Force Might Protect; It Never Creates

Does matter one bit if force creates or not, Don. You should know that it's for your own good and the good of everyone else. [/sarcasm]

particularly when it comes to global warming. It's a fact, I heard there was a movie that proved it but even if it isn't, to quote Mr. Krugman,can we afford to wait instead of acting now?

And you can bet you're bottom dollar that neither conservatives nor liberals will think your POV makes complete sense....only "half-sense".

And predictably, it will be the opposing halves that make sense to each side.

Liberals will think you're right about foreign policy and wrong on economic policy and conservatives vice-versa.

Oh well....

Brilliant letter! Supporters of government intervention always believe that their reasons are good and valid and as long as 'their' people are in power nothing bad can happen.

I bet that I can hate politicians more than you.

"Too many Americans without health insurance? Force taxpayers to give it to them."

Should read:

Force taxpayers to force it on them.

Yep. The defining characteristic of the political class is a willingness to use force to achieve a favored objective.

We must promote a belief that politics is inherently dishonorable. Doing so will be difficult as the political class has enormous resources with which to produce self aggrandizing propaganda and monuments to itself. Difficult... but not impossible.

Randy,

Hmm. The political class produces self-aggrandising propogana and monuments to itself, you say? Does that mean the "political class" has a unified purpose and goal? Are you suggesting that "political class" acts as a collective unit for its own survival? This reads like commie lies to me. Randy, are you a communist? You can be honest.

Hey, I think that Randy is a communist. Come on lads, lets get him!

Sincerely,

Lee

Just as many on the right naively fantasize that foreign problems are best solved by force,

Woah, wait a second here. When have any foreign "problems" been "solved" by anything but force? Not one single peace treaty, in all of history, has ever been signed without one side being defeated militarily. Not one dictator has ever stepped down without the threat of obliteration. Everyone, right and left, agrees that force is the worst solution, but only the right acknowledges the fact that it is the only solution.

And there's a simple reason. No bully will ever relinquish power peacefully. There are no magic words that can convince a psychopath to be good. Appeasement will always continue until you have no land left to appease him with. Maybe you can convince the citizens to overthrow him, but all you've done is delegate his execution. One way or another, someone has to make him dead or lock him up.

Lee Kelly,

The political class acts in its own self interest - always has and always will.

No, I'm not a communist. The idea of communism is just propaganda - as are, "the church", "the nation", "the people", "human kind", and all the rest. There is only voluntary and involuntary - honorable and dishonorable.

ben, you are woefully ignorant of the successes of nonviolent action. I refer you to Gene Sharp's magnus opus The Politics of Nonviolent Action.

And you commit the logical error of saying that nobody ever wanted to stop a war unless somebody else had started one. Well duh! Begging the question....

The wrong person claims a parcel of land. Government should force him to respect the right person's claim.

The rest is commentary.

<

Besides Japan, Italy, Germany, Stalin, what other examples, specifically, Russ do you have besides a book that you can't quote?

Martin, what if the government is the wrong 'person'? Or what if the government is representing the, as MuirGeo might say, democratic plurality -- a plurality that doesn't care much for the earned property of those with the means to pay for the pluraities' 'entitlement' whims?

Is that a straw man? Am I being too facile? And since when did you care who was pissing around the parcel, Marxist?

Well...? Maybe it's time to DUCK on out again, jackass.

jpm, there are way too many examples to quote. Read the book if you want to learn; don't read it if you find ignorance more comfortable.

Martin, you don't need a government to assert your ownership of property. The fact that a government monopolizes this function says more about the nature of the government than the problem of property ownership.

"The wrong person claims a parcel of land. Government should force him to respect the right person's claim."

The "wrong" persons being, of course, anyone other than the political class.

Ownership is the power to collect rent. It is the political class that collects rent. Think you're a member of the political class? Think you're an owner? If you're paying rent, you're not. Never mind the massive propaganda to convince you that you are a free and noble individual with rights and privileges. You're a tenant - at best.

