The GREAT Presidents...

[CFLarsen]

Learn some history, people. I'm tired of having to reeducate people every third thread.

You are probably the least qualified person on this board to teach people history.

 

[CFLarsen]

BUT... once again, Shane has detroyed another well-intended topic AND made libertarians look like crazies. You make my libertarianism harder and harder to defend, dude.

You do have a point. I find it very hard to believe that Libertarianism really is such a cruel, selfish political ideology. Time for a new thread, me thinks....

GET BACK ON TOPIC! READ THE TITLE! LIST THE GREAT PRESIDENTS! IGNORE SHANE!!!

, lol!

We doan need no stinkin' topics...

 

[LW]

3) If we hadn't entered WWI, the victory would not have been as decisive, therefore, Britan and the allies wouldn't have been able to pass the horrible Treaty of Versailles; it's also less likely the Russian Revolution would have happened, or if it did, had been a victory for the Communists.

I fail to see how the Russian Revolution would have been prevented as it happened two weeks before (March 15, 1917) the US declared war on Germany (April 6, 1917).

Furthermore, I don't see any reason to suppose that the US non-involvement would have prevented the later Bolshevik revolution (November 7, 1917) since it happened before the US troops started to have any real impact on war. (In fact, the last major German attack in March 1918 was aimed to end the war in a German victory before the US army had time to enter the battle and unrecoverably tip off the balance against Germany).

 

[hgc]

The ONLY reason??
So they aren't called by different names because the treatment and conditions were somehow....oh, I don't know...a little.....
DIFFERENT???

Concentration Camp: Take a bunch of people who are dispersed, and put them all into one place, where you can keep them under your control. Even Roosevelt referred to them concentration camps. It wasn't until after the war, after the German camps were discovered, that the term concentration camp (in English, I don't know what the Germans called them) came to refer to the Nazi death camps. This doesn't make "concentration camp" a dirty word retroactively.

 

[Sushi]

There is no way you can rationally argue that the internment camps were even remotely similar to the Nazi extermination camps. It is revisionist history of the worst kind.



You have completely misunderstood what the Holocaust was about. Please read some history. And understand what you read.

Please read hgc's post. It details my point exactly: we call them internment camps simply because of the connotation of the german concentration camps.

Also, Claus, I would not be telling anyone to understand what you read when you yourself cannot follow such advice...

 

[Sushi]

Well, if you don't "consent" to what Libertarians think, you go to jail....

Yep; murder, stealing, rape, vandalism...

 

[Sushi]

You have a frighteningly simplistic view of history. There is absolutely no way you can deduct that, without Lincoln, there would not have been a Hitler.

A very common strategy with political extremists: Find one scapegoat and pin all your troubles on him.

I have no idea where you have learned history, but you should demand your tuition fees back.

I agree that we don't know what U.S. foreign policy would be like; however, if it would end up being non-interventionist without Lincoln (I have no idea whether this is the case) we likely wouldn't have ended up in WWI and the Treaty of Versailles which pretty much caused WWII wouldn't have been in existence.

 

[hgc]

I agree that we don't know what U.S. foreign policy would be like; however, if it would end up being non-interventionist without Lincoln (I have no idea whether this is the case) we likely wouldn't have ended up in WWI and the Treaty of Versailles which pretty much caused WWII wouldn't have been in existence.

If, if, if. If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a happy Christmas. This kind of scenarioizing about historical what-ifs can be a fun game, but it doesn't constitute a valid argument for any point-of-view. Such is the nature of contingency. Somewhere in the world, a butterfly flaps its wings...

 

[Ladewig]

shanek
Except that at the time of the Civil War, slavery was on the way out, even in the south. Mechanization was making it obsolete, and since the north mechanized first, it stands to reason they would abolish slavery first. The more agrarian south didn't start receiving the benefits of technological innovation until decades later, but it was beginning to happen. In fact, you could argue that slavery would have already been made obsolete by 1960 had it not been for the Fugitive Slave Act, which meant that government was then spending taxpayer money to catch fugitive slaves and bring them home and so the slave owners never had to incur the costs of chasing down runaways.

Do you mean 1860 or 1960?

Could you explain how not having the Fugitive Slave Act would have made slavery obsolete? Wouldn't slave owners just guard their slaves more carefully to make sure that they didn't escape?

