Hi Paul,

Wasn't Speer in charge of labour supply and production ? In that capacity, he drove perhaps millions of people to early deaths through over-work and poor feeding. I recall a mine, maybe a salt-mine, down which many thousands of slave labour were sent, and nobody ever came out alive.

Yes, there may have been people like Schindler who took on the guise of a Nazi and, under that guise, saved many lives. There is quite rightly a garden in (?) Tel Aviv dedicated to their efforts, courage and memory.

Yes, as you say, with 2 billion Muslims in the world, with 99 %, like Christians, paying lip service to their holy book which most would not have read, since it is put up in the highest point in the house - if we totalled up Al-Shabab, Boko Haram, ISIS, Trump's close friends the Taliban and the Saudi Wahabis, and all of the crack-pot mini-groups around the world, it may total a couple of hundred thousand, or about 1 % of 1 % of all Muslims.

I wonder why some people find it so vitally necessary to hate entire groups because of their 1 % of 1 %. I'm sure you and I don't particularly hate Germans just because the Nazis were mostly German - and remembering the many millions of WILLING Nazis. We probably agree that evil is not 'in the blood' or passed down through the DNA - through culture, very likely, but not some inevitable feature of any group.

Do some people get a kick out of identifying some subordinate group to bash ? To put all of the problems of society onto ? Like in the Middle Ages ? If not Jews, then Gypsies; if not them, nowadays, then Muslims.

Joe

Hi Joe,

I think prejudice is a strong emotion, often based on an underlying irrational fear, and a general mistrust of easily identifiable minority groups within society. The minority is often stereotyped as having negative characteristics, such as undesirable ambitions, suspect social practices and beliefs, considered not in keeping with those of the majority. With an established negative bias existing against the minority, a smart orator, like a Hitler, given the right unstable social environment these people can exploit those pre-existing prejudices and anxieties of the mainstream in society to the detriment of the minority. Extremists as a minority themselves need these target groups to stigmatize if they are to gain traction within the broader community, they all do it, Hitler, Trump etc and etc.

To paul1405.

The principle still remains that if you or any other ideologue insist that an entire group of people can never be prejudged negatively as a group, then that principle applies even to those groups of people that the ideologues do not like. To do otherwise is hypocrisy and discrimination.

Your second statement clearly displays that you are being hypocritical and discriminatory. You are trying to rationalise around this principle by using selective language and you are failing miserably. It is clear from your statement that you are applying a different standard to "Nazis from past history" than you apply to all Muslims. You are clearly saying that all Nazis, and there were millions of them, "from fast history" can be judged as being all bad. Then you say that all "far right" groups are as bad" as the Nazis. But you don't apply the same principle to Muslims because there are "billions" of them.

That is clearly a double standard. And if you refuse to recognise it, it just goes to show how ideologues of every stripe have this amazing ability to demand that the principles they insist are utterly sacred do not have to apply to themselves. Psychologists call this odd phenomenon "cognitive dissonance". If you fail to recognise that you are violating your own principle, other readers on this site most certainly can see it, and they know you are potty. You are not thinking straight. You are illogical and irrational.

You are destroying your own credibility by your own clear double standard.

Not that it worries me, mind you, so please keep it up This is how over the years I have educated many young idealistic lefties into realising that the entire left wing ideology is based upon double standards, contradictions, and the refusal to look reality in the face. The young lefties look at the replies of other left wing contributors like yourself and see that their arguments are insupportable by logic. The smart ones begin to reassess their own opinions. This is why I am banned from New Matilda and Public Debate

Hi LEGO,

Resorting to school boyish like nonsense; "other readers on this site most certainly can see it, and they know you are potty." When one has doubts, one seeks comfort in the belief that "others" are on their side. About the last 20 posts have exclusively been made by yourself, Joe, Pete and myself, I see nothing in Joe's or Pete's postings that would indicate they hold a belief that I am potty. Unless of course you are a part of some extremist group, whose fellow members monitor our discussions, can you show evidence of these mysterious other readers who will say I am potty? BTW; my daddy is bigger than your daddy and my daddy is a policeman, and my daddy will come and take your daddy away, and you will never see your daddy again....how do you like that! And everyone in grade five agrees with me!

Where did I say "All Nazi members were bad", I did say many Germans joined the party in the 1930's and 40's as it was in their interest to do so. I gave reasons why, and if you like you can go back and read them. Religions are worse, the vast majority of new members are children even babies, joined up without their consent. One reason for that is if given a free choice later in life, the vast majority would most likely not bother to join. There's no doubt the Nazi's enjoyed a high degree of popular home support during their economically successful years, as they did in the early part of WWII, victories brought popularity.

The KKK-in-America is another extremist organisation which enjoyed popular support amongst moderate southern-whites, many joining as it was the community thing to do, basically agreeing with the underlying anti black racists principles of the Klan. A minority of Klansmen were able to insight mob violence, lynching's of blacks. Many Klan members didn't agree, but feared retribution should they speak out, ratinalisation; "well afterall he was only a n!gger!". With better opportunities for poor-whites, KKK lost much appeal as a fear peddling organisation.

Paul,

All active Nazis actively supported the most abhorrent activities against Jews, Gypsies, leftists, etc. and knew that those policies were directly leading to the deaths of very many people. So, in response to this childish argument of LEGO's, yes, they were indeed bad - as a group.

When any Muslims or any other group perform criminal acts, they should be punished with the full force of the law. Until then, they are innocent - they can wear whatever they like, pray however they like, eat and drink whatever they like.

As you say, people with their minds still 'in the olden days' when any strangers were to be feared, as if they simply shouldn't BE, certainly not in white Australia - remember attitudes to 'Balts', Eyetalians, Greeks, let alone Indians and Filipinos and Vietnamese.

We are still having to deal with some very backward people who really do take white privilege - male white privilege too - for granted as god-given. People who Clinton quite rightly called 'deplorables'. People who may see their monopoly on eternal power being shaken and coming quickly to an end.

Joe

To paul1405

Unless you have the wit to understand that your present position, which is that you think it is wrong for your opponents to negatively judge entire groups of people like Muslims, and OK for you to do it with the groups of people that you don't like, then you have an attitude that is a clear double standard. And you will continue to push this double standard every time you and I cross swords on a similar topic on OLO. And you can bet I am going to throw it right back in your face, every time.

My advice to you is to put your thinking cap on and realise that you can't win this one. You position is illogical and irrational. It is also hypocritical. Your attitude has developed that way because you have started with the assumption that your position is unquestionably right and moral, so you never bothered to question it. And you never bothered to think about it objectively.

So when you presented an argument that was self evidently contradictory, you could not even see it. You were so used to thinking that negatively prejudging Muslims was absolutely wrong, and negatively prejudging Nazis, "far right" or anybody else the left does not like is perfectly OK, that you could not see the clear contradiction. You were unable to understand that the high moral principle you advocated applied to you too.

The problem with thinking that you are more moral than everybody else is that it is imperative that you, yourself, have to live up the high moral principles you demand from everybody else. If you do not, you are revealed as a hypocrite and a pompous figure of fun.

You can not condemn an entire group of people like the KKK and then say it is wrong for me to condemn an entire group of people called "Muslims." That is a double standard