So Hitler financed his social-security scheme by robbing and killing Jews, therefore we have to be scared of Obama? That's one of the most ridiculous non-sequiturs I've seen, outside the "OBAMA!IS!!THE!!!ANTICHRIST!!!!ELEVENTY-ONE!!!" dittosphere.

There was nothing irrational about the Holocaust. It was the only way Hitler could finance his social security.

So the Holocause is entirely the fault of "social seecurity?" The antisemitism that had existed in Central Europe for centuries prior to 1933 had nothing to do with it? Hitler's well-known insanity had nothhing to do with it? Pul-Lease.

And that very same social security was the reason that the Germans got carried away with him, despite the hardships of war. They gained: the companies and houses of Jews were available for "nothing".

Not in sufficient quantities to bribe a majority of Germans. And that doesn't explain why so many Germans supported the Nazis BEFORE they started robbing the Jews.

Jewish household goods and clothing went to those who lost their homes in the bombings. Money, jewels, and gold went to the state.

That's not the whole picture by a long shot: plenty of Germans gave goods and clothing voluntarily as well.

This blog is even dumber than it was the last time I looked.

Raging,

Social security has to be paid for. The way the Austrian Corporal did it is one way.

So how do you think ∅ will do it? I specifically asked WWOD?

Raise taxes? Cut back on medical care for old folks? Raise the retirement age?

You are even stupider that our typical lefty trolls. Raise your game.

The Holocaust was a "rational" way of financing Social Security? Really? Really????

I'm no Obama cheerleader by a long-shot, but this is kind of nauseating.
-cj

CJ,

Socialism always ends in mass murder one way or another. You always run out of other people's money.

This is not a prediction however, it is a warning. Let us find a way to get off this road before something really bad happens.

Regardless, I still disagree that "There was nothing irrational about the Holocaust."

I guess it depends on your definition of 'irrational', but even from a purely utilitarian point of view, mass murder doesn't really get the result you're looking for. It's pretty hard to murder a few million people without ruffling enough feathers to get you in deeper trouble than you were beforehand, which defeats the purpose.

CJ,

The only "irrational" thing was picking on the Jews.

But really - the Jew hatred in Germany was going strong since the time of Martin Luther and the eugenics movement was world wide at the time. So the defectives got thrown into the lot. And of course Enemies of The State, gypsies, and any one else no one cared about.

And it didn't seem to ruffle too many feathers. When America had a chance to accept a boat load of Jews it sent them back to Germany.

In fact Jew hatred in America peaked in 1944.

So, it would have been completely rational if he had randomly selected a few million people to slaughter?

If I owed a bunch of money to a bunch of different people, would it be rational to murder all of them to relieve myself from the debt?

You can't pick them at random. That just gets people riled up.

You have to pick a group everyone hates. Dopers are the only group where the hate is sufficient. Although the war on fat people and tobacco smokers is ramping up.

Second off I'm warning against it. Now it may be just a little paranoia on my part. But it goes with my territory. You see I'm Jewish and some of us get twitchy about these things.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here....

So, you're arguing that mass murder is a 'rational' ( for which, by the way, the Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus lists as synonyms: logical, reasoned, sensible, reasonable, etc.) way of dealing with the financial woes of a country...

and yet, at the same time, you're presumably trying to convince people that Obama, in his socialist ways, is heading down that same path, which seems like you're trying to say is a bad thing, but then you continue to defend it as 'rational.'

So, which one is it?

A thing can be rational and wrong.

Rationality has many levels politically. It starts with the individual, family, clan, state, nation, planet, solar system, galaxy, universe. And all the stops in between.

And now for a different realm. Is it rational for small pox to attack humans?

right or wrong, it still wasn't rational...

Are you saying Hitler sat down, discussed the issues, listened to opinions from both sides, weighed all the options, and came to the perfectly sane and rational decision that murdering a few million people would be the best plan?

Like I said, I'm no Obama cheerleader, but I'm glad you're not president.

Dude,

Rational from what point of view?

If Hitler had won the war what he did would be completely rational.

Of course since he didn't win it would be considered irrational. And yes he did consult with his experts and they were under orders to put nothing to paper indicating that in any way he was involved. You might wish to look at the Wansee Conference. Deliberations from lower levels were recorded.

Assuming that "every one knows" A, B, C, and D, then E rationally follows. That is what makes rationality alone so dangerous.

the idea that...

if he won the war, then his plan was rational
if he lost the war, then his plan was irrational

is fundamentally flawed in my book, so I suppose we're never gonna agree on this. I'll just let it rest.

Beyond that, I still don't understand why you're warning people that Obama might do the same when apparently you think it's a perfectly legitimate plan (as long as it succeeds of course).

I think the world is currently over-populated. Using your logic, if we killed off a few hundred million people, that would be a fine plan and even 'rational' as long as we actually accomplished it. That's a pretty scary precedent in my mind.

CJ,

Rational from what perspective? Not mine. I just said it was possible to construct a perspective in which such a plan was rational.

Was atom bombing Japan rational? I might say so but the Japanese being bombed might not agree. Some Americans in this day might not agree.

CJ as to killing off a lot of people - it depends on your values not your rationality.

No offence to all "rational is not xxx" posterst, but rational is a wordt that has an actual definition.

