"Gee. You think that might've been because no one in Poland, Hungary, or Romania wanted Soviet armies rampaging through Eastern Europe, and they saw Hitler as the best way to stop that from happening? I would also note that the USSR not only declined to call for the territorial integrity of Poland when the Nazis invaded, and in fact joined in on the fun."

Carving up Czechoslovakia had nothing to do with defending against the Soviets and had everything to do with Hungarian and Polish nationalists wanting to expand their own territory at Czech expense, especially the Hungarians who instigated it all. But I do love your argument. On one hand you make apologies for Poland 'joining in on the fun' and carving up Czechoslovakia with Nazi Germany, and make apologies for allying with Hitler (who I suppose we're to believe wouldn't be rampaging through eastern Europe, only the Soviets would), but we're supposed to feel sorry for the Poles when, after refusing to allow Soviet troops in Poland to defend against a Nazi invasion, the Soviets restore the territory annexed by the Polish 'victims' in the 1920-1921 war, thereby extending the buffer zone between the USSR and the Nazi barbarians and postponing a war that they could not fight alone. Yeah, sorry if I don't cry myself to sleep at night over the fate of Belarussian and Ukrainian territory held by the Poles whom you admit were hostile to the USSR and pro-Hitler.

"Actually, the Poles were allied to Petliura in the Ukraine against the Soviet invaders who were seeking to bring both the Ukraine and Poland back into the Russian orbit, and all the "territory inhabited by Ukrainians" which Poland eventually annexed had all been part of Poland prior to the "partitions" of Poland 1772-1795. And as for trying to kill a newborn nation in the cradle, it was Soviet armies besieging Warsaw in 1920 and not Polish armies besieging Moscow."

And your point is what? Because Warsaw was besieged that's somehow evidence that the Soviets started the war or even wanted to drive into Poland? That's contradicted by the facts.

1-Soviet Russia refused to recognize German occupied government of Poland at the Brest-Litovsk negotiatoons, sacrificing their own interests for Polish independence and insisting upon Polish independence. Soviet Russia was embroiled in civil war, advancing as far west as Poland was the furthest thing from their minds and suicidal considering their predicament. Yes they wanted Ukraine and Belarus to go Soviet, but these two areas were considered brother nations to the Russians.

2- As German troops were withdrawing, Pilsudski moved eastward to seize western Belarus, capturing Biaroza. This was the first clash of the war. Hard to claim that Poland were victims of Soviet aggression when the first battle was in Belarus. They then proceeded to capture Vilnius, Lida, Pinsk, Navahrudak and Baranovichi. Upon the capture of Vilnius and the ouster of the Lit-Bel Soviet government, the Poles commences vicious pogroms against the heavy Jewish population there (which of course you'll deny). Lithuanians, ever so delighted at being occupied by the Poles, demanded Vilnius back. The Polish response was war. I suppose that, too, was "defensive"? How odd that a country that is supposedly defending itself from Soviet 'aggression' is also launching war against a small country like Lithuania.

3-The Poles then set out to capture Minsk and successfully did so. Let me guess, Minsk is an integral part of historic Poland since it was taken from Poland after the Partitions.

4-In December of 1919, Lenin was offering peace with Poland. Poland rejected all proposals for peace (they even murdered a Red Cross delegation sent by the Russians), including a generous demarcation proposal by the western Allies (the so-called Curzon Line). Pilsudski and the Poles wanted a Polish dominated "Międzymorze", control of all of Belarus, Lithuania and possibly Latvia (the Poles engaged in a joint operation against the Bolsheviks there as well), with a puppet government in Ukraine.

5-The Soviet counter-offensive only really began after Pilsudski and his "ally" Petliura, took Kiev. [Petliura served the German puppet government in Ukraine - the so-called Kiev Rada during WWI. This Ukrainian "patriot" also offered East Galicia to Poland in exchange for propping him up once they conquered Kiev]. Expecting the people of Kiev to hail the Poles as liberators and rise up against the Russians, Pilsudski be disappointed that the Ukrainians didn't care at all for a Polish puppet government in Kiev.

So the Poles invade and seize Vilnius, Minsk, and Kiev but we're to believe that the poor Poles were in a war for "survival" with the Soviets, who themselves had been fighting for their lives against multiple foreign interventions and had sent numerous peace proposals to Poland in December 1919.

