Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged [Update: Convicted and sentenced]

[Terralthra]

I... every law against murder in every non-Scandinavian country?

How is demanding you not murder someone equal to demanding you suffer or die?

That may have been what you meant to say, but what you actually said was "Show me any law that demands people pick great suffering over disobedience and you'll have shown me a law that is very, very messed up."
Pretty much any law against murder demands that you obey it or face great suffering.

Many laws against murder have exceptions for, for example, duress, self-defense, and mitigating factors including state of mind. They don't demand, on pain of life in prison, that you suffer torture or let yourself be killed lest you be charged. I think that's what Purple meant, though they may have phrased it poorly.

[Grumman]

It just simply means you are a moral coward.

It means I am a human being. There is nothing positive about sacrificing your self for some sort of higher moral standard. Honor won't do you any good when you are dead.

It means you're not part of the fucking problem. The only reason a "murder this guy or I'll murder you" system can sustain itself is because of cowards. Without cowards to enforce the threat the chain breaks.

Many laws against murder have exceptions for, for example, duress, self-defense, and mitigating factors including state of mind. They don't demand, on pain of life in prison, that you suffer torture or let yourself be killed lest you be charged. I think that's what Purple meant, though they may have phrased it poorly.

There are forms of provocation which a person cannot reasonably be expected to resist, sure. If someone threatens to kill you, you are justified in killing them right back. If you find a rapist standing over a loved one, it is understandable if you kill them because it is an Outside Context Problem that we cannot reasonably expect somebody to emotionally prepare themselves to face. But neither of those things would justify deliberately killing an innocent third party. If Aaron says he'll kill you if you don't kill Bob, killing Aaron to get him off your back is justified, killing Bob to do the same is not.

[The Romulan Republic]

Thing is, I can't bring my self to possibly believe that punishing someone who had no real choice for something he or she has done is anything but morally repugnant.

Everyone has a choice. Including Martyrdom.

Martyrdom and personal suffering are not a valid option. Show me any law that demands people pick great suffering over disobedience and you'll have shown me a law that is very, very messed up.

Martyrdom may or may not be obligatory, but it is an option. With all due respect, the fact that you don't even consider personal suffering an option even if it means preventing the destruction of others tells me you are a self-involved sociopath of the kind you don't normally see outside of Ayn Rand's little fan cult.

[Joun_Lord]

Martyrdom may or may not be obligatory, but it is an option. With all due respect, the fact that you don't even consider personal suffering an option even if it means preventing the destruction of others tells me you are a self-involved sociopath of the kind you don't normally see outside of Ayn Rand's little fan cult.

I think thats a bit far to compare him to Ayn Randian fucksticks or to label him a sociopath because he doesn't wish to bring harm upon himself to help others. While most who would probably want to play hero and saves lives even at the loss of our own find nothing wrong with such an attitude, it may not be in everyones nature to sacrifice their own life or even injure themselves for others.

Now it seems to be protecting ones own life is in human nature. Now yes human nature can sometimes be a giant flaming cunt and make people do bad things like rape and murder or murder then rape or rape a murderer, other things like self preservation can be considered a good thing.

To some people the fact I pushed my cousin out of the way of a car and damaged myself seems pretty illogical, I damaged myself to prevent damage to another. Same with running into a burning building to rescue Mr Fluffies or jumping on a grenade to save your squad. To do so doesn't save your offspring, may actively prevent you from "pollinating some flowers" so to speak (which I just spoke but not really because I'm typing unless I was using a speech to text program which I'm not but I should look into those considering my fingers are gibberish machines and I have a ton of really, really, really crappy story ideas I want to write but not actually write because its even worse then my typing as I can read my typing mostly whereas I can't read what I wrote, should have been a doctor). Its possibly destroying your entire genetic line and obviously your very precious life for a stranger.

That is going against human nature. Or human nurture. Or human nutmeg, whatever it is that makes people act like people.

