# tomndebb is a genocide denier **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 26, 2014, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tomndebb-is-a-genocide-denier/696561 "2014-08-26T16:07:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2014, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tomndebb-is-a-genocide-denier/696561/141 "2014-08-28T18:01:33Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Pretty much everyone here thinks you’re an idiot, too. What’s your position on that? Search “The Second Stone” and “idiot”. I have from the first week I was here readily admitted being an idiot. So pay attention. What I don’t admit is being wrong on this subject. My opinion on it doesn’t matter. The definition of genocide accepted by the UN matters. The facts matter, and evaluating the facts and the witnesses in a way that does not tip the scale in favor of a party I agree with, or against one I disagree with. A certain poster said, and I paraphrase, “as a mod I am interested in order, not justice.” I couldn’t disagree more. That is a fairly vile thing for an educated person to say or do. In the opinion of this admitted idiot and asshole. An interest and thirst for justice are of exceeding importance to me. Fair treatment and humanity towards all people, but especially “the least of these” is what a good life is about. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2014, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tomndebb-is-a-genocide-denier/696561/142 "2014-08-28T18:47:51Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Dude, I’m an asshole, pretty much everyone here has thought so for years. I think I’m an asshole. But that isn’t really relevant to anything. > > I don’t invent my own definitions or my own facts. If my own country is committing a genocide, or an ally of my own country, or my own relatives, I’ll say so. Turd in the punchbowl and all, but in many countries in the world genocide denial is a crime. Not one I’d like to be guilty of. There are people in other countries who are convicted of such crimes, and I won’t mention their names because they don’t deserve any publicity. > > The Holocaust is probably the best documented event in history. And there are people who deny it occurred. Whether they are crazy or evil or both would be up to debate if we paid any attention to them. However bad the Holocaust was (as bad as any other genocide in history, if not worse) it is over. The Holocaust has a lot to do with who we are today, keeping its memory, outlawing it and trying to prevent it occurring again. Yet, over and over and over again we fail in preventing and stopping genocides. Or even recognizing that Israel and Hamas are perpetrating genocide on each other. Being an asshole is nothing to take pride in. I can’t think of any belief that can’t be expressed just as well without being an asshole about it. I can’t accept your comparison of the current Gaza-Israeli War to the Holocaust. It’s just too vast a difference in scale. The highest reports are saying about 2200 people (mostly Palestinians) have been killed - that doesn’t approach the approximately twelve million people who were killed in the Holocaust. It trivializes genuine genocide to put it on this level. If you say the Gaza-Israeli War is as bad as the Holocaust then you’re also saying the Holocaust is no worse than the Gaza-Israeli War. Which means you’re taking the Holocaust and reducing it to the level of a minor skirmish: the Holocaust and the Battle of Vicksburg were two historical events where some people were killed. You’re turning genocide into a routine event that’s happened hundreds of thousands of times. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2014, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tomndebb-is-a-genocide-denier/696561/143 "2014-08-28T18:54:07Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I asked about your personal standard (or the standard established by somebody else which you agree with). What distinguishes to you the difference between killing done as an act of war and killing done as an act of genocide? > > Unless I’ve missed it in the numerous posts here, you’ve said that anything which kills a group in whole or in part is an act of genocide. I, along with other people, have pointed out that every war kills a part of some group. **So do you feel that every war is automatically an act of genocide? Or do you feel there are situations in which you can kill part of a group as an act of war without it being an act of genocide?