Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Politics and Other Controversies
 [Register]
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.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 10-14-2011, 09:31 AM
 
19,226 posts, read 15,260,117 times
Reputation: 2337

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by Magritte25 View Post
Do you have a source to back this up?
Not now. I read it somewhere in the cybersphere a few years ago.

Didn't download it.

The closest I can find now is this:

"Following World War II, after 1945, Winston Churchill obviously read 'Mein Kampf" and subsequentely expressed his opinion, to have "slaughtered the wrong pig" in WWII. (H. Sündermann, "Old Foe, What Now?")"

The Strange, Mysterious Eternal Allure Of Adolf Hitler
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 10-14-2011, 12:40 PM
 
Location: France, that's in Europe
329 posts, read 265,946 times
Reputation: 44
Quote:
Originally Posted by ergohead View Post
After the war, Winston Churchill said that if he had read Mein Kampf before the war, he would have supported Hitler.
Really? That sounds highly unlikely to me.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-14-2011, 12:49 PM
 
Location: France, that's in Europe
329 posts, read 265,946 times
Reputation: 44
Oops, skipped the page where other people ask the same question.
Here's what Churchill wrote about Mein Kampf in "The Gathering storm":
Quote:
Here was the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless, but pregnant with its message.
The main thesis of Mein Kampf is simple.
  • Man is a fighting animal; therefore the nation, being a community of fighters, is a fighting unit.
  • Any living organism which ceases to fight for its existence is doomed to extinction.
  • A country or race which ceases to fight is equally doomed. The fighting capacity of a race depends on its purity. Hence the need for ridding it of foreign defilements.
  • The Jewish race, owing to its universality, is of necessity pacifist and internationalist. Pacifism is the deadliest sin; for it means the surrender of the race in the fight for existence.
  • The first duty of every country is therefore to nationalise the masses; intelligence in the case of the individual is not of first importance; will and determination are the prime qualities.
  • The individual who is born to command is more valuable than countless thousands of subordinate natures.
  • Only brute force can ensure the survival of the race; hence the necessity for military forms.
  • The race must fight; a race that rests must rust and perish. Had the German race been united in good time, it would have been already master of the globe.
  • The new Reich must gather within its fold all the scattered German elements in Europe.
  • A race which has suffered defeat can be rescued by restoring its self-confidence.
  • Above all things the Army must be taught to believe in its own invincibility.
  • To restore the German nation, the people must be convinced that the recovery of freedom by force of arms is possible.
  • The aristocratic principle is fundamentally sound. Intellectualism is undesirable.
  • The ultimate aim of education is to produce a German who can be converted with the minimum of training into a soldier.
  • The greatest upheavals in history would have been unthinkable had it not been for the driving force of fanatical and hysterical passions.
  • Nothing could have been effected by the bourgeois virtues of peace and order.
  • The world is now moving towards such an upheaval, and the new German State must see to it that the race is ready for the last and greatest decisions on this earth.
  • Foreign policy may be unscrupulous.
  • It is not the task of diplomacy to allow a nation to founder heroically, but rather to see that it can prosper and survive.
  • England and Italy are the only two possible allies for Germany. No country will enter into an alliance with a cowardly pacifist state run by democrats and Marxists.
  • So long as Germany does not fend for herself, nobody will fend for her.
  • Her lost provinces cannot be regained by solemn appeals to Heaven or by pious hopes in the League of Nations, but only by force of arms.
  • Germany must not repeat the mistake of fighting all her enemies at once.
  • She must single out the most dangerous and attack him with all her forces.
  • The world will only cease to be anti-German when Germany recovers equality of rights and resumes her place in the sun.
  • There must be no sentimentality about Germany’s foreign policy.
  • To attack France for purely sentimental reasons would be foolish.
  • What Germany needs is increase of territory in Europe.
  • Germany’s pre-war colonial policy was a mistake and should be abandoned.
  • Germany must look for expansion to Russia and especially to the Baltic States.
  • No alliance with Russia can be tolerated. To wage war together with Russia against the West would be criminal, for the aim of the Soviets is the triumph of international Judaism.
Such were the “granite pillars” of his policy.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-14-2011, 01:23 PM
 
Location: Gone
25,231 posts, read 16,855,199 times
Reputation: 5932
Quote:
Originally Posted by fibonacci View Post
The Myth of American Exceptionalism - By Stephen M. Walt | Foreign Policy


I've got to agree with a lot of those points. We have a terrible record of human rights violations, supporting human rights violators, and corruption of governments in the mid-East, Central, and South America.


