Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

press.uchicago.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 536 posts

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#151

Post by vintagedave »

> How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice—‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’ But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have. And everyone counts on that might.

The rest of this excerpt is harrowing.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#152

Post by vkou »

subsistence234 wrote: post #116
palmotea wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sure, making the government smaller is basically the same as putting the government in control of everything. Come on. A "hostile takeover and dismantling of our democracy" is completely orthogonal to the size of government, before or after the takeover.

How do you clean up a corrupt organization?

It's probably best to start by not appointing a serial liar, convicted felon and conman to head it.

But if for some insane reason you do, you probably want to keep him and his cronies accountable to the law of the land. The conduct expected from someone with that history should be unimpeachable.

Instead, what we got is the conduct of someone who is unimpeachable. None of the rules apply to him or his friends, and neither do any of the checks and balances.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#153

Post by Cthulhu_ »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #109
noduerme wrote: post #73

"The Germans" is an absolutely jaw dropping read, a series of interviews with average German citizens and low-level nazi party members, conducted a decade or so after the war, by an American Jewish journalist. It shows, in first hand accounts, the banality of evil and how easily it can prevail if people do nothing. It is an account of modern tyranny and everyday collaboration. The parallels in the feeling of what's h…

I remember I once stumbled upon pictures of the daily life of ordinary nazis. They looked so normal, having fun, teasing each other, drinking and playing instruments. There is even a video where hitler is shying away from his love companion. This was a shock to me as a kid: evil doesn't look like the caricature of "the very bad guy", it emerges in every day people. I think we failed to communicate that. It was too te…

I don't know if there was intent behind it, but during and after WW2 the nazis and ww2-era Germans were depicted as textbook villains, in media, documentaries, school books, etc, but they did so in a dehumanizing fashion, as in, there were only a few named individuals (Hitler, Goebels, Göring, etc), but a generalised and unified "Them". Which made them completely unrelatable to those that weren't "them", which also opened people up for sleepwalking into facism - as long as they don't look too much like "them", and only when "they" got into power did their true colours reveal, including the caricature of Musk doing a nazi salute. I mean he didn't need to do that, and for the facist takeover it would've been better if he didn't because there's now a strong correlation between the two, but he did at the moment it was too late.

I mean it wasn't and isn't too late of course, that's defeatism, people can quickly be removed from power once people get their act together. Jan 6 proved that, and that was a fairly unorganized mob with only a handful actually prepared to arrest / kidnap or do worse to the congresspeople (thinking of the one guy with the tie wraps).

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#154

Post by internet_points »

_kava wrote: post #78
kzrdude wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are protests planned for today (Wednesday) across the US

Honestly, what would these protests do? Serious question. Let say you manage to achieve the unthinkable and bring a huge amount of people on the street, heck let say you are so successful that you also get a full on national strike going, what then? Do you think it would affect those in charge right now? He would not care. He is already ruining the US economy and alliances. Why would he care if some people he does no…

The point isn't to sway the emperor. (When the facts change, he changes the facts.) But there are many people answering to him who currently don't have the backbone to say no to him. Seeing a million people out there shouting that the emperor has no clothes on may give them that little extra bit of courage necessary to make the right choice in one of the many daily situations where they have the choice between being pandering yes-men and doing the right thing.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#155

Post by Cthulhu_ »

pwatsonwailes wrote: post #74
LandoCalrissian wrote: post #46

President is unilaterally shutting down federal agencies. If this goes on there really isn't a constitution anymore, not in practice anyway.

You never have one except because everyone decides they do. The moment anyone with a modicum of power decides to say it doesn't exist, it doesn't exist.

> In 1942 there were 110,000 Japanese-American citizens, in good standing, law abiding people, who were thrown into internment camps simply because their parents were born in the wrong country. That's all they did wrong. They had no right to a lawyer, no right to a fair trial, no right to a jury of their peers, no right to due process of any kind. The only right they had was...right this way! Into the internment camps.

> Just when these American citizens needed their rights the most...their government took them away. and rights aren't rights if someone can take em away. They're priveledges. That's all we've ever had in this country is a bill of TEMPORARY priviledges; and if you read the news, even badly, you know the list get's shorter, and shorter, and shorter.

George Carlin, years ago. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1242679-boy-everyone-in-thi...

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#157

Post by [deleted] »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #121
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious if what is happening in the US and what has happened in Britain with Brexit actually ends up slowing some of these marches towards illiberalism in other places. Like when people are upset at the direction of a country or current policies, they may take a "throw the bums out" attitude even if the alternative is far worse. But perhaps they're looking at the complete shit show in the US and how unproductive…

In the UK, the political party (which is a actually a privately owned company) owned by the guy who drove the initial wave of Brexit is apparently topping the polls now. The only policy they talk about is getting rid of all the immigrants because that's what caused all the problems, not decades of right wing government culminating in Brexit. But underdeath that is the usual US-style Turbo capitalism stuff like destro…

[deleted]

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#158

Post by Cthulhu_ »

asdasdsddd wrote: post #114
palmotea wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The president is fascist because he's, checks notes... , relinquishing governmental power by shutting down agencies? You do know the president is not supposed to have that power , right? His job is to execute the law, which as currently written requires those agencies to exist .

Yes and FDR also skirted around constitutionality and even threatened to pack the courts to ram his reforms in. I don't agree with everything the president is doing, but the rail we are going down is just doomed. What is your proposition to stop interest from eating 100% of the federal budget. We just paid 1T of interest, do you think that is going to decelerate?

Nobody is denying that the US budget / finances are in dire need of cleaning up, but the approach taken is a hostile and forced takeover of essentials like foreign aid, education, medicaid, etc. People will die because of this approach and its short sightedness will have a bigger negative impact on the US economy and international relationships than it will gain them from reduced costs.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#159

Post by twixfel »

vkou wrote: post #152
subsistence234 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you clean up a corrupt organization?

It's probably best to start by not appointing a serial liar, convicted felon and conman to head it. But if for some insane reason you do, you probably want to keep him and his cronies accountable to the law of the land. The conduct expected from someone with that history should be unimpeachable . Instead, what we got is the conduct of someone who is unimpeachable. None of the rules apply to him or his friends, and ne…

He's a rapist too, isn't he?
Post reply on HN