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From: geb@cadre.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.auto,net.legal,net.politics
Subject: Re: Laws Nobody Obeys ARE NEEDED
Message-ID: <89@cadre.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Nov-84 08:53:25 EST
Article-I.D.: cadre.89
Posted: Tue Nov 27 08:53:25 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 29-Nov-84 06:06:24 EST
References: <84@cadre.UUCP> <1207@dciem.UUCP> <87@cadre.UUCP>, <1269@eosp1.UUCP>
Organization: Decision Systems Lab., Univ. of Pgh.
Lines: 24

What made the Nazis special was not their bent for perversity.
Many, many times in history have masters as cruel as Hitler
reigned.  Just ask anyone who knows the history of the middle
east or Russia about the Mongols, the Huns, the Turks, the
Crusaders, etc.  The difference was that with the Nazis, modern
technology was applied in an effort to commit genocide against
a group of people whose numbers included leaders of world
culture (the Jews).  When the Turks genocided the
Armenians in 1915, the outcry wasn't nearly as great.  
It is believed that Stalin starved and executed more people
than Hitler, and until Solzenitzen started writing, no one realized it.
Films of the death camps and modern means of communications plus the fact
that the Jews are intellectual leaders in most countries
assured that the world was not allowed to conveniently
ignore or forget Hitler's atrocities.  
Other atrocities in the past have seemed more
remote and didn't carry the emotional impact.  The logistics
of exterminating 6 million people were so great it took
all the effort of the German industrial state to effect it
(Zyklon B gas, etc.).  But I believe that the scale
of the massacre was because of the methods available, not
because of a lack of desire on the part of past demonic
rulers.  And, it could happen again, and probably will,
if we don't blow ourselves up first.