Case study in ethics

[phyllo]

The Soviets weren't about to be exterminated. The German Nazi Army were so stupid that they didn't realize their tank fuel would freeze up, be inadequate, for the Siberian weather, thus getting them immobilized in the midst of enemy territory.

If the Soviets had lost, then they would have been exterminated except for the slave workers that the Nazis needed. As it is they lost 27 million lives.

The wagers of violent warfare are inevitably bound to make some fatal mistake and do themselves in.

Obviously bullshit. The unethical, violent and evil often win.

Let us not hijack the theme of the thread, though.

It's not hijacking. This is the real ethics - people live and die based on the decisions that are made. No hypothetical case studies here. It's real people lined up against real walls and shot with real bullets in reprisal for real resistance.

[thinkdr]

if the Soviets had lost ...


... No hypothetical case studies here.

The unethical, violent and evil often win

.

What is it that they win? A more-chaotic world - and eventually an extinction of the species of which they (or their heirs) are a member.... because they did nothing to prevent Climate Change when there was still time to do so.
Life is not about winning and losing. It is about giving and receiving love.

I was a Conscientious Objector during the Korean War, and did time for it.

And politeness is not merely fashion; it is a way of expressing respect to another human being, simply for his being a human being. The Japanese Tea Ceremony has ritualized manners. I hold we would be better off if we adopted some such display of manners here, redesigned more for our own culture.

Comments?

[phyllo]

I was a Conscientious Objector during the Korean War, and did time for it.

That's you.

My father-in-law was in the French Navy during WW2.

My grandfather was in a Nazi concentration camp.

My grandmother and father were lined up for Nazi reprisals. Every tenth person went to a concentration camp.

Do you get a prize or do I?

And politeness is not merely fashion; it is a way of expressing respect to another human being, simply for his being a human being. The Japanese Tea Ceremony has ritualized manners. I hold we would be better off if we adopted some such display of manners here, redesigned more for our own culture.

Comments?

This isn't a Tea Ceremony. This is the real shit.

People died. And thank God, that some Americans cared to risk their lives and to lose their lives for some principles that they believed to be right. And some Soviets as well ... it would not have been possible without their sacrifice. They're a tough bunch of bastards. Respect.

[thinkdr]

Here are some reviews of a book by Prof. Stanley that you may find interesting:

https://www.amazon.com/How-Fascism-Work ... merReviews

The tile of the book, just out, is HOW FASCIISM WORKS.

It is truly educational and is highly-relevant today!!!

What say you?

[phyllo]

Here are some reviews of a book by Prof. Stanley that you may find interesting:

https://www.amazon.com/How-Fascism-Work ... merReviews

The tile of the book, just out, is HOW FASCIISM WORKS.

It is truly educational and is highly-relevant today!!!

What say you?

What are you saying by posting this?

That opposition to nazism is the same as the politics of us versus them?

[Karpel Tunnel]

The Soviets weren't about to be exterminated.

1) if they were, would you then think it would be OK to enter the war? 2) It is inconcievable that the Soviets would not have lost more millions if the US had not entered the war. The German could have held fast in the West, and pushed into Russia with gusto. The enormous air, sea and artillary resources of the US sucked tremendous resources from the Germans, and they had to fight a very active two or more front war.

War = organized mass-murder in the name of a noble cause.

War is complete madness, and cannot be rationally justified

One isn't justifying the war, one is justifying one's role in relation to something. In the case of WW2, the war was already a war when the US entered. Were the French Underground wrong to wage a war against the German occupiers.

And notice that above, you are arguing against specific analyses of WW2. IOW it important for you to believe that the Soviets would have been OK without US intervention. But you must realize that even if you were right, in this particular instance (which I do not think you are), there will be other situations where horrible things will happen if no one intervenes. You own arguing that point entails that there are situations when it would be moral to enter a war. Otherwise you would not care about that point. It would not matter.

The wagers of violent warfare are inevitably bound to make some fatal mistake and do themselves in.

In the case of Hitler his mistake was taking on people who fought against him and had friends who fought against him and his military.

This applies to those who violate every Ethical norm and principle such as Benedict Donald.

Actually I see people doing just fine out there who have acted with regularity immorally.

Do you not see people who have benefitted and continue to do so from their immoral choices? I mean, look at the Bush Administration. They made big bucks off their immoral wars.

[phyllo]

2) It is inconcievable that the Soviets would not have lost more millions if the US had not entered the war. The German could have held fast in the West, and pushed into Russia with gusto. The enormous air, sea and artillary resources of the US sucked tremendous resources from the Germans, and they had to fight a very active two or more front war.