Purple Nurple for whatever reason values his life higher then that of strangers, values his entire history and that of his ancestors to other people's own lines. Selfish, yes, and something I don't agree with (I probably got some white savior hero complex or some shit, DAMN YOU COMIC BOOKS!!!!!) but clearly I may not value my life nearly as much as he values his own. I can see why that might not make sense to him, it doesn't even make a shitton of sense to me. It seems insane and while I have my off moments I wouldn't count myself as insane. A bit imbalanced maybe.

Nor would I count any person who risks or expends their lives in the pursuit (fursuit) of saving others but again, I can see why others might see it as. Being that sacrificing oneself is akin to giving out all your money to help the homeless to the point where you too are homeless, in your efforts to save people you hurt yourself. Same with rescuing someone, in an effort to save a life you had your own taken. It seems a bit loony toons crazy Doc. You are literally killing yourself even if for a good cause, killing yourself is considered part of a mental illness (as is hearing voices but I kept telling doctors that was just the headphones I was wearing). Crazy.

Maybe all we peoples who find nothing wrong with expending our lives for others are freaking insane in the membrane and Purple is the sane one. Probably not, clearly Purple is insane as he thinks he's a purple cube and thats pretty cray-cray, but again again I can see the logic behind his logic.

[The Romulan Republic]

It was the statement that "...personal suffering is not a valid option." that got to me the most, I think. Depending on how literally you interpret that, it could be seen as saying that any amount of suffering by others is acceptable to prevent any suffering for himself. And I do consider that comparable to the Cult of Rand.

I don't feel that people should always sacrifice themselves. That would be an unreasonable standard to hold people to even if it were possible. But their is a line somewhere when it comes to how much you can put yourself first and still be a good person.

[Joun_Lord]

Yeah I guess I can see you having a problem with someone thinking any amount of suffering is unacceptable to save lives. Like if someone said they would donate blood because of the pain involved and the temporary dizziness or if someone would pull someone up from a ledge because they might get a sore arm.

I could be mistaken (mmm steak) but I doubt that is what Purple was implying. He was probably referring to literally suffering as in like torture or extreme pain or extreme death rather then just temporary inconvenience and pain. I might hesitate to save someone if it was going to make me be tortured, as I might if I was for sure going to die. Others have a different threshold.

Others might want to avoid pain completely, which is I suppose understandable. I feel differently considering pain and suffering to me has a different effect. The pain I receive from shoving someone out of the way of a car (depending on the speed) or pulling someone up from a ledge I've probably inflicted worse on myself during my poor widdle me emo goth ass days of cutting and safety pins through the flesh and wearing horribly unfashionable clothing.

Purple shows even in other threads he has a high value on his life, even saying that being in a vegetative state was preferable to death in that baby immortals thread. I cannot fault him for placing such a value on his own existence, its seems relatively logical Captain.

Now if he really is to the point he is not willing to suffer any at all, no matter how minute (I had to look up how to spell that as I was sure it was spelled differently from the term of time and pronounced more like "minoot", I hate the english language some days) or temporarily damaging, I'd probably be more on his case.

[K. A. Pital]

However, disobedience does not guarantee death; it carries the risk of death (you can try to escape, go underground, et cetera). Following orders guarantees death for the victims. There's a bit of difference there.

[Alyrium Denryle]

However, disobedience does not guarantee death; it carries the risk of death (you can try to escape, go underground, et cetera). Following orders guarantees death for the victims. There's a bit of difference there.

Sure, but in this case, disobedience would have consisted of going AWOL or Deserting, and that WOULD have been a death sentence, and following his orders (which were to count currency) did not kill anyone. The "resource recovery" portion of the Death Camps was an ancillary function. Killing the rightful owners of that property was the objective, not the property collection. So disobedience would not have helped anyone. All it would have done is satisfy the outrage of future observing deontologists.

What are you talking about? Have you not heard of conscription? Back then various states demanded its citizens to live and die for the state through conscription. That is still practised now and you are sorely deluded if that option will never come up again. One does not need to be an ideological fanatic to be called up to live and die for a cause.