OT: Here is an interesting article about the "pizza wars" in Brooklyn between a local pizzeria and a Papa John's.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/07/nyregion/07pizza.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin

Here is the tiny URL. The NYT link was too big.

http://tiny.cc/nzVy3

Sorry about that.

Martin, what if the government is the wrong 'person'?

Governments define "rights" by definition. Legal rights are not what your personal ideological system and idiosyncratic linguistic usage imply.

Or what if the government is representing the, as MuirGeo might say, democratic plurality -- a plurality that doesn't care much for the earned property of those with the means to pay for the pluraities' 'entitlement' whims?

Everything that is legally your property and practically everything that you imagine "your property" is the representation of a pluralistic government. Proper-ty itself is an inherently collectivist concept. It's what a collective deems proper. Property is the original and the quintessential entitlement.

Is that a straw man? Am I being too facile? And since when did you care who was pissing around the parcel, Marxist?

It's not a straw man, because it's not an assertion you falsely attribute to me. It's not facile, because it's a question rather than an assertion. I've always cared about pissing around parcels, because I was born caring, just like you and my cat.

Calling me a "Marxist" is more like a straw man, though it's more of an epithet coming from you, since you don't formulate a cogent Marxist assertion to attribute to me. You apparently know little of Marx or Hayek or Adam Smith. Your politics seems informed more by Rush Limbaugh and Neal Boortz.

Martin, you don't need a government to assert your ownership of property. The fact that a government monopolizes this function says more about the nature of the government than the problem of property ownership.

You can assert anything you like, but individual claims are not "property". We are instinctively territorial, and we confuse our instinctive territoriality, which is based on individual claims, with property, but the two are hardly the same.

In the state of nature, your territory is whatever you defend by your own force. It is your territory precisely as long as you defend it successfully against my competing claim. Thereafter it is my territory.

This territoriality is closer to classically liberal property than to other systems of forcible propriety, and I prefer much of the classically liberal formulation to more modern forms myself, but classically liberal property is not strictly individualistic either.

Natural territoriality is not strictly individualistic, since natural kin will join forces to defend their joint assertion of territory, but "property" is a codified standard unique to human beings, because only human beings possess a capacity to codify and systematically enforce proprieties.

Statesmen don't enforce your claims, because they are your natural kin defending a common claim held jointly with you, although states evolved from this foundation. Statesmen enforce your claim, because a systematic rule of law instructs them to enforce it. Of course, statesmen continually game this system for their own benefit, but that's another story.

To be more specific, "property" often implies hereditary title in perpetuity for example. We observe nothing similar in nature, and of course, the whole idea of heredity title in perpetuity is not and could not possibly be individualistic. Only an eternally enforced system of propriety could establish hereditary title in perpetuity. The whole idea is laughably arrogant, but it is commonly associated with the word "property" in my neck of the woods.

The "wrong" persons being, of course, anyone other than the political class.

I agree that all property holders are inherently members of a political class. I have as much contempt for politics as most of us here, but I don't believe fundamentally that armed men successfully imposing their will by force in a region (statesmen) generally are The Other Tribe, The Bad Guys or The Devil. The certainly do define "property" though, just as they define "right", "just" and "noble". That's just how things are, for better or for worse.

IMHO, the world could be a better place, more peaceful, more productive and wealthy, more hospitable to more people, if we formulated property more as John Locke imagines it in the Second Treatise on Government, where describing the genesis of property he says,

"Right and conveniency went together; for as a man had a right to all he could employ his labour upon, so he had no temptation to labour for more than he could make use of. This left no room for controversy about the title, nor for encroachment on the right of others; what portion a man carved to himself, was easily seen; and it was useless, as well as dishonest, to carve himself too much, or take more than he needed."

