"On reflection, though, I have to wonder how many people around the world would express equally demented arguments if their group engaged in equally barbarous behavior".
There's no shortage of evidence throughout human history for how readily one group will butcher another.
The GPU reference makes sense in the context of Nazi propaganda: they conflated Bolshevism with Judaism and used the fact that a substantial portion of GPU (and before that Cheka) were ethnically Jewish to try to paint Jews in general in the light of the Soviet terror; I am not an expert whatsoever for this but I believe the argument was something along the lines of "look what Jews get to do German minorities in the Soviet Union, they will do the same to us if we don't stop them". It doesn't excuse any of these horrific crimes, but the explanation is more coherent in this context than it seems to modern ears.
Good thing there are no modern analogies to these kinds of bad arguments and we are all much more rational today!
Our species evolved, and our nearest-cousin species live still, in bands which fight viciously from time to time, and require the fullest loyalty of every member. Of those who don't prevail, read Euripides' The Trojan Women, for a start.
It is not to be expected that such evolution should leave no mark on our psychologies. Over the last forty millennia (that is, since agriculture was invented) our groups of mutual defense have become much larger; but our brains have changed little, nor our psychology since the earliest records from which psychology can be deduced.
I do not deny that, from the lofty seat of philosophy, *we* and *they* are symmetrical. I merely observe that people don't think that way, and are not to be scorned for it: we are evolved creatures, not specially created angels.
Science fiction to the contrary notwithstanding, if intelligent aliens are ever discovered, more likely than not they will share this foible; for they, too, will be evolved.
That last is my big question—about Covid, "trans" ideology, and more. I have family members brasnwashed by it, and I wonder if they could ever be made to see. I suspect it close to impossible, as they have invested so much. I have imagined, seriously, myself being taken away into a concentration camp, as they furtively appeal to me with a guilty yet horrified look, as if saying, "Why didn't you just go along?' They would have to know on some level it was they who had betrayed me, yet how could one face that? I'm sure they would have to double, triple, and quadruple down even in the deepest recess of their minds on the idea that I might have actually killed their babies if this weren't done.
My sister was speaking with her 22 year-old son a few months ago. He told her, quite seriously, that the country needs a civil war to end the leftist threat, that the only way is to shoot them. My sister, a moderate Democrat, asked him, horrified, "Would you shoot me? Because you know I'd be on the other side". His reply was, "Depends. Probably not. But somebody else would."
That’s horrifying. Although acts of violence to stop the threats to our democracy have come disproportionately from the Left in the past 5 years or so. I haven’t seen many young people who view the Left as a threat go out and act as it seems this boy is saying.
European civilisation is the gift of Greek philosophy, Roman law and Christianity. As we are decultured by totalitarianism, populism and Marxism, we go back to becoming white savages.
Twenty-nine percent (29%) of Democratic voters would support temporarily removing parents’ custody of their children if parents refuse to take the COVID-19 vaccine.
Forty-five percent (45%) of Democrats would favor governments requiring citizens to temporarily live in designated facilities or locations if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine.
Nearly half (48%) of Democratic voters think federal and state governments should be able to fine or imprison individuals who publicly question the efficacy of the existing COVID-19 vaccines on social media, television, radio, or in online or digital publications.
I can see how someone like Caplan would certainly see the desire to enforce immigration law in the same abhorrent way I see the desire to create and enforce "Covid law". That does track. If it is morally reprehensible to prevent people from coming to the country. If citizens and non citizens must be treated the same, then bundling up people and ejecting them is bad....
Of course, the existing immigration laws have been .... well ... existing ... for decades.
In fact it was the refusal to enforce the existing laws and the various mechanisms engaged in to subvert them and the LYING about it, that created the current environment of extreme and visible, enforcement.
But I still don't see equating ICE with any of those Democrat objectives listed.
Ejecting people is different from putting them in camps (designated facilities)
"On reflection, though, I have to wonder how many people around the world would express equally demented arguments if their group engaged in equally barbarous behavior".
There's no shortage of evidence throughout human history for how readily one group will butcher another.
They dont even bother trying make this stuff believable anyt
And STILL, it sells and sells and sells ...
