Tophat665

<b>Stare At The Sun</b>, first off, thanks. Somebody had to do this.

My personal belief is that there are some things that Hitler did well, but not much he did good. What good he did do seems to be an unintended consequence: without Hitler, the US does not become a superpower in the late 40's, and African and Asian independance movements are also set back about 10 years. We don't get Einstein, Goddard, or Von Braun.

I don't know if what you cite as his good accomplishments really are all that good, though. Yes, he took a depressed and fragmented nation in hand and made it vigorous (in the short term with massive deficit spending - there are lots of valid comparisons to be made between Hitler and contemporary leaders) , but he did it at the expense of crushing its nascent and faltering democracy. If that's good, it's only good in that it prevented the communists from doing the same.

Now, like everyone else, I'd really like to know how you figure the genocide death toll was significantly less than 6 million. Sounds like what generally gets called historical revisionism to me. On the other hand, you seem to be accusing the folks who generally level this accusation of the same, which is rich. Don't know if I buy it, though.

Son of Bush is nowhere near that successful, terrifying, effective, charismatic, or intelligent. Nor does he have any generals on par with Subotai. Now Tammerlane: there's a valid comparison to make. But I'll leave it there.

Stipulated

Those are your weakest arguments. I am glad that I have America to live in; I don't exist in a world where it isn't colonized by Europeans, but I still can't help but wonder at the genocide that went on here. I mean, between the diseases, the exploitation, and the outright slaughter, what Europeans as a people did to the Indians is like Stalin, Pol Pot, and Hitler all rolled up into one and multiplied many times. (In fact, what Europeans did to the Indians is very much like what the Paleo-Indians did to most large game species in the Americas - except that game species aren't people.) And war is part of history, but so is rampant disease, oppression of women, and human sacrifice. That something is part of history is usually a better argument for discarding it that excusing it.

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