Comments | spiffturk: Viddy well, my little droogies.

spiffturk

Viddy well, my little droogies.

May 18, 2006 18:04

So, while waiting for 7:00 to role around, I decided to take an interest in just how Hitler seized absolute power in Nazi Germany. For those of you unfamiliar with the specifics, the turning point was the Reichstag Fire Decree. See, someone set parliament's meeting place, the Reichstag, on fire. The German government decided the communists were ( Read more... )

Comments 8

ah... social psych rears its head again curlygirlymm May 19 2006, 01:45:20 UTC

I'd like to think our servicemen would mutiny against such a dictator, but most Germans probably thought the same.

Ahh... just wait until you read about Milgram's studies on obedience. The whole premise was designed to better understand why so many otherwise normal people followed orders to do atrocious things. The popular idea was that German citizens were just horrible and that upstanding American citizen's would never do such a thing. Hmm... well, nice idea, but no. Cultural differences do show that Germany is a bit more likely to follow orders, but not overwhelmingly more than the U.S. Read the original studies. Interesting stuff.

question den_mother May 19 2006, 02:01:09 UTC

So can you name me some other countries where most of the above are not true? Cause, um, I think you can go through and find a time when the above was true of virtually any country with some form of central government, and probably several times in the histories of some.

Re: question spiffturk May 19 2006, 11:57:13 UTC

Not being very familiar with history of other countries (and only vaguely familiar with our own), no, I can't. Being the cynical person that I am, though, I have no doubt that similar grabs for control have been used numerous times in history. I can't tell that it makes my point any less valid. I don't condone it here and I wouldn't condone it in any other country ( ... )

Re: question den_mother May 19 2006, 17:49:40 UTC

You probably don't want to go to the McCarthyism thing. They actually caught a number of communist spies (with proof) during that time.

My point is to say that every country that ever manages some similarities to Germany during the 1930's and 40's is not going to end up being a fascist regime who becomes famous for trying to take over the world and annihilate entire ethnic groups.

If we didn't care about the Muslims, and particularly if we wanted them all dead, there would be no discussion about how bad the war in Iraq is going because the entire middle east would be glass by now.

Oh, and I'm familiar w/ Eschelon now. Did you happen to catch whose presidency that came out under? It sure wasn't under the presidency of our current "neo-Hitler."

Re: question spiffturk May 19 2006, 19:23:05 UTC

My point is to say that every country that ever manages some similarities to Germany during the 1930's and 40's is not going to end up being a fascist regime who becomes famous for trying to take over the world and annihilate entire ethnic groups.But at what point during the process do you step back and say, "Hey, wait a second... this doesn't seem right ( ... )

Thread 6

spiffturk May 19 2006, 12:18:18 UTC

Just to be clear, I don't take this view to the extreme that this guy does. I'm just noticing similarities in history. And for the record, I hadn't seen that page before I posted this entry. I just now searched for "9/11 reichstag" to see if anyone else had noticed it. Heh. Apparently a bunch of nutjobs have noticed, too.

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Will