# I want my half hour of life back after reading this SDMB thread. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 24, 2008, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-my-half-hour-of-life-back-after-reading-this-sdmb-thread/469281 "2008-10-24T00:45:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-my-half-hour-of-life-back-after-reading-this-sdmb-thread/469281/21 "2008-10-24T01:51:49Z")
[I guess I’m to blame here, since I told him to start it.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=10349867#post10349867) I had the “oh, I’ve wasted my life” feeling after I read **maatorc** ’s thread, but I thought the Holocaust denier thread has been pretty entertaining. At least, after a fashion. There are people in there bringing some high-quality information and mockery even if **Allan Gurfinkle** is never going to learn from it. ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-my-half-hour-of-life-back-after-reading-this-sdmb-thread/469281/22 "2008-10-24T02:05:57Z")
Hey Idle don’t feel so bad. Monday was “Hit a Jew day” at the local middle school here. But it wasn’t that bad because the hits were ‘gentle’. Gah, sometimes I truely wonder about the USA. [http://www.ksdk.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=158218](http://www.ksdk.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=158218) ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-my-half-hour-of-life-back-after-reading-this-sdmb-thread/469281/23 "2008-10-24T02:06:24Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > I’d like to take this opportunity to say- Germans, stop apologizing for the Holocaust! You were not personally involved! > > Seriously, every German I meet feels the need to apologize. ‘I was not even born yet’ is a plenty good excuse. Besides which, I’m of German descent. Instead of apologizing, get me some beef wurst and play some Mozart. Hear, hear. For that matter, the Germans have gone to praiseworthy lengths to make sure that they never, ever do anything like the Holocaust again. Maybe too far, actually. Guys: It’s okay - we all know there are nutjobs. You really don’t need to jail holocaust deniers, honest. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-my-half-hour-of-life-back-after-reading-this-sdmb-thread/469281/24 "2008-10-24T02:10:17Z")
Anti-semitism and racism and homophobia are things that we’ve gotten so used to fighting when they’re masked that it almost throws us off when we see them right out there in the open. I love the way he keeps saying “Watch the video” (one that’s blocked by most filtering software as a hate site, which is of course because it disputes what our Jewish Overlords tell us is true). It’s fucking amazing just how much discipline and self-control and attention to detail Jews have, isn’t it? The way that so many hundreds of thousands starved themselves until you could literally see every bone in their bodies through the skin and slept in excrement and louse infested bunks in camps where naked dead bodies (a GREAT touch- I hope whoever came up with that one got a Hannukah bonus) just to fool the “liberators”- shit. Not even Christian Bale or Penn or DeNiro ever gave that much attention to method acting or building a character, and yet Jews did it by the tens of thousands all over Europe when there was a war on without even comparing notes. The interpreters who play Puritans and Indians at Plimoth Plantation are famous for never breaking character. They actually have training on how to deal with emergencies such as a park guest having a heart attack without breaking character (basically they run for help). Excessive rudeness or baiting by a guest may result in security being called, but they won’t break character. I’ve always thought this was impressive discipline. But Jews— damn! Some of them have been playing the role of Nazi Victim for 60+ years and they’ve never even broke character! They still pretend the Holocaust happened! There’s even special Jews with foreskins and Gentile features who pretend to be former German guards and others who witnessed the Holocaust happening! And I don’t know what the hell they gave the American GIs and Soviet soldiers and others who came across their “camps” 63 years ago to keep up the ruse, but it’s working- not one has finally just admitted “Oh man, those dead bodies were so fake it wasn’t funny!” It’s like the world’s longest running prank or piece of performance art. Seriously, anybody who can actually convince themselves the Holocaust never happened could easily convince themselves that humans can walk through walls and that goldfish can communicate with ESP. That’s why I lean towards troll more than batshit insane as well. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-my-half-hour-of-life-back-after-reading-this-sdmb-thread/469281/25 "2008-10-24T02:19:19Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > One standard reply to this sort of thing is that people may be reading the thread other than the people replying to it and the Monster Raving Loony who started it. Let’s face it, many people–_most_ people–are probably pretty ignorant about a great many things. They believe the Holocaust happened for the same reason they believe the War of 1812 happened, or that there’s a country called Nepal somewhere in Asia–they learned about it from a book back in high school. > > Now, along comes some guy who says the so-called War of 1812 is a big fat lie, or there’s not really any such place as “Nepal”, and he reels off all sorts of statistics and very practiced arguments allegedly debuking the nefarious Nepal Conspiracy. Well, how the hell are they supposed to know what’s true or not? > > So, we post facts and arguments (in between truly massive amounts of snark) because supposedly this place is or will soon be indexed by Google, and you never know who might wander in here–maybe even someone who has run across one of these guys and is thinking “Damn, that can’t be right, can it? I mean, old Mrs. Wormwood, my high school history teacher, said there was a war in 1812/country called Nepal/deliberate mass murder of the Jews by Nazi Germany during World War II. Old Mrs. Wormwood wouldn’t have lied to me, would she?” and so they Googled “Holocaust hoax” and out we popped as link #12,742. > > Also, hard-core deniers may be unlikely to see the error of their ways barring the discovery and succesful removal of a brain tumor; but I believe there have been cases of naive people who’ve been roped in and then later changed their minds (see [Jean-Claude Pressac](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Claude_Pressac)). Again, who knows who all could be reading that thread (or any other public argument on the subject); maybe someone who’s lurking and saying “Yeah, that’s right! Give those Holohoaxers what for! You tell 'em…Huh, I’d never heard _that_ before. That–that can’t be right, can it?” Not right away of course, but cumulatively, perhaps simply from having the same old lies shot down and the same old facts presented over and over again, with new presentations. Excellent post and I love the subtle little shout out to Calvin and Hobbes. I see the well stocked Holocaust deniers as similar to our own brazil84. They have talking points, but that is really all they have and then they try to twist and turn words to hide the fact that their arguments have no real weight and history or science is against them. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-my-half-hour-of-life-back-after-reading-this-sdmb-thread/469281/26 "2008-10-24T02:25:46Z")
I love that he uses as his main source of evidence a video by David Cole, a Jewish Holocaust denier who has since recanted and asks the video to be withdrawn from public exhibition. [Cite](http://www.jdl.org/action/action/cole_letter.shtml). Of course I’ve no doubt that Cole did that because of pressure from the JDL. ---
**Author:** ![Jayn\_Newell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jayn\_Newell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayn_Newell)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-my-half-hour-of-life-back-after-reading-this-sdmb-thread/469281/27 "2008-10-24T02:27:09Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > I see the well stocked Holocaust deniers as similar to our own brazil84. They have talking points, but that is really all they have and then they try to twist and turn words to hide the fact that their arguments have no real weight and history or science is against them. I wonder if they even understand their own arguments, as they never stop to explain them. It’s along the lines of “the invisible purple unicorn told me it was so, so it must be true!” only slightly less crazy. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-my-half-hour-of-life-back-after-reading-this-sdmb-thread/469281/28 "2008-10-24T03:30:30Z")
> [@Idle\_Thoughts](#): > > But seriously…[this one.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=489196) > > I don’t understand why it’s still going, actually. Just from reading the topic title I thought “DFTT”. Whenever I start a thread in GD or the Pit, The worst that could happen for me is that I get no replies. It has happened. That’s what I wish happened to the OP of that thread . That would have totally wasted his time setting up that thread. Alas too many people feel the need to vent and feed his ego. ---
**Author:** ![Junior\_Spaceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Junior\_Spaceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Junior_Spaceman)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-my-half-hour-of-life-back-after-reading-this-sdmb-thread/469281/29 "2008-10-24T04:04:57Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > One standard reply to this sort of thing is that people may be reading the thread other than the people replying to it and the Monster Raving Loony who started it. Let’s face it, many people–_most_ people–are probably pretty ignorant about a great many things. They believe the Holocaust happened for the same reason they believe the War of 1812 happened, or that there’s a country called Nepal somewhere in Asia–they learned about it from a book back in high school. One problem with this idea is that, especially in something as complex as the Holocaust, if you decide to argue with a denier, you need to have a really good grasp on the facts. The Holocaust isn’t like the sinking of the Titanic - it’s not a single event. It’s thousands and thousands of individual events that occurred over