Demjanjuk - guilty or not guilty?

[August West]

1. You're trolling.

So you say, I don't think so. You are the individual who decided to make untoward comments to other posters and to frame arguments with emotion.

2. This will be my last response to you.

So? How does this comment apply to the question at hand? More attacking the messenger akin to the ingenious point number 1?

3. I did not misrepresent rjmacs.

You've said that, and thank you for finally offering an some sort of explanation as to why you believe that.

First I will note that your strawman construction did not contain the quote you are now citing, nor any recognizable references to it. But, be that as it may, in my reading of the post you have cited, it shows an attempt to avoid understating the importance of investigating the formation of a totalitarian system. Merely punishing the individuals who participated within the system is not enough. By examining such a system, knowledge can be gained. If you insist on seeing it as a pass for Nazi war criminals, despite statements to the contrary, I'm sure you have your reasons.

[Chakravartin]

rjmacs wrote: Are you discrediting me for not answering a question you didn't ask?

You've discredited yourself with your false-logic.

And if you lack the capacity to see the moral issues when a silent witness doesn't do anything to halt a terrible act then you have some moral failings as well.

[August West]

rjmacs wrote:
Scapegoats aren't by definition blameless or innocent...

OED wrote:
scapegoat noun
a person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency.

A scapegoat is by definition blameless.

By whose definition, I do not read "a blameless person" in the definition. I read "a person." If a scapegoat has murdered, and the person who enabled or assisted the murder is not held to account because "for reasons of expediency" it is easier to shift all the blame to the scapegoat, that does not mean the scapegoat was blameless when he pulled the trigger. If two people conspire to commit a crime, and only one is held to blame, it is reasonably possible for the one held to blame to be considered both worthy of blame and a scapegoat for the other.

[rjmacs]

I think i'm not communicating myself well enough here to be helpful. This is probably a result of my shortcomings (intellectual, not moral), but it seems like my posts aren't helping the conversation advance.

If there are particular items folks would like to hear my comments on, feel free to ask here or by PM. I think, for now, i should probably step back and listen. Thanks - i really enjoy hearing the ideas you all have to share, even when we disagree.

[Chakravartin]

Let's ignore Demjanjuk for the moment.

There's still the other thing: You keep coming 'round to the idea that somehow German society is at least partly to blame for the crimes of the Nazis.

It's natural for some people try and come up with a rationalization for the terrible things that were done in Nazi Germany. We don't like thinking of our fellow men as barbaric killers. But those people were barbaric killers.

When you argue that "society" carries some blame you may think that you're opening the door to a conversation on curing societal ills.

But that's not what happens in practice. It quickly becomes the "I was only following orders" defense. It's used to excuse almost any crime. Heck, at one point the Bush administration invoked it on a daily basis to excuse soldiers' violations of the Geneva Conventions in the recent extraordinary rendition and torture cases in Europe.

This is the operative quote from the Neurenberg trials regarding that defense:

"The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_follow...rld_War_II

One of my best friends endured six months of torture in an Iranian prison to get a visa to come to the United States. His guards were friendly people who greeted him by name, talked about their wives and cracked jokes even while they tied him up and gave him daily beatings. His back is a mass of scars and he has lost a lot of the normal range of motion of his arms. His crime: Wanting to leave the country so that he could practice his pacifist faith without persecution. His brother and his brother's wife each endured two years of similar torture. Being able to blame their bosses and their religious texts made it very easy for the guards to torture innocents and to divorce the horrors that they committed at work from their consciences.

So long as you can handily blame "the state" or "the general" or "the president" or "the bible" you can rationalize almost any action no matter how despicable.

People of conscience do not get to blame "society" for their acts. Even partly. Even hypothetically. The state is never at fault. Persons must be held accountable for their actions. When you promote the contrary idea, that "society" is even partly to blame for an adult's criminal acts, you are promulgating a very destructive lie.

I get a little more worked up than when I see otherwise good people endorsing the "society is to blame" excuse. Sorry. My bad.

-Ch