That's why they keep it coming. P. T. Barnum knew this.
The GPU reference makes sense in the context of Nazi propaganda: they conflated Bolshevism with Judaism and used the fact that a substantial portion of GPU (and before that Cheka) were ethnically Jewish to try to paint Jews in general in the light of the Soviet terror; I am not an expert whatsoever for this but I believe the argument was something along the lines of "look what Jews get to do German minorities in the Soviet Union, they will do the same to us if we don't stop them". It doesn't excuse any of these horrific crimes, but the explanation is more coherent in this context than it seems to modern ears.
Good thing there are no modern analogies to these kinds of bad arguments and we are all much more rational today!
Our species evolved, and our nearest-cousin species live still, in bands which fight viciously from time to time, and require the fullest loyalty of every member. Of those who don't prevail, read Euripides' The Trojan Women, for a start.
It is not to be expected that such evolution should leave no mark on our psychologies. Over the last forty millennia (that is, since agriculture was invented) our groups of mutual defense have become much larger; but our brains have changed little, nor our psychology since the earliest records from which psychology can be deduced.
I do not deny that, from the lofty seat of philosophy, *we* and *they* are symmetrical. I merely observe that people don't think that way, and are not to be scorned for it: we are evolved creatures, not specially created angels.
Science fiction to the contrary notwithstanding, if intelligent aliens are ever discovered, more likely than not they will share this foible; for they, too, will be evolved.
That last is my big question—about Covid, "trans" ideology, and more. I have family members brasnwashed by it, and I wonder if they could ever be made to see. I suspect it close to impossible, as they have invested so much. I have imagined, seriously, myself being taken away into a concentration camp, as they furtively appeal to me with a guilty yet horrified look, as if saying, "Why didn't you just go along?' They would have to know on some level it was they who had betrayed me, yet how could one face that? I'm sure they would have to double, triple, and quadruple down even in the deepest recess of their minds on the idea that I might have actually killed their babies if this weren't done.
My sister was speaking with her 22 year-old son a few months ago. He told her, quite seriously, that the country needs a civil war to end the leftist threat, that the only way is to shoot them. My sister, a moderate Democrat, asked him, horrified, "Would you shoot me? Because you know I'd be on the other side". His reply was, "Depends. Probably not. But somebody else would."
That’s horrifying. Although acts of violence to stop the threats to our democracy have come disproportionately from the Left in the past 5 years or so. I haven’t seen many young people who view the Left as a threat go out and act as it seems this boy is saying.
He hasn’t acted in anyway; it’s all talk. But it’s fairly serious talk, and there are many more like him.
Oh, I didn’t think he would act on it! But it’s horrifying just to hear any young person resigned to such a possibility.
European civilisation is the gift of Greek philosophy, Roman law and Christianity. As we are decultured by totalitarianism, populism and Marxism, we go back to becoming white savages.
Closer to this than you want to admit:
Twenty-nine percent (29%) of Democratic voters would support temporarily removing parents’ custody of their children if parents refuse to take the COVID-19 vaccine.
Forty-five percent (45%) of Democrats would favor governments requiring citizens to temporarily live in designated facilities or locations if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine.
Nearly half (48%) of Democratic voters think federal and state governments should be able to fine or imprison individuals who publicly question the efficacy of the existing COVID-19 vaccines on social media, television, radio, or in online or digital publications.
One step away...
What does MAGA have in store for us?
I don't know. Enforcing immigration law? I'm being told this is fascism? Other than that its just the same old leftist socialism.
I can see how someone like Caplan would certainly see the desire to enforce immigration law in the same abhorrent way I see the desire to create and enforce "Covid law". That does track. If it is morally reprehensible to prevent people from coming to the country. If citizens and non citizens must be treated the same, then bundling up people and ejecting them is bad....
Of course, the existing immigration laws have been .... well ... existing ... for decades.
In fact it was the refusal to enforce the existing laws and the various mechanisms engaged in to subvert them and the LYING about it, that created the current environment of extreme and visible, enforcement.
But I still don't see equating ICE with any of those Democrat objectives listed.
Ejecting people is different from putting them in camps (designated facilities)
"Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland" by Christopher R. Browning (1992)