a number of years, across countries, in a massive amount of situations. We get into trouble when someone who (rightly) accepts that the Holocaust happened, and is HORRIFIED that someone is shovelling this shit, wades in and makes a well meaning statement like ‘well, even if there are no traces of gas in the bodies found, that still doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a genocide’. Somebody who doesn’t know much about the history might read that, and get out of it “OK, there wasn’t gas used to kill people”. The masses of documentary, material, eyewitness, etc evidence that supports the thesis that gas _was_ used gets ignored, just because the other guy in the argument is 100% certain in his case, and you’re not. It never goes well when ideas that are historically wrong get given a pass like they are repeatedly in that thread, just because we can’t jump into a time machine and go back to a concentration camp right now to show somebody what happened (and even if we did, they would claim that it was being staged for the time travellers). Or, to put it into a few choice letters, DNFTT. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-my-half-hour-of-life-back-after-reading-this-sdmb-thread/469281/30 "2008-10-24T05:35:50Z")
Whaddyamean “attractive nuisance” ?! We’re not toddlers circling a swimming pool, here. I view threads like that as useful practice. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-my-half-hour-of-life-back-after-reading-this-sdmb-thread/469281/31 "2008-10-24T13:09:05Z")
> [@sinjin](#): > > Hey Idle don’t feel so bad. Monday was “Hit a Jew day” at the local middle school here. But it wasn’t that bad because the hits were ‘gentle’. C’mon, this has gotta be a hoax. I mean, check out this line in the story: > [@](#): > > Educators said they do not believe the incident was done with hatred or prejudice. Adults couldn’t possibly be that clueless. Obviously the whole affair is a Zionist plot (even now, “Allan Gurfinkle” is probably measuring the windows in the photo of the school). ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-my-half-hour-of-life-back-after-reading-this-sdmb-thread/469281/32 "2008-10-24T13:12:53Z")
Heh, the other topic was eventually closed, so that’s good… …however, he’s just started it again: > **[The holocaust is a hoax .....](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=489336)** > > This is a continuation of the thread I started yesterday … It was locked by the moderator, who wrote … “As I told the OP five or so pages ago, this is supposed to be Great Debates, not a place to throw down urls and run away.” Er, I didn’t ‘run... It’s days like this I miss the putz smilie. ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-my-half-hour-of-life-back-after-reading-this-sdmb-thread/469281/33 "2008-10-24T13:20:30Z")
D’oh! I wanted to get question 9 in… 1. Regarding the lamp shade thread, I’m curious, if the holocaust is all a hoax and a conspiracy, what sense does it make for scholars and others in the know to discredit the lampshade, shrunken head, etc claims? Seriously, if it’s all a conspiracy, why bother retracting those claims? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-my-half-hour-of-life-back-after-reading-this-sdmb-thread/469281/34 "2008-10-24T13:21:31Z")
Click on the link to the second thread Reichsfuhrer Garfunkle has started. It seems the Third Billy Goat Gruff has done his magic. ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-my-half-hour-of-life-back-after-reading-this-sdmb-thread/469281/35 "2008-10-24T13:30:12Z")
Actually that’s where I posted the first 8 questions - the thread has been closed. _sigh_ another victim to the suppression of the truth! To be serious, reading some of the personal accounts from family members in that thread was very moving. I can’t say I enjoyed the thread, but it did give me a deeper respect for what we will be losing in the next few years as the actual survivors depart this world. I’ve read history conspiracy theorists (ie, history has been made up prior to 1000AD!), I’ve read creationists, I’ve read afrocentrists, and I’ve read flat earthers. None of those have instilled in me the loathing I have for people who endorse holocaust denial. To ignore/pretend that such a tragedy didn’t happen because a _reconstructed window looks funny_ is insulting to a degree I can’t even imagine possible. These people and their families have experienced a suffering that is so unimaginable, yet you think they are making it up because the door looked flimsy? ---