In fact most posters' "xxx" is some emotion. Sure the holocaust violates just about every ethical principle in existence and creates horrid emotions, but all that has little or nothing to do with rationality. In fact, those things are generally considered the very opposite of rational.

Let's put it this way. Hitler's holocaust was rational for a social security administrator. It reduced costs and massively increased revenue (for a very, very short time). Killing about 2% of the German population allowed social security to exist for 2 more years. It allowed the government to say "we'll take care of you" to the germans for 2 more years.

Arresting and concentrating Jews not all that popular (too many "quasi-Jews" (sons, daughter, inlaws, ...) in too many families). Killing was never popular. Sure it was obvious that something was going on, but nobody knew "for sure" that Hitler was massacring. (contrast with for example the anti-hindu massacres of pakistan that every pakistani muslim knew about, or closer to home the muslims that ethnically cleansed kosovo and srebrenica. Those were massively popular, and the commanders of that massacre are the leading politicians of kosovo TODAY. They've been rewarded by the "international community", not punished)

Actually exterminating the Jews was a policy that was, to the Nazi government, first and foremost a policy of cutting social security expenditure (they first tried "painless" VX executions that were over in seconds and left nothing alive. That was too expensive, so musterd gas executions ensued. They had all sorts of disadvantages, longer duration, survivors, ... but they were cheaper). Given that those factors are what matters (and to a government - any government - with social security they are), the holocaust was most defineately rational.

There is indeed a classical sense of rationality. If a person wants to achieve a desired effect (A), and a specific action (B) will achieve that effect (A), then choosing action (B) is a 'rational' decision. A person cannot possibly know all of the possible outcomes of any given action so, it is only necessary that at the moment the decision was made, the person actually believed that the action (B) would achieve the desired result (A) for it to be 'rational'.

In that sense, *every* human action is 'rational' because humans just aren't capable of escaping a basic cause and effect relationship of actions. Ultimately, a decision may backfire or the long term effect may not be desired, but at the very basic level, humans do things that they think will have the effect they desire.

Because of this, there is a more colloquial sense of rationality when talking about human actions. If a man finds out that his wife has been cheating on him and he decides to murder her, generally people would consider that an irrational action. In the classic sense, it would be a completely rational decision because it meets the immediate desire of the man to exact revenge and fulfill his need to respond to his emotions, but ultimately there will be severe consequences to his action that will be negative.

So, generally it is believed that a person is expected to consider all of their options and weigh all of the consequences, potential for failure, potential collateral damage, etc. and then choose an action that has the highest potential for achieving the desired result with a minimum of negative consequences... and that is considered a 'rational' decision. This is even acknowledged in our legal system which allows for pleading temporary insanity, meaning that due to extreme duress the person was incapable of making a 'rational' decision.

If a boy walks by a store and sees a candy bar in the window and he wants to (A) eat the candy bar, he could: (B) smash the window, grab the candy bar, and eat it; (C) go home and grab his gun, come back to the store and shoot everyone there, then take the candy bar and eat it; or, (D) reach into his pocket and grab some change, buy the candy bar and eat it. In the classic sense, all of those options are 'rational' because they are all likely, or at least it is quite possible to believe that they are all likely, to achieve the desired result (A) of eating the candy bar, but in the more colloquial sense of rationality, only (D) would be considered a 'rational' decision because the others have a higher potential for failure and/or a much higher potential for negative consequences beyond just the desired result.

Yes, I agree... Hitler may not have been the deranged, frothing at the mouth serial killer that some make him out to be. He was, though it's tough to say, trying to do some good for someone at least... even though he was willing to do that at the great expense of a whole bunch of other people.

I say that his decisions were irrational because there were many ways that Hitler could have attempted to meet the financial needs of his country, but he chose the one that had an incredibly horrendous outcome because he was too wrapped up in his nationalist, racist views to see another way.

The irony of this is that if Hitler had been a single purposed jew hater who desired nothing more than to exterminate every jew on the planet, then his decisions that led to the Holocaust actually would have been pretty rational, no matter how you slice it. But in fact, Hitler did have other motivations as well, like taking care of the German population, and that's what made him so dangerous, irresponsible, and 'irrational'. Though his motivations were a collage of both hatred, anger, and strong nationalism and German pride and concern, his actions were fueled and guided by his anger and hatred, and they blinded him from making decisions that really would have made sense.

If Hitler wanted to reach the goal of (A) supporting the German population and meeting their financial needs, he could have (B) killed off a few million people and thereby drastically reducing the financial need of Germany, or (C), (D), (E), etc. other ways of achieving (A). Yes, in a classic sense, choosing (B) is 'rational' because if the financial need was less, then it would be easier to achieve the goal (A). But in the colloquial sense, (B) was not a 'rational' decision because there are *massive* negative consequences to the decision he made. Think of how many German Jews fled Germany in the early 20th century and became famous scientists and made incredible contributions to the world. That alone was an incredible financial *loss* to Germany.

And as far as there being anti-semitism in America as well at the same time.... yes, anti-semitism was widespread throughout the world, as well as classism, sexism, racism, and a bunch of other -isms, and those -isms did guide some policies of many nations at the time. But for every example you give of Americans hating jews, there are probably at least two examples of Americans that didn't. And that goes for inside Germany as well! You might wish to look at the stories of the German Resistance and The White Rose.