Dude, I wouldn't defend Hitler for having the right to publish Mein Kamp. At the end of the day, you've got to use your discretion as to who you're defending. And in your defense, are you merely attacking the attacker? If so, then you can expect a counter attack, and you are being a hypocrite.
I would defend Hitler's right to publish Mein Kampf. Unfortunately the Internet is forever and this could be taken the wrong way so I'm posting under a sockpuppet.
I agree. Regardless of its content, Mein Kampf is historically significant. For that reason alone, it should be published and kept in libraries so that historians, students and history buffs have access to it.
At the time he wrote it, if I ran a publishing house, I wouldn't have printed it. However, if I were a politician, I wouldn't have blocked it from being published.
Words on a page don't hurt people, people do. By all means, punish the people for their actions, but silencing them does nobody any good. They'll find a way to be heard anyways, and then all you've done is give them notoriety.
(I'm not using a sock puppet to post this -- if someone takes this the wrong way it's their own damned fault)
"However, if I were a politician, I wouldn't have blocked it from being published." Tell that to the 50 Million people that died as a result.
You couldn't have been a politician to block it unless you were a part of the Nazi party, or an opposition party who I think were outlawed anyway.
Thoughts lead to words lead to actions. If you sanction the words then you sanction the action to a great degree - especially when the this flow on effect is rapid. If you feel the strong should survive, then give them free reign, but to stand there in smug glee saying, "I let them publish Mein Kamp, but didn't do so myself" to me resembles the same evil as doing nothing in front of the cattle trucks as they were being loaded.
The difficulty is that at the time, you couldn't really speak out.. and if you did, you might join the rank and file of those destined for death. In this environment, people's souls are silenced and one can become spineless.
History is reoccuring, Iran is building nukes to take out Israel and eventually other non-Muslim countries who don't cower to Islamic ideals. Hiding this latter reality is what assists Iranian nuclear development. This freedom-for-all line of thinking says "Everything's hunky dory, as long as Israel has anti-ballistics, then it's fair game. As long as I can throw abuse back at you then great." But it is not the case that freedom is always 'good' and restriction is not, because evil must be ruthlessly exposed and curtailed for there to be any evolution, and for higher states of hapiness to be experienced.
My point is that Mein Kampf did not kill 50 million people; Hitler and his regime did. To argue causality between words and actions is to argue against free will of people, and therefore against personal responsibility.
"My point is that Mein Kampf did not kill 50 million people; Hitler and his regime did."
Yes it did. And not totally correct.
Mein Kampf represented the essence of the Nazis just as America's Bill of Rights relates to the USA. So too this board has its rules and the influence of its founder.
Banning a text that left unchecked will lead to mass murder and untold suffering throughout generations shows a huge expression of free will, and a pretty good use of it, if you may. Writing it shows next to none but rather a purging of one's hate and malice, with this internal line of thought then ready to be spread to the minds of others.
I hear you loud and clear. Look from a systemic viewpoint.
Texts in the hands of people can have a great power at influencing the behaviour of their readers. When the author and readers are strongly prone to certain thoughts and actions as a result of a particular book, then short of education, banning a text may be an effective thing to do to avert a particular reality from occurring that a text may propose.
The fact that books are inanimate objects makes censorship possible in this way, rather than putting someone in prison. Sometimes people lose their freewill and are drawn to books... and meglomaniacs.