Without US help, the war would have lasted much longer with more military casualties on both sides and significantly more Soviet civilian casualties. The Germans would have had more time to eliminate the Jewish population in the occupied territories and to starve the Slav civilians.

Probably the Soviets would have won in the end and liberated all of Europe.

[phyllo]

If the ethics of US participation in WW2 is so complicated, even with hindsight and vast amounts of historical information, then how can anyone figure out the ethics of a current problem where we don't have the benefit of hindsight?

[Fixed Cross]

if

[thinkdr]

The point I would like to make is that the time to fight Hitler was between 1925 and 1932 - when he rose to power as Chancellor of Germany. By July of 1925, after having been sentenced to 4 years for treason, and being in jail for only nine months, he published Mein Kampf.
For details see: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-his ... -published

Then the world should have been aware that he was a raving psychopathic maniac who must be stopped from rising up in the ranks of any government, let alone Germany's. By 1925 the Nazi Party was an active group which included Rudolf Hess. The world should have taken measures to make the rivals of the Nazis more attractive to the German millionaires and power elite, as well as to the mass of the German people.

Perhaps something like The Marshall Plan ought to have been bestowed on Germany with the credit going to the political parties competing with the Nazi cult.

It was wrong to wait until 1941 for my country, the USA, to wage war against Hitler, the sick man; and his party, the Nazis. ...By then it was very late!



The same is true these days in re the con-artist in the white house: people had written books about his racketeering life ten years ago. We should have known tthen about the money-laundering and how he was 'married to the mob,' as The New Republic expose phrased it later in a 2016 edition of the magazine. "The Mob" to which they refer is the Russian mafia.

https://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Case-D ... merReviews

https://www.amazon.com/Making-Donald-Tr ... merReviews


When will we ever learn?

[Pedro I Rengel]

Ethics is like a mule. It wags its tail, but it never chews right.

[Karpel Tunnel]

The point I would like to make is that the time to fight Hitler was between 1925 and 1932 - when he rose to power as Chancellor of Germany. By July of 1925, after having been sentenced to 4 years for treason, and being in jail for only nine months, he published Mein Kampf.
For details see: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-his ... -published

Then the world should have been aware that he was a raving psychopathic maniac who must be stopped from rising up in the ranks of any government, let alone Germany's. By 1925 the Nazi Party was an active group which included Rudolf Hess. The world should have taken measures to make the rivals of the Nazis more attractive to the German millionaires and power elite, as well as to the mass of the German people.

Perhaps something like The Marshall Plan ought to have been bestowed on Germany with the credit going to the political parties competing with the Nazi cult.

It was wrong to wait until 1941 for my country, the USA, to wage war against Hitler, the sick man; and his party, the Nazis. ...By then it was very late!

1- Let's say you are correct in your analysis. That the best thing would have been to do something earlier AND that this would have worked. But democracies make errors. They can miss opportunities. They are not infallible. So there it is 1941 and they realize that they should have acted sooner, seen and taken seriously the warning signs that earlier administrations did not. Might not going to war have been the best choice at that time? 2-we really have no idea that your plan, based on hindsight, would have worked or was so obvious then. You can say, they should have done X and that would have worked and there would be no war. But there is no way to see if your speculation is correct.

More importantly, was it moral for the French and other countries to fight back against the Germans. They engaged in war against occupiers. Should England also not entered the war?

[thinkdr]

To KT and all readers:

In an earlier post I expressed admiration for the Danish Underground movement, as well as for the Underground in Sweden. So isn't it logical that I also believe that the French Underground had the right idea.

I hold that Satyagraha - as Gandhi spoke of it - is the way to "fight a war." This entails nonviolent direct action. And KT is correct when he wrote, informing the readers, that - in contrast with the violent alternatives - history shows that far less precious human lives are lost in the struggles waged by those committed to nonviolence. {See the research results, the historical record, compiled by The Einstein Institute - Dr. Gene Sharp - Director.}

See for a brief summary of the history of warfare along with an ethical proposed alternative see the book by Robert Wright: Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny - https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/ ... ewpoints=1

and see the more-recent book on the statistics of warfare, offering a positive, hopeful outlook, by Steven Pinker - https://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels-Ou ... merReviews


and especially visit this site on the web: http://worldwithoutwar.com/
It offers practical steps an activist who cares can take toward the goal of a world without war. [Hence it it cannot accurately be described as 'utopian.]'

...Your thoughts on these matters?

