Ethics is like a mule. It wags its tail, but it never chews right.
1- Let’s say you are correct in your analysis. That the best thing would have been to do something earlier AND that this would have worked. But democracies make errors. They can miss opportunities. They are not infallible. So there it is 1941 and they realize that they should have acted sooner, seen and taken seriously the warning signs that earlier administrations did not. Might not going to war have been the best choice at that time? 2-we really have no idea that your plan, based on hindsight, would have worked or was so obvious then. You can say, they should have done X and that would have worked and there would be no war. But there is no way to see if your speculation is correct.
More importantly, was it moral for the French and other countries to fight back against the Germans. They engaged in war against occupiers. Should England also not entered the war?
To KT and all readers:
In an earlier post I expressed admiration for the Danish Underground movement, as well as for the Underground in Sweden. So isn’t it logical that I also believe that the French Underground had the right idea.
I hold that Satyagraha - as Gandhi spoke of it - is the way to “fight a war.” This entails nonviolent direct action. And KT is correct when he wrote, informing the readers, that - in contrast with the violent alternatives - history shows that far less precious human lives are lost in the struggles waged by those committed to nonviolence. [size=90]{See the research results, the historical record, compiled by The Einstein Institute - Dr. Gene Sharp - Director.}
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See for a brief summary of the history of warfare along with an ethical proposed alternative see the book by Robert Wright: Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny - amazon.com/product-reviews/ … ewpoints=1
and see the more-recent book on the statistics of warfare, offering a positive, hopeful outlook, by Steven Pinker - amazon.com/Better-Angels-Ou … merReviews
and especially visit this site on the web: worldwithoutwar.com/
It offers practical steps an activist who cares can take toward the goal of a world without war. [size=85][Hence it it cannot accurately be described as ‘utopian.]’[/size]
…Your thoughts on these matters?
The underground movements were as violent as they possibly couldbe. They had limited resourses, but killed and maimed their enemies. Their intention was to violently remove the occupiers from their lands and they were not Ghandian in their approach. I am thinking more of the French, though the Danish movement certainly used violence. The Swedes were not occupied and I know less about them.
Thanks for the correction, Karpel.
It is still true that nonviolent direct action is the Ethical way to go. It does result in less harm over all. It even tends to have a liberating redemptive effect on the perpetrators of cruelty, torture, and abuse. Let’s aim for the goals of freedom, love and peace, while practicing them. Peace is the road as well as the destination.
If we are going to be ethical, our means need to be compatible with our ends. For the proof of this claim, see the selections in the signature below. Also don’t miss this one: myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/The%20 … ncepts.pdf
Comments? Questions? Suggestions?
Certainly if everyone does it. But how do we test your assertion in a world where not everyone will abstain from violence?
So then, it seems the French underground and the Danish were not ethical since they use violence. They should have resisted the Nazis openly, like MLK and Ghandi, without violence.
Poland was invaded and conquered in 1939.
Are you (thinkdr) saying that the correct ethical action was for Britain, France and other countries not to declare war on Germany in response?
What should they have done?
I’m inclined to believe that’s an exaggeration for obvious reasons. To claim Hitler planned to conquer the world is at best speculation and most likely part of a smear campaign. This “Lebensraum” is probably just a desire to rebuild Germany. How can you have a superior society if there aren’t inferior ones? We can’t be rich unless there is someone to be richer than.
I’m interested in learning.
I could add Nietzsche’s “Be careful when fighting monsters that you do not become a monster.” I forgot that one.
Well, a greed war is less-bad than a righteous war.
I agree.
That’s why I say no one has defended my freedom since the 1700s. Every other war has been a righteous war (except maybe the confederate side defending its decisions to leave).
So you’re basically going to ignore what Hitler said in public speeches, in private conversations and what he wrote in his book. You’re going to ignore the actions of Germany … the invasions of Poland and the Soviet Union. And also the German policy towards the populations of occupied Poland and the Soviet Union.