Of course, this formulation is precisely the opposite of socialism, of centralized authority over all means of production through state planning. Enacting this Lockean notion of property would not involve enforcing the claim of a few statesmen to rule all productive means. It would involve ceasing to enforce claims to rule more resources than one man employs himself by his own labour (though I don't advocate this extreme). I have no idea how anyone gets a powerful state out of this formulation. A powerful state continually threatening everyone is what we have and what we must have to establish property as it now exists.

Of course, this distinction between enforcing a few statemen's central authority over all means of production and ceasing to enforce a few more statesmen's more limited authority over smaller but still vast resources, without replacing this authority with a state planning apparatus, was the distinction between "socialism" and "anarchism" in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Conservatives then opposed both, and Conservatives now still oppose both, because far from advocating more limited authority, they advocate an incredibly powerful, global state enforcing a particular system of propriety that they perceive as beneficial to them. Conservatives are only socialists of the past defending their monopolistic, megalomaniacal claims against similar, opposing claims.

Locke also discusses hereditary title in the Second Treatise, but he doesn't discuss it in the chapter "Of Property". He discusses it in "Of Paternal Power".

As a specific example of what a true libertarian might advocate, I'll suggest more limited copyright. Presently, the U.S. enforces an author's copyright for 120 years and will enforce a claim of the author's heirs. This period increased from 100 years only a few years ago, and it's much longer than the duration of a copyright in the U.S. in the eighteenth century (when a longer copyright might have been more justified by the much slower dissemination of information).

We could instead enforce copyright for only 14 years (as in the earliest copyright act of 1709), or we might enact copyright in terms of a fixed yield rather than a fixed duration. Statesmen could threaten to harm people for copying a work without the author's consent only as long as the author proves that he has not earned from the work some multiple of the cost of creating the work, say a factor of two or five or ten. This standard is no more arbitrary than a copyright of 120 years duration.

In terms of land, a state could simply refuse to enforce any individual's title to property exceeding a thousand acres for example. When you own a thousand acres, you simply stop accumulating and start contracting with other owners. A state need not govern other land itself, because others would seek the title. There is nothing "socialistic" about this state, quite the contrary.

Governments define "rights" by definition.

In the United States, Martin, does government grant these rights?

Everything that is legally your property and practically everything that you imagine "your property" is the representation of a pluralistic government.

Okay, then: can property exist without a so-called pluralistic government? I say that it can.

Calling me a "Marxist" is more like a straw man, though it's more of an epithet coming from you, since you don't formulate a cogent Marxist assertion to attribute to me...Your politics seems informed more by Rush Limbaugh and Neal Boortz.

LOL. And yours...by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. You've seemed to glom onto the 1st and 4th planks of the manifesto pretty well, martin. I think my assesment is fairly accurate.

Governments define "rights" by definition. Legal rights are not what your personal ideological system and idiosyncratic linguistic usage imply.

Conflation. Governments do not define rights, government defines legality.

Providing we are making the distinction between moral rights and legal rights. And I think we are.

But if you think moral rights don't exist, please say so.

If I see someone being mugged, and I step in to help him out does that make me immoral? There are very few people with brains and cajones. I will vote for the first libertarian who isn't a wuss, until then my best alternative is the Republican party.

In the United States, Martin, does government grant these rights?

The word "grant" apparently offends your linguistic sensibilities. I'll stick with "defines". If you imagine that some superhuman power "grants" legal rights, we think differently. You don't have rights because some ghostly voice speaks to Moses from a burning bush, and you don't have rights because Ayn Rand brilliantly deduces them from some indisputable, philosophical first principle. You have rights, because they evolve gradually over time in the context of various states. That's reality.

Okay, then: can property exist without a so-called pluralistic government? I say that it can.

You can say anything you like, and I can then add your notion of what's "right" to six billion others, for what it's worth, which is much less than the mug of beer and also less satisfying.

LOL. And yours...by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. You've seemed to glom onto the 1st and 4th planks of the manifesto pretty well, martin. I think my assesment is fairly accurate.

