Dutch director killed by islamist fanatic!

[Lunar]

The Germans, for all their faults during the period, were very good at keeping good documentation.  Goldie tries to paint it as suspicious that most of the death happened in the East, but it's really just plain silly.  Even on the Western side of Germany, you can see that the camps become more concentrated and deadlier the further East you looked.  Notice the lack of camps in France and the Netherlands, and then the existence of them all in Czech and whatnot.  Even if you deny that they were German death camps, they were most certainly German camps: which exposes the tendency for the Germans to build them closer to the Slavic countries.

Hitler, from his works, obviously had the intention of killing all of the Jews.  If it's a fact that he rounded them all up and put them in camps, why the skepticism over the resulting claims of genocide?

Just like every major event, there is enough room for conspiracy theories.

[Lunar]

Obviously there is no point in responding to the same propaganda everyone spews out.

Yup, we're all marxist propagandists while you are the only one who sees the true truth.

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I don't dispute that the Soviets were reponsible for a few mass graves, including the slaughtering of Poles.  However, keep in mind that secrecy doesn't admit guilt.  The Soviets didn't let military inspectors in anywhere in their country.

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Actually, Mein Kampf does mention the extermination of the Jews.

Even pretending like Hitler never said anything of the sort, is it that much of a leap from extreme racism and the rounding up of the Jews to the actual murder of them?
 

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This is true in the work camps. 

[Lunar]

The camps weren't IN Russia. They were mostly in Poland. They was NO security reason to not let is in.

Why were the Allies not allowed to inspect them?

The camps were in now Soviet territory.  The Soviets didn't allow the Allies in anywhere, if I recall correctly.

And secondly - I don't deny everything you said.  The Soviets had their own share of mass graves.  However, Soviet murders don't prove the Nazi genocide false.

[Lunar]

By Kantian standards, the British were the most immoral agent in WW2, followed by the Russians, and the French. The Axis and the US would be tied with moderate immorality.

Is morality even comparative by Kantian standards?

Britain and especially France did force harsh standards after WW1, which led to the conditions which fueled nationalism.  However, it is not Britain's fault that the German people CHOSE to elect a nationalist warmonger and follow him. 

[Lunar]

According to Kant, people are naturally inclined towards violence, so it's the duty of just states to overcome this natural tendency.

By their actions, Britain (a theoretically just state) made justice impossible in Germany itself, and then proceeded to commit war crimes against Germany.

Britain had a moral obligation to seek peace, even if it meant failure, whereas the broken Germany could only be expected to relfect more base instincts.

Ah, but Kant viewed morality in absolutist terms ("catagorical imperative").   Basically, my nitpicking was to point out that Kantian morality is a binary: something is either completely immoral or it is completely moral.  At that point, you can't say that something is "more moral" than something else.

Heh.

[Lunar]

Yeah, I know about perpetual peace.  It has it flaws (Finland-England, War 1812, ACW, etc.), but still pretty amazing that a chap living in Autocratic Prussia in what..1795, could figure out how democracies would act.

It's a stretch from the Dutch director, but oh well.

The whole basis of the catagorical imperative is to strip all of that contextual crap away from an action and look at the primitive behind it.  So it doesn't matter if you are murdering someone who just killed your wife or if you're murdering the guy for fun, since murder applied universally is immoral, murder is always immoral.  Trying to insert "but..the government" specifics into the scenarios doesn't change moral scale since it is always immoral.

[Lunar]

Ah, my mistake.

[Lunar]

The American track record of tolerance for political views hit a black hole 50 years ago as well.

[Lunar]

Lunar,

I cited specific examples of where the europeans have banned political competition.

I would appreciate it if you could cite similiar examples of where political parties have been banned in the United States over the past fifty years.

We were "banning" leftist political organizations through intimidation, but not parties really.  My point earlier was simply put that we wouldn't want people to judge America by its own actions 50 years ago either.

In response to the last post:
I don't believe Old Europe ever advocated that banning parties is good.  He only disputed what he felt was exaggeration in your rhetoric.