**Author:** ![mudkicker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d6d6ee/32.png) [@mudkicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mudkicker)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-my-half-hour-of-life-back-after-reading-this-sdmb-thread/469281/36 "2008-10-24T13:39:53Z")
I too got caught up in reading that, and spent about an hour from 2 to 3 am this morning on it. But I thought it was very interesting reading. The OP of it is clearly deluded, but, as a poster said above, it’s interesting seeing how minds work like that. I also wasn’t aware of exactly how people did deny the Holocaust, and now I know. If the thread has been closed right away, along the lines of ‘Your position/opinion cannot be defended’, then Holocaust deniers like the OP in that thread could accuse people of not wanting to listen, and say this is because they know the Holocaust didn’t really happen. By the calm and reasoned debate - and the putting of questions to the OP which he completely ignored, he was shown to be the idiot he is. I doubt anyone ‘neutral’ would have been reading that thread, but if there was it was most certainly ‘won’ by the rebuttals to the OP’s nonsense. It’s not Holocaust deniers I would worry about as much, because frankly I think they’re mostly beyond help, but the people who really don’t know anything about the Holocaust and whose first impression of it is that it was exaggerated. I’m thinking young people who were never affected by it and only hear about it by chance in their teens - I don’t want one of the first things they hear to be that the numbers of dead were exaggerated, or that the whole thing is a hoax. This thread was an excellent example of why Holocaust deniers are wrong, and if I were a high school teacher I’d be printing it out to spark off a discussion on why people believe crazy things even when the evidence is completely against them. ---
**Author:** ![badbadrubberpiggy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/57b2e6/32.png) [@badbadrubberpiggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badbadrubberpiggy)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-my-half-hour-of-life-back-after-reading-this-sdmb-thread/469281/37 "2008-10-24T13:53:47Z")
> [@Jayn\_Newell](#): > > Only a half hour? Apparently I’m a glutton for punishment, because I know I spent longer than that on the hope that it would get better. > > I usually enjoy reading stuff like that because I find it interesting to try and figure out how people like the OP of that thread think. So far though, my conclusion is that they don’t. Yeah, me too. I kept waiting for an absurd answer to “where them Jews went?” More absurd than anything else he already posted, that is. I actually DID enjoy the thread though, OP aside. That’s the thing about getting wack-jobs in GD - you end up learning a whole lot about whatever they’re spewing about, because the rest of the GD Dopers know so much more. My grandfather would be interested to know that he was not, in fact, at the liberation of Buchenwald. I guess he was in on it, too. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-my-half-hour-of-life-back-after-reading-this-sdmb-thread/469281/38 "2008-10-24T14:02:44Z")
> [@Ex\_Chemist](#): > > He’s your typical white supremacist. I’m thinking full-out Nazi, and maybe not even the neo-kind. He used the word “degenerate” once or twice. That’s not a particularly common word. If you google the word, the first couple of pages are littered with references to the Nazis, especially to the phrase “degenerate art”. A year ago, a German Catholic cardinal was [criticized](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6996251.stm) for using the term “degenerate art” (_entartete Kunst_) because of its associations with the Nazis. I might (jokingly) call a person “a degenerate”, but who uses degenerate as an adjective, such as in our guest’s somewhat clumsy phrase “degenerate lie”? Sure, non-Nazis can use the word “degenerate” too. But to me it sounds like the shibboleth has soaked into his language. So, between deluded fool and deliberate liar, I pick the second. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-my-half-hour-of-life-back-after-reading-this-sdmb-thread/469281/39 "2008-10-24T14:05:20Z")
I couldn’t bring myself to post in that thread but I have to agree with some posters that for all our differences there is some crap that is so stupid and offensive that we all band together against it. So thatnks, **Allen G.** , for bringing a bit of unity and comradeship to this oft contentious board. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-my-half-hour-of-life-back-after-reading-this-sdmb-thread/469281/40 "2008-10-24T15:09:12Z")
> [@Meatros](#): > > D’oh! I wanted to get question 9 in… > > 1. Regarding the lamp shade thread, I’m curious, if the holocaust is all a hoax and a conspiracy, what sense does it make for scholars and others in the know to discredit the lampshade, shrunken head, etc claims? Seriously, if it’s all a conspiracy, why bother retracting those claims? Other questions… 1. I believe that Garfunkle said that the purpose of the hoax was to allow the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. However, the Brits in the Balfour Declaration of 1917 had already pledged themselves to the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. Isn’t faking the Holocaust a shitload of trouble to go through to get something you’re already getting? 2. Given Josef Stalin’s own anti-Semitism, how did the Zionists get the Russkies to play along with the hoax? (Just imagine how much more dramatic the Doctor’s Plot trial could have been if the defendants were charged with faking the Holocaust along with the other accusations.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-my-half-hour-of-life-back-after-reading-this-sdmb-thread/469281.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-my-half-hour-of-life-back-after-reading-this-sdmb-thread/469281.md?page=3)