Thanks for your email. It was well thought out and the history cited therein was accurate. But history is a funny thing. The facts are not as important as when the history is written and who is doing the writing. A Roman historian will have a much different tale to tell about the destruction of the Cimbrian nation than a Cimbrian historian, but there were no Cimbrian historians. So, we are left with Marius' heroic victory. The Nazi's lost, and after the war they were vilified (and rightly so). So, the history of the German satellite countries is all about glorification of the resistance and minimization of the collaborators. Sure, there were political opponents of the Nazis in Austria, just like there was in Germany. Nevertheless, the Nazis and collaborators by far preponderated. The same is true in France. How many times have we heard about the brave French resistance? But did you know that the first enemy soldiers that the American GI's had to kill during WWII in the European theater were the Vichy French.
What has happened in Europe in the last half century has been repeated throughout history and is what I like to call "pussification." I mean this only half-jokingly. My essays on the Romans this season all dealt with the rise of the Republic, not with the decay of the Empire. By far, the early Romans were the baddest asses that ever stalked this earth. They seemed born with a javelin in one hand and a sword in the other. Every farmer was a warrior and every politician was a great general. But the empire expanded to the Rhine and the Danube. Then, the boarder regions experience constant conflict with the barbarians, but in Italy itself, they experienced perpetual peace and prosperity. The soldiers for the empire were no longer recruited from Italian farmers, but from the semi-barbarians of the boarder regions. Italy became "pussified." Life was so good that the hardness of character that enabled them to build an empire, faded away. -- But the barbarians that threatened their easy lifestyle were just a river crossing away and held at bay by legions not of Romans, but of Gauls, Celts and Germans. When the flood gates finally opened, the Romans and Italians were not physically nor psychologically prepared to defend themselves. The result -- Italy was a conquered, occupied and fractured nation for more than 1000 years until Garibaldi.
After the Romans expired, the Europeans (Spainish, French, English -- later Germans) became the world bad asses, born for war. That is why they were able to conquer or colonize the rest of the world. But a funny thing happened after WWII. The periodic European land wars were getting progressively worse, and America was dragged into a Continental conflict for a second time in only a quarter century. Furthermore, the Russian bear emerged stronger than the rest of Europe and seemed intent on rolling its tanks and communist revolution from Latvia to Portugal. The next titanic European land war was probably just a few years off -- just long enough for the next generation of children to grow-up for military service. So, instead of packing up and going back home, America stayed.
America had joined the war, not for conquest, but to save the world from tyranny. America stayed, not for conquest, but to save the world from tyranny again -- and in the process saved the world and Europe from its endless cycle of perpetual war. (That is why I find your clumping together of Austria's voluntary Nazi years with the years of American protection from the Soviets as just "17 years of military occupation" highly offensive -- It may be factually correct, but it is totally wrong.) The Americans took over the responsibility of external security for Western Europe. America held back the red tide and assured the growth of stable, self-representative, democracies where there had once been monarchy, tyranny or anarchy. These present day peace-loving liberal European democracies that you laude as being so superior to America owe their very existence to American strength, perseverance and generosity. For fifty years American tanks held back the communist barbarians at the gates. For fifty years, American generosity through the Marshall plan and other foreign aid put American wealth into Europe, they did not take it out -- like the right of conquer should have given to America. While the American economy shouldered the burden of the cold war, countries like Germany and Austria were able to focus their entire economy on growth -- none of its GNP was required for defense. Go through your history books and try to find fifty years without a European land war. Don't tell me that was just the natural byproduct of the growth of European civilization. That peace was only made possible because it was imposed on Europe by America and the cold war. That "growth" only took place because the Europeans did not have to defend themselves from external threats, because for 50 years America was manning that wall for them.
You are an American. It may be fashionable to bash America, but never forget that perpetual peace has only been possible because of America's truly benevolent intervention. Like John Wayne in "The Searchers" the settlers need his strength as protection from the "injuns", but his violence nevertheless makes them uneasy.
Comments on your list of bad analogies...
