or when someone makes a simple, non-offensive analogy in a post and in return the OP claims he is making light of the holocaust to win an argument

Just to expand before Obi attacks me personally. We were having discussion about a literary 'genocide' that I claimed might not have been a genocide because clues from the book. Obi responded with a Holocaust reference, namely, the holocaust did not kill all the jews but still its a Genocide. I simply responded that the analogy was wrong and instead the correct analogy was that the WTC attacks, although horrible, wouldn't be seen as a genocide just because everyone (most) inside were American.

This is what I got

____________________________

"Was the World Trade Center a Genocide because 1000+ Americans were killed?"

I'd say that was the stupidest and most insulting thing you've ever typed here...

But then, once you've openly condoned genocide, hard to top that.

You are REALLY going to go that route?

NO, 1,000 doesn't = 6,000,000...

But hey! Guess what, Historian SC?

THE WTC ATTACKS DIDN'T NEARLY WIPE OUT THE AMERICAN POPULATION!
IT DIDN'T NEARLY DESTROY A WHOLE LANGUAGE!
IT DESTROY MORE THAT 50% OF THE TOTAL AMERICAN POPULATION!

It's an insult to the victims of the Holocaust to DARE make such an analogy to try and justify your own bigoted genocidal rants...

And it's an insult to the memory of the WTC victims to shamelessly use them in a false dichotomy you KNOW is false.

_____________________________________

So basically I am insulting Holocaust victims memories (along with my Great Grandparents and countless aunts and uncles) because I disagree with Obi and read a bible passage differently.

If you don't want these idiots to use the name of the holocaust lightly, perhaps you shouldn't throw it around in an attempt to win an argument on an internet forum, let alone make yourself the supreme arbiter of when the holocaust can and cannot be used.


In the end however, these people are idiots and its not worth paying attention to them. Their invocation of the holocaust does much more harm to their cause than good.

and by the way when I mentioned my family contains many holocaust survivors and victims and I was offended with the remarks, I was told "not to pull the background card"

If the question of this thread is whether the holocaust should be use trivially the answer is right on. But I hope the OP takes that to heart.

Not that he will seriously consider any of this...

1 Samuel 15:3-8...

15:3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
15:4 And Saul gathered the people together, and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah.
15:5 And Saul came to a city of Amalek, and laid wait in the valley.
15:6 And Saul said unto the Kenites, Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them: for ye shewed kindness to all the children of Israel, when they came up out of Egypt. So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites.
15:7 And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to Shur, that is over against Egypt.
15:8 And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword



Sorry...how do YOU read that, SC, when the text itself says God instructed him to kill everyone, man, woman, and child, and that that Saul did so and--to quote again here--"utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword."

How do YOU read that, Santa?

Please, please share, before you go any further with your argument, since you were so keen on dragging this up again...

Tell me--when the the text ITSELF says he killed--let me quote it again to be perfectly clear here, so we have no ambiguity--"utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword," ALL THE PEOPLE...

How do you read that, Santa, hm? How does that NOT come across as genocide to you?

To drag up another of my favorite little quotes from this gory section...

"Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."

1 Samuel 15:3.

How do you read that, Santa, how is that NOT a call for genocide when it is ordered to kill "both man and woman, infant and suckling," and to kill them ALL?

Hm?

Answer us that before you go any further...please.

I explained it before, go back to the old thread, as you are wont to say, I don't want a 60 post bickering section with you. I layed out my argument clearly in the last thread, go at it.

If you REALLY want me to, and you can't or won't read it yourself I can paste the relevant parts.

but again, this isn't about that argument, it is about you invoking the holocaust readily merely to shame me and my position in the argument, and willfully or otherwise reading some imagined insult to holocaust survivors in my response.

Your argument, if I recall, consisted of pointing out that after this a few Amalekites were still around and/or attacked, to which I responded that just because a few survived didn't mean that a genocide still didn't occur and that, even if we took your explanation at its most generous and said that "only" a section of the Amalekites were destroyed--this being a tribal war and there being no more Amalekites it's still possible that could count as a genocide, but anyway--that we'd still have to somehow find an excuse for killing the old and the sick and children and babies...for which there IS no excuse, EVER.