Moreover, martyrdom is not always about the notion of "no hope". It can also be done just so to make a point.

There is a big difference between conscription and spontaneous martyrdom. In modern armies (concript armies in earlier time periods are another matter I can discuss if you want, but suffice to say "low morale" was pretty common. The concripts did not fight very well precisely because they did not want to die), concripts are called upon to fight for the state. Not die for the state. Fight for the state.

Yes, there is a chance they will die, but young men who get conscripted tend to think they are invincible. They dont think about the dying part unless the war is going really really badly and they KNOW it is going really badly. That gets them to the mustering point.

They are also trained. Modern boot camps are specifically designed to brainwash (yes, brainwash. The techniques are similar to those used by cults, we just dont think of it that way because we like our soldiers and dislike cults. This is not a bad thing) young men (and women, now) into being willing to kill and die for the state. It works by partially deconstructing a personal individual identity, and subsuming what is left into a group identity centered around their unit. They dont die for the state, they die for the person next to them. It is just that their officers have arranged matters such that these become the same thing. Special forces are a different matter but they are not conscripts.

[Simon_Jester]

What are you talking about? Have you not heard of conscription? Back then various states demanded its citizens to live and die for the state through conscription. That is still practised now and you are sorely deluded if that option will never come up again. One does not need to be an ideological fanatic to be called up to live and die for a cause.

As Alyrium has pointed out, states that practiced conscription never seriously expected their conscripts to volunteer as martyrs. With the possible exception of Imperial Japan (which was one of the most lunatic-nationalist states ever to exist).

And no, it is NOT realistic to expect normal people to become gloriously capitalized Martyrs for the Cause just because some outside party told them to. Trying to do this with conscript units fails very hard, unless you just happen to be conscripting from a group you've spent the past few decades bombarding with propaganda. Even then it doesn't always work.

Moreover, martyrdom is not always about the notion of "no hope". It can also be done just so to make a point.

This, too, is missing the point.

Psychologically healthy humans generally don't quickly or lightly decide to just expend their future. This is a fact about humans. The only time you get a high rate of people willingly expending their lives, as in consciously martyring themselves, is:

1) When the person in question has little or nothing to lose,
2) When the person in question is highly likely to die anyway
3) When the person in question is trying to protect a specific thing they value more than their own lives.

(3) can be an ideology, but very few people actually value their ideology more than their lives. For that matter, few people value the lives of complete strangers over their own lives.

And that is simply a fact. Pretending it's not true, or pretending that I am ignorant of the basic definition of 'martyrdom' won't change it.

It means I am a human being. There is nothing positive about sacrificing your self for some sort of higher moral standard. Honor won't do you any good when you are dead.

Let's try that rationalisation in a court trying to try a war criminal and let's see how far that goes.

Actually, "if I had tried to avoid the war crime by Means X, they'd have shot me for treason/desertion" is a pretty good defense.

Most successful war crimes trials involve either:
1) Someone who actively chose to commit the war crime, NOT someone who had reason to fear dying for refusing to commit it.
2) Someone high enough in rank and status that they had ways of avoiding committing the crime, other than just going to jail or being shot as a deserter.

It just simply means you are a moral coward.

It means I am a human being. There is nothing positive about sacrificing your self for some sort of higher moral standard. Honor won't do you any good when you are dead.

It means you're not part of the fucking problem. The only reason a "murder this guy or I'll murder you" system can sustain itself is because of cowards. Without cowards to enforce the threat the chain breaks.

A randomly chosen population of humans will almost always contain a majority of such 'cowards,' especially since the system almost NEVER actually boils down to "murder this guy or I'll murder you."

It boils down to "murder this guy on behalf of [organization you already thought was legitimate]... oh, and the penalty for betraying [legitimate organization] is death, even if you were a low-down freedom-hating terrorist traitorizer who would think of betraying us in the first place!"

Which conveys a rather different message, no? It's all in the details.

