish it or not, these techniques are precisely those used by the Gestapo against Norwegian freedom fightrers and others. I do not propose that I have all the answers, but I find it hard to believe that anyone that cares about our society and is passionate about the ideals that make this nation worth saving can see this information and not stop to deeply consider the propriety of our approach.

Morever, if we err, we shoudl err in favor of civil liberty and freedom. That has always been our presumption and the actual implementation of this presumption in our daily lives is exactly why this country is great. Many nations, after all, have espoused these same principles in their establishing documents (e.g. the USSR), but only one modern nation actually implemented them in a practical and meaningful way and the loss of that edge, the tip of the scale away from that operational presumption, is a price that cannot be paid for to lose it is to lose what we are. There is a risk that without torture we may lose lives from a terrorist attack. This is true (although one might say that the blood of such persons would serve to feed the roots of the tree off liberty, slightly modifying Jefferson's famous analogy) . And there may come a time when in some specific instance and under some specific circumstance enhanced techniques are justified. I would certainyl allow for that. But the general acceptance of this approach must, I think, be avoided or esle we risk losing what we are and we will become what we seek to avoid with no cost to the other side whatsoever.

Sorry for the rant.

[BarbaraGordon]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

I'm fearful of slow abridgement of our liberties until there are none.

I'm really not convinced it would ever come to that here, although I suppose it's a possibility.

But I am convinced that fifty-sixty years out we will look on this as a dark and embarrassing period in our nation's history, much as we regard the treatment of Japanese-Americans during WWII. That, too, was deemed an abridgment of rights both justified and necessary, and in retrospect I think we all agree that it was neither.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

We have infinitely more constitutional mechanisms, safeguards, checks & balances and so forth than 1930 Germany. To assert we're on some slippery slope towards Nazism is ignorant hyperbole at its worst.

yes, and we want to keep them in place. That's the point. This is what I mean by taking our liberties for granted.

[JohnnyLingo]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

It baffles me, that a man in a freaking cave in Pakistan has caused some people to throw the Constitution in the toilet.

It baffles me how you insist on minimizing Bin Laden's threat to the U.S. At least refer to him as a terrorist. I prefer to remember he's responsible for the deaths of 2000+ Americans. Worst attack on the U.S. mainland ever.

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by JohnnyLingo

It baffles me how you insist on minimizing Bin Laden's threat to the U.S. At least refer to him as a terrorist. I prefer to remember he's responsible for the deaths of 2000+ Americans. Worst attack on the U.S. mainland ever.

We have different views of what the threat is, and how to respond to it.

I don't want to become a fundamentalist state in order to beat a fundamentalist organization/threat.

[JohnnyLingo]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

We have different views of what the threat is, and how to respond to it.

I don't want to become a fundamentalist state in order to beat a fundamentalist organization/threat.

My post said nothing about response.

I merely stated you minimize the threat whenever possible and I don't know why you feel the need to.