But, again, you're right, this isn't about THAT argument...

That's why you brought it up and quoted it directly. Of course.

And as you yourself admit that this has nothing to do with the thread in question other than the fact I referenced the Holocaust in relation to the genocide in 1 Samuel...

That's referencing one genocide (The Holocaust) in relation to another (the events of 1 Samuel.)

It being a perverse object to try and "qualify" which genocides are/were "Worse," I think that Genocide = Genocide is a fair enough comparison, ergo, my comparing one genocide and asking how you can be so callous about one and point out how that would not fly at all with another is, I think, on point.

You need 1 Samuel NOT to be a genocide for that to be the case...

You simply cannot swing that argument, we know that tribes such as the Hittites that were mentioned in the OT DID in fact survive for some time, and have left artifacts, but the Amalekites did not and have not, and so both the textual as well as the circumstantial historical and anthropological evidence supports the claim of genocide, overwhelmingly...

The degree of genocide--all the Amalekites or "just" a great, great many of them--is the only point of debate in that discussion.



But, as you say, that's not relevant to THIS discussion...which, again, is why you brought it up and quoted it and then bemoaned the fact that I think your attitude towards genocide is in fact very shameful and, as a Jew as Jewish as you, yes, I maintain that belittling any genocide is an insult to the survivors of all genocides...including the Holocaust.

"Your argument, if I recall, consisted of pointing out that after this a few Amalekites were still around and/or attacked, to which I responded that just because a few survived didn't mean that a genocide still didn't occur and that, even if we took your explanation at its most generous and said that "only" a section of the Amalekites were destroyed"

There were entire armies of Amalakites left, so I said only a small portion, a city perhaps (as mentioned in the text) was destroyed, hence the 9/11 analogy, but munich or dresden or hiroshima would have been more apt, either way. I showed a completely believable scenario where god only wanted a limited portion of amalakites killed, albeit pretty thoroughly. But THIS is neither here nor there. I brought it up, of course, to give context to your holocaust rants, which are both here and there (so to speak.)

"It being a perverse object to try and "qualify" which genocides are/were "Worse," I think that Genocide = Genocide is a fair enough comparison, ergo, my comparing one genocide and asking how you can be so callous about one and point out how that would not fly at all with another is, I think, on point."

Or, the point i was making, that one wasn't even a genocide, like 9/11 wasn't a genocide of Americans and Dresden wasn't a genocide of Germans. When the city of Amalek was dstroyed, that does not equate to the genocide of Amalakites who continued to live on in large numbers even though god's mission was supposedly completed...

"
But, as you say, that's not relevant to THIS discussion...which, again, is why you brought it up and quoted it and then bemoaned the fact that I think your attitude towards genocide is in fact very shameful and, as a Jew as Jewish as you, yes, I maintain that belittling any genocide is an insult to the survivors of all genocides...including the Holocaust. "

And this is where I say you are a pompous ass, devoid of any historical understanding and willing to make the nastiest of assertions of someone who has a legitimate point, ie. 1700 bc. is not 1945, a tribal struggle is not an industrialized planned slaughter, and words in a book are not the same as reality.

What is all too real is you claiming that I personally am disrespecting my own dead great grandparents and you should be absolutely ashamed of yourself.

But you won't be, because you are Obi.

Genocide is genocide.

I don't care if it's 1700 BC or 1945 BC.

Genocide is genocide, and infanticide is infanticide...

Human beings KNOW BETTER THAN THAT...IN *ANY* TIME PERIOD.

What's more, we certainly know that NOW, so the idea that you can claim to hold the Amalekite Genocide up as a moral action in a moral book issued by a moral God while claiming to be opposed to genocide is laughable...or would be if genocide were a laughing matter, which it's not. At all. It's a tragedy and an unspeakable crime.

In any era, no matter who the perpetrators are.

