Would You Fight Hitler?

[Feedmenow]

Would avoid the front lines like a plague. Hopefully find something supplies/medical related rather than fighting if there was a draft. Fuck getting shot, blown up, or set on fire with napalm.

[Kuya]

Dying is painful

[Meresgi]

Canada doesn't want to fight? I would expect nothing less of a country with some France in its veins!

[Max™]

If you want to get literal, which no one is being, I wouldn't have a choice, probably.

There was a draft for WWII, and if there was a global war in which the entirety of Europe or otherwise was under siege, there would probably be another draft.

If there was no draft, somehow, and the conflict was of comparable size and interest, then yes, probably. If my country made a stand against whatever atrocities someone was committing, I would stand with my country.

I use the word atrocities because the term can be very loose. Controversial issues that some may share differing opinions of are usually not coined "atrocities"

I don't think anyone on here sans trolls would say that the murder of millions of people is legitimate and acceptable behavior

After suffering three hundred years of Spanish rule and shedding their blood for independence, the Filipinos were not willing to accept a new colonial order, and they naturally resisted U.S. designs on the Philippines. According to Luzviminda Francisco, the Philippine-American War was a forgotten war in the U.S. annals. American textbooks contain several pages on the Spanish-American War but only devote a paragraph on the Philippine-American War despite the fact that the latter was more pronounced in terms of duration, scale, and number of casualties. The war was ugly, ruthless, and brutal prompting Stanley Karnow to describe it as "among the cruelest conflicts in the annals of Western imperialism." Other scholars referred to the conflict as the United States’ "first Vietnam." Luzviminda estimates that as much as 126,000 American soldiers, or 3/4 of the U.S. army, were shipped to the Philippines, and at least 600,000 Filipinos died during the war. American anti-imperialist Mark Twain claims that Filipino casualties was close to one million or the equivalent of 1/6 of the country’s total population at the turn of the century.

Casualties aside, the terminology of the conflict has been misconstrued for a long time. The Americans called the Philippine-American War an insurgency, mainly because they refused to recognize the Philippine independence proclaimed by Aguinaldo. Recognition would have portrayed the Americans in an unflattering way, i.e, imperialists who were seizing an independent country. The American refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the Filipino struggle had them brand Filipino soldiers as bandits or ladrones.

http://opmanong.ssc.hawaii.edu/filipino/philam.html

We lost ~4000 soldiers, fighting against a nation which had declared it's independence, they lost between half a million, to a million citizens.

"They don't rebel in Luzon anymore, because there is no one left to rebel."

[silveraden]

I would like to beat Bin laden than Hitler....

[silveraden]

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opmanong.ssc.hawaii.edu/filipino/philam.html

We lost ~4000 soldiers, fighting against a nation which had declared it's independence, they lost between half a million, to a million citizens.

"They don't rebel in Luzon anymore, because there is no one left to rebel."

I am a Filipino and its sad to recall that Americans actually forgotten this cruel occupation... Many Americans would say Filipinos should be thankful to them because they helped the country getting its independence from Spain... Even our local textbooks don't really focus on American-Philippine war.. only several pages...

[Ksandra]

http://opmanong.ssc.hawaii.edu/filipino/philam.html

We lost ~4000 soldiers, fighting against a nation which had declared it's independence, they lost between half a million, to a million citizens.

"They don't rebel in Luzon anymore, because there is no one left to rebel."

Usually good to read a whole person's sentence or you might miss what they're saying...

I don't think anyone on here sans trolls would say that the murder of millions of people is legitimate and acceptable behavior

I didn't know BG was responsible and supported the killings of the Filipinos....hell I didn't even know we were alive then!

[Penthesilea]

I am a Filipino and its sad to recall that Americans actually forgotten this cruel occupation... Many Americans would say Filipinos should be thankful to them because they helped the country getting its independence from Spain... Even our local textbooks don't really focus on American-Philippine war.. only several pages...