If you say so.

@Fasces349:

-And I respond to your "5 Good Emperors" example the same way as before--by pointing out that not only can one bad emperor undo much of what the great ones accomplished, as was the case in Rome, and so even if we WERE to accept the notion that good emperors would occur more often than bad ones I would counter by saying taht even if that is true, that does NOT mean that a greater FREQUENCY OF GOOD can outweigh the MAGNITUDE OF "EVIL" when those bad/wicked"evil" emperors come about...look how much trouble Nero caused alone, and if we extend our view outwards from the Roman Empire, look how much damage one little Austrian man who was, for all intents and purposes, an emperor did...set Rome's 5 Good Emperors against a Hitler--200 years of peace against a decade of slaughter, tens (or even hundreds) of millions of total lives lost, wounded, or otherwise harmed, and an entire people nearly exterminated...FOR STARTERS.

It seems to me, as it did to even Plato, that that dangers of a tyrant outweight the benefits of a benevolent dictator; Plato, thus, advocated for Philosopher Kings, but even those, it must be admitted, are not all too feasible...great theory, maybe even the best theory, but impossible or nearly impossible to put into practice, and the cost of failure is so high it would be an extremely hard sell to make it seem a risk worth taking.

In addition I would ask you, aside from historical precedent--and I'll reveal why in a moment--what evidence you have to support your idea that good emperors would be produced more often than bad ones? In addition--what IS a "good emperor," anyway? Someone who brings prosperity to his state? What if he brings prosperity to 90% of his people while pulling a Hitler on the other 10% and ends up exterminating millions? If he's good MORALLY...well, as I've already said, I don't really by into the idea of morally good people and morally bad people, but even if I DID--there are SO MANY moral codes...in which manner will this person be morally good? And why is THAT moral code good, and not another? After all, the 5 Good Roman Emperors were great...for ROME. For the SLAVES of Rome--where they so great? And whatof the people they conquered--were they great to them? Even if they were benevolent after they conquered them, can we still consider what is the equivalent of stealing on a massive stale "good?" (This is why I DON'T subscribe to moral theories, but if morality IS going to play a factor in deciding what makes a good emperor, then it must be considered.)

And out of my Bag of References I'm going to pull out a new one, a Star Trek reference, partly because I'm in a Trekkish mood and partly because here it fits:

In Star Trek: Insurrection, the 9th Star Trek film--and a REALLY bad one, this is one of the few decent moments--the legendary Captain Picard comes across a plan to relocate 600 people from their homes and land so that billions of people can reap the benefits of their land.

Picard is indignant, and states it's wrong to violate their rights as people by essentially forcing them to uproot (forgetting for the moment that this is a PLANET we're talking about, so why the group that wants to use the planet can't jsut use the other 95% of it is never explained, hence the film being crap, but I digress) and replies, essentially, "How many people does it take before an action is WRONG?"

Full clip: http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=45132

And while this IS a crappy film, and because we never learn why they can't just use the other 95% of the planet, the film and even Picard seem stupid in the film, but the quote's validity outside the film stands:

Tell me, Fasces349, if Hitler COULD have somehow, magically, achieved World Peace and cured cancer just by murdering 600 people--would that be OK?

And if it IS...how many until that action becomes WRONG?

60,000? 600,000? 6 million?

If your best emperor could bring prosperity to every other race by simply exterminating one--is that OK? Is he a GOOD emperor for doing that? And if he IS...again, how many until it becomes wrong and he's a tyrant? Two races destroyed? Three? Destroy one continent's life and cultures so the other six can be extremely well off?

How far and how much--your "good" emperor theory doesn't impress me, and to boot...

-I do NOT agree that Corruption is INHERENTLY more frequent than Tyranny.

The ONLY reason we could have to assume that would be because, simply, a democracy involves more people and so allows for a greater QUANTITY of corruption.

Suppose we have only one corrupt person in the entire state...but he's the LEADER, the TYRANT of that state.

One absolutely corrupt person, the QUALITY of his corruption...are you prepared to say that one person absolutely corrupted to the highest degree is better and less corruptable than 100 senators who are somewhat corrupted to a certain extent?

What's more, look at the other equation, people becoming Tyrants.

How often does it happen that a democracy while STAYING a democracy becomes tyrannical, and how often does this occur with ONE PERSON?