And I maintain my point:

If you are OK with genocide, in any capacity, then you disrespect all those who have suffered in one by allowing the sort of callous mentality that breeds and allows for genocide to continue...

I naturally sympathize with your having had loved ones endangered by the Nazis--again, my grandfather wasn't in a camp, but DID have people shooting at him as he fought to shell Munich, I think that counts at least in terms of having Jewish grandfather who had to face the terror of the Nazis, to say nothing of the Russo-Polish side of my family that left following the pogroms in THAT part of the world--but sympathizing with a grandfather's plight doesn't make your point valid.

As for your 9/11 analogy...

It falls flat--sure, when there are 300 million, one part of one city in America being hit isn't a genocide...

But when a city is ALL your territory--there's a reason this era was one of city-states--and it states that said era was sacked, and that this God said to kill ALL the people of this ethnicity...

Sorry, that's more than a 9/11.

At "best" that's one Native American tribe being slaughtered while others are OK, but for that tribe, still, it's genocide...it'd be absurd to say that, if the Sioux were all killed in a genocide, that it was not genocide because the Creek and Cherokee and Iroquois all still existed...

The "Sioux Genocide" would still be very real.

And that's the BEST case scenario with the Amalekites, the worst being if I'm completely right and it was all of them.

"But THIS is neither here nor there. I brought it up, of course, to give context to your holocaust rants, which are both here and there (so to speak.)"

I don't use equate the Holocaust to every little thing...

I don't equate it to an opinion allegedly being silenced...

I equate it to what I see as genocide.

Genocide = genocide.

I have AT LEAST as much evidence to support a genocide claim (and I'd argue far more textual evidence than you, but at least as much as you) as you do to argue against it...

So I AM equating a genocide with a genocide, and thus not treating the matter lightly, not am I trivializing it by equating it to something not proportional.

Again, genocide = genocide, so the Amalekite Genocide = the Cambodian Genocide = the Armenian Genocide = The Holocaust = the Kurdish Genocide and so on.

Genocide = genocide, genocide =/= every little piddling problem.

I am very consistent in how I apply it.

"I naturally sympathize with your having had loved ones endangered by the Nazis--again, my grandfather wasn't in a camp, but DID have people shooting at him as he fought to shell Munich, I think that counts at least in terms of having Jewish grandfather who had to face the terror of the Nazis, to say nothing of the Russo-Polish side of my family that left following the pogroms in THAT part of the world--but sympathizing with a grandfather's plight doesn't make your point valid."

This isn't about whose family suffered more, this is about YOU claiming I insulted the memories of my own murdered family and you remain defiant. I don't give a fuck about your family. I never claimed that you were soiling their memory.

And how are you claiming all killing of civilians is wrong when you readily and proudly acknowledge several times already that your grandfather shelled munich. Just don't get it.

"But when a city is ALL your territory--there's a reason this era was one of city-states--and it states that said era was sacked, and that this God said to kill ALL the people of this ethnicity..."

You don't know that, and the text says otherwise. It also isn't greek and the area was yet to be Hellenized. So again, you have no fucking idea, not nearly enough to claim that someone is insulting the memory of his murdered great grandparents.

"I have AT LEAST as much evidence to support a genocide claim (and I'd argue far more textual evidence than you, but at least as much as you) as you do to argue against it..."

Yet although we have the same amount of proof, I am insulting the memory of my dead grandparents. Even though I might be just as right as you. Please elaborate

or perhaps you are just trying to 'draw the comparison, and appropriate the Worst Crime in Human History for YOUR own political (anti-religious) ends...'

"And how are you claiming all killing of civilians is wrong when you readily and proudly acknowledge several times already that your grandfather shelled munich. Just don't get it."

I said genocide is wrong, sir.
That was my statement.
Killing of civilians is wrong, I agree.
I'm not touting that.
I'm touting shelling enemy, Nazi soldiers and personnel and the destruction of Nazi HQs.
NOT civilians.
I'm not hopping up and down shouting how great it is civilians likely died in the shelling.
I agree, that was wrong and unfortunate.
I AM proud that they destroyed Nazi HQ.

