Nazi prison guard living in Tennessee gets deported

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/20/us/nazi-guard-deported-trnd/index.html

It’s a travesty that this goosestepper evaded justice for so long. If he lived in my neighborhood, it would’ve been a different story.

https://www.memphisflyer.com/NewsBlog/archives/2020/12/11/german-prosecutors-drop-case-against-former-nazi-guard

The man is 95 years old now.  He was 19 when he served in the SS in a Concentration Camp.  His time at this job was short and he was not part of the killing, nor did he witness any killing.  These are the findings of a German Court.

"During interrogations in the U.S., the accused admitted that he had guarded prisoners in the Meppen area for several weeks. He did not observe any mistreatment of prisoners. He was not aware of any deaths among the prisoners. He was not used to guard an evacuation march. Additional information is not to be expected when the accused is questioned in Germany."

If the man had been found to have actively participated in murders I'd be less sympathetic, but he was not found to have done so.  He was 19 years old when this happened, and asking for a transfer in the outfit he was with isn't quite like asking the US Army for a reassignment.  It also doesn't mean you'd get one.  He was 19 years old and was only in this possession short term.

I do not know what this man was like in life.  I don't know what he did while in America.  Perhaps this is a just outcome, but I can't square this deporation with the action Biden has taken in halting other deportations that will keep MS-13 gang members (who are committing crimes in the United States in the here and now) from being deported.  This man is 95 years old, he was acquitted of War Crimes in a Court, and he was 19 at the time.  He's not a hero.  But he was a person doing what HE needed to do to keep himself alive in a situation that no 19 year old person should be in.

I will say this:  If this man is to be deported, so be it.  But construction on The Wall needs to be restarted and those who are in INS custody that have so been designated ought to be deported as quickly as possible.  I'll change my mind if you can show me that his role was bigger than what is documented here.  But you haven't done so to date.

The liberals here don't care. They justified the brutal, murderous ethnic cleansing of Prussians when I brought it up a few days ago. You think they'd give this guy a fair assessment?

Did people justify the postwar deportations of Eastern European Germans, or did they just reject an attempt to draw a moral equivalency between them and the Holocaust? I wasn't privy to the conversation you're referring to, and there's a big difference between those two lines of argument that I frankly don't feel inclined to take a Trump supporter's word for it on.

The concept of “justice” is no more than man’s illusion of being the arbiter of morality.

Man has been debating the meaning of justice for many years, but to my knowledge only the hardest of materialists have denied its existence altogether. Fundamentally, there is an aspect of justice that is rendering until someone what they are due. Without justice as a real moral principle, guilt and innocence do not matter, nor do credit and debit. The concept of owing anything to anyone would be, at best, a convenient moral fiction agreed to by social contract insofar as it increases utility. Retribution for sin, if such exists at all, would be naught but an arbitrary whim; the answer to the Problem of Evil would be that there is no such thing as good or evil in any real sense. Christianity, along with most other religions would make no sense.

It is not the concept of justice that gives man the illusion of being an arbiter of morality, but its abolition that does, by rendering guilt or innocence irrelevant.

Yes; even more disturbing than TheReckoning's post here is the fact that Fuzzy, one of the most vocally Christian posters on the forum, recommended it.

[TJ in Oregon]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/20/us/nazi-guard-deported-trnd/index.html

It’s a travesty that this goosestepper evaded justice for so long. If he lived in my neighborhood, it would’ve been a different story.

https://www.memphisflyer.com/NewsBlog/archives/2020/12/11/german-prosecutors-drop-case-against-former-nazi-guard

The man is 95 years old now.  He was 19 when he served in the SS in a Concentration Camp.  His time at this job was short and he was not part of the killing, nor did he witness any killing.  These are the findings of a German Court.

"During interrogations in the U.S., the accused admitted that he had guarded prisoners in the Meppen area for several weeks. He did not observe any mistreatment of prisoners. He was not aware of any deaths among the prisoners. He was not used to guard an evacuation march. Additional information is not to be expected when the accused is questioned in Germany."

