University of Colorado Professor fired over Essay comparing 9-11 victims to Nazis

being a tax payer is hardly the same as planning events and seeing their execution (no pun intended).

I get what you are trying to say, but the amount of DIRECT relationship is completely different.

 

A cog, however small, is still a cog.

If the logic applies to one, it applies to all. You can't have it both ways.

Whether you schedule the trains to Auschwitz or whether you pay for one Israeli soldier's bullet lodged in some Arab child's brain, when it comes time for vengeance, either you're guilty, or you're not.

I don't expect you to understand. That's what this thread is all about, isn't it? Most of us would find the logic disgustingly offensive, but what's sad is the inability to face cold logic you (nor the University of Colorado for that matter) don't dare to admit.

 

I see no logic, other than a rationalization for finding an outlet for your rage. The argument that Hitler and the Pope (because of his experience in the Hitler Youth) are both equaly guilty cogs is just stupid.

I understand your logic perfectly and reject it as pedantic and empty of value when universally applied. Following your logic it is OK for Israel to blow the crap out of Palestinian children and old ladies, because they are all cogs in the terrorist machine, helping provide cover and so forth. Do you support that logic, or does your 'wisdom' only work when it is self-serving?

 

Expected better from you, btw.

FYI, "collective guilt", the same logic which is used by terrorists today to justify their attacks, was a concept which was most recently popularized by, of all people, Americans, whether being applied to slavery or the Holocaust. By merely discussing it (and not even saying i support it - which i don't), I guess that makes me a Nazi... Please read post before flaming.

If you still need further education on this issue, I recommend you actually READ Ward Churchill's essay, which though somewhat misdirected and politically unwise, actually makes quite a number of interesting points.

 

Glad to disappoint you.

The idea that you have more education on this issue is a vanity. Perhaps I disagree with you *gasp* because I understand the situation and firmly believe that you are wrong.

I have read it and reject it as not being uinversally applied, just as with your statements. I thought your 'interesting points' were intellectual smoke and mirrors - cognative onanism. Also my comments are specifically a response to your comments:

Instead of 'merely discussing it' you endorse it as a logical point of view. If you wish to back away from that endorsement, I applaud you for having some sense.

Eichmann directly located Jews, created and maintained camps, and ordered SS people to send them to gas chambers. He bears direct responsibility. The average German who just looked the other way may have some kind of guilt but it is not in any way the same and we did not treat them thusly. My guess is that you know nothing really about Eichmann and buy into the grossly inaccurate depiction of him as just an ordinary official. Perhaps you should do some research in this regard.

Eichmann was executed by Israel because his direct actions and decisions resulted in millions of deaths. If he was an equal cog, then Hitler was an equal cog. You can create some logically consistent house of cards to make that position, but that is all it will be - a house of cards, devoid of meaning.

 

arguments by analogy are typically weak, in general. especially when you are talking about one individual contributing a fraction of a cent (in terms of tax) to a man who was orchestrating genocide.

 

a imposed tax no less. Taxes are collected whether you like it or not (given a legit business), and once collected you have no direct control of what that money is actually going to.

 

Why do you initiate personal attacks with every post?

The logic is precisely as you described. Either the Pope was a Nazi, or he was not. Either America and American taxpayers support Israel, or they do not.

As for this guilty-by-degree ("equally guilty") stuff which you're championing here... It is PRECISELY the same logic that got Ward Churchill fired?

My stance has always been that all our actions result from upbringing and education and the system of beliefs and institutions we're brought up in. We make decisions and must pay for them. But I simply would like the world to understand the system first before we condemn the man.

I want the world to understand that I as an American, strongly detest our support of Israel and our Middle East policy and will vote against any president that wants to stay in Iraq, and hence I do not deserve the "collective guilt" and "collective punishment" handed out by Al Qaeda, even though I pay my taxes. In the same way, I have to be consistent morally, and say well... not all Nazis were bad people.

On the other hand, if I did agree to the hanging of Eichmann and to the concept of collective guilt, then I have to agree that the terrorist DO have a right to bomb the crap out of me, since I am a cog in the (montrous-to-Arabs) machine.

The logic (i.e. the concept of collective guilt to which I'm opposed) might appear "pedantic and empty of value" to you, but it is apparently powerful enough to spur terrorism and war. Safe to say, I think it's worth examining.

At the end of the day, if you subscribe to the concept of "justice", and to the concept of "shades of guilt", then it is imperative to understand that "vengeance" is the flip side of "justice", and the extent of one's vengeance is only governed, unfortunately, by the magnitude of the hatred burning in the avenger. I'd prefer NOT to die as a "Little Eichmann" in a burning skyscraper, thank you very much.

