Can’t he be both, like the late Earl Warren?
If you build it, they will come. 
Just saw a notice on the workplace bulletin board: staff will be treated to a free meal in honor of Oktoberfest, and the band Schnickelfritz will perform.
I hear Pat Buchanan is in the band. He plays the fool.
“Persuasive” and “reasonable” are two different things. You can’t accept both the Bible and the Koran as reasonable, but you can’t deny both have been persuasive.
Oh, I dunno. I see him in knee jerk defend the Republican mode on TeeVee quite often.
Also, before he ran for President in 1992 and won 38% of the New Hampshire Party’s Republican vote, the guy was an adviser to Nixon’s political campaigns (and what a smear artist he was!), and later a speechwriter to tricky Dick and Vice President Spiro Agnew. From 1985-87 he was Reagan’s communication’s director. For him it was critical that Reagan visit the SS graveyard at Bitburg because -wait for it- ‘We cannot give the perception of the President being subjected to Jewish pressure.’
No, we can’t have that Pat, you fucking Nazi.
Can you please tell me which of these meanings of the word “reasonable” (from here) apply:
1 a : being in accordance with reason <a reasonable theory> b : not extreme or excessive <reasonable requests> c : moderate, fair <a reasonable chance> <a reasonable price> d : inexpensive
2 a : having the faculty of reason b : possessing sound judgment <a reasonable man>
I think only definition 1d: inexpensive could reasonably apply, although I’m not sure how many Reichsmark a copy cost. I think people who joined the NSDAP or volunteered for the SS were given a free copy, so I guess that was reasonable.
The book, no matter which translation or version of the original (I’m German, so I have no problem reading the original) you take, can in no way be considered being in accordance with reason, moderate or fair, not extreme or not excessive. You yourself say:
I simply find it appaling that someone could ever think **Mein Kampf ** is reasonable. What’s next? Are you gong to argue that the writings of Alfred Rosenberg are also reasonable if read in context?
On a side note, I do like the old style of photography. Now you get folks who are all like “Say cheese!”
Judguing by Rosenberg’s photos, it was more like "Okay, now look evil. No more evil. A bit more. Pretend that you’ve just eaten a puppy and you’re eying a kitten. Good, good. Can you make your eyes any colder and more empty? "
You also have to admit that the Nazis (and especially the SS) had really classy uniforms. Not surprising considered they were produced (although not designed) by Hugo Boss.
See, this guy really knew how to promote the finer things in life.
Just think how we could get intellectualism and the arts to flourish nowadays if we had organizations like the “Commando Book Club” or “Dance Putsch”.
Why couldn’t you accept both of those as reasonable?
You can make perfectly reasonable arguments for perfectly terrible conclusion. I don’t think Scylla is saying anything more than that Mein Kampf is like that: a book that presents reasonable arguments for terrible conclusions. I can’t find anything wrong with that claim–though I should note that I haven’t read the book. But nothing about the claim itself makes me think there’s anything wrong with Scylla.
This is how I read his post, and why I agreed: though it’s in parts a terrible screed, Mein Kampf is Hitler’s outline of how he proposed to lead Germany back to greatness, by his standards. To refute it, which can be done, you need to work from his pseudo-logic, refute his premises, etc. And on that, I think Scylla and I see eye to eye.
I think Hitler was one of the most inspiring, most charismatic leaders to ever have lived. I also think he was one of the most deeply evil, demented, murderous cocksuckers to ever have oozed out of a womb. One can acknowledge his strengths without approving of the man in any measure.
Also, I don’t see how Buchanan is “defending” Hitler. Sorry. Maybe I’m not aware of all his other defenses of Hitler other posters have mentioned. And that might sway me. But something tells me that those other “defenses” will be similar to this one, which I take to be: Buchanan uttered words that might argue for dialing the evil of Hitler in one tiny area back a scintilla of an iota, let’s lynch him! I mean, really, even if what Buchanan said about Hitler’s motivations were 100% factual (which I do not grant), does anyone think that equates to Buchanan or any other sane individual not coming to the same conclusion about the man be a grotesque human being? I mean, he might have saved a puppy from drowning in a well when he was a boy, but that doesn’t effect the overall estimation of the monster at all. Now, if was two puppies…
Certainly he started as a Republican and even today would identify more with the Pubs than the Dems. He was and is passionatly anti-communist, and supported Reagan and Nixons antiSoviet foreign policy. With the end of the cold war he began to become more and more disenchanted with the party, as he felt it was too beholden to financial interests and neo-con foregn policy types. He was out by 2000.
He’s portraying Hitler as a reasonable if brutal dictator who would have been satisfied with the return of ethnic German regions to German control, and not a genocidal madman aiming at German world domination and perpetual war. It reads like a defence to me.
Hoboy. I read this thread this morning, and thought little of it; an interresting blip on the radar. I am, however, now seeing in both forwarded emails and other websites this viewpoint of Buchanan starting to gain a little momentum. I don’t think it’ll catch on, long-term, but I do find the number of Hitler-defenders coming out of the woodwork to be slightly creepy.
“Starting” ? This viewpoint never really stopped; it was always in the background. This isn’t the first foray by Buchanan, nor is he the first (nor thousandth) American to sail these waters.
Here’s what I don’t get: Need it be the case that every motivation Hitler had and every decision he made all be equally batshit insane and evil, or might it be the case that some of his ideas be less evil than others, with even some of them maybe even making sense? To me, one can look at all his reasons/motivations/decisions as mere points of interest, and have it not detract from the final estimation of the man at all. His place in the pantheon of the most evil people the world has suffered is secured for all time. The possibility that some of his ideas might have made some sense before his plummet from humanity and decency changes the final verdict not one bit. Scholarly musings on his rise to assholedom or just that. (Not that I’m defending Buchanan’s scholarship here. He knows more about Hitler than I do and I’ve been educating myself with the knowledgeable rebuttals from other posters.)
Well, the Autobahnen were probably a good idea . . . or at least widely appeared so at the time, when it appeared to everybody that cheap oil would never run out . . .
Hitler lover!!!