Race - A Giant Middle Finger to Nazi Germany

[rcs619]

I know Americans aren't that great with history, but they do know there were negars,mongols,arabs,sikhs and cossacks serving in the Wehrmacht, right?

In small numbers, and largely (I'd argue) mostly as an opportunity to get back at the British/Russians/whichever colonial power had screwed them over in the past (or even just to save their own skin like the Vichy French). It didn't mean that Hitler liked them, or that he wasn't going to purge their race from the Third Reich (either through direct extermination or forced sterilizations) once the dust had settled. Much like his alliance with the Italians and the Japanese, Hitler was more than capable of working with races he felt were inferior if it suited his short-term goals.

Difference was Owens was sadly a victim of discrimination in this country. Turing broke the law and had to face the consequences. Breaking a law and getting punished =/= discrimination.

It does when the law is inherently discriminatory. Just because something is the law at one particular point in history doesn't mean that it can't also be discriminatory and morally objectionable.

Well...to be absolute fair that's also debatable. The Treaty of Versailles after WW1 was an extremely significant part of why the Nazis came to power and why WW2 happened. It placed the blame for WW1 on Germany and was harsh enough to create a huge amount of resentment and make the Germans feel humiliated. There aren't too many historians I've read that will argue that this wasn't a significant factor in allowing for the rise of Hitler with his message of rejecting the treaty and making Germany great again. It was a very appealing message for a humiliated people suffering under harsh economic conditions.

That's fair. The Treaty of Versailles was a massive, unbelievable mistake (which I believe the US delegation argued against during the proceedings). Punishing Germany so harshly, especially when the war was really kinda Serbia and Hungary's fault more than anything, was ridiculous and it certainly played a part in eventually bringing about World War II. Although you can't put the entire blame on the Treaty of Versailles either.

 

[Lightknight]

Regardless of who snubbed Owens and which was presented in the movie, this should have been a slam dunk Oscar sponge. Can't believe they screwed that up.

Then again this particular reviewer is overly negative about nearly everything so I'm not entirely sure what to think.

 

[ExileNZ]

"Hitler didn't snub me. It was our president who snubbed me" he said months after the Games. The president didn't even send me a telegram."

The reason the movie feels bland is that it's based on a myth. Owens maintained until his death (in his autobiography) that he received far better treatment in Berlin than he did in the United States. He died in poverty.

Came here to say exactly this. If the film is a middle finger to Nazi Germany, it's taking a jab at the wrong racist regime.

 

[Lightspeaker]

That's fair. The Treaty of Versailles was a massive, unbelievable mistake (which I believe the US delegation argued against during the proceedings). Punishing Germany so harshly, especially when the war was really kinda Serbia and Hungary's fault more than anything, was ridiculous and it certainly played a part in eventually bringing about World War II. Although you can't put the entire blame on the Treaty of Versailles either.

Oh quite, books can and have been written on the causes of WW2, there's tons more than just blaming one particular thing. It was a perfect storm of things piling up until the entire world just broke, basically. It also wasn't helped by the fact that war had been a totally normal situation between developed European nations for thousands of years, a war breaking out was just another in a long line of them. However the scale of it ended up totally different thanks to advances in technology.

As far as the Treaty of Versailles goes...its been a while since I've done any hobbyist history reading on it but I seem to recall it being France pushing the hardest for it, because they wanted revenge.

 

[rcs619]

That's fair. The Treaty of Versailles was a massive, unbelievable mistake (which I believe the US delegation argued against during the proceedings). Punishing Germany so harshly, especially when the war was really kinda Serbia and Hungary's fault more than anything, was ridiculous and it certainly played a part in eventually bringing about World War II. Although you can't put the entire blame on the Treaty of Versailles either.

Oh quite, books can and have been written on the causes of WW2, there's tons more than just blaming one particular thing. It was a perfect storm of things piling up until the entire world just broke, basically. It also wasn't helped by the fact that war had been a totally normal situation between developed European nations for thousands of years, a war breaking out was just another in a long line of them. However the scale of it ended up totally different thanks to advances in technology.

As far as the Treaty of Versailles goes...its been a while since I've done any hobbyist history reading on it but I seem to recall it being France pushing the hardest for it, because they wanted revenge.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I remember that about France too. Part of it was revenge, part of it was their desire to prevent Germany from being able to build up a big enough military to threaten them again, hence all the military restrictions put into the deal. In France's defense, Germany had basically been invading them every couple decades or so for most of recent history, and the French did suffer horrible, unbelievable losses during the war. Literal mountains of corpses. But yeah.

