Friday, March 04, 2011

Hitler was a competent extremist

Yeah, Hitler was a competent person alright. A person who was sufficiently qualified to be an extremist. That cannot be disputed. He knew how to get things done and get his way, unfortunately. What he did in the past during the rise of the Third Reich made him out to be an extremist, and that's an understatement, too. The word "extremist" as applied to Hitler really doesn't suffice.  Although there's nothing incompetent when it comes to carrying out a master race plan going to such extremes calling for the extermination of millions of innocent people. You ought to know that already.  Just as well, Hitler wasn't for diversity and was for the elimination of what he considered as the "weaker race." This includes people with hereditary deafness, mental retardation, and the infirm, elderly, mentally ill and so on. They were considered as "useless eaters" and Hitler and his cronies murdered thousands upon thousands of them, including deaf people .
Deaths of 'Useless Eaters'
In 1939, the Nazi policy towards deaf and disabled people took an even more sinister and horrific turn. Hitler decided that Germany should be rid of 'useless eaters' and that deaf and disabled children should be killed. Newborn babies with physical 'defects' were removed from their mothers and killed. Children who were judged to have mental or physical disabilities were taken to special children's wards and killed by lethal injection or starvation. The parents were often informed that their children had died of natural causes. It is estimated that nearly 2000 deaf children were killed in this way.
And Hitler called these killings as an act of "mercy death."
In 1939, Hitler instructed German doctors to exercise the power of euthanasia or “mercy death.” The term “mercy death” was deceptive, having no relationship with today’s notion of adding terminally ill patients to end their lives in dignity. Rather, Hitler wished to see disabled people killed because they were “life unworthy of life.” Doctors were expected to decide to end the lives of human beings who had no value for the fascist state, or were “eating more than they produced.” The value of a life under fascism is equal to the value that life holds to the state.
Nothing merciful about that. And nothing glorifying about this "competent extremist" as you can see here. He was simply the face of what evil looked like. Hitler was a competent extremist to the nth degree and said that deaf people were simply a bunch of "useless eaters" undeserving the liberty of life.

In closing, I'd be careful about choosing a "competent extremist" over something else even though the phrase itself can take on variety of context and meaning. But without a doubt Hitler was a competent and methodical figure with an ultimate goal in mind. He was certainly an extremist without any stretch of the imagination.

Just thought I'd let you know.

8 comments:

D.Jeff said...

Michael,

I'm sorry you couldn't find inspiration elsewhere. I appreciate the readership. Thank you very much.

"I would rather have a competent extremist than an incompetent moderate." -Leon Jaworski

Mike said...

Yeah, well, I wouldn't choose Hitler.

Anonymous said...

Hitler learned about genocide from none other than Alexander Graham Bell! He adopted it for his killings of over six million people!

Anonymous said...

“What is objectionable, what is dangerous, about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.” - Robert F. Kennedy

Does Jeffery have the gumption to tell the survivors and their fallen loves ones of the Oklahoma City bombing how "competent" Timothy McVeigh was?

No, he doesn't.

Anonymous said...

I'm surprise that Hitler labeled "weaker" people as "useless eaters". I never heard of those words. Oh, ouch. Well, be thankful, he's not living anymore!

- KarissaMann05

Mike said...

anony @11:11 AM,

That's incorrect. It's eugenics he learned about from America from many pro-eugenicists at the time, including AGB. In America it wasn't about killing off "undesirables" but about preventing it from happening (e.g. deaf parents having deaf babies). You had David Starr Jordan, Robert Latham Owen, William Allen Wilson, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Robert Latou Dickinson, Margaret Sanger and many more who were considered as eugenicists of the day. They were involved with the eugenics movement in early part (1900 - 1930s) of the 20th century in the United States. For you to include AGB as the sole inspiration of Hitler's is not only disingenuous but factually and historically incorrect.

Hitler had other ideas about eugenics that went to the extreme and that's called "genocide." He got most of his ideas on genocide from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels when it came to race and class warfare. They both published a book called "Communist Manifesto" in 1848 that advocated for eliminating race of people that are not Germans, Hungarians, and Poles. To Hitler, Marx was an ideological enemy as seen in Hitler's early writings. Nothing is said on the scale and level about AGB at all. None. Certainly not on the level of genocide. The genocide idea was inspired by Marx and Engels.

Mike said...

anony @ 11:46 AM.

The word "extremist" by it's very nature implies intolerance.

As for "competent," isn't about mental faculty. I already provided a link to mean "sufficiently qualified," and as an extremist himself he was sufficiently qualified to be labeled as an extremist.

Mike said...

Oh, by the way, Jeff, I guess I inspired you to produce a picture of yourself with two birds hoping I noticed? I guess you can't be like Mike? Let's not get angry now. Go out and enjoy nature. It's good for the soul.