Jeff Breidenbach wrote in
:
|As I've mentioned in the past, Mail Archive is alive and well in most
|respects. The one exceptions is customer support, for which I am
That is adorable.
|The service is hosted in the United States, and you might have heard
|about an upcoming election in this country. There is a chance that
|this may include confusion, chaos, and especially disinformation. If
|such things reach our tiny corner of the internet, please tell me so I
|can take whatever action is necessary.
|
|I want to say something else about this election. Back when dinosaurs
|roamed the earth and I was a teenager, I was full of questions. One
|thing that confused me was the idea of hate crimes. If someone does
|something bad, the penalty is usually more severe if it is part of a
|hate crime. Why? If it was murder, the victim is equally dead either
|way. How could this possibly be fair?
|
|Eventually, I decided that people are naturally susceptible to us
|vs. them thinking. I am Jewish, with a German last name. So for me, I
|think back to World War II. What we now call hate crimes was once
|mainstream thinking. I think we made these laws to be extra
|vigilant against falling back into that trap.
Dear Jeff Breidenbach, beside your personal matter, that of your
family, and the very much understandable and supportable thinking
and feeling of your own. And letting aside the history of the
United States a bit. Maybe. I think it is a structural
misunderstanding, intellectual, but surely emphatical failure to
compare the world leading (some say suppressing) super force
U.S.A. with the Germany of the 30s, may Americas public discourse
have ridden this comparison (sic) or not.
Doing so surely is cold cruelty, is abuse, is murdering and
torturing millions of people a second time.
You should not say things like "What we now call hate crimes was
once mainstream thinking". For one hate has always been, and
always will be, unless all human beings of the world listen to the
philosophical outcome and truth of our forefathers and mothers
that lived many thousand years ago. Or like the Dalai Lama said
in the interview of his 50th anniversary in India, "it is all
there". It is all there, for thousands of years. I am happy that
you think that modern U.S.A. has the solution to finally make it
happen, i personally am not convinced.
As your family seems to originate in Germany, you should remember
or learn that Germany was a rising middle force by the end of the
19th century, with a population that almost doubled over thirty
years, with leading (in the sense of being in the front line of
the forwarders, of going forward) human beings, in science, in
culture, architecture, but also philosophy etc. Like
Lebensreform. The age was so as such, it was called Belle Epoche.
White humanity started truly penetrating chemistry, biology, and
healing for terrible illnesses slowly came in sight. If you
realize that 30 percent of all Germans at that time seem to have
died from Tuberculosis -- just imagine how coughful that time must
have been --, .. unbelievable.
Much could be said indeed, English Wikipedia for example is very
much focused on the "German Naval Race" against the Britons. (Of
course lots of the world did so, Argentina, Brasil, also
U.S.A. i think. Due to the tremendous technological improvements
what was top today was too old tomorrow.) I never read there that
many ships were build for the Ostsee, nor that the target was to
have about 60 percent of the Naval of the Britons, nor that
Germany build wonderful civil ships which' fame lasted for hundred
years and more, like the beautiful Flying P-Liners, and "dream
boats" for crossing the Atlantic, setting new speed and interior
marks.
The beauty. The refinement. The culture. The optimism.
Much could be said on Germany by that time, also negative things
of course, but mind you that dark brains always exist, and the
question is how to handle them. Our Emperor, and our Princess,
the most beautiful in the World (;-), they spend money on poor
Children. And that is also true literally.
Anyhow, the sharpness increased everywhere, and contracts were
made, in the end made family members fight each other until death.
You know many Royal Families around Europe were tightly related.
Especially England, Germany and Russia. But the storm of life
blew heavy, and there was nothing anyone could do against it. It
happened.
So here we are at the begin of World War I., where all of Germany
stood together almost for the first time, in history. You could
count the war against France, started by France, in 1870/1. You
know how terrible the French raped and plundered through Germany
a few decades before that. I do not say that German's are Angels,
mind you. But after Bismarck was removed by our still young
Emperor, wasn't it only social improvement, science, discovery,
and culture? Colonies you might say, and you are right; much of
what happened was done by