I can honestly say that I never learned of this before today. I'm sure there are many other smaller scale conflicts that aren't touched on in HS settings.

[bechyni]

No, I'm part German.

[Elvis]

I am a Filipino and its sad to recall that Americans actually forgotten this cruel occupation... Many Americans would say Filipinos should be thankful to them because they helped the country getting its independence from Spain... Even our local textbooks don't really focus on American-Philippine war.. only several pages...

Reminds me of this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...sdescrib-3.jpg

[Zoolander]

Pol Pot (Khmer Rouge) anywhere from 1-4m killed in Cambodia.

Pol Pot was a crazy mother fucker, always thought it was pretty funny that of all the people to take them out it ended up being communist Vietnam. I still dont get why Al Bashir doesn't get more press, I understand its Africa but jeese. His genocidal legacy extends far beyond just Darfur, too (Nuer and Dinka in the South iirc in the 90s).

Always thought the shit I read about in Nanking, China was the nastiest and most gruesome of the 20+ genocides I've studied/researched. Not the biggest of course, but god damn were the Japanese disgusting there. I still haven't totally gotten over that, a small part of me hates Japan (im not Chinese). Not really any one person you can attribute it to though.

Oh and on the Philippines topic...yea, in High School I don't remember ever even discussing it. Maybe for all of 30 seconds, but definitely nothing in detail. Wasn't until I was in college that I really learned much about it in post civil war US History...and even then, could only get so far into it. What I remember taking away from it was that our first (major) attempt to join our Western buddies in getting a colony of our very own was a disaster that fucked the Filipinos over badly. Unfortunate we don't turn that criticism we direct at other states onto ourselves more often. Americans need to be reminded of those kind of things in this age of rampant nationalism.

[Max™]

Usually good to read a whole person's sentence or you might miss what they're saying...




I didn't know BG was responsible and supported the killings of the Filipinos....hell I didn't even know we were alive then!

*was talking about American's responding to this topic as if Hitler had done something utterly unique to him, which had nothing in common with them*

Usually good to read a whole person's sentence, or you might miss what they're saying...


Zoolander, that is my point exactly.

[Ksandra]

*was talking about American's responding to this topic as if Hitler had done something utterly unique to him, which had nothing in common with them*

Usually good to read a whole person's sentence, or you might miss what they're saying...

Except that sentence isn't what you quoted or said, and that has nothing to do with what the person you quoted was talking about. So you're either trying to or you quoted the wrong person/post.


As to the topic at hand I don't think I'd fight Hitler, I'm not really a "fighter". I can tell you though I would have been a hippie protesting at the white house during Vietnam if I was alive then.

My uncle goes and does a lot of protesting too and has tried to get me to go with him. I'm too much of a goody two shoes though, and I'm too paranoid in getting involved with something that could get me arrested lol.

[Max™]

"I don't think anyone on here sans trolls would say that the murder of millions of people is legitimate and acceptable behavior."

Anyone on here sans trolls includes American posters who aren't trolls, yes?

American posters acting as if Hitler did something which is totally against everything America stands for, like we have never done anything involving the killing of a vast number of another population, is what my point was. Zoolander clarified it well, no need to safe face here, trust me.

[Ksandra]

"I don't think anyone on here sans trolls would say that the murder of millions of people is legitimate and acceptable behavior."

Anyone on here sans trolls includes American posters who aren't trolls, yes?

American posters acting as if Hitler did something which is totally against everything America stands for, like we have never done anything involving the killing of a vast number of another population, is what my point was. Zoolander clarified it well, no need to safe face here, trust me.

do you even understand the part you are bolding? From what it sounds like people are saying they didn't learn much about the Philippines history, not that they consider it legitimate and acceptable behavior.


How could they when they know nothing about it? Zoolander clarified it by also saying he didn't learn much about it, not that he considered it acceptable.