If the man had been found to have actively participated in murders I'd be less sympathetic, but he was not found to have done so.  He was 19 years old when this happened, and asking for a transfer in the outfit he was with isn't quite like asking the US Army for a reassignment.  It also doesn't mean you'd get one.  He was 19 years old and was only in this possession short term.

I do not know what this man was like in life.  I don't know what he did while in America.  Perhaps this is a just outcome, but I can't square this deporation with the action Biden has taken in halting other deportations that will keep MS-13 gang members (who are committing crimes in the United States in the here and now) from being deported.  This man is 95 years old, he was acquitted of War Crimes in a Court, and he was 19 at the time.  He's not a hero.  But he was a person doing what HE needed to do to keep himself alive in a situation that no 19 year old person should be in.

I will say this:  If this man is to be deported, so be it.  But construction on The Wall needs to be restarted and those who are in INS custody that have so been designated ought to be deported as quickly as possible.  I'll change my mind if you can show me that his role was bigger than what is documented here.  But you haven't done so to date.

The liberals here don't care. They justified the brutal, murderous ethnic cleansing of Prussians when I brought it up a few days ago. You think they'd give this guy a fair assessment?

Did people justify the postwar deportations of Eastern European Germans, or did they just reject an attempt to draw a moral equivalency between them and the Holocaust? I wasn't privy to the conversation you're referring to, and there's a big difference between those two lines of argument that I frankly don't feel inclined to take a Trump supporter's word for it on.

The concept of “justice” is no more than man’s illusion of being the arbiter of morality.

Man has been debating the meaning of justice for many years, but to my knowledge only the hardest of materialists have denied its existence altogether. Fundamentally, there is an aspect of justice that is rendering until someone what they are due. Without justice as a real moral principle, guilt and innocence do not matter, nor do credit and debit. The concept of owing anything to anyone would be, at best, a convenient moral fiction agreed to by social contract insofar as it increases utility. Retribution for sin, if such exists at all, would be naught but an arbitrary whim; the answer to the Problem of Evil would be that there is no such thing as good or evil in any real sense. Christianity, along with most other religions would make no sense.

It is not the concept of justice that gives man the illusion of being an arbiter of morality, but its abolition that does, by rendering guilt or innocence irrelevant.

Yes; even more disturbing than TheReckoning's post here is the fact that Fuzzy, one of the most vocally Christian posters on the forum, recommended it.

I don't think they realize why that post was so misguided considering their subsequent posts appear to argue he doesn't deserve to be deported (i.e. it's not a matter of hypocrisy but misunderstanding).

I'm curious whether you think the ban on deportations in Veritatis Splendor would preclude us from deporting this man, as he does not appear to be any kind of threat to the public at this stage of life. I believe you have generally taken a very hard line on its interpretation previously?

[TJ in Oregon]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/20/us/nazi-guard-deported-trnd/index.html

It’s a travesty that this goosestepper evaded justice for so long. If he lived in my neighborhood, it would’ve been a different story.

https://www.memphisflyer.com/NewsBlog/archives/2020/12/11/german-prosecutors-drop-case-against-former-nazi-guard

The man is 95 years old now.  He was 19 when he served in the SS in a Concentration Camp.  His time at this job was short and he was not part of the killing, nor did he witness any killing.  These are the findings of a German Court.

"During interrogations in the U.S., the accused admitted that he had guarded prisoners in the Meppen area for several weeks. He did not observe any mistreatment of prisoners. He was not aware of any deaths among the prisoners. He was not used to guard an evacuation march. Additional information is not to be expected when the accused is questioned in Germany."

If the man had been found to have actively participated in murders I'd be less sympathetic, but he was not found to have done so.  He was 19 years old when this happened, and asking for a transfer in the outfit he was with isn't quite like asking the US Army for a reassignment.  It also doesn't mean you'd get one.  He was 19 years old and was only in this possession short term.