1. The American death penalty is only dispensed to those who are found guilty of a capital crime with special circumstances. The defendant is first convicted by a judge and a jury of his peers. Then the conviction is required to withstand years and years of appellate scrutiny by both State and Federal courts. He is provided with free legal services by talented attorneys skilled in appellate practice and passionately opposed to the death penalty By the time a man is put to death in America we know with the greatest certainty possible that he is guilty of the crime he is charged with and society demands the ultimate punishment. On the other hand, the SS would just roll up into a town in a half-track, round up any suspected trouble makers, line them up against a wall, and shoot them. It's called Due Process. Can you not see the difference?
2. As I explained above, America is the stupidest of super powers. America does not invade for the benefit of America, but for the benefit of the conquered. By right of conquest, America should have been able to pump out of Iraq as much oil as it wanted. It should have at least been able to saddle the Iraqi economy with war reparations for the costs of having to bring an army to the Middle East twice in 15 years to check Saddam. But instead, America is protecting the oil reserves for the Iraqi people, providing Iraq with external security from Syria, Iran and the terrorist, and pumping American wealth into Iraq to rebuild their economy in a 21st Century Marshall Plan. All this is being done so that in the heart of the middle east a stable, self-representative, democracy will develop where there had only been monarchy, tyranny or anarchy. Sound familiar? Maybe fifty years from now, the Iraqis will be a liberal democracy just like Austria, and maybe they'll think themselves superior to the semi-barbarian Americans that made it all possible for them. Once again, the Nazis invaded because they needed "labensraum." They invaded to annex the land to greater Germany, to steal its resources and to exterminate its non-German people. Can you not see the difference?
3. The US does not spy on its own citizens. The liberal media has been intentionally distorting this story. The NSA has been collecting information on international communication between persons with known Al Queda links and persons in the US. There are no reports of spying on US "citizens" -- just persons who happen to be inside the US and communicating with arab terrorists who want to destroy our way of life. None of this information will be used in a court of law, just to stop future terrorist attacks like 9-11. It is the same type of surveillance that has been repeatedly approved by the Courts as being within the presidential powers against external enemies and has previously been ordered by former presidents such as Clinton and Carter. This NSA story is much ado about nothing, but has been blown out of proportion because it is international America-bashing time. The Nazis did not have the technological ability to secretly spy on communications, like America, so we may have them beat on this one.
4. Legally, you can set the terms for access to public transportation. You do not have the same right to privacy. It you do not want your bag search, you can walk or take a car. But by taking public transportation, you are accepting the term that your bag can be check. Of course this is just being done to avoid a London or Madrid repeat -- not to find out who is a Democrat. The SS banged on your door in the middle of the night. The Nazi government sponsored the uncheck violation of your right to privacy. The US is filled with lawyers enforcing the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.
5. Arnold is the elected governor of the State of California. He has sworn to do the people's will. The people of California condemned Tookie, because he murdered 4 innocent people in cold blood, and after 25 years every court in the country including the liberal 9th circuit court of appeals, the California Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court have all upheld Tookie's conviction and sentence. It would have been an outrageous violation of the voter's trust if he were to allow his pussified Austrian nature to prevent him from doing the job that he was elected to do. Arnold refused to grant clemency to a blood thirsty gang-banging murderer who had 25 years of due process, and Hilter gassed 6 million innocent Jews. What was the point of your comparison?!?
As for your bonus question, I personally favor abortion rights, but know for a fact that the constitution was never intended to protect the right to have an abortion. The founding fathers just did not address the issue one way or the other. Furthermore, many abortion opponents honestly believe that a fetus is a living human being entitled to all the moral and legal protections against murder that any other person is entitled to. They believe that abortion is murder. They may be right or they may be wrong, but it is an argument that cannot be won, because it is a moral argument. Is it life or just a clump of cells? Is there a God? Who is to say? That aside, I see nothing inconsistent with believing abortion is murder, murder is a capital crime, and those guilty of a capital crime should pay the ultimate penalty. What is more inconsistent is the opposite position. Those who say that life is so sacred that even blood thirsty murderers should be kept alive, are invariably in favor of abortion -- the killing of innocent fetuses. Tookie was afforded a trial and 25 years of appeals before he was put to death. The aborted fetus (just like the life that you and your wife already cherished before her unfortunate miscarriage) is not afforded any due process rights before it is sucked out of the womb with a tube and killed. Trust me, if you accept the position that a fetus is life, the liberal position on abortion/death penalty seems incomprehensible. Like I said, I believe that people should be able to have an abortion, but when you and your wife have a sonogram and see that 3D picture of your child's face, you'll have second thoughts as to when life begins. This is Vince...