I agree that we need to teach it more in depth, but to say that people consider it acceptable is silly when they know little to nothing about it in the first place.

It's ignorance, not acceptance.

[Max™]

Something very odd going on here, I'm stating something very directly, and it's being completely missed.


It's not legitimate and acceptable behavior for Hitler to kill millions of people, so it's good to fight him.

Does the same not hold for Americans?

Ignorance is no excuse past age 5 or 6.

Books exist for just this reason.

[Ksandra]

Something very odd going on here, I'm stating something very directly, and it's being completely missed.


It's not legitimate and acceptable behavior for Hitler to kill millions of people, so it's good to fight him.

Does the same not hold for Americans?

Ignorance is no excuse past age 5 or 6.

Books exist for just this reason.

You're jumping from hitler to philippines and back like no tomorrow. you stated that bg posters consider the war in the philippines to be acceptable and legitimate behavior, when everyone is saying they didn't know much about it and no one is saying it was legitimate and acceptable behavior. And I pointed this fact out, and you then go on about hitler...I don't know how I can speak more plainly.

[Max™]

I dunno, I guess I just assume that someone with a strong opinion about something involving major political actions would... ya know, have read up on the subject.

I tend to assume people have read a lot more than they actually have, yet I'm apparently an uneducated quack retard... how odd.

Anyways, the point is lost somewhere over there *points towards vague land*, so I'm dropping it.

[Plow]

Something very odd going on here, I'm stating something very directly, and it's being completely missed.


It's not legitimate and acceptable behavior for Hitler to kill millions of people, so it's good to fight him.

Does the same not hold for Americans?

Ignorance is no excuse past age 5 or 6.

Books exist for just this reason.

Well, part of it has to do with the scale, like I said in the first response.

There's also the issue of what they actually did, in terms of extermination and torture, etc. Probably the most lasting images I can think of from the museum outside the shoe room were all the pictures of people that had been sitting on the toilet and just had wires dropped down from above, and were "hung" by strangulation via small wires, in about as dishonorable position as possible.


They treated them like a little kid with a magnifying glass and an anthill.

And also, not really related to Max's comments but others, it's not "just Hitler." When you say "fighting Hitler" that generally implies the entire Axis and everyone beneath him.

[Elvis]

You're jumping from hitler to philippines and back like no tomorrow. you stated that bg posters consider the war in the philippines to be acceptable and legitimate behavior, when everyone is saying they didn't know much about it and no one is saying it was legitimate and acceptable behavior. And I pointed this fact out, and you then go on about hitler...I don't know how I can speak more plainly.

I think his point is that people can be totally unaware of 'American'/'Western'/'Us' crimes. Yet, we're knowledgeable about the crimes of others.

Not really their fault unless they don't want to know. I can't see an elementary school telling us what Columbus wrote in his diaries about the Natives; about how they [the Europeans] could exploit the kindness of the Natives, 'control them', convert them to Christianity, etc.

Or some of the things he did to them:

On his second voyage, in December 1494, Columbus captured 1,500 Tainos on the island of Hispaniola and herded them to Isabela, where 550 of ''the best males and females'' were forced aboard ships bound for the slave markets of Seville.

Under Columbus's leadership, the Spanish attacked the Taino, sparing neither men, women nor children. Warfare, forced labor, starvation and disease reduced Hispaniola's Taino population (estimated at one million to two million in 1492) to extinction within 30 years.

Does everything have to be judged by the extent to which the Nazis did X, Y, and Z? Why not the laws laid down as a result of those crimes? A TRUE standard and not just a rhetorical/emotional/ideological bludgeon (everyone's the new Hitler, Nazis, etc.) Aren't there crimes taking place in the present? At the same time, shouldn't we be focusing on things we're responsible for first and foremost?

This discussion reminds me of a post Glenn Greenwald did recently about Godwin's Law.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/gl...win/index.html

Anyways, the original question is stupid.