I do not know what this man was like in life.  I don't know what he did while in America.  Perhaps this is a just outcome, but I can't square this deporation with the action Biden has taken in halting other deportations that will keep MS-13 gang members (who are committing crimes in the United States in the here and now) from being deported.  This man is 95 years old, he was acquitted of War Crimes in a Court, and he was 19 at the time.  He's not a hero.  But he was a person doing what HE needed to do to keep himself alive in a situation that no 19 year old person should be in.

I will say this:  If this man is to be deported, so be it.  But construction on The Wall needs to be restarted and those who are in INS custody that have so been designated ought to be deported as quickly as possible.  I'll change my mind if you can show me that his role was bigger than what is documented here.  But you haven't done so to date.

The liberals here don't care. They justified the brutal, murderous ethnic cleansing of Prussians when I brought it up a few days ago. You think they'd give this guy a fair assessment?

Did people justify the postwar deportations of Eastern European Germans, or did they just reject an attempt to draw a moral equivalency between them and the Holocaust? I wasn't privy to the conversation you're referring to, and there's a big difference between those two lines of argument that I frankly don't feel inclined to take a Trump supporter's word for it on.

The concept of “justice” is no more than man’s illusion of being the arbiter of morality.

Man has been debating the meaning of justice for many years, but to my knowledge only the hardest of materialists have denied its existence altogether. Fundamentally, there is an aspect of justice that is rendering until someone what they are due. Without justice as a real moral principle, guilt and innocence do not matter, nor do credit and debit. The concept of owing anything to anyone would be, at best, a convenient moral fiction agreed to by social contract insofar as it increases utility. Retribution for sin, if such exists at all, would be naught but an arbitrary whim; the answer to the Problem of Evil would be that there is no such thing as good or evil in any real sense. Christianity, along with most other religions would make no sense.

It is not the concept of justice that gives man the illusion of being an arbiter of morality, but its abolition that does, by rendering guilt or innocence irrelevant.

Yes; even more disturbing than TheReckoning's post here is the fact that Fuzzy, one of the most vocally Christian posters on the forum, recommended it.

You’re a Catholic, you should know that justice isn’t something that man should be involved in. It should be God who is the ultimate judge, not fallible human beings. This 95 year old isn’t a threat to anyone, he belongs in a retirement home, not a prison.

Eh, I think this is also misunderstanding the notion of justice. Christ never came to abolish the criminal court system, as evidenced throughout the New Testament and Church history. Yes, it's true that earthly justice (specifically understood as referring to retributive justice) is an imperfect tool; however, it is still a tool that Church has always recognized as legitimate. Yes, whether or not the man is a threat to others is one element of justice that has to be considered when considering his case, but his guilt or innocence still matters.

[TJ in Oregon]

The concept of “justice” is no more than man’s illusion of being the arbiter of morality.

Man has been debating the meaning of justice for many years, but to my knowledge only the hardest of materialists have denied its existence altogether. Fundamentally, there is an aspect of justice that is rendering until someone what they are due. Without justice as a real moral principle, guilt and innocence do not matter, nor do credit and debit. The concept of owing anything to anyone would be, at best, a convenient moral fiction agreed to by social contract insofar as it increases utility. Retribution for sin, if such exists at all, would be naught but an arbitrary whim; the answer to the Problem of Evil would be that there is no such thing as good or evil in any real sense. Christianity, along with most other religions would make no sense.

It is not the concept of justice that gives man the illusion of being an arbiter of morality, but its abolition that does, by rendering guilt or innocence irrelevant.

It’s not that justice isn’t real. It’s that man sucks at it. It would’ve been better to say that the idea that man can bring justice is an illusion, not justice itself.

Ahh. Okay. That's much better and different. I don't quite agree in that I think man can bring justice on some level, but our justice is imperfect (see prev post for more discussion).

[Boobs]

This isn't a case of deporting an old man, it's a case of deporting a young man who spent decades on the run from his crimes. If he's a better man now than he was then, he should accept his fate and face the consequences for his crimes. He got to live a full and free life in until the ripe old age of 95, something his victims never experienced. The US owes him nothing.

I would agree with you that the US owes him nothing.  Will you concede that the US owes illegal aliens of all kinds nothing?  (I realize that question is deeper than it seems at a number of levels.)

