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They Thought They Were Free (1955)

press.uchicago.edu

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Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#201
post #170
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of different national and international situations that get compared to Nazi Germany seems to reflect a paucity of historical imagination and desire to collapse every conflict into an manichaean analogy with modern civilization's foundational battle of good vs. evil. It might make at least as much sense to compare to Erdoğan's Turkey, Orban's Hungary, Syria's Assad and al-Julani, Chile with Allende and Pin…

> Whereas the Nazi Germany analogy ends with near-inevitable wave function collapse into "start shooting Nazis" Does it? I haven’t thought about shooting anyone. I would like to see more widespread awareness, protesting, and a general strike.

This. If you read Reddit, a whole lot of comments go from Nazi parallels (which is partly justified, but as another comment points out there are also a lot of parallels with Orban's Hungary, Erdogan's Turkey, Putin's Russia, etc.) to 'Luigi'.

There are so many non-violent approaches that would be effective. First, there is the 3.5% rule [1]. Second, if 10%-20% of the general population would go on a general strike, pretty much all of society would come to a standstill and it would send a heck of a powerful message. One of the issues though in the US is healthcare tied to employment, combined with fire at will. It reduces preparedness of people to protest until it's possibly too late. So, it's simultaneously important to build/strengthen unions, etc.

Aside from that, and this is true for Europe as well, we need to heal as a society. People have divided themselves in stupid 'teams', fueled by politicians, foreign interference, algorithms, etc. Not woke enough? You are cancelled. Left-wing? You are cancelled (employer contacted and fired). We have to do a little less social media and go outside and talk to other people. Even if I disagree with people politically, there often a lot of common ground (we all want food, health, to be safe, etc.), we all like to talk about some sports match, and whatnot. We don't have to agree with each other, but we can at least try to understand and care for each other. Break the stupid tribe wars.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3.5%25_rule

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Note that what Mackey did, and the content of his posts, was entirely legal and his conviction was overturned unanimously on appeal. To convict him originally, the government had to lie about him participating in a conspiracy - the reason the conviction was overturned is because they lied about the evidence of the conspiracy. There was never any dispute that merely posting what he did was legal. I also wasn’t cl…

It really isn't "entirely legal" to deceive people as to how/when/where to cast their vote, and I don't think you'll find much sympathy for the view that it should be even among vigorous defenders of the First Amendment. His conviction was overturned due to lack of evidence of that he knowingly joined a conspiracy (required by the specific statute they charged him under) not because what he did is protected speech. h…

"Due to high turnout, polling stations are expected to be overloaded and the party I don't like should vote the day after election day" is a fairly standard joke. What he's described as posting isn't that different.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#203
post #105

I’ve read the book. It’s genuinely interesting. It’s very interesting to see how people misremember the post-war years. It also contains a) passages that are very much quoted out of context and b) an awful lot of stuff about “national character” that is… questionable. I highly recommend actually reading it and understanding what it is and isn’t. Mostly I learned that there’s no simple answers, but also that people an…

what made the stuff about national character questionable?

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#204
post #2

Posted here multiple times before: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42943973 (02/2025, 473 comments) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25083315 (11/2020, 382 comments) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31042304 (04/2022, 239 comments)

It’s been 7mo and we’re not all here every day. It’s fine. I appreciate the post and discussion it sparked. Why does it bother you?

Why do you think it bothers me? I wrote the original comment because previous discussions might be interesting reads.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#205
This has been true in the USA since approximately 1965, at least. Analysis has shown the general public has absolutely no say in policy making; literally everything is for this or that influential “special interest.”

This is borne out in the erosion of what we now euphemistically call the middle class along basically every dimension that matters.

