--- Rob gamaliel8@yahoo.com wrote: On 8/25/05, Haukur Þorgeirsson haukurth@hi.is wrote:
Nazis should be banned not just because they are a particularly nasty form of human virus, but because they will inevitably interfere with our goals.
Nazis are individual human beings. A sentient person will not 'inevitably' behave badly on Wikipedia because she belongs to a particular sect or adheres to a particular ideology.
And please choose your metaphors with more care. The idea of a human virus is familiar and somewhat unpleasant.
The purpose of National Socialism, according to Hitler, was to "maintain the life of Germany." He called Germany a "corporate body," a "single organism" that consisted of the German people as cells of this organism. The Jewish people also constituted cells of the national organism. These cells, however, made no contribution to the life of Germany. Rather, as bacteria, viruses and parasites, they lived and fed off the body politic, draining the nation of its energy and capacity to exist. ... On the evening of February 22, 1942, Hitler met with Himmler and a Danish SS major and expounded his conviction that the "discovery of the Jewish virus" was one of the "greatest revolutions that has taken place in the world." The battle in which the Nazis were engaged, he said, was of the "same sort as the battle waged, during the last century, by Pasteur and Koch." How many diseases, he declared, have their origin in the Jewish virus! "We shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jew." - http://tinyurl.com/cn5zg
Regards, Haukur
Well said, Haukur. Recognition of individuality, even in the face of extreme challenge, is the primary key to retaining the moral high ground over all Nazi and Nazi-like groups.
And further, if we adopt Nazi ideas and tactics*, in doing so, we also adopt their morals.
*(demonization of groups, pre-banning, and expelling them from our realm based on beliefs rather than behavior)