Martyrdom may or may not be obligatory, but it is an option. With all due respect, the fact that you don't even consider personal suffering an option even if it means preventing the destruction of others tells me you are a self-involved sociopath of the kind you don't normally see outside of Ayn Rand's little fan cult.

While this is basically true of Purple, it kind of misses a point.

Again, this is not a thing human beings DO. We've seen it over and over. Almost nobody ever instantly realizes what hardline armchair historians a century or two after the fact are going to think, and decide to throw away their lives on the basis of said armchair historians' opinion.

Given that this is true, it is grossly pretentious for us to have said "this guy should have committed suicide and/or committed treason under the laws of his own country, and he is an evil coward for failing to do so." If that's a reasonable definition of "evil coward," then the majority of all humans are evil and cowardly.

And if you believe the majority of humans are evil cowards, very well... but in that case, 'evil' and 'coward' just aren't very strong terms of condemnation. It's like condemning someone for having an IQ below 120; the insult just doesn't have very much bite when you realize that it applies to the majority of people you encounter on the street.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

This, too, is missing the point.

Psychologically healthy humans generally don't quickly or lightly decide to just expend their future. This is a fact about humans. The only time you get a high rate of people willingly expending their lives, as in consciously martyring themselves, is:

1) When the person in question has little or nothing to lose,
2) When the person in question is highly likely to die anyway
3) When the person in question is trying to protect a specific thing they value more than their own lives.

(3) can be an ideology, but very few people actually value their ideology more than their lives. For that matter, few people value the lives of complete strangers over their own lives.

And that is simply a fact. Pretending it's not true, or pretending that I am ignorant of the basic definition of 'martyrdom' won't change it.

You do realise that all reads "EXCUSES FOR INCAPABLE OF HOLDING ONESELF UP TO A HIGH MORAL STANDARD" right?

[Metahive]

You do realise that all reads "EXCUSES FOR INCAPABLE OF HOLDING ONESELF UP TO A HIGH MORAL STANDARD" right?

You live in an authoritarian and totalitarian country. One day the Political Police shows up at your neighbor's house to arrest him and his family for "subversive speech" (he complained about the low quality of the food rations or something) to torture and execute them.

Is it your moral duty to go out and try to stop that arrest?

[The Romulan Republic]

While this is basically true of Purple, it kind of misses a point.

Again, this is not a thing human beings DO. We've seen it over and over. Almost nobody ever instantly realizes what hardline armchair historians a century or two after the fact are going to think, and decide to throw away their lives on the basis of said armchair historians' opinion.

Given that this is true, it is grossly pretentious for us to have said "this guy should have committed suicide and/or committed treason under the laws of his own country, and he is an evil coward for failing to do so." If that's a reasonable definition of "evil coward," then the majority of all humans are evil and cowardly.

And if you believe the majority of humans are evil cowards, very well... but in that case, 'evil' and 'coward' just aren't very strong terms of condemnation. It's like condemning someone for having an IQ below 120; the insult just doesn't have very much bite when you realize that it applies to the majority of people you encounter on the street.

I don't think the majority of people are evil. Misguided, yes, but not evil. As for cowards... quite possibly. Probably depends on the circumstances to some extent.

But no matter how many people you can point to who stood by and let evil go unchallenged, I can point you to plenty of examples of people who didn't, even at the risk of their own life.

Edit: And lest it sound like I'm just looking down on others, I'll admit I am also a coward in certain ways.

[Metahive]

I don't think the majority of people are evil. Misguided, yes, but not evil. As for cowards... quite possibly. Probably depends on the circumstances to some extent.

But no matter how many people you can point to who stood by and let evil go unchallenged, I can point you to plenty of examples of people who didn't, even at the risk of their own life.

Edit: And lest it sound like I'm just looking down on others, I'll admit I am also a coward in certain ways.

You'd be pointing out exceptions to the rule. It's easy to say "evil prevails when good people do nothing", but history shows that people on average choose to be alive, safe and comfortable rather than righteous.