Yes, attacking Russia in the winter was stupid lol
Another big blunder in a show of hubris was Hitler sending Rommel off to Africa because he wouldn’t shut up about the allies NOT coming at Calais. And when they showed up at Normandy, nobody had the balls to wake Hitler up to get the order to send the Panzers, so by the time all the divisions were diverted from Calais to Normandy, the allies already had a foothold! Hitler really was so stupid to believe the allies would take the shortest and most obvious crossing lol. Rommel (I think) was smart enough to know Calais was the ONE place the allies would not cross, for sure! I used to watch a lot of History channel in the 90s when they actually talked about history.
Some folks believe Hitler was a genius, but I don’t see it.
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No I won’t ignore it. Show it to me. What you posted before was a wiki article describing Lebensraum.
According to the maps I posted, those places were part of the German empire and they wanted the territory back. I haven’t seen evidence that he intended to conquer other places like china, us, canada, mexico, etc.
That Lebenstraum article has 120 references. Follow them if you are interested. For example, #38 is “Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Volume Two – The National Socialist Movement, Chapter XIV: Eastern Orientation or Eastern Policy”
which you can easily google and get the full text:
mondopolitico.com/library/me … /v2c14.htm
Oh is that what ethically matters?
So logically, Britain can claim parts of France. Italy can claim most of Europe. Britain, Spain, Portugal and France can carve up the USA.
There were agreements put in place between Britain and France and Czechoslovakia and Poland which were designed to discourage German aggression and war.
They didn’t work when Germany occupied Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. And they didn’t prevent Germany from invading Poland in 1939.
That placed Britain and France at a fork in the road in September 1939. Which path to take?
I won’t ignore evidence, but my curiosity concerning this is fairly satisfied so I don’t have a lot of motivation to dig through random references trying to negate what I’ve found sensible. It would be like trying to find evidence that the earth is flat when it makes no sense the earth would be flat. It makes no sense for someone who didn’t even plan to go to war that he would be planning to take over the entire world. I think it’s more sensible that the notion is propaganda.
Did Nazi Germany have plans to conquer the whole world?
[i]1) Such as it was, the plan was to unite Germanic peoples
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One of the greatest strategic shortcomings of Nazi Germany in general was an almost complete absence of effective long-term planning. Hitler may have dreamed of world domination - but the reality is that neither the Germany military nor its Foreign or Economic ministries had any plans for operations outside of Europe or North Africa.
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Hitler wanting to take over the world is pure propaganda. He may have mused about grand plans to take over the world but realistically there were no solid plans. In fact, there were no plans for further invasions after the Soviet Union as the dual goal of destroying communism and autarky at the expense of the Slavic people would have been achieved. Fighting Britain and fighting the Balkans and Greece were not part of the original plan either.
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It depends what you mean by “plans.” Hitler was notorious for long, rambling monologues with no connection to reality, especially late in the war, and I recall reading that he would occasionally say things like after conquering all of Europe, Germany would face off against the US for domination of the whole world. I suspect at other times he probably fantasized about global Nazi rule as well.
However, Germany never had any serious military plans to go much beyond Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Such an undertaking would have been completely unrealistic (how could the army get across the Atlantic and invade the United States, a country with far greater population and a larger industrial base? How would it garrison it? What about, say, sub-Saharan Africa? China?), and the German army staff were practical enough not to pretend such a thing was possible within any conceivable time horizon.[/i]
If Nazi Germany won in Europe in World War 2, would they have invaded the United States?
It seems that people who ask this question have not done prior research on what the war was actually about. Hitler wanted to conquer western Russia and turn it into German living space. He believed that only the cultures who managed to spread themselves out over vast territory had any hope of a long term future, and so he wanted to give Germans the prosperity that English speakers enjoy today by acquiring greater territory in a region he considered as being primitive and mismanaged. Germany had no desire to incorporate Great Britain or the United States into its Reich. At best they would have desired a partnership between them with cross-polination and at worst a situation where there was animosity and resentment but no military action or hostilities. Any hostility between victorious, post-war Germany and America would have been reactive on Germany’s side.
Idk, maybe. My point is there was no plan to take over the world, but only rebuild what Germany used to be and whether that is moral or immoral is a separate subject.
As I said before, this is nature in action and trying to pick sides is choosing the gazelle over the lion.
What if Germany would have decided to police the world and ally itself with the confederate states against the mean ole union denying the rights of independent states to secede? That’s kinda the same thing… the southern states were cannibalized by the north. The idea of the US was a confederation of independent states to prevent centralized power because centralized power has been a problem throughout history. George Washington said “I didn’t flee King George to become King George.” (Or something like that.)