Hitler here doesn't count, as they didn't stay democratic, he threw out the ballot box...and even if I grant you Hitler, that's one case--and we would seem to have FAR MORE cases of one-man tyrants throughout history.



How many people does it take, sir, before it becoems wrong--wrong morally, wrong ethically, wrong logically, wrong philosophically...take your pick.

"The website obviously isn't a single monolithic source with a completely consistent narrative, dumbass. I'll take my lengthy article written by someone who put their name on it, obviously knew what they were talking about, and incorporates eyewitness testimony (specifically indicting the military, police, and Soviet advisors) over your very brief encyclopedia entry written by god-knows-who (and probably had to crank out two dozen entries a week) any day."

I'm a dumbass for bringing up the fact that your supposedly authoritative source on the issue is inconsistent and in other places, claims the nationalists were responsible for the pogrom? I'm the dumbass for pointing out that the website you cite confirms my supposedly 'crazy false flag' theory (so crazy that Jan Gross wrote a lengthy book, which is much more thorough than a virtual library, saying the same damn thing I am)? The article by Bozena Syanok that you presented doesn't even definitely say that the pogrom was a 'communist provocation', yet you sit here and pretend like I'm the crazy conspiracy theorist, when the provocation thesis is the conspiracy theory, not the idea that anti-Semitic/anti-Communist Poles attacked Jews. The "evidence" that the Communists planned this whole thing is that the local police didn't do enough to stop it.
Yet, your own article says

"2) The reactions by the police and security forces did indeed look like a provocation but, on the other hand, these forces were incapable of acting jointly because of a conflict between the provincial commander of the police and the head of security forces, Major Sobczynski."

Furthermore, in an interview Dr. Syanok says

"Nevertheless, I do not negate the role anti-Semitism played in the Kielce events. There were people who showed up on Planty Street, who pillaged, killed, and shouted anti-Semitic slogans. Some believed in the gossip about a ritual murder. After the events in Kielce, „Tygodnik Powszechny” published an article by Stefania Skwarczyńska, who asked about the moral condition of the society. She wrote, “What good will it do to say someone provoked those people when we allowed ourselves to be provoked.”"

[http://fear.piastinstitute.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=78&Itemid=54]

So in the end, what does this say about the bs that you said earlier that the pogroms were "partisans killing each other" or that the Jews fled because of the Communists?

I will add this last bit by Dr. Syanok, who says there was some merit to the association of Jews with Communism in Poland in the minds of Poles.

"Prof. Gross rejects the premise that explains the Poles’ aversion to Jews due to the Jewish population’s association with the new authorities, the Communists. Of course, the stereotype of Jewish Communists is an oversimplification. Jews are not responsible for establishing Communism in Poland. Nevertheless, it is a crucial issue. The problem is not only the Jewish involvement in the mechanism of repression or the new authorities. It is the fact that the Jewish population did not present itself as being in sync with the Polish reaction to the postwar reality. Jews did not speak badly about Communism. On the contrary, Jewish organizations and various political factions openly supported the Communist authorities. As if this was not enough, they showed Polish figures and symbols in a very bad light, e.g. Chairman of the Polish Peasant Party (PSL) Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, Gen. Anders, the Home Army (AK) or the freedom fighters. Helena Datner called this situation totally tragic. "

Jews were part of The Regime, and were associated with the regime in the eyes of Poles, but yet the commies are responsible for Jews fleeing, not the Poles.

Again from your own article.

"The Kielce pogrom touches many problems. The most painful and traumatic of these problems is the existence of anti-Semitism in Poland after World War II. Poles were clearly willing to participate in an act of anti-Jewish violence."

Again--WHY do we need to drag Poles and Jews and Anti-Semitism in what's a PHILOSOPHICAL--NOT HISTORICAL--discussion on anarchy and forms of government?

I can SORT OF see why a bit of referencing may be made of WWII since there have been arguments for and against facism and communism here and so the USSR and Hitler obviously attract attention them...

But why does it matter if Poles were Anti-Semetic or not, or what some generals did, or some organizations did?

"Aw, you just convinced me. It's all the propaganda of the massive International Anti-Communist Conspiracy! Everything. Those eyewitnesses pretending to be Jews who fingered the police? They're really undercover anti-communists! The Soviet advisor who watched the whole thing go down? Secret undercover anti-communist! Hell, I bet even Lenin's strokes were the work of secret anti-Communist agents using special Capitalist brain lasers."