You have little clue what Marx or Engels wrote. I don't need zealously to contradict every plank in the Communist Manifesto to reject Marx. Adam Smith certainly didn't, and neither did Friedrich Hayek. If you're simply an anti-Marxist ideologue, accepting the antithesis of every assertion of Marx, you can't possibly be a classical liberal. I quote Smith for you, and you simply ignore the words as though they didn't exist.

Conflation. Governments do not define rights, government defines legality.

I'm only conflating "rights" with "legality" if you have some meaningful distinction between the two, other than "legality" is what the armed men say and "right" is what you say and what you'd enforce yourself if you could play their role. In reality, you have no other distinction.

Different systematic rights have different consequences, but the legalisms you prefer aren't "truly right". They're your preference.

You have little clue what Marx or Engels wrote.

Correct. Their work does not engage me so I do not engage it.

I don't need zealously to contradict every plank in the Communist Manifesto to reject Marx.

Do you reject Marx? And do you even have any zeal to confront the perils of communism?

Adam Smith certainly didn't...

When did Adam Smith die?

If you're simply an anti-Marxist ideologue, accepting the antithesis of every assertion of Marx, you can't possibly be a classical liberal.

I've never really read Marx. If I were to, and he made an assertion or two that I accepted, I can still be an anti-Marxist ideologue, can I not? [it has a nice ring to it] Because that would still be important to me as a classical liberal -- a group in which I believe myself to belong to as a minarchist.

The word "grant" apparently offends your linguistic sensibilities. I'll stick with "defines". If you imagine that some superhuman power "grants" legal rights, we think differently. You don't have rights because some ghostly voice speaks to Moses from a burning bush, and you don't have rights because Ayn Rand brilliantly deduces them from some indisputable, philosophical first principle. You have rights, because they evolve gradually over time in the context of various states. That's reality.

You write that "that's reality". Maybe that's your reality. I mostly call this paagraph of yours by it's more technical name...BULLSHIT.

Around and around the mulberry bush the monkey chased the weasel.




Martinduckie is having more fun than Marx ever thought a follower should be allowed to have.

But, seriously I don't know how communistic Matinduck really is, all I know is that he has that mind like concrete....all mixed up and permanantly set.

This from the man who believes that writing "duck" after everything is compelling.

"there are way too many examples to quote. Read the book if you want to learn; don't read it if you find ignorance more comfortable."

Russ, I might buy the book, but even if I did it wouldn't arrive for a week. You're just dodging an actual debate by refusing to pick an example.

I'm somewhat familiar with nonviolent movements. But while a nonviolent movement may avoid expressly going to war, it achieves its goals by swaying the opinions of decision-makers who command sufficient force.

But without a powerful ally, they are helpless. No one will free Tibet. No one will stop the killing in Darfur. Face it: the greatest force for peace on this Earth is the United States Army.

"With the Marine Corps, the DOD gets 15% of its firepower with only 5% of the Armed Services budget" ~ Charles Krulak, former Commandant of the Marine Corps.

Sorry, ben, my inter-service-rivalry knee-jerk mechanism still works after almost a decade. Write the 'United States Armed Sevices' and I'll concur.

Martinduckies,

Not compelling duckie, but oh so descriptive.

If it writes the socialist scripture, expresses the socialist scriptures, argues the socialist sceipture, resolutely adheres to the socialist scripture, and lies about all the previous(you said you were done here)...its a duck.

Everyone on the blog knows what it is Martinduck, a paraphrase of the old cliche about being what one shows himself to be. A label you earn, not one undeservedly bestowed.

Oops! Off you go to the mulberry bush.

ben, I am away from my library and cannot quote from the book, sorry. And the trouble with trying to remember a single instance is that 1) I may not remember it accurately and 2) people tend to think that refuting one of many refutes them all. Thus, you will simply have to buy the book yourself, wait until I've returned from India, or trust my scholarship.