Some of the heat here is on account of members of this community are, or at least are used to being, special interests that have had a powerful voice in previous administrations and less of one in the current one. But let’s not pretend this is some sort of creeping fascism, it’s just a different faction of elites making their own plays.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#206
post #172
post #105

I’ve read the book. It’s genuinely interesting. It’s very interesting to see how people misremember the post-war years. It also contains a) passages that are very much quoted out of context and b) an awful lot of stuff about “national character” that is… questionable. I highly recommend actually reading it and understanding what it is and isn’t. Mostly I learned that there’s no simple answers, but also that people an…

a lot of the western world learns only speaks about ww2 (let alone ww1, americans civil war, etc.). there has been countless western and non western wars with slightly different patterns and a taste of "winner writes history". one i find interesting is the french revolution. its also fairly recent, but not as tampered with as ww2 history. for example, there still are records of how terrible and cruel the revolutionar…

what elements of WW2 history are you suggesting are most tampered with?

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#207
post #148
post #141

I think it has been happening for a while now cancel culture had a very negative effect on academia Jordon Peterson and Warren Smith being examples of that. I much appreciate Dr. Sam Richards who walks the fine line of trying to be centerist but he did comment recently how he does gets hate from both sides. Now I know this is going to be down voted because some will say I am both sidesing this when it's clearly one s…

The US has always been a very moralistic country. From banning alcohol and burning witches to its long struggle to accept differences (in skin color, gender or even the definition of freedom). “Cancel culture” is part of America since its foundation. It’s a moral tug of war. It’s a different thing altogether to have the government itself weaponize “cancel culture”, however. As much as right wing people like to scream…

> little evidence of the same level of systemic abuse

You not looking for it doesn't mean "little evidence."

It's well documented that the previous administration pressured social media to silence views it didn't like, as well as instances of debanking conservative organizations.

That's not to say this administration doesn't throw its weight around, too, but to think it's only one side make you complicit in the problem.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#208

> They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 by Milton Mayer, published by the University of Chicago Press. ©1955, 1966, 2017 by the University of Chicago. Such books will no longer be published if universities are not free. And if freedom begins to disappear, even those who believe themselves safely conformist are not safe... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came

Universities will not be safe from government meddling until they comprehensively stop taking money from the government first . Until such a point, they run the real risk of censorship and becoming the agents of the very thing that they are warning about.

What a strange assertion.

It's not the case that the government is necessarily run by authoritarians cracking down on speech they disapprove of at colleges by threatening to withhold other funding. This is a novel development.

We can surely go back to funding schools without such strings attached.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This line of reason is actually becoming more frequently used to justify things. For years, the right wing propaganda machine has been establishing the concept that conservatism and America as a whole is besieged by authoritarian leftists and their smug out-of-outch enablers the liberals. THEY are the authoritarians and they are seeking to destroy America. WE are its defenders, and in the face of existential threat,…

Similar to calling everyone Nazi’s and fascists who has an opposing point of view? When you take a step back it becomes very clear that this escalating messaging is being push onto both sides of the political isle to create these feelings. I remember in the span of two weeks seeing almost identical posts urging people to train because you are going to have to fight. The wording was almost identical only one post said…

> Similar to calling everyone Nazi’s and fascists who has an opposing point of view?

Well, the actual neo-Nazis do support one particular party (and it's not the Democrats); see (e.g.) Charlottesville, 2017:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_rally

And it was (is?) official Republican strategy to court racists:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

As The Simpsons once joked “Fox News: Not Racist, But #1 With Racists”:

* https://www.nydailynews.com/2017/07/24/simpsons-creator-matt...

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really isn't "entirely legal" to deceive people as to how/when/where to cast their vote, and I don't think you'll find much sympathy for the view that it should be even among vigorous defenders of the First Amendment. His conviction was overturned due to lack of evidence of that he knowingly joined a conspiracy (required by the specific statute they charged him under) not because what he did is protected speech. h…

"Due to high turnout, polling stations are expected to be overloaded and the party I don't like should vote the day after election day" is a fairly standard joke. What he's described as posting isn't that different.

A jury felt differently.

I suspect the reason you didn’t just describe what he actually did is because you know that it’s different. No need to analogize, we can talk about the specific facts of this case.

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