Could you explain how not having the Fugitive Slave Act would have made slavery obsolete? Wouldn't slave owners just guard their slaves more carefully to make sure that they didn't escape?

 

[Sushi]

If, if, if. If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a happy Christmas. This kind of scenarioizing about historical what-ifs can be a fun game, but it doesn't constitute a valid argument for any point-of-view. Such is the nature of contingency. Somewhere in the world, a butterfly flaps its wings...

I agree, but there are situations where you can say that if something didn't happen, almost certainly something else wouldn't have happened. It depends on probability; determining that probability is the hard part and, often I agree, fruitless.

 

[crimresearch]

Ah, the ol' "fingers in the ears" game.

Yes, that would be an accurate description of the game you are playing in order to avoid answering the questions.

So we will just note that you have made an inane assertion and when called on it, resorted to inept trollage.

Then we can move on with the thread you so transparently want to derail.

 

[shanek]

I fail to see how the Russian Revolution would have been prevented as it happened two weeks before (March 15, 1917) the US declared war on Germany (April 6, 1917).

Furthermore, I don't see any reason to suppose that the US non-involvement would have prevented the later Bolshevik revolution (November 7, 1917) since it happened before the US troops started to have any real impact on war. (In fact, the last major German attack in March 1918 was aimed to end the war in a German victory before the US army had time to enter the battle and unrecoverably tip off the balance against Germany).

I was referring to the Bolshevik revolution, yes. Here's what one person had to say about it:

"America should have minded her own business and stayed out of the [first] World War. If you hadn't entered the war the Allies would have made peace with Germany in the Spring of 1917. Had we made peace then there would have been no collapse in Russia followed by Communism, and Germany would not have signed the Versailles Treaty, which has enthroned Nazism in Germany. If America had stayed out of the war, all these "isms" wouldn't today be sweeping the continent in Europe and breaking down parliamentary government, and if England had made peace early in 1917, it would have saved over one million British, French, American, and other lives."

But then, why should you listen to that radical, ignorant, extremist...Winston Churchill?

 

[BPSCG]

I agree that we don't know what U.S. foreign policy would be like; however, if it would end up being non-interventionist without Lincoln (I have no idea whether this is the case) we likely wouldn't have ended up in WWI and the Treaty of Versailles which pretty much caused WWII wouldn't have been in existence.

Sounds like an excellent campaign slogan: "Vote for Stephen A. Douglas for president in 1860 and avoid a worldwide holocaust in 1940!"

If you think you can predict what the consequences an action today will be one year from today. then you should stop wasting your time here and get rich by applying for Randi's challenge.

If you can't, then why do you think "we likely wouldn't have ended up in WWI and the Treaty of Versailles which pretty much caused WWII wouldn't have been in existence"? Does your clairvoyance work better at a distance?

As hgc says, " Somewhere in the world, a butterfly flaps its wings..."

 

[shanek]

Do you mean 1860 or 1960?

1860, of course. Sorry for the typo.

Could you explain how not having the Fugitive Slave Act would have made slavery obsolete? Wouldn't slave owners just guard their slaves more carefully to make sure that they didn't escape?

That would have cost them more money. And it still wouldn't have stopped them all from escaping, leaving them with the tremendous expense of tracking them down and getting them back. That would prove to be unfeasible. But then, like the Berlin Wall going down, once the slaves realized that escaping gave them a real chance at freedom, they would have started doing it in droves and no amount of guards could have stopped them.

It was coming to a head. Exactly when, I don't think anyone can say, but it's clear that the Fugitive Slave Act prolonged the existance of slavery.

 

[shanek]

If you can't, then why do you think "we likely wouldn't have ended up in WWI and the Treaty of Versailles which pretty much caused WWII wouldn't have been in existence"?

Simply because that was why our government was big enough to fund it.

Now, you could argue that we could have simply gotten there a different way, but the Civil War gave us a big push in the direction of nationalism. It may have happened anyway, but not in time for World War I.

 

[crimresearch]

Concentration Camp: Take a bunch of people who are dispersed, and put them all into one place, where you can keep them under your control. Even Roosevelt referred to them concentration camps. It wasn't until after the war, after the German camps were discovered, that the term concentration camp (in English, I don't know what the Germans called them) came to refer to the Nazi death camps. This doesn't make "concentration camp" a dirty word retroactively.