Your own damn source, which you apparently just pick and choose what to accept and what to reject, says that the Soviet advisors were surprised by the pogrom.

"The Commission's investigations have yielded some important new elements. The Commission received two reports sent on the day of the pogrom by Soviet advisors present in Kielce. These reports were addressed to the main Soviet advisor attached to the Polish Ministry of Public Security - Davidov. According to these reports, the Soviet advisors were completely surprised by the pogrom."

So if this was all an evil commie provocation, why the hell we they surprised? Where was the advanced planning? And what of the residents of Kielce, apparently it's all the police's fault that they wanted to attack the Jews?

According to your article, the US Ambassador to Poland even said that he had "no final proof of the Government's participation" in the pogrom. Uh oh, must be a closet commie.

"Okay. So all the Jews who emigrated from the Communist Bloc left because of the anti-Semitism inflicted by the all-powerful anti-Communists in Eastern Europe during the Cold War? That's some serious mental gymnastics there."

Sheer dishonesty. Your virtual library says the majority of Jews in Poland left after the Kielce incident. Your own virtual library says that incident was instigated by Polish nationalists, and even your authoritative article says there is no definitive proof of a provocation, and other much more rigorous scholarly work on the subject (by Jan Gross) says there was no provocation by the government. It is not mental stretching, it's your own intellectual dishonesty which blinds you to the fact that Polish anti-Semitism drove out the bulk of the Jews after the war, and that even your own source says that in the minds of Poles, Jews = Communists.

"Again--WHY do we need to drag Poles and Jews and Anti-Semitism in what's a PHILOSOPHICAL--NOT HISTORICAL--discussion on anarchy and forms of government? "

And what does anarchy and forms of government have to do with your long rant about religion and the New Atheists, or your incessant name dropping of random philosophers?

orathaic wrote

Ok, there is no certainty about anything. We like to imagine there is and use language to imply it but this is just a convenient illusion to allow us make decisions

I agree, but only to a point. We must always remain open to the overturning of consensus, particularly scientific consensus. I am sure you will agree that the History of Science is littered with examples. In my opinion if we become closed to these possibilites it is both arrogant and dangerous. I hope that the same applies to every other human endeavour, is it too the case with philosophy?

"And I respond to your "5 Good Emperors" example the same way as before--by pointing out that not only can one bad emperor undo much of what the great ones accomplished, as was the case in Rome, and so even if we WERE to accept the notion that good emperors would occur more often than bad ones I would counter by saying taht even if that is true, that does NOT mean that a greater FREQUENCY OF GOOD can outweigh the MAGNITUDE OF "EVIL"
Hence oligarchy, the 5 good emperors fell because of corruption, Marcus Aurelius bent the rules just so his son could become emperor, that wasn't allowed. All the the emperor didn't have absolute power, he still had absolute control of the army. This is what needs to change. If we can restrict the dictators powers, which has been done in the past, then the odds of him becoming a tyrant goes down. If the dictator needs qualifications he will more likely realize the rules of politics and economics. He will therefore know what most good kings have known in the past. Whats good for the people, is ultimately good for the country. Now this means not having elections because there is a fine line between what people want, and whats good for them.

"look how much trouble Nero caused alone, and if we extend our view outwards from the Roman Empire, look how much damage one little Austrian man who was, for all intents and purposes, an emperor did...set Rome's 5 Good Emperors against a Hitler--200 years of peace against a decade of slaughter, tens (or even hundreds) of millions of total lives lost, wounded, or otherwise harmed, and an entire people nearly exterminated...FOR STARTERS."
Nero was before the 5 good emperors, and it was because of him that the senate decided that the emperors power needed to be restricted. And he was ultimately the reason the 5 good emperors came about. And with the 5 good emperors, Rome never would have reached the height of its power, Rome never would have had all the social reforms done by Hadrian.

"It seems to me, as it did to even Plato, that that dangers of a tyrant outweight the benefits of a benevolent dictator; Plato, thus, advocated for Philosopher Kings, but even those, it must be admitted, are not all too feasible...great theory, maybe even the best theory, but impossible or nearly impossible to put into practice, and the cost of failure is so high it would be an extremely hard sell to make it seem a risk worth taking."
I never read Plato's Republic, brief description of what a philosopher king is?