I forget the specifics, but the US was against a lot of the harsher aspects of it, to the point where we never even signed the damned thing (a peace treaty we were involved with throughout the whole process).

What ever happened to Austria-Hungary and Serbia anyway? As much as people talk about what the treaty did to Germany, I can't for the life of me remember if/how the two nations who started the whole damned mess were punished.

 

[Darth_Payn]

That's fair. The Treaty of Versailles was a massive, unbelievable mistake (which I believe the US delegation argued against during the proceedings). Punishing Germany so harshly, especially when the war was really kinda Serbia and Hungary's fault more than anything, was ridiculous and it certainly played a part in eventually bringing about World War II. Although you can't put the entire blame on the Treaty of Versailles either.

Oh quite, books can and have been written on the causes of WW2, there's tons more than just blaming one particular thing. It was a perfect storm of things piling up until the entire world just broke, basically. It also wasn't helped by the fact that war had been a totally normal situation between developed European nations for thousands of years, a war breaking out was just another in a long line of them. However the scale of it ended up totally different thanks to advances in technology.

As far as the Treaty of Versailles goes...its been a while since I've done any hobbyist history reading on it but I seem to recall it being France pushing the hardest for it, because they wanted revenge.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I remember that about France too. Part of it was revenge, part of it was their desire to prevent Germany from being able to build up a big enough military to threaten them again, hence all the military restrictions put into the deal. In France's defense, Germany had basically been invading them every couple decades or so for most of recent history, and the French did suffer horrible, unbelievable losses during the war. Literal mountains of corpses. But yeah.

I forget the specifics, but the US was against a lot of the harsher aspects of it, to the point where we never even signed the damned thing (a peace treaty we were involved with throughout the whole process).

What ever happened to Austria-Hungary and Serbia anyway? As much as people talk about what the treaty did to Germany, I can't for the life of me remember if/how the two nations who started the whole damned mess were punished.

Austria-Hungary was broken up into Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, and I think a few more nation-states whose names I forget now.
OT: RACE is a tad late for this year's Oscar nominations. Better luck next year! And it turned into being about Hitler's propagandist, whose name I can't spell to save my life? Why not just make a movie that was all about her, then?

 

[FirstNameLastName]

It's like telling the story of Alan Turing (a man who helped win freaking WWII by breaking open the nazi's encryption technology) without mentioning that he would later be chemically castrated by the british government because he was a homosexual (which was a *crime* at the time). Oh wait... I'm pretty sure some of the movies they've made about Turing don't actually mention the part where he was forcibly sterilized by his own government.

Difference was Owens was sadly a victim of discrimination in this country. Turing broke the law and had to face the consequences. Breaking a law and getting punished =/= discrimination.

Yep, your heard it here first folks; discrimination ceases to be discrimination once it's codified into law and explicitly carried out by the government.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

Difference was Owens was sadly a victim of discrimination in this country. Turing broke the law and had to face the consequences. Breaking a law and getting punished =/= discrimination.

It does when the law is inherently discriminatory. Just because something is the law at one particular point in history doesn't mean that it can't also be discriminatory and morally objectionable.

A law is only discriminatory if what it aims to get rid of is something that can not be helped, or if the law is based on illogical assumptions or is otherwise based on racism or other discriminatory practices.
The law Turing broke was did not fall into any of the above categories.
There are laws in every country for the betterment of all that can be seen as discriminatory to certain people but are not because they stop behavior or actions that are to the detriment of the species. For instance there are laws in every country I assume against rapist behavior and against theft and against murder. Those laws can be seen as discriminatory to rapists, thieves, and murderers however because the laws in question are to stop behavior and actions that are to the detriment of others and to the species they are ok. The law Turing broke was in fact much the same way as it was designed purely from the perspective of stopping behavior that is detrimental to other people, society, and the species. And as already said he could have just chose not to break the law. He did. Ergo what happened to him was justified and was not in any way discriminatory. A law is a law and so long as it is not illogical or based in racism it should be upheld.

How exactly does sterilizing homosexuals help society?

 

[Amaror]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I remember that about France too. Part of it was revenge, part of it was their desire to prevent Germany from being able to build up a big enough military to threaten them again, hence all the military restrictions put into the deal. In France's defense, Germany had basically been invading them every couple decades or so for most of recent history, and the French did suffer horrible, unbelievable losses during the war. Literal mountains of corpses. But yeah.