And we have the nerve to lecture the world on freedom, democracy, and human rights?
Humble Pie, hmmm, pretty good rock band in the 70s, Thirty Days in The Hole
We have always had nerve, it is why some hate us and why others love us. Is America Perfect, Nope, but neither is anyone else. Should we stand up against evil, Yes, should we stop telling others they are doing it wrong, not if we are right, should we clean our own house while we are at it, APSOLUTELY. Oh, plenty of our flow Americans are eating their humble pie right now, I do think they need any more at the moment.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-14-2011, 02:28 PM
 
10,545 posts, read 13,539,531 times
Reputation: 2823
Yes, America is flawed - it's made up of human beings who are flawed. Exceptional doesn't necessarily mean perfect. Tell me a country that doesn't have a history of violence - hard to think of one. Give me the list of countries founded on the principle of individual liberty - with no references to being subjects of anyone - another pretty short list.

Maybe we should drop leaflets with this on them around the world and tell everyone to stop looking to us when they have a problem.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-14-2011, 02:45 PM
 
17,468 posts, read 12,872,410 times
Reputation: 6763
Quote:
Originally Posted by Casper in Dallas View Post
Humble Pie, hmmm, pretty good rock band in the 70s, Thirty Days in The Hole
We have always had nerve, it is why some hate us and why others love us. Is America Perfect, Nope, but neither is anyone else. Should we stand up against evil, Yes, should we stop telling others they are doing it wrong, not if we are right, should we clean our own house while we are at it, APSOLUTELY. Oh, plenty of our flow Americans are eating their humble pie right now, I do think they need any more at the moment.
Good Post.........left out, we should stop giving money to other countries that don't want to hear they're doing wrong. Oh, to be debt free!!
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-14-2011, 02:49 PM
 
7,006 posts, read 6,967,699 times
Reputation: 7058
Quote:
Originally Posted by fibonacci View Post
Americans need a hefty dose of humble pie?
Thanks, no, they're fat enough.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-14-2011, 02:54 PM
 
Location: Boston, MA
14,462 posts, read 11,207,014 times
Reputation: 8972
[quote]
Quote:
Originally Posted by fibonacci View Post
The Myth of American Exceptionalism - By Stephen M. Walt | Foreign Policy


I've got to agree with a lot of those points. We have a terrible record of human rights violations, supporting human rights violators, and corruption of governments in the mid-East, Central, and South America.
No we don't. Have there been failures of policy? Sure. Do we have a "terrible record"? Of course not!

Quote:
And we have the nerve to lecture the world on freedom, democracy, and human rights?
I would hardly consider giving our blood and treasure to help other nations achieve these goals "lecturing".
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-14-2011, 02:57 PM
 
Location: it depends
6,369 posts, read 6,379,703 times
Reputation: 6388
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rggr View Post
Yes, America is flawed - it's made up of human beings who are flawed. Exceptional doesn't necessarily mean perfect. Tell me a country that doesn't have a history of violence - hard to think of one. Give me the list of countries founded on the principle of individual liberty - with no references to being subjects of anyone - another pretty short list.

Maybe we should drop leaflets with this on them around the world and tell everyone to stop looking to us when they have a problem.
Rggr, you wrote a mouthful. The OP built a magnificent straw man, but did admit to "more than a grain of truth" to the idea in your post. And that is the genisis of American Exceptionalism: a nation founded with the explicit belief in the inalianable right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

No where else on Earth have people been as free to make the most of what they have to work with, as in America. This is the key to our incredible record of prosperity. The majority of us made a deliberate decision to come to America--or our ancestors did.

Slavery and genocide etc. do not disprove American exceptionalism; as you note, it does prove that Americans have always had human flaws.

The myth that most needs debunking is the myth that America is not exceptional.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-14-2011, 02:58 PM
 
Location: Boston, MA
14,462 posts, read 11,207,014 times
Reputation: 8972
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aganusn View Post
This is nothing new, and this is why dumb Americans upset me. I'm in the military, and trust me when I say there's a lot of idiots out there that think America is the cool kid in high school or something.
We should trust your opinion on Americans because you are in the military?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
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.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Politics and Other Controversies
Similar Threads

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top