"Tell me, Fasces349, if Hitler COULD have somehow, magically, achieved World Peace and cured cancer just by murdering 600 people--would that be OK?

And if it IS...how many until that action becomes WRONG?

60,000? 600,000? 6 million?"
The ends justify the means. I probably kill even 100 million to achieve those.

"If your best emperor could bring prosperity to every other race by simply exterminating one--is that OK? Is he a GOOD emperor for doing that? And if he IS...again, how many until it becomes wrong and he's a tyrant? Two races destroyed? Three? Destroy one continent's life and cultures so the other six can be extremely well off?"
If it benefits humanity long term, then it is justified.

"-I do NOT agree that Corruption is INHERENTLY more frequent than Tyranny."
Look at Europe during the middle ages. 1000 years of nothing but kings between 30+ nations, approx 5000 kings during the time period. How many where tyrants? Less then 1%
Now look at democracy, 44 presidents, how were corrupt? 5, 10?
Either way, in order for corruption to have been noticed, it as to be at least 5%/

"Again--WHY do we need to drag Poles and Jews and Anti-Semitism in what's a PHILOSOPHICAL--NOT HISTORICAL--discussion on anarchy and forms of government? "
because theory doesn't mean shit. Theorys take on to many assumptions, so we are debating practically, were looking at real life examples to prove/disprove whether communism and fascism work.

"Yeah, sorry if I don't cry myself to sleep at night over the fate of Belarussian and Ukrainian territory held by the Poles whom you admit were hostile to the USSR and pro-Hitler. "

Huh? Are you really suggesting that Poland's non-Jews were secretly allied with Hitler, and were all thrilled about the German occupation? That's rich, and an insult to the 3,000,000 non-Jewish Poles killed by the Nazis. How many SS divisions were filled out by Polish recruits (-*ZERO*-), as opposed to recruits from the Soviet Union (a great big fistful)? I thought the Hitlerite Fascists were the real enemies of the Soviet Union? Apparently not, if your comments in this thread are any indication. And I'm surprised I have to remind you that the only reason Hitler invaded Poland was because Molotov agreed to a NAP and a division of the spoils - had Russia taken a harder line against the Nazis, it could've had all of an independent Poland as a buffer state and possibly kept Romania and Hungary neutral, but apparently getting payback for 1920 and bringing the Polish upstarts to heel was more important.

"And your point is what? Because Warsaw was besieged that's somehow evidence that the Soviets started the war or even wanted to drive into Poland?"

Um... well, yeah. I don't know if you've consulted any maps of Eastern Europe lately, but it's kind of hard to besiege Warsaw without 'driving into' Poland. As for the rest of your charges, it was pretty obvious that Lenin - while making vague public calls for peace - was secretly preparing for an invasion, to be launched as soon as the domestic situation in Russia and the other SSRs was more secure - to take back the 'lost' 'Russian' territory called Poland, just as the communists were securing their grip over every other breakaway territory at the time. Divisions were being moved from beyond the Urals to the Ukraine in preparation for it. And as for the Poles' ferocious territorial expansiveness, I find the suggestion rather odd when you consider that after completely destroying the Russian army outside of Warsaw, Poland sued for peace and accepted borders well short of Poland's historical territorial claims.

"Your own damn source, which you apparently just pick and choose what to accept and what to reject, says that the Soviet advisors were surprised by the pogrom."

It wouldn't be hard for someone to write "Gee whiz, this was a complete surprise!" in the official record and then call up his superior and say "everything went according to plan, sir!". That's how conspiracies stay conspiratorial. The source I quoted also says that many of the documents - particularly the army reports - were mysteriously destroyed by the communist authorities prior to their release in the '80s. Now why would they do that if they had nothing to hide? Your fellow travelers obviously have no qualms about picking and choosing what *others* are allowed to accept and reject.

"The article by Bozena Syanok that you presented doesn't even definitely say that the pogrom was a 'communist provocation', yet you sit here and pretend like I'm the crazy conspiracy theorist"

I never said it did - I just quoted it as suggesting the theory, with some circumstantial evidence supporting it. I don't know for certain if the Communists were trying to frame the anti-communists for Kielce. The only people who really know for sure are all dead. What I don't understand (and you haven't even tried to explain) is how it could've been the work of anti-Communists when the chief perpetrators were members of the communist government's local police force and army.

