Current law-enforcement doctrine is “when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”
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A line so fine that for practical purposes it does not exist.
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Arguing over how many Germans knew what when, and what they could have done about it once the dictatorship was in place is besides the point. Especially since neither of has any conclusive evidence on the matter.
I’m sure it was, just at is for Americans today to consider what role they will play (if any) in resisting the threat of Trumpism. Preventing the next genocide is everyone’s responsibility, at a very personal level, as numerous Holocaust survivors and writers have pointed out. Whether or not to speak up at work and risk your job, whether or not to stop associating with certain people. Whether to become more active politically, or less. These are all the types of personal, and moral decisions people make, every day.
Again, you are stating the obvious. And your tone is becoming strident. My point was that there is no way one can know what one would have done in those circumstances, having not lived in their shoes. Therefore I will refrain from judging them. And that’s my choice. It doesn’t mean I am giving anyone a free pass, just the consideration that they are human.
Thanks for the dictionary lesson.
I didn’t suggest people acted without free will, nor did I grant anyone the “benefit of infinite doubt”. Now you’re putting words in my mouth for the sake of argument, which is a straw man and tells me that I’m done here. Peace.
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
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Can we agree on fascist and all be friends?
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Nixon said that on tv, in an interview with David Frost:
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Going by the well-documented atrocities happening at the border, from deaths in concentration camps to people being prosecuted for trying to save the lives of refugees, the question is already asked and answered.
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So are you saying we are all complicit then by not doing anything? I am certainly open to that interpretation, just seeking clarification…But some people are doing something, no? Is speaking out enough? Does venting on Facebook count? 
Are American citizens more complicit than say, Canadians like me? If however I have more means to do something than you, would that make me more guilty if I failed to act? Insomiac in the middle of the night, watching the world self-destruct, the thought has occurred to me to drive down to the border, get in their face and at least protest somehow…but in the morning that just seems silly…wouldn’t it just be an empty gesture? It seems to me moral questions like these are very complicated, and don’t lend themselves to easy answers. They are very important questions nonetheless. It is one thing to moralize, like my debating partner @tuhu there, quite another to put words into meaningful action. Thoughts?
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forty years ago, a shameful confession of criminal intent
today, official policy 
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Simply put, what we would have done then under the same circumstances is exactly what we are doing right now.
I have to cross back into the US tomorrow, and when stopped at the entry point, I believe I will ask some pointed questions of my own.
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Depressingly true. Watching the media and the opposition cower in the face of fascism has me so sick at heart. When the liberal media needs to point out Chris Wallace ‘calling out’ Miller/Goebbels on Fox News, we are well and truly fucked. Godspeed.
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BTW, damn straight I’m going to leave my phone at home. LOL
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Wise choice. I was calling Trump a fascist well before he was elected. Most of my liberal friends thought I was being dramatic, but the thing is I have studied this shit half my life. Now we are witnessing openly defiant white supremacy by the POTUS and his enablers. I would give anything to have been wrong…
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I hope they rot in prison. I can think of no one more deserving than this scum.
Careful, Dude. They took my car apart the last time I did it, just because the douchebags the car in front of me had some coke.
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I’ll be on foot, with an empty backpack and some snacks. Not much they can search, and my background is clean.
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Cause a dude crossing a border with an empty backpack isn’t suspicious at all…
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Nah, it’s routine. I do it often.
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People shouldn’t forget Charles Coughlin either… especially in a thread about American-grown racists. (Or, they should forget him, but remember that bigots like him can be dangerous in the real world.)
People like to dismiss things like these California Nazis who went to Charlottesville because they think American Nazism isn’t a dangerous thing or that it can’t have an effect because it’s “just a few knuckleheads in the USA”. Coughlin didn’t let the fact that he was a single Catholic priest in Detroit stop him from greatly fuelling hate against the Jews fleeing Europe.
By 1942, Coughlin’s anti-Roosevelt and antisemitic screeds had ended his radio career, but he remained a parish priest until his retirement in 1966.
Ouch.
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You should check out this chilling and excellent book. One of the many prescient things he predicted was that his fellow Germans would plead ignorance once the world found out about the atrocities.
My Opposition: The Diary of Friedrich Kellner - A German Against the Third Reich
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