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I have no idea how you managed to misconstrue what I said so badly that you came to that conclusion, but that is not the case at all. The people in the concentration camps did not get talked to death. They died because of actions that people took.


But under your logic, Hitler was not the problem, and should have been free to say whatever he liked, correct?


People are responsible for their own actions. "Hitler told me to" or "David Icke told me to" do not excuse anything someone does. I believe we established particularly after WWII that "I was just following orders" is not a valid defense to committing atrocities.

You might also want to remember that one of the first things Hitler did after getting power was to outlaw any opposition parties and violently break up meetings of any dissenters, then arrest and torture anyone who was promoting anything other than the Nazi party line. Hmm, sound familiar?


We also established the principle of command responsibility.


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Is giving a speech a crime? Which speeches are crimes? Who is going to determine that? You? More importantly, who would you like to put in charge of determining whether your speech is a crime?

Contrary to what is expressed above, Hitler did much more than give speeches. He also gave orders which is a different thing entirely.

Saying "Gee I wish so-and-so were dead" is not a crime in any reasonable democracy. Telling your subordinate "I order you to go and kill so-and-so" is. Do you see the difference? The person following and the person giving the order are both responsible.

Are you arguing that the people who physically pulled the triggers or shoved prisoners into gas chamber do not bear any responsibility? At any point, all that was necessary to stop Hitler was for people to not listen to him. What would help that is providing an environment of healthy dissent, not stifling it.

I also mentioned above specifically that we should hold people accountable for the actual consequences of their speech. How you get from that to "Hitler did nothing wrong" is completely beyond me. Actual consequences mean real things that occur in reality. Not "I think something might possibly happen because of this" or "You dared to contradict an authority so you must be silenced".



So you would be perfectly fine with Hitler at least being elected then, and anyone who tried to stop him would be a bad person?


Supporting the right of people to participate in free and fair elections does not imply that you agree with the outcome of every election. Can you understand that?

The question is where the responsibility lies. Hitler did not elect himself. The responsibility for electing Hitler lies with...the people who voted for Hitler. Where else would you put it?

As to whether someone who "tries to stop him" is a bad person, that depends on what you mean by tries to stop him. One of the benefits of not censoring dissent is that we can hear many different points of view, and hopefully choose better ones. So, of course there is no problem with trying to stop anyone by making a better argument and doing a better job of rallying people to your cause.

If you mean, "Do I think it's OK to murder political candidates as long as I'm sufficiently convinced they'll be evil", no I don't. Keep in mind that there are people who feel about Obama or FDR the way you feel about Hitler and reconsider whether you want to condone murdering anyone you disagree with.




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