"Yet, your own article says "2) The reactions by the police and security forces did indeed look like a provocation but, on the other hand, these forces were incapable of acting jointly because of a conflict between the provincial commander of the police and the head of security forces, Major Sobczynski."

That's speculation that the police and the security forces were not in cahoots, not a statement that the police were not involved (according to the eyewitness testimony, they obviously were).

"According to your article, the US Ambassador to Poland even said that he had "no final proof of the Government's participation" in the pogrom. Uh oh, must be a closet commie."

Way to selectively quote. The rest of the sentence reads: "but, because of the incredible inefficiency demonstrated by the police and Security Bureau, I started to consider whether the Government willingly used that occasion to condemn its main critics." Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

"Jan Gross wrote a lengthy book"

Jan Gross has apparently written several lengthy books, Including one detailing the Soviet atrocities in occupied Eastern Poland 1939-1941. Surely, if it's in a book written by Jan Gross, it must be true. Right?

**********************************************************************

Well, we could probably go on like this for quite a while, but I must admit I'm getting tired of this. Putin, I surrender the thread. I don't know if anyone besides you is reading this, but just in case, I'd like to post some brief stories about non-Jewish Poles who risked life and limb to save their Jewish countrymen from the Nazis (a summary of samplings from that fountain of counter-revolutionary Capitalist propaganda, wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Righteous_among_the_Nations#Notable_persons):

Irena Senderowa - Catholic social worker, provided over 3,000 false documents to help Jews escape from the Warsaw ghetto. In 1943, she was caught by the Gestapo and sentenced to death, but bribed her German guards to spare her life; she was left in the woods with her arms and legs broken. After the war, she was persecuted by the communists for her affiliation with the Polish government in exile. (I note that this woman alone saved more Jews than were killed in all the alleged post-war anti-semitic pogroms)

Wladyslaw Brtoszewski - arrested by the Nazis in 1940 at the age of 19 and sent to Auschwitz, but released in 1942 after intercession by the Red Cross. Joined the anti-Communist Home Army and was active in the Provisional Committee for Aid to Jews. Fought in and escaped the Warsaw Uprising. After the war, he was constantly harrassed by the Communist government for dissent and 'spying', and was arrested several times (released once at the intercession of a Communist official with whom Wlad had worked in the Committee for Aid to Jews during the war)

Henryk Wolinski - harbored over 25 Jews in his apartment at various times while he was a member of the Home Army in Warsaw. Married to a Jewish woman, he was the go-between for the Home Army and the ZOB (the militant resistance in the Warsaw ghetto).

Witold Pilecki - From a family of anti-Tsarist rebels (his father was exiled in Siberia), he volunteered to get imprisoned in Auschwitz to gather intelligence and organize resistance there. Escaped in 1943. His reports on Auschwitz eventually reached the highest levels of Allied intelligence and decision-makers. Executed by the Communist Polish government as a spy in 1948.

I would also note that Pope John Paul II, who grew up in Poland during the time period in question, was quite probably the most philo-semitic Pope in the history of the Catholic Church.

Obi, sorry for the threadjacking. I'll shut up now.

"uh? Are you really suggesting that Poland's non-Jews were secretly allied with Hitler, and were all thrilled about the German occupation?"
They were before world war 2.

I'd like to post some brief stories about non-Jewish Poles who risked life and limb to save their Jewish countrymen from the Nazis
I bet you I could find some stories about Germans saving Jews from Hitler. Just because a few people shared different opinions then from the state doesn't mean the state as a whole liked Jews. The fact is every non-Jewish country before 1940 was anti-semitic.

@Fasces349:

"The ends justify the means."

As someone who favors UTILITARIANISM...

The ends do NOT justify the means wehn it comes to entire populations and peoples.

The BEAUTY of that little idea is in a single word--and it's not the one most people would identify, "justify." Everyone tries to justify everything, especially if they actually care.

"Ends."

It sounds so perfect...we do this, we do that, and sure, some people might die, but in the END, when all is said and done, things will be better...

Except there is no such thing as an "end," simply a perpetual line of means, one unto another.