Nice chatting with you. Gotta go.
On Dec 27, 2005, at 6:17 AM, xxxx wrote:
Hey Tom,
Happy holidays. Meant to reply to you earlier about your Arnie post: Wasn't it Austria (or at least an Austrian) that re-invented and perfected government sponsored executions???
I've read alot about Austria's history, and as far as world power is concerned, their's peaked about 1848. Kaiser Franz Joseph came into power as a 17 year old then, and he was basically inept on the battlefield and was thoroughly out-classed in European politics by Bismarck.
Two feeble defeats to the Prussians led to a treaty in 1879 that forced Austria and Prussia to cover each other's backs in the event of future war with Russia. In other words, Austria was firmly under Germany's thumb as a lesser, weaker brother. This was made obvious in WW1, when Austria basically ran to its big brother for help shortly after the start of the war and ever-increasingly throughout it.
Versailles and subsequent treaties diminished Austria even further, by 2/3 its land, by 3/4 its population.
In my neighborhood here in Vienna, there is a park called "Mexikoplatz". It was named in honor of Mexico being the only country on the planet to "protest" the annexation of Austria by Germany.
Before Anschluss in 1938, Austria's strongest patriot to maintain a separate state from Germany, Chancellor Dollfuss, was murdered in 1934 by a nazi-backed putsch in Vienna, which failed - but eliminated the country's strongest statesman.
The second sentence on page 1 of "Mein Kampf" reads, "German"-Austria must come back again to the great German motherland". It's pretty obvious Hitler's plan to swallow Austria had always been in place - and one has to ask why it took until 1938 for it to occur.
The answer - there was opposition, of course. But only by Austria, itself. Mussolini, also weaker than Germany militarily, accepted Hitler's fait accompli in Austria, promising not to interfere. Czech, resistant for centuries against all Teutonic aggression, needed only to mount forces at Germany's border (as pan-slav Russia would have had the Czechs back) but, the Czeck prez Benes was promised no future harm by Hitler, too. In other words, the fate of Austria was not a "World" issue, not a "European" issue - it was a German vs. Austrian issue - and Austria was virtually helpless.
So why is Schwarzeneggar such a bad guy in Austria today?
Adding the Swastika years, Austria had been militarily occupied for 17 years. After suffering 10 years of "allied occupation", Austria has only had its freedom since 1955.
In the past 50 years the country has had to accept it's role in WW2, rebuild, and distance itself from brutality. In fact, all of Europe has learned a vital lesson - state-sponsored executions symbolize going back in time to it's darkest hours - the rise Fascism and then Communism. Americans basically don't understand how awful WW2 was for ALL Europeans - not just it's Jews. There is an overwhelming, in-bred feeling never to repeat history...
State-sponsored executions, or the "Death Penalty", was abolished in Austria's Constitution in 1920. Again in 1950. In fact, all European countries have abolished the Death Penalty. Arnie has turned his back on Austria, his homeland. And he did it for votes - he's not his own man anymore.
Here are some countries America is aligned with on the Death Penalty: Iraq, Iran, Japan, China, Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Afganistan, Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan, Syria, Jordan, Libya - nice company, huh?
So what's the difference:
1. American state-sponsored execution and Nazi SS execution.
2. Invading a smaller, weaker Iraq and a Nazi invasion.
3. Legalized U.S. spying on its own citizens and SS spying
4. Legalized random searching of personal belongings on a NYC subway and SS searches.
5. Arnie allowing executions to win votes and Hitler having done the same.
Do you ever find it odd that you live in a country where millions of people who are PRO-Death Penalty are also ANTI-abortion? Isn't that strange?
Would love to hear your comments...
DR