** (bolding mine) **The Second Stone** , I know participating in a discussion isn’t as much fun as sanctimonious masturbation, but just for a change of pace how about you answer these highly-relevant questions? You can follow it afterward with a massive cut and paste and some hyperbole to cleanse your palate, if you need. ---
**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:** [August 28, 2014, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tomndebb-is-a-genocide-denier/696561/144 "2014-08-28T18:58:45Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] If you say the Gaza-Israeli War is as bad as the Holocaust then you’re also saying the Holocaust is no worse than the Gaza-Israeli War. Which means you’re taking the Holocaust and reducing it to the level of a minor skirmish: the Holocaust and the Battle of Vicksburg were two historical events where some people were killed. [/QUOTE] [Civilians in Vicksburg](http://www.civilwarinteractive.com/ArticleTheChildrenofVicksbutg.htm) were driven into cave shelters by Union shelling of the town: \*"The children became weary of the daily monotony which was occasionally broken only by death and disaster. One young girl while running back to her house was struck in her side by a shell fragment. She died as she ran into her mother’s arms, her blood pouring out of her wound, coloring her light summer dress. A little boy playing outside his family’s cave was struck by a shell fragment and suffered a broken arm. A servant boy found and played with an unexploded shell. It exploded, killing him instantly. A black girl going to purchase milk lost her arm when struck by a shell. Willie Lord wrote, “When we think of this iron hail, estimated at 60,000 shells every twenty-four hours, descending upon the town by night and by day, the mortality among the citizens, even considering the protection of the caves, was wonderfully small. But while comparatively few non-combatants were killed, all lived in a state of terror.” By most accounts fewer than fifty civilians were known to have been wounded during the bombardment, with about a dozen of them killed or mortally wounded. But still that constant shelling and its ever-present terror were every bit as devastating to these children and their families, as they endured, day after day."\* So there you go. The Hamas shelling of Israel, the Israeli shelling/invasion of Gaza, the battle of Vicksburg - all genocide. You can’t deny it. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2014, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tomndebb-is-a-genocide-denier/696561/145 "2014-08-28T19:13:48Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Your posts do the same for me, but don’t add me to your ignore list. Really, you are a hoot and two-thirds. I would be very disappointed if I had to add you to my genocide deniers list. So please don’t. Good God you are entertaining. Stephen Colbert is not as entertaining as you are. Entertaining? ROTFLMAO! Entertaining…\ ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2014, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tomndebb-is-a-genocide-denier/696561/146 "2014-08-28T19:44:24Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Or, on these threads in general: > > _It’s a thousand pages, give or take a few > I’ll be writing more in a week or two > I can make it longer if you like the style > I can change it round and I want to be a genocide denier > Genocide denier_ I bow to your superior song-writing ability! ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2014, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tomndebb-is-a-genocide-denier/696561/147 "2014-08-28T19:56:53Z")
After reading this thread, I would like to be a genocide denier too. Bosnia? Never happened. Darfur? Never happened. Khmer Rouge? Never happened. Does that get me into the club? I care more about that than human life, which, if suddenly wiped out, never happened. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ea5d25/32.png) [@Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2014, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tomndebb-is-a-genocide-denier/696561/148 "2014-08-28T20:33:14Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Well, why aren’t the other people in the thread, and you, etc. on my list? You know, the ones that ask. That would be a good question. > > You haven’t rejected the UN definition of genocide after being made aware of it. > > You haven’t rejected the facts that are reported. You haven’t gone out of your way to libel every single reporter of the facts. > > You are pointing out what you feel are weaknesses in my argument in good faith, in addition to the occasional mild insult. Dude, I reject ALL this shit. Reject the SHIT out of it. And then I reconsider and accept it, just so I can REJECT IT AGAIN. What else you got? I’ll reject that shit too. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2014, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tomndebb-is-a-genocide-denier/696561/149 "2014-08-28T21:52:34Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > I don’t invent my own definitions or my own facts. Of course, not. You just use the words in the definitions in ways that you invent so that your definitions do not have the same meaning as the one used by everyone else in the world. You don’t invent definitions; you murder them. You don’t invent facts; you simply use the lies that others have invented for you. You do not appear to have the intelligence or integrity to actually invent anything. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2014, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tomndebb-is-a-genocide-denier/696561/150 "2014-08-28T22:08:06Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > After reading this thread, I would like to be a genocide denier too. > > Bosnia? Never happened. Darfur? Never happened. Khmer Rouge? Never happened. What’s your view on the Battle of Vicksburg? ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2014, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tomndebb-is-a-genocide-denier/696561/151 "2014-08-28T22:12:27Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > You don’t invent definitions; you murder them. And you know what that means? ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2014, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tomndebb-is-a-genocide-denier/696561/152 "2014-08-28T22:13:01Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Or even recognizing that Israel and Hamas are perpetrating genocide on each other. I am just awed by this sentence. The sheer stupidity of it, the open misuse of language, the utter indifference to facts. Really, just a wonder to behold. Do you do this outside of this board? Does a minor rainstorm become a hurricane? A dusting of snow a blizzard? Do you get a paper cut and compare it to losing a finger? If someone accidentally bumps into you, do you accuse them of murder? ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2014, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tomndebb-is-a-genocide-denier/696561/153 "2014-08-28T22:22:17Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I suppose one could say that **TSS** uses a very unique definition of the word “genocide”. Not at all. I’ve seen a few social media posts describing Israel’s “genocide” against Palestinians. That’s where I thought the OP got it from. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2014, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tomndebb-is-a-genocide-denier/696561/154 "2014-08-28T22:30:09Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Being an asshole is nothing to take pride in. I can’t think of any belief that can’t be expressed just as well without being an asshole about it. > > I can’t accept your comparison of the current Gaza-Israeli War to the Holocaust. It’s just too vast a difference in scale. The highest reports are saying about 2200 people (mostly Palestinians) have been killed - that doesn’t approach the approximately twelve million people who were killed in the Holocaust. > > It trivializes genuine genocide to put it on this level. If you say the Gaza-Israeli War is as bad as the Holocaust then you’re also saying the Holocaust is no worse than the Gaza-Israeli War. Which means you’re taking the Holocaust and reducing it to the level of a minor skirmish: the Holocaust and the Battle of Vicksburg were two historical events where some people were killed. You’re turning genocide into a routine event that’s happened hundreds of thousands of times. You have vastly understated the number of people killed in the Gaza-Israeli conflict by limiting it to “the current Gaza-Israeli War”. This has been going on for five decades. I haven’t said it is the Holocaust in the sense of the death camps. I have compared it to the various ghettos that the Nazis penned the Jews into prior to the death camps, gave them their own fake government, etc. That was genocide. Gaza isn’t quite as bad as the Nazi ghettos, but the level of difference is nothing to take comfort in. It is the exact same sort of atrocity. In fact, I can compare the two, and there is nothing you can do to stop me from comparing the two. Your personal level of dislike/offense is nothing compared to the actual events of destroying homes, killing people etc. Stop minimizing it. Accept the UN definition and call for the targeting of civilians to cease 100 percent. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2014, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tomndebb-is-a-genocide-denier/696561/155 "2014-08-28T22:41:31Z")
> [@](#): > > Giraffe > Charter Member > > Join Date: Aug 2000 > Location: ♂ San Jose, CA > Posts: 10,129 > Quote: > > > [@](#): > > > > Originally Posted by Little Nemo View Post > > I asked about your personal standard (or the standard established by somebody else which you agree with). What distinguishes to you the difference between killing done as an act of war and killing done as an act of genocide? > > > > Unless I’ve missed it in the numerous posts here, you’ve said that anything which kills a group in whole or in part is an act of genocide. I, along with other people, have pointed out that every war kills a part of some group. **So do you feel that every war is automatically an act of genocide? Or do you feel there are situations in which you can kill part of a group as an act of war without it being an act of genocide?** > > (bolding mine) > > Giraffe > The Second Stone, I know participating in a discussion isn’t as much fun as sanctimonious masturbation, but just for a change of pace how about you answer these highly-relevant questions? > > You can follow it afterward with a massive cut and paste and some hyperbole to cleanse your palate, if you need. Giraffe: this is not a thread about your knowledge of how much fun sanctimonious masturbation is, that really is too much information, especially considering how prodigious the Rothschild phallus is, and how you use it worship several times a day. But to answer your “bolded” questions, of which I count two. (1) No. (2) Yes. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2014, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tomndebb-is-a-genocide-denier/696561/156 "2014-08-28T22:56:07Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > Not at all. I’ve seen a few social media posts describing Israel’s “genocide” against Palestinians. That’s where I thought the OP got it from. I’m not the OP in either this or the original IMHO later GD thread. I have linked to the definition of genocide from the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. > [@](#): > > "Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: > > (a) Killing members of the group; > (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; > (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; > (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; > (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. The people mocking me in this thread notably don’t put in writing that they accept this definition, offering a variety or reasons, such as genocide must be worse than this, or this would make every war genocide. There was much whining earlier that there was no attempt to wipe out the “whole” population, and then I _gasp_ bolded the part that said “in part” and then they retreated to saying it just wasn’t awful enough to be genocide. I gather that they might not believe that I could in good faith apply the legal definition of genocide to the events of the past five decades between Israel and the Palestinians. I do not see how someone who looks at the definition and the facts and cannot come to that conclusion if they were evenhanded and not partisan if they were acting in good faith. When I see that the people refusing to acknowledging the genocide run up and down the list of 12 rhetorical abuses genocide deniers usually use [http://www.genocidewatch.org/aboutgenocide/12waystodenygenocide.html](http://www.genocidewatch.org/aboutgenocide/12waystodenygenocide.html) I conclude that they are either still ignorant, or propagandists willfully blind. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2014, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tomndebb-is-a-genocide-denier/696561/157 "2014-08-28T23:13:29Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I suppose one could say that **TSS** uses a very unique definition of the word “genocide”. That would require a redefinition of the word “unique” which means one of kind. The definition I use is the legally accepted internationally accepted definition of the word “genocide”. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2014, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tomndebb-is-a-genocide-denier/696561/158 "2014-08-28T23:20:49Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > That would require a redefinition of the word “unique” which means one of kind. The definition I use is the legally accepted internationally accepted definition of the word “genocide”. You’re not applying this definition correctly. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2014, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tomndebb-is-a-genocide-denier/696561/159 "2014-08-28T23:23:49Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > You’re not applying this definition correctly. So you are saying that I am not applying a correct definition to the facts? That I am not weighing and applying the facts correctly? Do you accept the definition? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2014, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tomndebb-is-a-genocide-denier/696561/160 "2014-08-28T23:34:24Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > I am just awed by this sentence. The sheer stupidity of it, the open misuse of language, the utter indifference to facts. Really, just a wonder to behold. Do you do this outside of this board? Does a minor rainstorm become a hurricane? A dusting of snow a blizzard? Do you get a paper cut and compare it to losing a finger? If someone accidentally bumps into you, do you accuse them of murder? Thank you for your praise of awe. Do you accept the UN definition, just claiming that my weighing and construing of facts is “stupidity”? “Does a minor rainstorm become a hurricane?” Yes, all hurricanes first begin as a minor rainstorm, move on to a tropical depression and then become hurricanes. They start as category 1 and go all the way up to category 5, with some storm specialists saying we might need another category due to the additional energy current hurricanes have. To use your analogy, the Holocaust was at least a category 5, I’d say even worse. A dusting of snow a blizzard? All storms that turn into blizzards start on the fringes as a dusting of snow or other storm. The problem with analogies is that taken to any extreme, they all become false analogies. The awful Israel/Palestine problem isn’t a hurricane, blizzard, paper cut or bump. It is a protracted violent conflict that is a genocide and also a war. Do I get a paper cut and compare it to losing a finger? Not personally, but a paper cut certainly can and does become gangrenous in some circumstances resulting in loss of extremity or life itself. I have never been bumped into and accused someone of murder. Georgi Ivanov Markov was bumped into and in the process murdered. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tomndebb-is-a-genocide-denier/696561.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tomndebb-is-a-genocide-denier/696561.md?page=9)