[The Romulan Republic]

If so, their are a lot of exceptions. How many people joined resistance movements agains the Nazis? How many marched in the civil rights movement in the face of lynchings and police brutality? How many individuals, throughout history, have risked their life to save another person? It might not be a majority, but its not just a few. People can be better than merely self-interested animals fixated on their own survival or pleasure. And because they can be better, we should expect them to be. To expect nothing more is frankly insulting.

[Metahive]

In Germany? Not all that many. Out of Germany it depends. In Eastern Europe the Nazis started with their genocidal and slavedriving dickery at once and so the people there were actually fighting for their lives rather than for moral righteousness. In countries that were less affected by these policies it took until the Nazis started to decisively lose the war for major resistance to get going. Of course, fighting against a foreign oppressor is markedly different from fighting against a domestic tyrant, so you'd not even point out valid exceptions anyway. As for the Civil Rights movement? Took how long to form from the institution of Jim Crow laws? Almost a hundred years. Yeah people can do better, but most often they don't. You yourself admit you'd rather be a living coward than a dead saint, so with what justification are you harping on those people anyway?

[The Romulan Republic]

In Germany? Not all that many.

But some.

Out of Germany it depends. In Eastern Europe the Nazis started with their genocidal and slavedriving dickery at once and so the people there were actually fighting for their lives rather than for moral righteousness.

The may have been fighting for their lives, but that doesn't meant that none of them also had noble reasons for fighting.

In countries that were less affected by these policies it took until the Nazis started to decisively lose the war for major resistance to get going.

Could you elaborate on this, preferably with a credible source?

Of course, fighting against a foreign oppressor is markedly different from fighting against a domestic tyrant, so you'd not even point out valid exceptions anyway.

Its an example of someone choosing to fight rather than play it safe, presumably for reasons that they thought were right. I'd say its relevant.

As for the Civil Rights movement? Took how long to form from the institution of Jim Crow laws? Almost a hundred years. Yeah people can do better, but most often they don't.

Often they do. You cannot simply ignore those who do because they don't fit your cynical little world view.

You yourself admit you'd rather be a living coward than a dead saint, so with what justification are you harping on those people anyway?

I did not say that, though I admit I have no desire to die (in part because the dead can no longer help the living). I said that I am a coward in some respects, but I believe that their are some lines I would not cross. Of course, as I said, I haven't faced the test of my own nation being overrun by Nazis or something similar, so I can't definitively say what I would do in that situation, only what I think one should do and I hope I would have the courage to do.

As for my justification: moral principle derived from the belief that other people matter. Do you object?

[Metahive]

Some out tens of millions of people that is. Exceptions again and I must point out that most of them were not trying to martyr themselves. Georg Elser tried to murder Hitler, but not in a way that would endanger his own life. The White Rose was also not openly resisting but covertly. The only one who played with the idea was Stauffenberg, but he too thought he could contribute more alive than dead eventually.

And that's the thing, isn't it? The topic are not people who defy tyranny and injustice in general, but those who'd willingly sacrifice themselves fighting it for even the most futile gesture of righteousness like the one demanded of the person in the OP. That means that the number of exceptions you can point out shrinks even more.

Its an example of someone choosing to fight rather than play it safe, presumably for reasons that they thought were right. I'd say its relevant.

Nope, it isn't. Fighting when your life and livelihood are actively threatened is different from standing up and sacrificing your and maybe your familiy's life just for moral righteousness . See that example I brought up above? What's your answer to that?

Could you elaborate on this, preferably with a credible source?

It's a well-known fact that neither the Free French nor the French Resistance for example had much support initially and Petain, the collaborator, sat firmly in the saddle until at least 1943 when the Nazis took the rest of France. You brought up people resisting the Nazis so I'd presume you already did your research on the topic, no?

I recommend reading Raymond Cartier's work about World War 2. It's a french author and he doesn't have much nice to say about his country's role in the war.

Often they do. You cannot simply ignore those who do because they don't fit your cynical little world view.