I suspect, rather, that there is nothing which would convince you that anything non-violent could overcome anything violent. It may surprise you that non-violent techniques worked on the Nazis, who were obviously not afraid to bring violence to bear. Surprise you, but not convince you, sigh.

If it writes the socialist scripture ...

I discuss the principles of Locke, Smith, Hayek and Friedman, and the dittoheads toss around the word "socialist" like they invented it, but they haven't even studied it very much.

If it writes the socialist scripture ...

I discuss the principles of men like Locke, Smith, Hayek and Friedman, and the dittoheads toss around the word "socialist" like they invented it, but they haven't even studied it very much.

"It may surprise you that non-violent techniques worked on the Nazis, who were obviously not afraid to bring violence to bear. Surprise you, but not convince you, sigh."

Funny Russ, I thought the Nazis came into power by non-violent means, but were forced out of power by violence of the military intervention sort. Non-violence only works so long as everyone agrees to it; as soon as one person or group throws it out the window, everyone else has to defend themselves.

Funny Russ, I thought the Nazis came into power by non-violent means, but were forced out of power by violence of the military intervention sort.

As empires almost inevitably will, the Nazis overreached. They largely self-destructed via their own violence, like the Soviets after them. This overreach is not limited to the "bad guys", of course. The British empire also self-destructed, though less catastrophically than some others.

The U.S. is on the same road, but we've thus far had a market sector vital enough to provide a foundation healthy enough to bear the parasitic influence of a militaristic state. I think we're near the end of the road. I don't expect the U.S. empire will collapse catastrophically. If we're lucky, it'll fade away more gradually, like the British empire.

Non-violence only works so long as everyone agrees to it; as soon as one person or group throws it out the window, everyone else has to defend themselves.

The liberal principle of non-intervention is not a principle of non-violence. It's a principle of limited violence, limited to protecting limited claims, like the borders of a sovereign state. Violence and threats of violence can achieve goals, but violence more often achieves few of the intended goals and has many unintended consequences. W.W. II is the "good war" in modern lore, but what did it accomplish? Stalin's domination of Eastern Europe for one thing. Even the Holocaust arguably was worsened by the widening of the war after the U.S. entered it.

Hammer, I see that you, too, have drunk deeply of the waters of ignorance. Non-violence works in certain situations, including the ones in which you claim it does not. It does not work well in other situations. The same could be said of violence.

Martin,

You mention WWII was supposed to be a “Good War.” War will always have positive and negative effects. USSR looked at WWII as a good thing from the expansion their government was able to do (bad for us and people desiring freedom). True - the US and Soviet victories made Hitler put extermination more on a fast track, but what you don’t acknowledge is that Hitler’s long term goal was the total annihilation of all Jews and enemies of the state.

Ok, maybe i'm under-educated, but can someone explain to me the concept of the political class seeking rents?

Also it's amazing, but true. Martinduck keeps finding new ways to be very offensive.

... what you don’t acknowledge is that Hitler’s long term goal was the total annihilation of all Jews and enemies of the state.

You don't acknowledge that Charles Manson's followers brutally murdered Sharon Tate by cutting her unborn child from her belly while she was still alive. Are you some kind of Helter Skelter denier?

Hitler's clearly enough stated goal was the removal of Jews from Europe, and this goal led ultimately to the Holocaust; however, millions of Jews died of starvation and curable illness, while others were systematically murdered, mostly in the dying days of Hitler's Reich, arguably to cover up their terrible mistreatment in the concentration camps and to avoid the necessity of feeding them.

Martin,

You stated intentions of violence (war or otherwise) more often than not achieves few of the intended goals and many unintended consequences. No one on this posting site has said the mass murdering of Jews was a good thing or is in denial of the travesties of war (real life). Hitler’s intent on wiping out all Jews from conquered territories did fail (Hitler’s intended goal). Hitler was removed (Allies intended goal) – therefore saving remaining European Jews from extermination.