What business is it of ours if Germany wants to annex Russia? Pearl Harbor was almost certainly an inside job orchestrated by FDR and Churchill to get the US into the war, but I don’t know why it was so important to them.
You’re entirely fixated on that one idea.
It’s a tiny part of the discussion if it’s any part at all.
There it is again - “take over the world”.
Since the tread is about ethics and this subsection is about whether it was ethically correct for the US to help fight against Germany, that’s really all I’m interested in discussing.
So …
1 The German plan was to invade and conquer the Slavic territories in the east including Poland and the Soviet Union (roughly up to the Ural mountains)
2 They intended to reduce the local Slavic and Jewish populations by expelling or killing.
3 The remaining population would be a slave workforce for German settlers
4 In order to prevent that, it was ethically correct for the US to intervene
5 in terms of destruction and loss of life … The Soviet Union would have had larger casualties if they did not get help from the US. Therefore, the US involvement saved lives.
Choosing sides is what ethics is about. Right?
You see a woman being raped and you can say …
“This is nature”
“She is the gazelle and he is the lion”
or
“Not my problem because I’m not being raped”
“She probably deserves it”
“She will be fine once she cleans herself up afterwards”
Basically this:
Well, it didn’t used to be France or Western Russia. I Think it would be fair for any nation near the Axis Powers to Think that the kinds of fascist/national socialist governments were planned to be rulling over them. That isn’t the whole World, but I Think even the Western Hemisphere had justification in thinking that the Axis Powers might very well come to their shores intimately, especially giver extreme cultural/racial thoughts of at least two of the Axis Powers.
It’s more like choosing as a Group of chimps, whether we want that kinds of chimp Culture to take over half of the World and perhaps our Group too or to fight them. And if you have friends who the Axis chimps Think are food, and you dislike the Culture that is expanding wildly, there are also reasons to fight those chimps.
Now Chimps don’t have these kinds of radically different Cultures and schemes.
We tend to look at Germany, when critical, and view their behavior related to certain racial Groups or other nations, but man, the shitty way they treated Germans. What a horendous Cold Culture that was. And while they certainly shit on other races and countries, the Nazis, as a extreme version of the problems within German Culture, were doing germans no favors. Robot mentality.
Why is there such as thing as ethics?
There is a component of self-interest but that’s not the entire story.
The majority of humans are driven by feelings about fairness, justice, empathy, sympathy and compassion.
But that is the point since the impetuous to join the fight was the idea that, left unchecked, they would take over the world. Otherwise it’s just something going on “over there” that isn’t our business.
Well, if we’re compelled to send our kids over there to die as a matter of ethical correctness, then why aren’t we at war with North Korea right now? We must send all our kids to right every wrong until there are none left to send or else we’re favoring one matter of ethics over another. Therefore we must be condoning Korea since we aren’t imposing our ethics.
They saved lives because we lost ours.
It’s about being righteous.
Who are you to judge? Are you going to stop monkeys from raping other monkeys? Why one monkey and not another?
The Islamist point of view is the woman is asking for it by how she dresses because she “hits first” by turning him on like that. It’s like displaying a piping hot pizza to a starving man and expecting him, as a matter of ethics, not to eat it. Taunt people and that’s what happens. I don’t adorn myself in gold before strolling through the hood and if I were a woman, I wouldn’t wear skimpy clothes in front of a bunch of dudes unless I wanted to take my chances. And if I take my chances, I’m not entitled to society’s protection because it was my decision to take my chances. If I get raped, oh well, I rolled the dice and lost.
And all that is beside the point that you would have done nothing different. If you were the rapist, you’d be raping. So how can you judge? To get out of that pickle you’d have to postulate a “spirit” that exists external to the universe that is exclusive to you and different from the rapist and therein lies the arrogance: you are better. But where is the evidence for this thing that is you that is better?
There is no such thing as ethics because in order for there to be, there would have to be distinct entities (spirits). But as it stands, there is no distinction between the plaintiff and defendant.
Why do you think it’s right to treat others as yourself? Well, because others are you. What you are doing to others, you are doing to yourself.