National Review: Obama is wrong for calling Holocaust "senseless"
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  National Review: Obama is wrong for calling Holocaust "senseless"
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Author Topic: National Review: Obama is wrong for calling Holocaust "senseless"  (Read 5475 times)
Simfan34
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« on: January 29, 2013, 12:12:03 PM »
« edited: January 29, 2013, 12:18:46 PM by Simfan34 »

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http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/339003/president-obama-commemorates-senseless-holocaust-eliana-johnson

I mean, what was their thought process?

"Obama says Nazi violence against Jews was senseless... do we have an angle on this?"

"Uhh... defend... the Nazis?"

"It's something! Have it on my desk by five."


They must have hooked a dynamo to William Buckley's coffin and are using it to power their coffee machine or whatever. Because that's the only reason I can find for publishing something so stupid, especially when President Reagan said,

"Those who perished as a result of Nazi terror, millions of individual men and women and children whose lives were taken so senselessly, must never be forgotten."

...
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SUSAN CRUSHBONE
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« Reply #1 on: January 29, 2013, 12:14:16 PM »

…I don't know what to say.
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Yank2133
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« Reply #2 on: January 29, 2013, 12:19:44 PM »

............
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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
Ernest
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« Reply #3 on: January 29, 2013, 12:29:48 PM »

While I wish they could have found a more tasteful way to say it, it is pointing out significant flaw of many on the left, their belief that everything repugnant that anyone does happens because they don't bother to think and reason it through, so if we just followed logic, everything would be all right. Unfortunately, the world does not work in such a rosy way.  The Nazis were quite convinced that what they were doing was the sensible thing to do.  Doesn't make them any less evil.  Indeed, I would say it made them more evil.
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SUSAN CRUSHBONE
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« Reply #4 on: January 29, 2013, 12:37:09 PM »

While I wish they could have found a more tasteful way to say it, it is pointing out significant flaw of many on the left, their belief that everything repugnant that anyone does happens because they don't bother to think and reason it through, so if we just followed logic, everything would be all right. Unfortunately, the world does not work in such a rosy way.  The Nazis were quite convinced that what they were doing was the sensible thing to do.  Doesn't make them any less evil.  Indeed, I would say it made them more evil.

That doesn't have anything to do with whether it is senseless or not, to put it very mildly.
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Simfan34
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« Reply #5 on: January 29, 2013, 12:39:09 PM »

While I wish they could have found a more tasteful way to say it, it is pointing out significant flaw of many on the left, their belief that everything repugnant that anyone does happens because they don't bother to think and reason it through, so if we just followed logic, everything would be all right. Unfortunately, the world does not work in such a rosy way.  The Nazis were quite convinced that what they were doing was the sensible thing to do.  Doesn't make them any less evil.  Indeed, I would say it made them more evil.

You're reading too far into Obama's comment- and Reagan's.
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opebo
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« Reply #6 on: January 29, 2013, 01:17:38 PM »

Perhaps the point is - and I'm not sure the National Review succeeded in making it - that such dismissals of genocide as somehow 'senseless' or 'inhuman', or 'insane' is in fact a failure to take the meaning of it to heart; in fact such dismissals are a cop-out

To productively face what the Nazis did we must recognize that it was very normal, human, and sane, and that such behavior is part of all of us - a very large part of all of us (after all, Americans did the same thing with the Indians, and various others have done such things throughout history).  So, lets work from there.
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DC Al Fine
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« Reply #7 on: January 29, 2013, 01:21:40 PM »

This is completely overblown. The point NRO is making is a good one. People do bad things all the time and it is often not from lack of sense or carelessness or poor logic. To dismiss genocide as "senseless" cheapens the whole affair and gives us a false sense of security that "we could never do that".
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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
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« Reply #8 on: January 29, 2013, 01:40:28 PM »

While I wish they could have found a more tasteful way to say it, it is pointing out significant flaw of many on the left, their belief that everything repugnant that anyone does happens because they don't bother to think and reason it through, so if we just followed logic, everything would be all right. Unfortunately, the world does not work in such a rosy way.  The Nazis were quite convinced that what they were doing was the sensible thing to do.  Doesn't make them any less evil.  Indeed, I would say it made them more evil.

That doesn't have anything to do with whether it is senseless or not, to put it very mildly.

Actually it does.  Because you have a ethos that rejects that some ethnic groups are inferior to others. it doesn't make sense for you, but with different ethical axioms, such as those held by the Nazis, genocide can make perfect sense.
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Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin
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« Reply #9 on: January 29, 2013, 01:41:44 PM »

This is completely overblown. The point NRO is making is a good one. People do bad things all the time and it is often not from lack of sense or carelessness or poor logic. To dismiss genocide as "senseless" cheapens the whole affair and gives us a false sense of security that "we could never do that".

