Monday, March 24, 2008

The Fool Cherniak

Jason Cherniak is very young and very silly.

I should prefer to leave him alone for these reasons, but the hysterical shrillness of his pubescent pieties has reached such a pitch that I'm finding it difficult to concentrate on other things.

So:

To your contention, Jason, that Kate McMillan "might be trying to let Nazis off for their disgusting ideological beliefs" because she said "The Nazis Didn't Carry Out The Holocaust. The German state did that"--can I please ask you to yank your pin-head out of your ass for a second and familiarize yourself with the concept of the banality of evil. Far from obviating the responsibility of the Nazis for the Holocaust, the theory goes rather further in implicating every single German in that crime who did not actively oppose the Nazi regime. This was Ms. McMillan's point and it is fully in keeping with mainstream analysis of the Holocaust. (Indeed, I'm trying to imagine what the likes of Primo Levi would think of you for suggesting that this is somehow a hateful idea. Very little, I suspect. He took a considerable antipathy for the Germans (as quite distinct from Nazis) with him to the grave for what he saw as their shrugging complicity in his suffering.)

And, Jason, did you really write this as a reply in your comments section: "... the Nazis used their personal freedoms to take over the state and use [sic] it [sic] take away the freedoms of others. That is even more obvious in Italy, where they never even got themselves elected a first time"?

Do you actually believe that anybody has the "personal freedom" to "take over the state"? This is so embarrassingly stupid, I'm shocked. The Nazis were criminals, Jason! It's the crime that's the problem, not the personal freedom! What the hell's wrong with you?!

For God's sake, take a break, Jason, learn your craft. You don't want to carry the label of "fool" into your dotage because of a couple of goofy thoughts you had when you didn't know any better. C'mon now. For your own sake.