That's all I'm saying there.

That, and that, again, my statement was genocide was always wrong, and as you've been so keen to point out, in 1945, one city does not a genocide make.

As for my claim...yes, I stand by it--

If you support any genocide, at all, whatsoever, you dishonor the memories of those who have died in genocides.

No Jew in Auschwitz would be proud of your standing by or attempting to justify ANY past genocide...more than anyone, the unfortunate victims of genocide know that it is ALWAYS wrong and NEVER to be condoned, at all, in ANY capacity.

"You don't know that, and the text says otherwise. It also isn't greek and the area was yet to be Hellenized."

There were city-states outside the Hellenistic world...if there's another term you'd prefer I use for the non-Hellenistic world for a city-state-like entity, please, let me know.

"Yet although we have the same amount of proof, I am insulting the memory of my dead grandparents. Even though I might be just as right as you. Please elaborate"

For the record, I still say I have more, as the text says ALL Amalekites, and text saying this was done, and thus a text that states unequivocally this was what was done, whereas you rely on an instance of an Amalekite outside of that story showing up, and from THAT draw the conclusion that despite my passage clearly stating that all were subject to this wrath, you interpret this to simply be all in one "city-state"/whatever word you prefer.

That MAY have been the case, but that's up for interpretation, and relies on it, whereas I have no need for interpretation, as I have it saying "ALL" for me, over and over again, and don't need conjecture to formulate my idea, and just take what the text says.

In essence, my theory is entirely based on textual statement, whereas yours relies on selected textual statements and interpretation as well as conjecture.

You may be right, for all I know...that being said, I again state that TEXTUALLY (just on the basis of the text and nothing else, no extra conjecture and ifs/maybes/perhapses etc., JUST on what the text says) I have more evidence for my claim of genocide or intended genocide than you do for your "It was only one small section a la 9/11" claim.

But even if I DID allow that we have the same amount of proof...

I have elaborated:

If you condone genocide, at all, in any form, even condoning it in the Bible (especially if you take it as truth, as you say you do) that is an insult to those who died in real-life genocides, including the Holocaust.

Again, genocide is NEVER OK, and to say that it is under certain circumstances fuels those who commit genocide, because those who commit it ALWAYS think the same thought, ie, "Well, sure, normally genocide is wrong, but in THIS case it's justified..."

Same as those people I've met who said yes, if they existed today and God told them to, they'd start brutally killing Amalekite men, women, and children TODAY, on command...

If your stance is "Well, if God says this genocide"--or even infanticide, if you REALLY want to reject that genocide card, though I maintain my argument for that being the textual case--"is justified, then I guess it is...and if God says to commit such a genocide again today, well, who am *I* to question God?" you are no better than all those who have used just such an injunction to allow genocide to occur again and again, as that's the very mindset that allows it to occur, and I maintain you should be ashamed for holding that mindset AT ALL in the 21st century, but especially given the history of our people and your own family...

How would your family, dead or alive at the hands of it, react if they knew you supported genocide, or mass infanticide, just so long as the "right authority," ie, "God" said it was OK?

That's the line they used time and again through history to support killing the Jewish people...

How would they react, knowing that the same line and dogma that allowed for the death of our ancestors is a line and dogma you'd support, EVER?

Genocide is ALWAYS wrong.

ALWAYS.

I commonly complain that the Bible has far too much of a black-and-white view of morality and oversimplifies it, but this is one case where a black-and-white view is permissible, I think...

Genocide is ALWAYS, axiomatically, WRONG, in ANY FORM, in ANY time, AT ALL.

I dare anyone to disagree and claim a moral grey area THERE...who among us would say "Well, genocide is OK sometimes, Obi..."

No one would...even as retribution for an attack previous, even if you didn't start the war...

Killing ALL of a race, even the innocents, ie, the children and babies who have done NOTHING wrong, is never excusable.

Bored. I have dealt with all of your arguments at least a dozen times, that you continue to ignore them is unbearable.

