Mike Klander's Long Lost Brother
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation have joined the blogging world. Maybe it's just me, but does this post by the Federation's Saskatchewan director, David Maclean, rub anyone else the wrong way?
It seems to me that when trying to win an argument, downplaying the negatives of Nazi Germany is never a good way to make your point.
"Yet in 1938, according to both William Shirer and John Toland, the Nazi regime held no more than 20,000 political prisoners. Political executions up to the time might have reached a couple thousand, and most of these were of renegade Nazis themselves during the indiscriminate butchery known as the "Night of the Long Knives." The famous Kristallnacht that horrified civilized opinion worldwide caused a grand total of 71 deaths. This in a nation of 70 million."
It seems to me that when trying to win an argument, downplaying the negatives of Nazi Germany is never a good way to make your point.
posted by calgarygrit at
10:55 p.m.
22 Comments:
And he's jogging around the internet emailing to many. I got the email too. Bizarre.
Almost makes you wonder if it's a joke site, but clearly the CTF blog is the joke. I guess.
Ted
Cerberus
By
Ted Betts, at 11:26 p.m.
As a descendent of Czechs who fled in 38 it does rub me the wrong way.
But I'll wait until I see the real identity of the blogger before I scream and yell and throw things around *joking*
Its just about as bad as Bill Graham's "a lot like Munich in 1938" comment when referring to the lumber issue.
By
Eric, at 11:39 p.m.
"Nazi Germany became the modern standard for political evil even before World War II."
That comes before your quote. It's fine. A stupid and inaccurate analogy but I don't think it's excusing any Nazi atrocities.
It's just lame.
By
S.K., at 12:26 a.m.
Or attempt a different spin and and try and win the argument by playing up a Nazi positive such as their war on cancer. The Nazis war on cancer was the most aggressive in the world. The Nazis were very concerned about protecting the health of the "Volk." Cancer was seen as a growing threat--and perhaps even held a special place in Adolf Hitler's imagination (his mother, Klara, died from breast cancer in 1907). The Nazi doctors fought their war against cancer on many fronts, battling environmental and workplace hazards (restrictions on the use of asbestos) and recommending food standards (bans on carcinogenic pesticides and food dyes) and early detection ("men were advised to get their colons checked as often as they would check the engines of their cars..."). Armed with the world's most sophisticated tobacco-disease epidemiology--they were the first to link smoking to lung cancer definitively--Nazi doctors were especially passionate about the hazards of tobacco. Hitler himself was a devout nonsmoker, and credited his political success to kicking the habit. But, he was still quite the murdering fuckhead!
By
Omar, at 1:58 a.m.
Nazi research, nor any other unethical research, should ever be cited or used. People who are unethical lie. Their results are biased, there are no controls or repeatable parameterers and therefore its all scientifically inaccurate. The research was poor in the first place.
Tuskeedee experiments, Professeur Chowdry, Nazi research. It's all garbage. It has no scientific value whatsoever.
By
S.K., at 7:05 a.m.
Unbelievable!!
By
Jason Cherniak, at 9:20 a.m.
I agree with S.B. on this one (gasp!), its a stupid analogy but they are not in any way endorsing the Nazis.
Funny thing though S.B. is that both the USA and the Soviets used German research (and the USA used Japanese research) that was performed.
What is more, is that many of the same German scientists who ran the V-2 Rocket program then went on to help the US Space Program.
The research done was unethical and immoral in many ways. But sadly that didn't prevent anyone from using it.
By
Eric, at 9:36 a.m.
...Nazi research. It's all garbage. It has no scientific value whatsoever.
It is the essence of skew to bluntly label sound, pioneering cancer research, "garbage" and having, "no scientific value whatsoever". As difficult as it may be for some to offer even a pittance of a hat tip to Nazi medical science, the ultimate worth of good research is of paramount importance and need. Good can indeed, come from evil.
By
Omar, at 11:59 a.m.
Over at the CTF blogsite, Mr. McLean is simply making it worse for himself today by defending his arguments that Che was worse than Hitler and the nazis. These guys are beyond logic!!
By
leftdog, at 12:29 p.m.
I would like to think that medical research could find a better way to study the effects of extreme cold on the human body than using Nazi data about Jews that were frozen to death.
That is not the point. The point being made was that before the war, German scientists, not all members of the Nazi party, were far and away ahead of the rest of the world in cancer study, research and prevention. One of the reasons for this was that their leader was a tee-totalling, non-smoking, vegetarian. A lifestyle almost unheard of in the 1930's. I understand that trying to find good in a regime that is rightfully vilified is difficult, but it's commendable deeds, like cancer research, should not be ignored nor erased from human memory.