If you have to use Charles Manson’s followers, I’ll put it in those terms too. Charles Manson and his followers’ conspiracy to commit the Tate/LaBianca murders (their intent) was successful. Charles Manson’s long term intent – start a killing spree (Helter Skelter intent) that would hopefully end in an apocalyptic race war, was a dismal failure. The removal of Hitler and Manson was more beneficial to the masses than otherwise.

The U.S. entered the war and that's when the Nazis started slaughtering 27 million Russians. I know Martin said "Jews" but only 6 million Jews died compared to 27 million Russians and the invasion of Russia and the slaughter of Russians - some Jews & mostly Slavs - began long before America got into the war. Gas chambers were tested on Russian POWs before a single European Jew was killed in them. Bear with me - I'm just working under the assumption that European Jews were not the only ones who mattered in WWII.

If only we'd left poor old Hitler alone, he wouldn't have needed to accelerate the slaughter of Jews in concentration camps. No, he would have calmly worked them to death or killed them over many more years and enslaved Slavs and other lesser humans, as was his plan. That would have been a better outcome. Right?

The claim that beating Hitler gave rise to Soviet domination of Eastern Europe is Monday morning quarterbacking. Stalin's future domination of Eastern Europe was not a given at the time the U.S. entered the war. There was some probability, but there was a much higher probability that Hitler would dominate Europe, given information available at the time. Let's not forget that inaction led to Stalin's control over Eastern Europe. Churchill wanted to drive him out and no action was taken. So, let's not ignore that.

There is always some good and some bad that comes from every action and from every inaction. Volatility of outcomes for longer term decisions tends be quite high.

Hitler’s intent on wiping out all Jews from conquered territories did fail (Hitler’s intended goal). Hitler was removed (Allies intended goal) – therefore saving remaining European Jews from extermination.

There is little evidence that Hitler intended to kill all the Jews in Europe, but even if he did, many of their deaths, as they occurred when they occurred, were unintended consequences of the Nazi defeat as it happened it happened. The Holocaust is not less real for this reason.

The idea that the second world war was first all about exterminating the Jews and then all about saving them is historical revisionism. If the U.S. was so concerned about saving the Jews, why did it turn away Jewish refugees by the boatload, literally? For far less than the cost of the war, we could have simply maintained an open door policy to Jewish immigrants. Half of the world's Jews live here anyway. If the other half had been welcome in the twenties, thirties and forties, the state of Israel likely would not exist today, and all of the related middle eastern conflict wouldn't exist, and the U.S. would be that much richer.

That's the new Zion, the shining city on a hill. In our lust for empire, we've forgotten it.

If you have to use Charles Manson’s followers, I’ll put it in those terms too.

Sarcasm is lost on some people.

No, he would have calmly worked them to death or killed them over many more years and enslaved Slavs and other lesser humans, as was his plan. That would have been a better outcome. Right?

You have no idea what he would have done, and neither do I, but we may speculation however we like. He surely would have worked more of them in the slave labor camps, but he might also have made good on the well documented plans to deport more of them. Regardless, unintended consequences are unintended. Only in the self-serving retrospectives of statesmen are they inevitable.

The claim that beating Hitler gave rise to Soviet domination of Eastern Europe is Monday morning quarterbacking.

No. It's an historical fact.

Stalin's future domination of Eastern Europe was not a given at the time the U.S. entered the war.

It wasn't even much contemplated, even by Stalin himself. Do you have a shred of evidence that Stalin had any intention of invading Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe before the war?

There was some probability, but there was a much higher probability that Hitler would dominate Europe, given information available at the time.

For a while maybe. How long did the Soviet Union dominate Eastern Europe? The Soviet Union collapsed of its own weight. We know that now. What makes you think that Hitler's Reich would have lasted a thousand years? Because he said so?

Let's not forget that inaction led to Stalin's control over Eastern Europe. Churchill wanted to drive him out and no action was taken. So, let's not ignore that.