But to your point that you can speak for a victim of Auschwitz, Ill remind you the majority of them went to their death as devout Jews, believing that your supposed "genocide" against the Amalakites was justified. They didn't associate themselves with evil Amalek, they associated Amalek with the Germans and they still do as the notion that Hitler is the decedent of the Amalekites shows. The inability to kill amalek led to the Holocaust. I can't speak for the dead, but I can speak for the living, and if you went up to most survivors and claimed their death was like those of the Amalekites you would infuriate them.

You are just plain disgusting obi, speaking for my murdered family who you wouldn't know or understand if t you came face to face with them. I could say the things about you that your great grandparents would despise, but Ill hold off because I have some decensy.

And god forbid you apologize.

Its just so ridiculous.

In the very thread you are taking people to task for believing they can appropriate the holocaust for their political arguments, you do something even more shameful, you speak for the victims of the holocaust in an attempt to shame your opposition.

YOU brought up your family...

I was speaking for and of all victims of genocide, the Holocaust in particular as that's the way the last conversation (not this one but the last one) trended.

I knew nothing of your family until you told it to me the first time, second time, third time...

And I maintain my position.
I'm not going to fold on it because of a personal tragedy.
It IS tragic, but it doesn't affect the thesis of my position.
I MAINTAIN that to allow or justify one genocide is disgusting, and a crime against all genocide victims, as I such an attitude allows genocide to continue.

I maintain that charge--genocide is genocide, always wrong, always one should be ashamed of advocating for it.

That you and family members suffered a personal tragedy is, again tragic.
It does not, however, negate my point.
Nor is it a counter-argument to my proposition that genocide is genocide and always wrong.

I again empathize with any loss in such a tragedy...

But I also again maintain that this is not a counter-argument to my proposition...

And I am truly sorry that you apparently disagree and would allow genocide or infanticide with the "right" appropriations.



And I do not think it shameful to "speak" for the victims of the Holocaust, or ANY genocide, and say "Genocide is wrong, awful, evil, NEVER AGAIN."

Do you disagree?
Do you believe a Holocaust victim, or any genocide victim, would NOT say it's wrong?
Would NOT say "Never again?"

That is the extent to which I speak for them--and I don't find it shameful to pass on an anti-genocide message from those who suffered at the hands of one and can no longer speak for themselves.

I DO find it shameful to advocate or allow that same ethos of genocide and infanticide to continue, so that plea of all victims that we hear--"NEVER AGAIN"--is negated by YOUR stance "Well, maybe...if "God" says so, then I GUESS we can engage in genocide or infanticide again..."

Do you honestly believe Anne Frank would say such a thing?
Do you honestly believe ANY victim of genocide would empathize with your allowance of genocide and infanticide to continue?

If so...then you are lost, and I maintain--you should be ashamed of such a despicable view.

Fling "shame" at me all you like--I have a hard time feeling ashamed for saying "Genocide and Infanticide are always wrong, and victims of genocide would surely agree to as much, if only they were alive still to speak."

Romney is a lot more like Hitler than Obama is.

Neither are anywhere close to being Hitler. Once one of them starts murdering an entire race of people, we can start making comparisons. I can't stand when people make Hitler comparisons.

^trololololol

That was meant for YJ

Think about it 2WL, Romney did and plans to do a lot of oppressive things that draw really obvious parallels to the Fuhrer. It's scary.

Really YJ? Romney is as close to Hitler as Washington was to a dictator. I'm saying that as a liberal...

Obi you started strong and spiraled into ridiculousness. Thanks for not letting me change my mind about you.

Hitler didn't flip flop on his beliefs to gain power. That's my only point.

that's fine, bo_sox, but on the scale of things I'm just saying Romney has a great deal more in common with Hitler than Obama does.

How is saying "Genocide is always wrong" ridiculous, smcbride?

I'm sorry, but I fail to see why that's ridiculous...and why that's not just a given, really...?

Is this REALLY a moral grey area for some here, to genocide/infanticide or not to genocide/infanticide? Everyone here just doesn't already know "Hey, that's wrong, period?"