I think you're giving NRO too much credit. This wasn't some deep philosophical analysis decrying the a casual lack of concern for the real causes of the Holocaust. (As pointed out above, Saint Reagan said virtually the exact same thing with nary a peep.) This was, "Obama said something, let's find fault with it."

I also couldn't help but notice that while Eliana Johnson was quoting parts of the Nazi program, she just happened to leave out all the ones attacking cultural and financial elites.
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Torie
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« Reply #10 on: January 29, 2013, 02:09:27 PM »

WW I may have been senseless, because the elites that started it, ended up being destroyed by it, along with millions who served as cannon fodder, and that conflict was not reasonably calculated to serve anyone's interest. At least that was the conventional wisdom. Genocide is not senseless; it is a manifestation of the amount of evil that lies within the human species,  normally kept in check, but not always. I am not stating this very well. Maybe I will revise and extend later.

NRO just used the English language poorly. Buckley's ghost is probably not amused. He would not have phrased it that way.
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Insula Dei
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« Reply #11 on: January 29, 2013, 02:18:25 PM »

The stupidity of the National Review here is that they show themselves incapable of understanding something as basic as the fact that Obama here wasn't saying anything. Take the word 'senseless' itself: what is it supposed to mean in this context? Obviously it means nothing.

Obama here is performing an act that is more symbolical (i.e. 'ritual') than anything else. His use of language is performative, he's literally 'doing something with words'. If you misinterpret that for an attempt at communicating ideas, at an in-depth analysis of nazism for example, you've just shown yourself to be functionally illiterate. A speech like this one is supposed to be meaningless.

Granted, in a political culture where almost every speech has evolved into such a meaningless ritual, into an attempt to say as little as possible, the confusion may be understandable.
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Likely Voter
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« Reply #12 on: January 29, 2013, 02:20:17 PM »

Firstly this just seems to be another in a long line of cry wolf scenarios of just randomly attacking everything Obama does.

But wasnt it the likes of the NRO and the right that attacked anyone as an "America hater" who suggested that terrorists had actual grievances and agendas beyond "they hate us for our freedom."  

In fact dont they still attack Obama for not using the (ridiculous) term "War on Terror"
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shua
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« Reply #13 on: January 29, 2013, 02:24:30 PM »

This is completely overblown. The point NRO is making is a good one. People do bad things all the time and it is often not from lack of sense or carelessness or poor logic. To dismiss genocide as "senseless" cheapens the whole affair and gives us a false sense of security that "we could never do that".

I think you're giving NRO too much credit. This wasn't some deep philosophical analysis decrying the a casual lack of concern for the real causes of the Holocaust. (As pointed out above, Saint Reagan said virtually the exact same thing with nary a peep.) This was, "Obama said something, let's find fault with it."

I also couldn't help but notice that while Eliana Johnson was quoting parts of the Nazi program, she just happened to leave out all the ones attacking cultural and financial elites.

What is that supposed to demonstrate?
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Torie
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« Reply #14 on: January 29, 2013, 02:50:53 PM »

While I wish they could have found a more tasteful way to say it, it is pointing out significant flaw of many on the left, their belief that everything repugnant that anyone does happens because they don't bother to think and reason it through, so if we just followed logic, everything would be all right. Unfortunately, the world does not work in such a rosy way.  The Nazis were quite convinced that what they were doing was the sensible thing to do.  Doesn't make them any less evil.  Indeed, I would say it made them more evil.

You're reading too far into Obama's comment- and Reagan's.

Yes probably, and I screwed up, because it was Obama rather than NRO that used the word "senseless."  I am sure Obama would agree that there were better words to use here in hindsight, and I am sure that he did not mean to depreciate the horrific evil that was manifested by the holocaust and by all those who participated in it, or closed their eyes to it.
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King
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« Reply #15 on: January 29, 2013, 03:55:43 PM »

Everybody is a rational actor who does the good thing as their perceive it to be, even racists and Nazis.

That's what the National Review, I guess, is trying to say.  The only problem is that they don't extend this kind of understanding to everyone.  For example, I'm sure many National Review readers believe Palestinians fight the Israelis out of inherit evil and hatred, and not because they feel oppressed by a foreign government stealing their land.  Or that gays are interested in pursuing destruction of other families, as opposed to pursuing families of their own.

