Robert, with friends like you, the Jews don't need enemies.
Those whom I have met through Wikipedia, and whom I recognize to be Jews
have with only one single exception approched this class of topics with
remarkable discretion and sensitivity.
Robert wrote:
Ray's attacks on the Jews for not forgiving Nazis
is not
only off-topic, but outrageously hateful. Without any
exagerration, his argument comes directly from Neo-Nazi
websites. This is no joke. Please look at the many Nazi
websites on the Internet; they have precisely the same
argument Ray uses here.
Every mainstream Jewish organization has condemned this
specific argument as anti-Semitism.
I don't spend time on Neo-Nazi websites so I am not as familiar as
Robert with their tactics. I must believe him if he says that they use
the same argument.
I'm sure that those sites say a lot of other far more hateful things.
There is something fundamentally illogical in the argument that if an
evil organization employs one argument in the pursuit of its goals, than
anyone else who uses it must also be evil. I think that this is a case
of "post hoc, ergo propter hoc."
Forgiveness is about healing the victim, much more than about liberating
the criminal. A feeling of hatred and a lust for revenge causes far
more agony and sleepless nights for the person who feels them than for
the object of those feelings.
Ray writes:
but militant Jewish organizations continue to
insist
that the matter be continued in the criminal justice
system.
As opposed to gentiles, who don't enforce the laws of their
nations? In what country? On what planet?
You are putting the letter of the law above the spirit of the law. I am
suspicious of what people mean when they say "I want these criminals
brought to justice." More often they're after revenge.
These very
vocal and very public organizations manage
to promote a public image of Jews as completely
insensitive and unforgiving.
This is classical Chrisitian anti-Semitism, and has been
used for over 2,000 years to explain why all Jews will burn
in hell. It also paints the victim as evil for the "sin" of
asking that justice be served.
Is it really anti-semitism to be severely critical of those minority
elements in the Jewish community who bring the whole community into
disrepute. I have not introduced the issue of Jews burning in hell; you
have. If the bulk of Jews allowed themselves to identify with the
compulsively masochistic victimization that you propose their lot would
be far more difficult than it is now. If I could ever bring myself to
believe in Christian fairy stories, I'm sure that the judgement that
results in anyone being condemned to hell would not be left in the hands
of the believers.
The same can be
said of the Nazi hunters who continue to
seek punishment on old men 60 years after the fact,
often at great expense.
There is no time-limit on mass murder and genocide. Members
of my own family were exterminated by the Germans. Why
should people be allowed to get away with rape, slavery and
murder, just because they were lucky enough to evade the
legal authorities at the time? That is a highly immoral
position.
So what difference does it make that members of your own family were
among the exterminated? If 10 happened to be members of your family,
how different is their situation from that of the other 5,999,990? How
does it earn you a spot at the top of the heap?
Perhaps my sense of justice is different from yours. It is not based on
a need for revenge or punishment, but on integrating these perpetrators
back into normal life, and perhaps having them contribute within their
individual capacity to the improvement of the lot of others. Ann Frank
did not become a role model by hating the Nazis. The Truth and
Reconciliation process in post-apartheid South Africa is far superior to
an endless series of war-crime tribunals.
There comes a
time when these events need to be put
behind us so that everyone can go on with life.
So it would be Ok, if someone here raped and murdered your
mother, raped and killed your sister, and killed your
father and son, and burnt all their bodies in an oven? And
then did this to most of your extended family? You'd
actually argue in public that someone who did such a thing
should be allowed to get away with it, if they evaded the
authorities at the time and lived as a free man until he
was 60?
I don't need to personalize the question by speculating how things would
be if my relatives were the victims.
Sixty years after the fact the stragglers are much older than sixty.
Most of them left the Nazi lifestyle shortly after the war, and likely
went on to get married, have children, and otherwise live normal
productive lives. That's perhaps the most that we can demand out of
justice. Continued persecution also affects the liives of others who
had nothing to do with the events in the camps; it just widens the
circle of hatred. The ones that are left were among the youngest at the
time; their education was gained in the Nazi era when an alternative
morality might not have been available. The young prison guards were as
much victims of their circumstances as the people whom they helped to
kill. It's all part of the military mentality, which recent events at
Abu Ghraib have proven to be still alive and well.
If so, then you are a sick man who needs mental
help, immediately. If not, then you have an anti-Semitic
double standard.
It's hard to respond when you have so clearly run out of coherent arguments.
I am disgusted at this pro-Nazi, openly anti-Semitic
vitriol. I am just wondering if anyone here will have the
guts to oppose this violent hatespeech.
If Dante had been Jewish he would have found you a proper spot in Gehenna.
I am well aware of and support the distinction that Steven made between
personal attacks and hate speech. If in this I have inadvertently
stepped into the latter, I trust that the majority will accept my
apologies for such errors.
Ray