I'd point out that Blacks in the US are still second-class citizens and that there's no major rights movement in sight. How much progress did the Ferguson protests bring? The country at large either doesn't care or thinks those are just a bunch of unruly rioters. It's not cynical, it's realist.

I did not say that, though I admit I have no desire to die (in part because the dead can no longer help the living). I said that I am a coward in some respects, but I believe that their are some lines I would not cross. Of course, as I said, I haven't faced the test of my own nation being overrun by Nazis or something similar, so I can't definitively say what I would do in that situation, only what I think one should do and I hope I would have the courage to do.

As for my justification: moral principle derived from the belief that other people matter. Do you object?

The point is that heaping scorn on people for not living up for your standards of righteousness is damn hypocritical if are not actually willing or ready to do so yourself. If you had been a german accountant in Auschwitz counting the money looted off the corpses of the murdered can you say you'd have done the "right" thing? Don't forget that in this case you also grew up believing those victims to be inhuman scum that deserved this treatment, that your superiors were always right and that obedience was the highest virtue to be followed.

Can you say with honest conviction you'd have done better?

[K. A. Pital]

But isn't the fact that Germans failed to overthrow not just an autocrat, but also a genocidal crazy warmongering autocrat, at least somewhat damning as opposed to mundane?

Sometimes people suceed in ousting such rulers before they get the ability to attack and massacre other nations.

There is some cynism in what you say, Metahive, even though it's not immediately obvious. Fighting for your life was not the only option that Eastern Europeans could pursue (and indeed, some pursued other ones: flight, or even collaboration), so there was always some choice, even in these very dreadful circumstances.

[Alyrium Denryle]

You do realise that all reads "EXCUSES FOR INCAPABLE OF HOLDING ONESELF UP TO A HIGH MORAL STANDARD" right?

So, in order to avoid criminal liability these days (rather than feeling guilty, which Gröning already does), someone has to be an absolute paragon of human virtue, willing to sacrifice themselves for no change in the status quo, for the abstract moral prize of not being "part of the problem"? Are you fucking insane? Hell, given that standard, I will take the 70 years of life followed by a likely suspended prison sentence in my twilight years.

But no matter how many people you can point to who stood by and let evil go unchallenged, I can point you to plenty of examples of people who didn't, even at the risk of their own life.

Not like this.

Almost every person who has a tree at Yad Vashem had an escape plan. It might have failed, but they had one.

They could have been partisans who had people backing them up with guns. They could have been diplomats who stood on their diplomatic immunity for all it is worth (Raoul Wallenburg comes to mind). They could have been state actors or Wehrmacht officers who had authority or other sort of power to stand on, or industrialists who could arrange to save people rather than kill them, or private citizens who had a hidden attic they could reasonably expect could hide people and thus avoid detection.

There was one guy at auschwitz who managed to save one person by claiming she was part of his work detail in Canada (the place where belongings were sent to be picked through, yes that is what they called it). He did this because he had kinda befriended her sister in a surreal unrequited love scenario. But that required having a work detail and some authority to stand on.

Gröning had none of that. He could have done three things, other than what he did was was repeatedly request transfer to the front lines.

1) Kill himself. Non-starter.
2) Leave. Desertion, death sentence carried out with a pistol.
3) Walking up and shooting a guard on the ramp. Also pretty much a death sentence.

None of these have any realistic possibility of succeeding while not dying. They are non-starters for any normally functioning reasonable person.

But some.

All of them in some position of authority they could leverage, or an escape plan that did not involve voluntary death. Germany did not have home-grown partisans or anything like that. They had periodic individuals.

But isn't the fact that Germans failed to overthrow not just an autocrat, but also a genocidal crazy warmongering autocrat, at least somewhat damning as opposed to mundane?

Can you name one population that overthrew a genocidal tyrannical autocrat before the mass murder happened? Or even just an autocrat. How many populations have ever overthrown an autocratic tyrant within 20 years of of the imposition of that autocrat?

[Simon_Jester]

You do realise that [my arguments] all [read] "EXCUSES FOR INCAPABLE OF HOLDING ONESELF UP TO A HIGH MORAL STANDARD" right?