[Karpel Tunnel]

To KT and all readers:

In an earlier post I expressed admiration for the Danish Underground movement, as well as for the Underground in Sweden. So isn't it logical that I also believe that the French Underground had the right idea.

I hold that Satygraha - as Gandhi spoke of it - is the way to "fight a war." This entails nonviolent direct action. And KT is correct when he wrote, informing the readers, that - in contrast with the violent alternatives - history shows that far less precious human lives are lost in the struggles waged by those committed to nonviolence. [size=90]{See the research results, the historical record, compiled by The Einstein Institute - Dr. Gene Sharp - Director.}
[
...Your thoughts on these matters?

The underground movements were as violent as they possibly couldbe. They had limited resourses, but killed and maimed their enemies. Their intention was to violently remove the occupiers from their lands and they were not Ghandian in their approach. I am thinking more of the French, though the Danish movement certainly used violence. The Swedes were not occupied and I know less about them.

[thinkdr]

Thanks for the correction, Karpel.

It is still true that nonviolent direct action is the Ethical way to go. It does result in less harm over all. It even tends to have a liberating redemptive effect on the perpetrators of cruelty, torture, and abuse. Let's aim for the goals of freedom, love and peace, while practicing them. Peace is the road as well as the destination.

If we are going to be ethical, our means need to be compatible with our ends. For the proof of this claim, see the selections in the signature below. Also don't miss this one: http://myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/The%20 ... ncepts.pdf


Comments? Questions? Suggestions?

[Karpel Tunnel]

Thanks for the correction, Karpel.

It is still true that nonviolent direct action is the Ethical way to go. It does result in less harm over all.

Certainly if everyone does it. But how do we test your assertion in a world where not everyone will abstain from violence?

So then, it seems the French underground and the Danish were not ethical since they use violence. They should have resisted the Nazis openly, like MLK and Ghandi, without violence.

[phyllo]

Poland was invaded and conquered in 1939.

Are you (thinkdr) saying that the correct ethical action was for Britain, France and other countries not to declare war on Germany in response?

What should they have done?

[Serendipper]

I think that falls under the heading of greed. Idk, but I'm under the impression that Hitler merely wanted to rebuild Germany and I don't think I've seen evidence that Hitler intended to take over the world. I'm not even sure Hitler started the war (something Pat Buchanan said; I don't remember.).

Well there is this :

The German concept of Lebensraum (German pronunciation: [ˈleːbənsˌʁaʊm] (About this sound listen), "living space") comprises policies and practices of settler colonialism which proliferated in Germany from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901,[2] Lebensraum became a geopolitical goal of Imperial Germany in World War I (1914–1918) originally, as the core element of the Septemberprogramm of territorial expansion.[3] The most extreme form of this ideology was supported by the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and Nazi Germany until the end of World War II.[4]

Following Adolf Hitler's rise to power, Lebensraum became an ideological principle of Nazism and provided justification for the German territorial expansion into East-Central Europe.[5] The Nazi Generalplan Ost policy (the Master Plan for the East) was based on its tenets. It stipulated that most of the indigenous populations of Eastern Europe would have to be removed permanently (either through mass deportation to Siberia, death, or enslavement) including Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, and other Slavic nations considered racially inferior and non-Aryan. The Nazi government aimed at repopulating these lands with Germanic colonists in the name of Lebensraum during World War II and thereafter.[6][7][8] The entire indigenous populations were to be decimated by starvation, allowing for their own agricultural surplus to feed Germany.[6]

Hitler's strategic program for world domination was based on the belief in the power of Lebensraum, pursued by a racially superior society.[7] People deemed to be part of inferior races, within the territory of Lebensraum expansion, were subjected to expulsion or destruction.[7] The eugenics of Lebensraum assumed the right of the German Aryan master race (Herrenvolk) to remove indigenous people they considered to be of inferior racial stock (Untermenschen) in the name of their own living space.[7] Nazi Germany also supported other "Aryan' nations" pursuing their own Lebensraum, including Fascist Italy's spazio vitale.[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum

I'm inclined to believe that's an exaggeration for obvious reasons. To claim Hitler planned to conquer the world is at best speculation and most likely part of a smear campaign. This "Lebensraum" is probably just a desire to rebuild Germany. How can you have a superior society if there aren't inferior ones? We can't be rich unless there is someone to be richer than.

[Serendipper]

I have no idea about what is meant by the oxymoron "righteous war."

Fwd to 1:40 and listen 2 min.

[Serendipper]

[there are lots and lots of conclusions by Pat Buchanan, however, with which I disagree.]

