Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
would it have been possible to stop the Nazis without using the military? i would like to think it would be somehow as I am a pacifist, but even Einstein reluctantly became pro-war in that case, so i don't know. what do you think?
Ask yourself in what way pacifism could have stopped someone like Hitler. Try and come up with a method, and I am not joking or poking fun--I really would like to hear a realistic idea. Bear in mind that he began the European war. It was his guys who started shooting, shelling, strafing, torpedoing and bombing. If you can think of a plausible pacifist way to get his kind to go back home, turn loose all the territories and people he subjugated, and play nice in the future, then you need to teach it to the UN and finally make them relevant.
Go back and read my post, and this time try for comprehension, instead just looking for knee-jerk trigger words to lump together. You will see that the only respect in which I associated GWB with Mao was in their desire to exert control over lands beyond their own borders.
I could have said (but didn 't) that GWB was the absolute dictator of Iraq for quite a few years, and the number of Iraqi civilians who died as a direct result is certainly in the hundreds of thousands, and some sources estimate over a million. In a shorter space of time, the Bush dictatorship of Iraq killed a higher percentage of Iraqi civilians than the Mao regime did in China.
That's not the way it reads..... mox nix... I know I can't win a discussion with a social elitist who likes to play with words.....
In a shorter space of time, the Bush dictatorship of Iraq killed a higher percentage of Iraqi civilians than the Mao regime did in China.
So which is it, you really liked Saddam Hussein or you are a great admirer of "The Great Helmsman", Chairman Mao? While I try to limit political comments on this forum as much as possible, it works both ways. Leftists just cannot resist the chance to insert their old, sick, tired "Bush did it, it was all his fault" comments, can they? Asinine completely over the top remarks like the above quote just one more infantile example of this mindset. Just for the record, as a paleocon I was highly crictical of the Bush Administration, but that is another topic that belongs on another forum.
So which is it, you really liked Saddam Hussein or you are a great admirer of "The Great Helmsman", Chairman Mao? While I try to limit political comments on this forum as much as possible, it works both ways. Leftists just cannot resist the chance to insert their old, sick, tired "Bush did it, it was all his fault" comments, can they? Asinine completely over the top remarks like the above quote just one more infantile example of this mindset. Just for the record, as a paleocon I was highly crictical of the Bush Administration, but that is another topic that belongs on another forum.
If Bush didn't do it and it wasn't his fault, just provide factual evidence to that effect, instead of blazing away with ad hominems against the bearers of what is news to only you. There is nothing reprehensible about calling things the way they are. If it makes you feel any better, Clinton had as much responsibility as Bush. It was Clinton who bombed Iraq on more than half the days between the Gulf War and the Iraq War, causing social and infrastructural destruction, as millions of Iraqis suffered or died from untreated disease and malnutrition and lack of productivity, owing to the phony no-fly enforcement and trading blockades.
Even the US government sources acknowledge that over 100,000 Iraqi civilians were killed as a direct result of the Iraq war, which is 1/200 of the nation's population, even if you believe the Bush lies. That is certainly the minimum number, because 109,000 civilian deaths have been documented, with names and address and details of cause of death. 1/200 of China's Mao era population would have been 5-million.
And killing 1/200 of the civilian population of a country in order to solidify your own authority over them lies perfectly within the scope of this thread.
OP - The handling of pre-WW2 Germany is probably a textbook case of how pacifism and diplomacy failed the world and caused tens of millions of deaths. Read about Chamberlin and the other European powers attempting to submitt to Hitler in the goal of pacifism and "peace in our time". It's clear you don't know of some of the efforts that were used to peacefully deal with Hitler before the war. Unfortunetly, people today can still not grasp that evil elements in this world must be dealt with force. There is a time for peace and a time for war.
Quote:
Originally Posted by plwhit
That's not the way it reads..... mox nix... I know I can't win a discussion with a social elitist who likes to play with words.....
Just the way that poster is. You talk about Elvis, or fingerpainting, and he will bring up "Bush is Hitler" or "american is evil". Check this post out for an example of how he flips around a topic. He got appropriatly B*tch slapped. //www.city-data.com/forum/trave...-abroad-3.html
In his defense, he contributes some worthy historical information when not on one of his "sermons".
Ask yourself in what way pacifism could have stopped someone like Hitler. Try and come up with a method, and I am not joking or poking fun--I really would like to hear a realistic idea. Bear in mind that he began the European war. It was his guys who started shooting, shelling, strafing, torpedoing and bombing. If you can think of a plausible pacifist way to get his kind to go back home, turn loose all the territories and people he subjugated, and play nice in the future, then you need to teach it to the UN and finally make them relevant.
well, Hitler was powerless without the German people (well, a large percent of them) backing him up.
well, Hitler was powerless without the German people (well, a large percent of them) backing him up.
Nothing I would dispute; however, it doesn't answer the question.
It is 1938 (or pick any other year between 1934 and 1939). You have the power to direct the policies of the future Allies, including the then-neutral United States for good measure. In what way do you stop Hitler through pacifism? Please be specific and explain how you reasonably infer that the policy would realistically have stopped the Nazis through pacifism. Again, I'm not mocking you; I truly want to know and am receptive to any functional idea. War is one of the most destructive and wasteful things human beings can do, and if there is a way to prevent tragedies like that of Nazi Germany without just blowing them to hell, I have an open mind about it.
Nothing I would dispute; however, it doesn't answer the question.
It is 1938 (or pick any other year between 1934 and 1939). You have the power to direct the policies of the future Allies, including the then-neutral United States for good measure. In what way do you stop Hitler through pacifism? Please be specific and explain how you reasonably infer that the policy would realistically have stopped the Nazis through pacifism. Again, I'm not mocking you; I truly want to know and am receptive to any functional idea. War is one of the most destructive and wasteful things human beings can do, and if there is a way to prevent tragedies like that of Nazi Germany without just blowing them to hell, I have an open mind about it.
How about instead of blowing up Germany, sending an espionage of public speakers and writers to counter the Nazi movement and convince the people to overthrow Hitler. Sort of an 'info-war', so to speak.
I think Lenin had the perfect term for pacifists. He termed them "Useful idiots."
Look, I certainly don't believe in going to war for precipitous reasons. In fact, I have opposed recent actions by the U.S. government such as the invasion of Iraq. But the problem with pacifism per se is that it assumes some kind of basic moral foundation in the enemy. It assumes that with the right words or the right sensibilities, a Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot or Mao Tse Tung won't march you and your community into a ravine and machine gun you, for no other reason that it's expedient for them to do so. So essentially pacifism means that others have to do your dirty work for you, while you enjoy the luxury of moral superiority.
A reading of history prior to the German invasion of Poland shows that Hitler's Annexation of the Sudetenland was a gigantic bluff. The Germans were nowhere close to being ready for a general war with France and England, and the German General staff was terrified of the consequences. Western Germany was stripped of troops, and the French (Heck, even the Belgians) could have marched right up to the Rhine within a couple of days. As we all know Chamberlain, et al, handed a huge chunk of Czechoslovakia to the Nazis, something that is doubtful they could have taken on their own, had the French and English lived up to their treaties.
How about instead of blowing up Germany, sending an espionage of public speakers and writers to counter the Nazi movement and convince the people to overthrow Hitler. Sort of an 'info-war', so to speak.
In other words, incite others to be violent instead of oneself. Interesting form of pacifism, wouldn't you say?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
