Nazis and the Nature of Evil

[Mecha82]

Thing is revenge doesn't mean that it's target or in this case targets deserved it. Unlike you seem to think revenge and justice aren't same thing. There is nothing justified about revenge and it's worthless cause. It's as much just excuse as dehumanizing others to be cruel towards them like Nazis did. No matter what you think about them those men still continued living they lives so of course they would marry and have family regardless of if what they did haunted them or not. None of us have right to say that they should had killed themselves instead. Besides like I said your issue seems to be with current Russian government and way they handle this which is fair enough.

[Yukaphile]

As I said, painting it as "revenge" ignores the camp prisoners they did the same thing to, ethnic women, and children. All of whom you cannot possibly label as "Germans" and my feeling was it proved they were always rotten people. Good people do not do that, ever. And there seems to be myths insisting they were good people until they got "traumatized." Also insisting the Germans had been collectively guilty is a very dangerous way to blame, because then it borderline states they deserved it is how I see it. Which again ignores ethnic women, children, and camp prisoners. I also don't see collectively guilty monsters with the survivors who had come forward in the last two decades. I see victims of monsters, pure and simple.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

Justified to the extent of portraying such people in a very negative light - they're thoroughly vile, but we're talking about the inability to recognise those we hate as fellow human beings - it's exactly what a lot of the people you hate do to justify their position, and probably believe it themselves. You claim that you've nothing in common but that's simply not true because you're thinking in a very similar manner, albeit with a more noble motivation.

okay but that is the ONLY thing I have in common with "people" like Albert Fish or Adolf Hitler.

[Yukaphile]

Does it matter? We've done this stuff for thousands of years. We ain't gonna slow down and stop any time soon.

[Yukaphile]

I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm capable of some of the worst men have been guilty of. I know even in this life, I could potentially beat somebody to death and learn to relish it, assuming that they're wicked people guilty of some truly disgusting stuff. But is that any better? It's why we have an impartial system. Punishment is necessary. But punishing innocent people or disproportionately punishing the guilty party is no way to run a civilized society. I'm also pretty sure I got bad genes from Larry, given that I think if left untrained in another life, would have resulted in something even worse. But my strong Feminist upbringing keeps them restrained. Plus my moral code. Somehow I knew even at a young age that revenge was bad, that giving in to hate was bad, all without anyone ever needing to tell me. Those are part of the human experience, of course, so the question is to what extent do you dole them out to deal with a crisis? For me, personally, it's why I'm a pacifist. I've never been in brawls, and I never want to. It's so primitive, and I'm afraid once you start, especially given my own deficiencies, that it would become easy... and once it's become easy, where do you go from there?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Justified to the extent of portraying such people in a very negative light - they're thoroughly vile, but we're talking about the inability to recognise those we hate as fellow human beings - it's exactly what a lot of the people you hate do to justify their position, and probably believe it themselves. You claim that you've nothing in common but that's simply not true because you're thinking in a very similar manner, albeit with a more noble motivation.

okay but that is the ONLY thing I have in common with "people" like Albert Fish or Adolf Hitler.

Accounting for the obvious and mundane aspects between you and such people (as with others), the difference is what you don't do and what they do.

[Yukaphile]

I can sympathize with trying to represent someone as being more complex than they are, even in a sadistic mass murderer/serial rapist. In showing off the subtle nuance we all have. That said, most people are just guessing when it comes to this stuff because we can't TRULY know what goes on in another's head when they do evil things, objectively evil, not subjectively evil. So there's always a danger of misrepresentation, and of course, people will shove their agendas into it endlessly...

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Have you ever asked someone like that?

[Yukaphile]

[Yukaphile]

I think it's a given they won't be 100% truthful... and even if they DO admit it, it's not something you can just say, "Whoops, my bad" to, yet many take this mindset, more applied to the latter than the first one. I find it more than ironic some people can redeem themselves easier from murder than assault, but then that's their choice. Redemption is hard and requires time and effort and sacrifice, and what I see coming from these people don't cut it.