Let us suppose we have your ideal government, the Facist nation of Freedonia, with the illustrious Rufus T. Firefly acting as our leader.

Now, we have 100 people here in Freedonia--we're a quaint little nation, you see--but sadly enough, we only have enough food to feed 70 people a year.

Luckily enough, however, we have exactly 30 people with a pre-existing illness of some kind, so really, we can just stop feeding them and bop them off, leaving the strong 70 people left, right?

Well, let's suppose we do--now what? You see, those people were sick, but also RESISTANT to this particular illness--we already have "Freedonia" and "Rufus T. Firefly" in here, how about we call it the Harpo Bug?--in such a way that they were sick and yet only mildly sick, able to ward it off, fight off the bug, due to something in their DNA or an antibody or some other biological reason, I'm no doctor, you take your pick as to why.

So we killed off the sick, arguing the ends would justify the means, but now we're faced with an entirely new "end" whatsoever, namely, how we can possibly survive the Harpo bug when your number-crunching, ends-focused ideology just killed off the best chance at survival we had. What's more, one of those 30 people even had the answer all figured out, he was a doctor, you see--why not, we can continue or Marx Bros. motif and call him Dr. Hackenbush--and he'd figured out a cure before your stormtroopers shot him for "the greater good." And then, just as an interesting little piece, two of the folks you had shot would have eventually gotten together in the sack and given birth to Albert Amadeus Shakespeare, who would've given the entire human race--not to mention YOU and your people of Freedonia--amazing advances in science as well as the most beautiful music and greatest plays in history...he would've been a great person...

But hey! Endds justify the means, right? After all, for a situation that requires subjective reasoning and analytical thought TOGETHER, what's better than chucking that in favor of cold objectivist rationalization of mass murder?



There is NO SUCH THING as an "end," Fasces349.
Life is not a game of "Civilization," it isn't simple a matter of aggregates.
Life is the ONLY element that has an inherent worth to it, as it's the ONLY thing which we cannot replace once we take it away (and I DON'T mean procreation and just REPLACING a life, I mean if you kill someone they are dead and that's IT, no redoing it.)

And life is far too varied and QUALITATIVELY different to be viewed merely QUANTITIVELY! You cannot simply say "3 billion people - 6 million undesirables= a happier world," the world and people don't work that way.

There is a qualitative difference between Mozart and a muderer, between Shakespeare and a junkie...between all people.

What's more, though, Fasces, and most critically:

There's a qualititative difference between Mozart and Shakespeare! I'm NOT saying that there are masters and slaves, greater people who deserve to live and lesser peoplem who are expendable! Rather, people are unique and have unique strengths and weaknesses...and must be treated as such! You cannot treat Mozart the same way you would Shakespeare, and you cannot expect the same out of one as you would another, but that doesn't make them expendable!

Am I saying all people are equal?

In that they're human beings and deserve the rights of human beings? YES!
In that they're all worth the same to humanty? NO!

YOU treat all human beings as being equal, as all being checkers that can be lsot and gained equally.

Human beings are like chess pieces--they have unique strengths and abilities, they need each other to survive, and so you simply cannot say "Toss six pieces off the board!" if you ahve to lose six pieces! You would treat a Rook the same as a Knight? A Queen the same as a Pawn? Or even two Pawns, in different spaces on the board--IT'S ALL SITUATIONAL AND QUALITATIVE!

Your facist idea of "ends justifying the means" isn't just illogical, for as I've said there is no "end," just an endless series of means leading to means and more means, but it's illogical in that you treat everyone the same when you do that, when you quantify instead of looking at the qualities of people...

And then if you would say "but I DO look at the qualities, that's why I've chosen Group Z to be sacrificed so Groups A-Y might have prosperity," do you mean to tell me that every single last member of Race Z is lesser in every way imaginable than any other member in Races A-Y? There are no Mozarts aming the Zs that might be worth saving and no murderers or psychopaths in the Js or Ts or any other of the races that are not quite so important as to save?

You need RACISM for your kind of "ends justifies the means, the State is ultimate" facism, Fasces, because you cannot hand-wave away the fact that people are different and so to persecute one group for the benefit of others is to treat all the people of that one race the same and all the other races another way.

I'm not saying you ARE a racist, just that your preferred for of government and your governmental philosophy is highly condusive to racism...and that's not a good thing in ANY evolved philosophy--or person.