That's how it reads because you think humans are not humans. Either that, or you think the fact that humans are humans is not relevant to a discussion of human behavior.

What this comes down to is simple. People don't do that. They never have. They just don't expend their lives in futile gestures of protest against a massive organization of death and evil that's taken over their country.

This is not some kind of unique lack of moral fiber that was only a problem in Nazi Germany. It's universal.

If you can't deal with it, it's a waste of your time to rail against it. Understand reality and move on; complaining about the blueness of the sky will not make it turn green to spare you discomfort.

...Or, if you can't bear that, you can follow your own advice and enact a futile protest against the Great Enemy. Which in this case appears to be the human race as a whole.

I don't think the majority of people are evil. Misguided, yes, but not evil. As for cowards... quite possibly. Probably depends on the circumstances to some extent.

But if you think most humans are cowards, "coward" can't be an insult any more than "biped" is. In which case little purpose is served by calling people by that word, except to needlessly anger those to whom "coward" is an insult.

[Channel72]

How many populations have ever overthrown an autocratic tyrant within 20 years of of the imposition of that autocrat?

It's rare, but it happens.

[Titan Uranus]

You do realise that all reads "EXCUSES FOR INCAPABLE OF HOLDING ONESELF UP TO A HIGH MORAL STANDARD" right?

You live in an authoritarian and totalitarian country. One day the Political Police shows up at your neighbor's house to arrest him and his family for "subversive speech" (he complained about the low quality of the food rations or something) to torture and execute them.

Is it your moral duty to go out and try to stop that arrest?

Yes, it is your moral duty to do so.
Although to be more accurate, the moment those sorts of arrests started happening, it was your duty to begin fighting them. This is not to say that I would expect most people to do anything like this, first and foremost the average person will do nothing, and I would expect nothing more of them. However, that admission does not make inaction morally neutral, just so common that punishment for it is impractical.

Just because most people are too apathetic, cowardly, or self-interested to do the right thing does not mean that it is not the right thing.

Note, I do not believe that any one person could stop a totalitarian state, and that even the greatest victory that they could achieve would be but a momentary reprieve, but the reason that we call these sorts of things moral duties instead of, I don't know, moral inclinations is because they are hard, because they will not help you in either the short or the long run, and because in following them you will likely die in a terrible way,in the dark, unmourned and unremarked, with the knowledge that you spent your life for either paltry gain or none at all.


Also, the Civil Rights Movement began before the American Civil War, before the American Revolution even, and it's first major outbreak occurred in 1676 at a place called Jamestown, and it was called Bacon's Rebellion.
Even if you say that Bacon's Rebellion was separate from the linage of the Civil Rights Movement, you must know that almost all of the gains desired by the CRM were pushed for before the ACW by the so-called Radical Republicans. In point of fact, all of these gains were actually achieved by the Radical Republicans shortly after the war. Even under the most conservative definition, the CRM can trace it's linage directly from the radical Abolitionists of the mid 1800's.

[Flagg]

I think that everyone who was serving in Auschwitz not only could be tried like this, but should be. Ideally just put to death, quickly. The amount of murder and suffering he inflicted is immense; at this point the right to life is fortfeited.

I tend to agree without the death part now. I think shaving a couple years off an old mans life is pointless, just try the old murdering son of a bitch and give him life in prison which will be less than 7 years IMO. You don't get to work at Auschwitz even for a few hours (not saying the current Nazi PoS we're talking about only worked there for a few hours) and not get punished.

[Thanas]

How many populations have ever overthrown an autocratic tyrant within 20 years of of the imposition of that autocrat?

It's rare, but it happens.

Not comparable in the slightest to any modern dictatorship.

[lance]

What about the argument that severely punishing people in ancillary and positions might encourage others to go down fighting, as opposed to surrendering?

Is there any reason he cannot do all of those things from a comfortable cell?
.

If he gives speeches to groups of people, being in a cell might make that harder