 

At the end of the day, I think you and I actually have a pretty similar stand on this issue. We must have started on the wrong foot. Please accept my apologies for appearing condescending.

 

nevermind.

Let’s drop the argument.

I apologize if I offended you. The idea of collective punishment is something that is upsetting and abhorrent to me and this came out in my posts.

 

I think you're stretching the "logic" here.

Isn't Ward Churchill a taxpayer too?

Are all American voters supposed to possess perfect knowledge of US foreign policy?

So if you support Israel or Gulf War 1 then you're pro-genocide?

 

How would an American prevent him or herself from being an Eichman then?

Stop paying taxes and go to jail as some sort of political dissenter/martyr?

I kind of get your logic, but the real world doesn't quite work that way.

I also think you might want to check Ward Churchill on wiki. The guy is very much a fake - political beliefs aside. I'm not saying that discredits everything he says, but terminating employment of someone who pretended to be a minority to receive affirmative action consideration is okay by my book.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=EN0ZxytJ1G4

 

not only that, but most of taxes are used for things like paying off debt, medicare, etc. We don't have the power as individuals to stop what our gov't does....and attacking us isn't going to do anything but strengthen the rationale for what the gov't does.

Comparing people to eichman's is just strange to me. It's just a bad analogy. Why not just say every person in the world has the blood of thier leaders on their hands, then by that token, everyone should be killed. That's really what's being said here.

 

I know it sounds strange. But it's not really a bad analogy. We are all cogs in this mighty machine called America. An America that has earned many many enemies. Once you subscribe to the idea of collective guilt (which by and large has become mainstream since the 1960s with Holocaust reparations, affirmative action, etc. etc.), then you must be able to see the collective punishment/justice which is the flip side of collective guilt. Who determines how small of a cog we can extend the punishment down to? It is not you or I. It is the terrorist who wants justice. And the extent HE will extend that punishment is going only to depend on how passionate he feels for his cause (in other words, the depth of his hatred). If you supported a country oppressing his countrymen, he might throw a rock at you. If you paid to kill his daughter, it can only be expected that he'll do a lot more than throw a rock.

On 9/11, thousands of little cogs in the mighty US machine that has almost single-handedly sponsored the oppression, murder, and exile of an entire Arab nation for the past 50 years, came face to face with that hatred, and that "collective punishment".

Though I strongly disagreed with the entire approach taken, it was hardly surprising. It was a matter of time before the Arabs struck back. You cannot expect a people to sit idly by while your country and your allies continuously occupy and oppress them. Remember the American Revolution?

 

So I assume you have no problem with American forces killing innocent Iraqis either. Any Iraqi citizen, by virtue of being born in Iraq, was partly responsible for Saddam's heinous actions too? Likewise, any American is fair game too? Any Chinese can be justifiably killed because of Tibet?

 

I'll never understand why it isn't ok to fire someone if they're hurting the bottom line. He cast a bad public light on the University of Colorado, I'm sure it affected them negatively in some areas like enrollment and endowments. If an employee is hurting the bottom line, why shouldn't its employer be allowed to fire him? If they're firing him for that, I don't have a problem with it. if they're firing him because they disagree with his opinion, then I'd have more of a problem with that.

I also think some coleges should do more due diligence on prospective professors. I've had some professors in college that made me wonder how the heck a college would even think of hiring them. I'm sure Ward had something in his past that indicated he would hold those kinds fo opinions.

 

So a college is supposed to hire only the 'non-controversial' ones?

All the more reason why the existing system is the way it is...

 

no they can hire any controversial figure they want, but if they're firing him because of that same controversey, then I have a problem with that. If you hire Don Imus, and then he makes a remark about black people's hair, it wouldn't be right to fire him based on that given that you should already know what you're getting.

So hire the controversial ones, just don't fire them for being controversial.

 

Hi Langal, I personally disagree with the entire concept of "collective guilt" and "collective punishment". Just so we can get that out of the way.

But that's not the argument here. The disagreement should be whether Ward should get in trouble by extending the concept of "collective guilt" to the victims of 9/11.

Again, whether I personally like a situation (Arabs want to kill me because my country supports Israel), should not affect my ability to understand the Arab's motives.

It's like you run a guy's kid over with your car, and then you vehemently deny the legitimacy or even the possibility of the guy wanting to kill you. Yes you might disagree with his response, but you should be able to at least understand and anticipate the response. Right or wrong has nothing to do with it.

 

They're not firing him for being controversial they are firing him for plagarism.