By
Omar, at 1:25 p.m.
...I agree, it's poorly thought out, and in very bad taste..
That is putting it extremely mildly. To say the very least.
By
Omar, at 2:03 p.m.
Reading it in contect, I can see the point that he's trying to make (that Che Guevara was bad).
However, it's virtually impossible to have a rational, logical discussion of anything once "Nazi" or "Hitler" is mentioned in any way.
By
Michael Fox, at 2:48 p.m.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum
I believe that elsewhere on the blogosphere the proposition has been made that the first person to inoke Hitler in an argument be declared to have lost.
By
Ken, at 3:36 p.m.
However, it's virtually impossible to have a rational, logical discussion of anything once "Nazi" or "Hitler" is mentioned in any way.
Precisely. It is rather like trying to have a rational discussion about the Israel/Palestinian conflict without being branded anti-semitic or a terror supporter.
By
Omar, at 3:37 p.m.
Update: They seem to have removed the post.
By
Ken, at 3:38 p.m.
Obviously, the CTF doesn't think that the Nazis' actions were trivial in absolute terms. He's trying to say that they were trivial relative to the atrocities in Cuba.
It's a valid point, just badly structured.
It's not a valid point at all. The Cuban revolution and subsequent rebellions were bloody affairs, but there was nothing approaching the mass organized genocide of Nazi death camps.
By
JG, at 4:25 p.m.
Fontova was trying to make a point about how Che Guevara wasn’t all that great and how he helped with the senseless murders of many people. He was basically making the point that to some people a Che Gurera shirt is very offensive. I thought that was an interesting point, and as many bloggers do, I linked to someone else’s column.
Linking to something that is interesting is not a show of support, there are many things that we link to on our blog that we don’t agree with, but still find interesting, that is the point of a blog. I removed the post because some people were taking this authors words to be mine and were taking offence to them. I did not write these words, only linked to them. If those people were offended by what he wrote, they should take it up with him, not me, I simply linked to his post….
Either way, it's not a fight I want on a Friday afternoon.
By
David MacLean, at 5:20 p.m.
Here is the post for those who hadn't seen it:
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Che stood up for the little guy
Just doing a little reading.
For the first year of Castro's glorious revolution Che Guevara was his main executioner – a combination Beria and Himmler, with a major exception: Che's slaughter of (bound and gagged) Cubans (Che was himself an Argentine) exceeded Heinrich Himmler's prewar slaughter of Germans – to scale, that is. Nazi Germany became the modern standard for political evil even before World War II.
Yet in 1938, according to both William Shirer and John Toland, the Nazi regime held no more than 20,000 political prisoners. Political executions up to the time might have reached a couple thousand, and most of these were of renegade Nazis themselves during the indiscriminate butchery known as the "Night of the Long Knives." The famous Kristallnacht that horrified civilized opinion worldwide caused a grand total of 71 deaths. This in a nation of 70 million.
Cuba was a nation of 6.5 million in 1959. Within three months in power, Castro and Che had shamed the Nazi prewar incarceration and murder rate. One defector claims that Che signed 500 death warrants, another says over 600. Cuban journalist Luis Ortega, who knew Che as early as 1954, writes in his book "Yo Soy El Che!" that Guevara sent 1,897 men to the firing squad. In his book "Che Guevara: A Biography," Daniel James writes that Che himself admitted to ordering "several thousand" executions during the first few years of the Castro regime.
So the scope of the mass murder is unclear. So the exact number of widows and orphans is in dispute. So the number of gagged and blindfolded men who Che sent – without trials – to be bound to a stake and blown apart by bullets runs from the hundreds to the thousands.
How does that t-shirt fit?
By
Manley Man, at 3:20 a.m.
The CTF Blogsite absolutely was diminishing the horrors of the holocaust. Their intense hatred of anything politically 'left' is such that they felt they could get away with exagerating historical fact to suit their anti-left agenda. By advocating that the post revolution Cuban situation and the horrors of 8 million Jewish people being killed by Hitler were different only by the 'number of deaths' is preposterous, offensive, ignorant and worthy of all of the outrage that their association is now receiving. In the thread that they deleted (and are running away from) they made their opinion very clear that the only difference between the Cuban post-revolutionary era and the Nazi Holocaust is the total number killed. The CTF owes us all an apology.
By
leftdog, at 12:58 p.m.
According to me there is no need to worry. Your brother must not have gone too far away. He will return back home soon. Have some faith on Jesus.
By
StorageCraft, at 3:59 a.m.
It won't truly have success, I suppose this way.
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