I'm interested in learning.

I have no idea about what is meant by the oxymoron "righteous war."

I could add Nietzsche's "Be careful when fighting monsters that you do not become a monster." I forgot that one.

I do believe there may be such a thing as a just war; it would be of a nonviolent nature: mostly sabotage, fowling up plans of the invader; the Danish (and Swedish) Underground sort of measures.

Well, a greed war is less-bad than a righteous war.

There are these two necessary conditions (among others) for "a Just War."

(1) Your country must be invaded.

(2) War must be the very last resort after everything else has been tried!

I agree.

Neither of these conditions had been met before we, in the USA, entered World War II.

....Something to think about.

That's why I say no one has defended my freedom since the 1700s. Every other war has been a righteous war (except maybe the confederate side defending its decisions to leave).

[phyllo]

'm inclined to believe that's an exaggeration for obvious reasons. To claim Hitler planned to conquer the world is at best speculation and most likely part of a smear campaign. This "Lebensraum" is probably just a desire to rebuild Germany. How can you have a superior society if there aren't inferior ones? We can't be rich unless there is someone to be richer than.

So you're basically going to ignore what Hitler said in public speeches, in private conversations and what he wrote in his book. You're going to ignore the actions of Germany ... the invasions of Poland and the Soviet Union. And also the German policy towards the populations of occupied Poland and the Soviet Union.

[Serendipper]

The Soviets weren't about to be exterminated. The German Nazi Army were so stupid that they didn't realize their tank fuel would freeze up, be inadequate, for the Siberian weather, thus getting them immobilized in the midst of enemy territory.

Yes, attacking Russia in the winter was stupid lol

Another big blunder in a show of hubris was Hitler sending Rommel off to Africa because he wouldn't shut up about the allies NOT coming at Calais. And when they showed up at Normandy, nobody had the balls to wake Hitler up to get the order to send the Panzers, so by the time all the divisions were diverted from Calais to Normandy, the allies already had a foothold! Hitler really was so stupid to believe the allies would take the shortest and most obvious crossing lol. Rommel (I think) was smart enough to know Calais was the ONE place the allies would not cross, for sure! I used to watch a lot of History channel in the 90s when they actually talked about history.

Some folks believe Hitler was a genius, but I don't see it.

.

[Serendipper]

'm inclined to believe that's an exaggeration for obvious reasons. To claim Hitler planned to conquer the world is at best speculation and most likely part of a smear campaign. This "Lebensraum" is probably just a desire to rebuild Germany. How can you have a superior society if there aren't inferior ones? We can't be rich unless there is someone to be richer than.

So you're basically going to ignore what Hitler said in public speeches, in private conversations and what he wrote in his book.

No I won't ignore it. Show it to me. What you posted before was a wiki article describing Lebensraum.

You're going to ignore the actions of Germany ... the invasions of Poland and the Soviet Union.

According to the maps I posted, those places were part of the German empire and they wanted the territory back. I haven't seen evidence that he intended to conquer other places like china, us, canada, mexico, etc.

[phyllo]

No I won't ignore it. Show it to me. What you posted before was a wiki article describing Lebensraum.

That Lebenstraum article has 120 references. Follow them if you are interested. For example, #38 is "Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Volume Two – The National Socialist Movement, Chapter XIV: Eastern Orientation or Eastern Policy"

which you can easily google and get the full text:

http://www.mondopolitico.com/library/me ... /v2c14.htm

According to the maps I posted, those places were part of the German empire and they wanted the territory back. I haven't seen evidence that he intended to conquer other places like china, us, canada, mexico, etc.

Oh is that what ethically matters?

So logically, Britain can claim parts of France. Italy can claim most of Europe. Britain, Spain, Portugal and France can carve up the USA.

[phyllo]

1- Let's say you are correct in your analysis. That the best thing would have been to do something earlier AND that this would have worked. But democracies make errors. They can miss opportunities. They are not infallible. So there it is 1941 and they realize that they should have acted sooner, seen and taken seriously the warning signs that earlier administrations did not. Might not going to war have been the best choice at that time? 2-we really have no idea that your plan, based on hindsight, would have worked or was so obvious then. You can say, they should have done X and that would have worked and there would be no war. But there is no way to see if your speculation is correct.

There were agreements put in place between Britain and France and Czechoslovakia and Poland which were designed to discourage German aggression and war.

They didn't work when Germany occupied Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. And they didn't prevent Germany from invading Poland in 1939.

That placed Britain and France at a fork in the road in September 1939. Which path to take?