Churchill was in no position to drive him out, and driving him out was hardly a foregone conclusion.

Volatility of outcomes for longer term decisions tends be quite high.

Absolutely. That's precisely why the megalomaniacal global engineering of statesmen is so tragic. When the rest of the world was destroying itself this way, the U.S. entered the fray late in the game and came out a winner. We lost a lot of men, but our productive infrastructure was hardly touched, while the much of the rest of the developed world needed a generation to recover. No one much planned it this way, but that's how it happened. It's not happening so this time. Comparing every new military campaign to the second world war only feeds the statesmen's grand illusion.

martinduckie,

This right here:

"The idea that the second world war was first all about exterminating the Jews and then all about saving them is historical revisionism. Posted by: Martin Brock | Aug 11, 2008 8:00:46 PM"

Is why most of us have such contempt for your lack of intellect and intellectual debate. It is why I personally realized that with you it is all about the mulberry bush and the round and around game.

Methinks nor anyone else said anything at all about Jews being the impetus for Hitler starting his war, it was his strawman, nor does anyone make any claim that confronting Hitler was all about saving the Jews.

You take an idiot's interpretation of someone's words and then head for the mulberry bush with your irrational comments and ideas.

Hitler could have and would have been stopped dead in his tracks had the allies sent troops to force him to back out of the Sudentland instead of acquiescing in his seizure of it. That led him to invade Czechoslavlia unopposed and with their capitulation doubled his airforce in number of planes and doubled his ground combat machinery. At either of those two points had intervention with real armed troops been offered by the allies, Hitler was not in a position to engage in all out war.

Furthermore, Methinks is quite correct in that some 20 million Russians died in WWII in slaughter by the Germans and by their own madman leader, especially in the early days of the German invasion.

She is also correct in that the Iron Curtain descended across Europe because FDR, being the commie symp he was, did not support Churchill in confronting good old "Uncle Joe".

Actually it would be more succinct to say that Methinks is pretty much correct and Matinduck is pretty much screwed up and just leave it at that.

Martin,

1) “There is little evidence that Hitler intended to kill all the Jews in Europe.”

Uh, what planet are you from, seriously? Are you just wasting time on this site or are you really this many marbles short of a full bag? I mean that in all due respect.

I am full blooded German and speak fluent German, and I can tell you from my homelands’ history/books that Hitler set out to crush both Jews and Communists (hated equally in Nazi eyes). After gaining power in 1933 Hitler and the Party immediately began the implementation of the plan to eliminate Jews from Germany and ultimately all of Europe. The first stage was persecution, then came the striping Jews of citizenship (when boat loads left Germany), and the ones that never got the hint or never had the opportunity to leave Germany were sent to concentration camps. Even the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1918 was viewed by many Germans (and practically all Nazis) as a Jewish/Communist conspiracy (in German, Dolchstosslegende). Maybe that crap about Hitler and developing an Arian Race (Uebermensch) was revisionism!! I’m still laughing at your quote!! - “There is little evidence that Hitler intended to kill all the Jews in Europe.”

2) “The idea that the second world war was first all about exterminating the Jews and then all about saving them is historical revisionism.”

Where did I ever say WWII was about exterminating Jews or the US having the responsibility to save them? Hitler first declared war on the US. The Allies goal was defeating Nazism and Hitler. Please re-read my posts above. The topic was - intended and unintended consequences of war. Here’s what I wrote before – “Hitler’s intent on wiping out all Jews from conquered territories did fail (Hitler’s intended goal). Hitler was removed (Allies intended goal) – therefore saving remaining European Jews from extermination.” Hitler had intent, and so did the Allies. Re-read, “Hitler was removed”, that doesn’t say Allies intended to save Jews.

3) “Sarcasm is lost on some people.”

Did you forget that you brought Charles Manson into this conversation? You have a canny way of either easily forgetting or avoiding (with intent or without).