Well, France had invaded Germany right back usually. The two countries pretty much hated each other and passed the same few provinces back and forth over and over again.
But this is again just one of the parts that shows how truly messy WW1 and WW2 truly were. The individual behaviour of the different countries was often, if not reasonable, at least somewhat understandable and it was mostly the combination of all those behaviours clashing with each other and happening in rapid sucession that caused things to get as f***ed up as they were. Both with WW1 and Versailes.

Edit: To avoid misunderstanding, I am not saying the actions of nazi germany were reasonable or understandable, I am mainly talking about all the mess before nazi germany.

 

[rcs619]

Difference was Owens was sadly a victim of discrimination in this country. Turing broke the law and had to face the consequences. Breaking a law and getting punished =/= discrimination.

It does when the law is inherently discriminatory. Just because something is the law at one particular point in history doesn't mean that it can't also be discriminatory and morally objectionable.

A law is only discriminatory if what it aims to get rid of is something that can not be helped, or if the law is based on illogical assumptions or is otherwise based on racism or other discriminatory practices.
The law Turing broke was did not fall into any of the above categories.

There are laws in every country for the betterment of all that can be seen as discriminatory to certain people but are not because they stop behavior or actions that are to the detriment of the species. For instance there are laws in every country I assume against rapist behavior and against theft and against murder. Those laws can be seen as discriminatory to rapists, thieves, and murderers however because the laws in question are to stop behavior and actions that are to the detriment of others and to the species they are ok. The law Turing broke was in fact much the same way as it was designed purely from the perspective of stopping behavior that is detrimental to other people, society, and the species. And as already said he could have just chose not to break the law. He did. Ergo what happened to him was justified and was not in any way discriminatory. A law is a law and so long as it is not illogical or based in racism it should be upheld.

How exactly does sterilizing homosexuals help society?

That's what I was going to ask. And not just sterilizing homosexuals, but putting them on a hormone treatment to specifically try and destroy their libido as well (which I'm sure does lovely things to a person's internal chemistry).

A law is only discriminatory if what it aims to get rid of is something that can not be helped

It was a law criminalizing homosexual behavior. Homosexuality isn't actually a choice, no more than heterosexuality. It's all about how stuff is wired in the brain and body-chemistry. Now, bisexuals, that's kindasorta a choice. They can't help that they are attracted to both sexes, but they can choose which one to be with at any given time.

or if the law is based on illogical assumptions or is otherwise based on racism or other discriminatory practices.

Assuming that homosexuals are such a danger to society/so wrong/so indecent that their behavior needs to be criminalized.

For instance there are laws in every country I assume against rapist behavior and against theft and against murder. Those laws can be seen as discriminatory to rapists, thieves, and murderers however because the laws in question are to stop behavior and actions that are to the detriment of others and to the species they are ok.

...Please tell me you aren't comparing homosexuality (and you know what, let's stick up for the bisexuals here too, since so few people do) to rape, murder or theft. That would be an excessively dumb argument to make.

The law Turing broke was in fact much the same way as it was designed purely from the perspective of stopping behavior that is detrimental to other people, society, and the species.

I'd love to hear the explanation for how the hell an intimate relationship (and maybe a bit of sex) between two consenting adults is ever going to detriment any other single person? Much less the species. To the point where it needs to be made a crime, and also to the point where chemical castration and forced hormone therapy is in any way a sane punishment.

And as already said he could have just chose not to break the law

Right. Just don't be gay. Or bisexual. Okay then

 

[rcs619]

Honestly that was an outcome to the case that should not have happened and probably would not have happened had Turing not done a lot during WW2.

Literally helped defeat the nazis, cut years off the war and saveed thousands of lives. Yeah, "a lot."

What should have happened and what would have happened to anyone not famous is a mandatory life in prison sentence or execution. That crime should have been treated the same as that of the most severe sexual crimes as that is essentially what Turing was guilty of.

Wow. Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow.

That'll teach people to be born with something that doesn't actually impact anyone else besides them and whoever they decide to share their bed with. I was giving you way, waaaaaaay too much benefit of the doubt. So we've already jumped to state-enforced executions?

Just to tie it all back, you know who else really loved the idea of imprisoning and executing all gay people? The goddamned nazis. Maybe, just maybe you might be on the wrong side of this issue, lol.

As to the original point of how it helps society it gets rid of genetic dead ends and people who will and have had an undesirable effect on the history and future of mankind. And that is not getting into the whole eliminating a large percentage of all rapists, molesters, and std carriers that that group of people just so happens to entail.

