You can put me on ignore, I really don't care. But you've become Colbert to me. (I honestly can't tell which of your posts are 'real' and which are 'comedy'. But they all make me laugh in this thread.) But there is no reason to try to persuade someone that is arguing: 1) All he said was that they were all pragmatic-- not one word about their heart or soul, 2) If Sowell thinks Obama is headed towards a totalitarian end, it is his professional obligation to argue that point. 3) See, I had no conjecture. It was not my article. I just pointed out that the "comparison" was just one-dimensional and very shallow. With that you cannot argue. You know as well as everyone on this board, any comparison (even if it is based on height or hair color) to Hitler, Stalin, and Hiss is not shallow. Those names weigh far too much and bring too much connotation. What are you even trying to argue at this point? It is completely over my head. These Sowell/Obama comparisons that I cited were to show how biased Sowell is, for background information on the original post. Sowell is not an idiot, he and you both know what he was doing with the comparison. (as I had previously typed, his wiki page is impressive as hell.)
It appears that OddsOn pulled a Basso hit and run. Post an article, reply to a select few responses, avoid civil debate and then ignore thread. Giddyup, As a person of jewish descent, I find it offensive when anybody is wrongly compared to Hitler. If you want to make/defend that comparison to say... the president of Sudan, then I could see that. This is getting ridiculous. Do opponents of Obama need to keep using extreme keywords to rile up their base (ie Socialist, pals around with terrorists, fascist, Hitler, Stalin, taking your guns, etc.)? Just because someone is seen as pragmatic does not justify such horrific language. With that being said, you're free to make your point to defend Sowell. If you really feel that way, then I feel sorry for you.
So let me get this straight.... Saturday, and well before that, we saw Obama being called a socialist and a Nazi and people comparing him to Hitler because he's a RADICAL. Here we have giddy claiming it's because he's a PRAGMATIST, just like Stalin and Hitler. How is it possible that two different views of a person can come to the same comparison/conclusion?
Whenever someone asks me the definition of 'pragmatic,' I just tell them 'remember Hitler?' You should see their faces. They get the idea really quickly and realized it didn't mean what they thought it did. It's effective. I have to side w/ giddyup here.
I don't see how you could more direct in regard to criticism than citing Hitler and Stalin as an example. You say he is making a rather tame criticism yet you yourself acknowledge that Sowell is attacking Obama on the grounds that he is heading towards Totalitarianism. You yourself are undercutting the point that this was an innocent or tame comparison since you acknowledge the inflammatory nature of the comparison.
I love it. The progression is quite remarkable over the past year 2008: Charismatic = "The one" 3/2009: Intelligent = Jimmy Carter 6/2009: Reaching out to Islam = Bin Laden 8/2009: Speech to children = Mao 9/2009: Pragmatic Reformist = Hitler Awesome. Obama has been labeled by the conservative movement to be a socialistic communistic nazi who palls around with terrorists and is too smart like Jimmy Carter and thinks he's god. Wow, he's like the anti-Christ! He's the worst of every leader ever. Next thing you know, they will call him Bush!!! haha
Thank you. Thank you. My daughter came and woke me up at 12:52 AM with nightmares about a spider--- like the one I had killed in her room at bedtime. I couldn't go back to sleep. If you'll notice the time stamps Batman, deckard and I were all awake and posting at that hour.
I think the comparison was a political one not a criminal one. Those are two of the worst human beings that were ever born, but can't we talk about them without having their horrible crimes overshadow everything else about them?
No we can't, so why even bring them up? They are brought up for one reason: to associate the attacked politician (be it Bush, Obama, or Perry) with the horrible crimes that overshadow everything. If you want to talk theoretically about the systems that eventually let these two sociopaths (Stalin, Hitler) come to immense power, there are much better figures to study. But again, that would take more than a 30 second analysis, hardly available in between cans of coors light on the way to the tea bagging.
Not sure what you are saying... we can't talk about them apart from their crimes? Why not? That doesn't seem very enlightened.
Obviously this is political and not criminal. Unless you know otherwise I'm not aware of anyone trying to make a criminal case out of any of this. As far as talking about whether we talk about them without their horrible crimes overshadow them well you have to think about the political context of what we are discussing and even then given that Hitler and Stalin were known for their crimes. Consider would it be a completely innocent comparison for me to say that GW Bush like Hitler had both given up drinking alcohal? You know this yourself otherwise you wouldn't have stated that Sowell was making a critical argument and chose those comparisons or that you recognized that they were inflammatory and he could've chosen other examples. The points you bring up undercut any argument that these wee innocent or tame comparisons.
The gift that keeps on giving. Appreciate the lunchtime chuckle, I confess your previous couple comments didn't make me laugh, but this one did. Thanks, mate!
Regardless of everything these men did before they were in power, Stalin and Hitler are defined by the crimes they committed simply because those crimes were so horrific. Millions upon millions of people were slaughtered simply because these "leaders" wanted them dead. If you compare anyone short of Che Guevara or Pol Pot to these men, you are comparing to the absolute worst of humanity. There is no context, no "enlightened" discussion that can happen when someone is being compared to Hitler or Stalin. When you bring someone up in the same breath with these two men as a point of comparison, you are saying that the one being compared should be considered among the worst people ever to inhabit this planet. I didn't agree with it when people compared Bush to Hitler and I don't agree with it now. The only people in today's world who could reasonably be compared to these men would be the ones urging and backing genocide in Somalia or the ones who fanned the flames of the Hutu-Tutsi conflicts in Rwanda. If you can't see that, then you have put the blinders on, giddy.
Don't be stupid. No, we can't. When Hitler gets thrown out into the public forum, is the first thing you think about is the fact that he's a pragmatist? No, the first thing anyone thinks about is genocide, and crimes. They aren't thinking the guy was a failed art student, or a pragmatist. Unless it's an in depth study of them we aren't going to talk about their other characteristics until after we've dealt with the genocide and crimes first. Seriously, if there is a crowd of 1000 people, and someone throws out the name Hitler, do you honestly believe the first thing those people will think about is pragmatism?