That's all well and good, until someone like Sushi tries to insinuate the notion that other camps where people were concentrated are comparable to Dachau, with only some variations on a scale of severity.

If the words were used interchangebaly, that is one thing..

If there is evidence that the *conditions* were so close that they deserve the same appellation, , then there should be no problem backing that up with documentation...and so far, I haven't seen any.

Otherwise, any attempt to deny the commonly understood Holocaust usage of the word and soften it up, thus semantically putting Auschwitz on a par with Tashme or Tule, needs to be strongly refuted every time it comes up.

 

[hgc]

That's all well and good, until someone like Sushi tries to insinuate the notion that other camps where people were concentrated are comparable to Dachau, with only some variations on a scale of severity.

If the words were used interchangebaly, that is one thing..

If there is evidence that the *conditions* were so close that they deserve the same appellation, , then there should be no problem backing that up with documentation...and so far, I haven't seen any.

Otherwise, any attempt to deny the commonly understood Holocaust usage of the word and soften it up, thus semantically putting Auschwitz on a par with Tashme or Tule, needs to be strongly refuted every time it comes up.

By all means, if Sushi or anyone is making a dishonest comparison between the brutality and murder of Nazi camps and the American camps, then call him on it. But just because so many people are ignorant of the use and evolution of the words concentration camp does not compel me, for one, to participate in a revision of history by not calling them what they were called at the time (true, they were also known by other names), and what is a fairly descriptive term to start with, for the express purpose of not confusing ignorati. I would rather help to educate people.

 

[crimresearch]

The terms used *at the time* were actually 'assembly' and 'relocation' centers.

As time went on, it became obvious that no one was going to be relocated anytime soon, and internment camps became common useage.

Just as I am waiting for Sushi to show us any evidence of similarities in treatment and conditions between Konzentrationslagers like Dachau and US camps like Manzanar, I suspect I'll be waiting a long time for him to back up the notion that 'concentration camps' is not a revisionist political substitution of a loaded term intended to 'educate' in the same manner as David Irving wants to educate.

 

[Sushi]

Just as I am waiting for Sushi to show us any evidence of similarities in treatment and conditions between Konzentrationslagers like Dachau and US camps like Manzanar, I suspect I'll be waiting a long time for him to back up the notion that 'concentration camps' is not a revisionist political substitution of a loaded term intended to 'educate' in the same manner as David Irving wants to educate.

Funny how one could say that the Nazis treated them worse and be so ignored by such an ignorant individual. Yes, the Nazis were worse, but that does not excuse the fact that the United States had concentration camps.

Just because one person rapes and another person rapes then murders doesn't make the person who rapes a decent guy.

It's quite telling that you resorted to such dishonesty in order to try to make me somehow wrong. Attacking my use of the word concentration camp then somehow turning it into the "Japanese were treated as bad as the Jews were."

I'm not giving in to supposedly politically-correct phrasology to try to lessen the fact that Japanese were forced off their land in camps... that is, they were CONCENTRATED into camps based on their race, something that the Nazis did to the Jews and others.

I am not comparing the starvation and torture of the Jews with the Japanese, only the fact that they were herded into camps. Of course, the Japanese weren't fed steak everyday, either, but not being treated as the Jews were does not excuse that in the slightest. How you got that is beyond me; I suppose lacking intellectual integrity may be a factor. Having your head up your *** may also be why you can't seem to see properly.

 

[LW]

t then, why should you listen to that radical, ignorant, extremist...Winston Churchill?

Winston Churchill believed in a lot of things that didn't exactly work out as he thought. For example, during both World Wars he believed that the key to the victory was to attack the "soft underbelly" of the Mediterrean area. He was wrong in both cases. (Though, if the Gallipoli invasion had been led competently, it might have knocked Turkey out of war). In 1919 he believed that with a little Western support the White Generals could quickly overthrow the Bolsheviks. He was wrong there, also.

The March Revolution happened before any possible peace settlement in the West. After that, all bets are off. Kerensky had little hope in uniting the country behind his rule. Every faction hated each other with passion. Saying that peace in 1917 would have certainly prevented the Bolshevik Revolution is very much unfounded speculation.