Alan Turing, as mentioned before, literally helped defeat the nazis. He is also considered the father of artificial-intelligence research, among a ton of other computer stuff I don't know much about. Such an undesirable effect.

Yes, because most gays and bisexuals are also rapists and child molesters too. I'm surprised you didn't fit bestiality in there somewhere.

As to the original point of how it helps society it gets rid of genetic dead ends

Oh lord. Please. Pleeeeeeease tell me you are also a supporter of eugenics as well. If you're using that kind of logic, you've got to be a support of eugenics in some form or another. Now I gotta know, lol.

I really hope you're trolling. Because if you aren't... man, I worry for ya.

 

[rcs619]

1. There is no proof that you are born gay. There is also no proof it is a choice..

Well, you could ask gay people (or bisexuals, since they would be just as dead under your ideal laws). Most of them sure don't feel like they ever had a choice. No more than you had a choice to (I assume) be attracted to women.

2. State enforced executions are ok depending on who gets executed and for what reasons.

Ehh... debatable. In the most extreme cases where you can be *100% sure* you got the right guy. Maybe. But that's a whole other debate.

3. Meh so the nazis did 1 thing good. Still does not stop the fact they were mass murdering racists. You know another group who are usually insanely wrong yet treat gays how they should be? Most muslim countries. Yet there are few people who would argue those countries are good.

Wow. Wooooooooooooooow.

So not only do you support a key tennant of nazism (the state-sponsored execution/imprisonment of groups you don't like for completely arbitrary reasons), but you also support extreme religious fundamentalism too (the treatment of gays by muslim fundamentalists goes back to the same religious tracts fundamentalist christians and jews use to justify the same).

4. Most generally are or at the least have the urge to be pedophiles, molesters, and rapists.

Major. Maaaaajor citation needed there. That's not the kind of blanket statement you can just claim as fact.

I look forward to hearing how you feel when someone you care about deeply turns out to be gay or bisexual. Statistically speaking, at least someone you know is. I'm sure they'd love to hear about how you think they should be executed

5. Yes I support eugenics.

He shoots, he scores! Man, you're a mess of terrible ideas.

So do you consider blowjobs and heterosexual anal to be worthy of a death-sentence too? Because technically those are also sodomy according to the (I'm assuming, so I could be wrong here) fundamentalist interpretation of religious texts that you probably subscribe to. You don't ever see fundies bring up blowjobs when they try to pass sodomy laws. Funny how that works out.

 

[GundamSentinel]

I look forward to hearing how you feel when someone you care about deeply turns out to be gay or bisexual. Statistically speaking, at least someone you know is. I'm sure they'd love to hear about how you think they should be executed

So do you consider blowjobs and heterosexual anal to be worthy of a death-sentence too? Because technically those are also sodomy according to the (I'm assuming, so I could be wrong here) fundamentalist interpretation of religious texts that you probably subscribe to. You don't ever see fundies bring up blowjobs when they try to pass sodomy laws. Funny how that works out.

1. Disown them. If my kid (assuming I ever have a kid which I wont because I hate children) I will go on either a hunting trip or deep sea fishing trip.

2. I have not brought up religion at all except in pointing out that the extreme muslim nations do something surprisingly right. My view here are not based on religion. As said the actions needed against gays are to help society, preserve, get rid of a lot of known and potential criminals and std carriers, help humanity, and get rid of genetic dead ends. My views espoused so far are from primarily the desire to better humanity no matter the cost no matter the means. In order for humanity to take the next step towards our maximum potential we need to do this for the betterment of all. And of course gays are not the only ones needing to go. Known insane people, drug addicts, rapists, people with debilitating genetic physical deformities all need to be expunged from the gene pool. And I say this as one of those aforementioned insane people. However I for the betterment of all future generations do not spread my inferior genetics around. Sadly though most of humanity does not have that level of self control and must either be killed or at the very least castrated for the betterment of future generations and to allow us a chance to reach our potential as a species.

Soooo, you basically are a nazi? Good to know.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Soooo, you basically are a nazi? Good to know.

Nazis discriminated due to race. I am not a racist. I even said what happened to Owens and African Americans was not justified and what the nazis did to jews was not justified. Ergo I'm not a nazi.

Nazis discriminated based on everything that didn't fit the 'master race', including homosexuals, mentally and physically disabled people, whatever. Racism was only a part of it. Not being racist, but still supporting eugenics in its most disgusting form still makes you a nazi, I'm afraid.