Rational actors is a truth that politicos only believe when it's convenient for them.
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CLARENCE 2015!
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« Reply #16 on: January 29, 2013, 04:00:15 PM »

I do not have a problem with Obama's comments... in fact, my issue with the left is more often they try to justify some one's reasons for committing a crime- to label it senseless is more accurate I believe because it shows there is no understandable reason for it
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Dr. Cynic
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« Reply #17 on: January 29, 2013, 04:13:41 PM »

"No Jew can be a member of the (German) race" is a sensible position?
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Badger
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« Reply #18 on: January 29, 2013, 05:17:32 PM »

I was going to say "words fail me" but now I've found my voice:

This is just plain silly.

Calling the mass murder of millions by the Nazis "senseless" is clearly meant in context of "tragic", "horrible", and "a really, really really bad thing". To expand that molehill into several pages of pontificating argument that this proves liberals like Obama don't understand that there are organized dangerous forces for evil in the world today is beyond absurd. That's like trying to assess the merits of administration agriculture policy based on what type of vegatables he likes in his salad. Does anyone really believe Obama or other liberals don't understand that Nazism was a highly organized totalitarian cultural and military machine of genocide in furtherance of its ideology?

The article's point was as profound as a sophmore's letter to the college paper.
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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
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« Reply #19 on: January 29, 2013, 05:46:25 PM »

"No Jew can be a member of the (German) race" is a sensible position?

Is it any less sensible than Obama, the child of a white mother and a black father, being considered black?  The whole issue of race can be considered quite silly.
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Indy Texas
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« Reply #20 on: January 29, 2013, 07:50:38 PM »

Everybody is a rational actor who does the good thing as their perceive it to be, even racists and Nazis.

That's what the National Review, I guess, is trying to say.  The only problem is that they don't extend this kind of understanding to everyone.  For example, I'm sure many National Review readers believe Palestinians fight the Israelis out of inherit evil and hatred, and not because they feel oppressed by a foreign government stealing their land.  Or that gays are interested in pursuing destruction of other families, as opposed to pursuing families of their own.

Rational actors is a truth that politicos only believe when it's convenient for them.

The millions of Germans who went along with Hitler's agenda without complaint weren't rational actors. Being rational requires some sort of critical thought process and those people did not use one. They did what they were told, they got a kind of high from being part of all the rallies and the banners and the pageantry of the Nazi state. It made them feel special and made them feel like their country was powerful and important after several years in which it had lost both of those things. If you asked an average Johann on the street to explain Nazi racial theory or the tenets of national socialism to you, he wouldn't be able to. It's not unlike the way most Tea Partiers have probably never read Ayn Rand or any of the Austrian economists; they just tell you they stand for "faith, family and freedom" or some combination. If you had asked an Obama delegate at the DNC last year to explain why they support him, they would have just given you some filler about how he's an "inspirational figure" who is "transforming America." Maybe the nifty logo got them on board.
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Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook
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« Reply #21 on: January 29, 2013, 07:56:27 PM »

Is it a federal holiday like MLK Day or Presidents Day or Thanksgiving?

Also, more proof that Jews control everything.
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memphis
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« Reply #22 on: January 29, 2013, 08:45:30 PM »

You guys are way overanalyzing it. The point is to criticize Obama. He could have said the sky is blue and they would have responded that it's more of a periwinkle. The National Review and indeed the entire conservative moment is in crisis. We have the first left of center President who will leave office with positive feelings from the public since FDR. They must throw everything the can at this man and hope something sticks or else they are in serious trouble.
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DrScholl
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« Reply #23 on: January 29, 2013, 08:58:35 PM »

There is no sensible reason for what the Nazi's did, none at all and all this overanalyzation to try and make sense of the what the National Review posted is pointless. The only point to be made is that right-wing media is determined to criticize everything the President says, even when it isn't anything worth criticism.
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old timey villain
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« Reply #24 on: January 29, 2013, 09:42:16 PM »

Oh, so I guess they would prefer Obama to get all "professorial" and give a big speech about the rational minded motives behind the Nazi's desire to destroy Jews, Romani people, gays, the handicapped and mentally disabled. Isn't it pretty much standard practice for all presidents and political leaders (besides Ahmadinejad) to make the obligatory speech from time to time condemning the holocaust as senseless? Every president has done this, but of course they decide now is the time to pick apart the merits of this very benign, generic platitude....what a strange coincidence.

Do they have a point? yes. Genocides happen all the time because sane people see it as the right thing to do. If we simply look back on them in hindsight and condemn it as senseless while whispering "never again" it is pretty much guaranteed to happen again many times over. But I doubt the National Review really cares about this. They were just following their playbook- Obama does or says something, they choose to be contrarian because he suxxxxxxxx!
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