Here's a story that I think might answer your question, if you're not too dense or ideologically-addled to get the point. When I was a fairly young man, I was able to get a grant established to help Black farmers financially, after I and some of my fellow protesters vociferously protested the nomination of Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State. Part of the recognition for my activism included a trip to Iraq in the midst of the troop surge - we went to Baghdad, we went to Fallujah, and it was hell. I wasn't sure if I would make it, but I did and met lots of good Iraqis who are now my best friends. In my experience, the Iraq War was always an American thing - and the war on terror was always an American thing. When I was a young man, I remember seeing a lot of images of Iraqis being tortured or executed, and it just never occurred to me to ask myself why. And then, in my early 20s, I found myself at a protest once again. One of the great Iraqis I had met was staying with me in my 1 bedroom apartment in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and he was telling me a story from his childhood:

"My mother leased a piece of land to an oil company in Iraq where she, my father, and my brother worked. As a kid, I was told that these guys were the same guys as the men in a film I had seen in school; they were the ones that stole the oil and took it to Kuwait so that the Americans could use it for their war. My mother said these guys were our friends and that we were being used by those evil guys in Kuwait to put up the money and take away our land to build a big military base. After several years my mother said she was in love with George Bush and that she was moving  to Houston, Texas so that she could be closer to him. They took her land and built it a huge military base. After several more years, my father died."

This story had affected me for many years - I realized that, despite being from Iraq, he was an American, and I owed that same camaraderie I did for fellow Americans. My friend ended up opening a sandwich shop in New Hampshire, where he employs three other Americans. He has given this country much! And this country owed him her respect and her love. He became a citizen in 2016, and proudly voted for Hillary Clinton, marched on Washington in a pink hat, and became a prominent Democratic Party activist, donating over $8,000 of his sandwich shop's profits to the New Hampshire operations of Planned Parenthood. He is a paragon of his community. And yes, he was once an undocumented immigrant.

I recommend you leave your bigotry at the door, because you are clearly showing yourself more willing to defend Nazis than to love your fellow American - and guess what? That makes you the least American of anyone here. Maybe you should consider deporting yourself, since you hate so many Americans-in-waiting. Shame on you!

[Astatine]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/20/us/nazi-guard-deported-trnd/index.html

It’s a travesty that this goosestepper evaded justice for so long. If he lived in my neighborhood, it would’ve been a different story.

https://www.memphisflyer.com/NewsBlog/archives/2020/12/11/german-prosecutors-drop-case-against-former-nazi-guard

The man is 95 years old now.  He was 19 when he served in the SS in a Concentration Camp.  His time at this job was short and he was not part of the killing, nor did he witness any killing.  These are the findings of a German Court.

Well, that's what they always say. No other witnesses for obvious reasons, so there is just his statement that "he didn't see anything".
That's what they always said and what they will always say until the last one of these SS - for which one had to sign up voluntarily btw, at least in the early 1940s - war criminals dies.

And btw, the court clearly stated that he signed up voluntarily.

German source here, run it through Google Translate or so: https://www.nwzonline.de/politik/niedersachsen/meppen-oak-ridge-nazi-verbrechen-karteifund-usa-weisen-ss-mann-aus_a_50,7,2254340105.html

[Santander]

Can we please stop calling this man a Nazi? It seems rather unfair to hold someone to a label which they were more or less forced into 75 years ago as a teenager. People can change and circumstances need to be taken into account.

He served in the SS. That makes him a Nazi.

[lfromnj]

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=430716.0

Ok, TheReckoning/Fuzzy answer this question then.

[Astatine]

Can we please stop calling this man a Nazi? It seems rather unfair to hold someone to a label which they were more or less forced into 75 years ago as a teenager. People can change and circumstances need to be taken into account.

He served in the SS. That makes him a Nazi.

“He attended kindergarten. That makes him a kindergartner.”

People can change.

We'll stop calling him a Nazi if you stop posting.

[Santander]

Can we please stop calling this man a Nazi? It seems rather unfair to hold someone to a label which they were more or less forced into 75 years ago as a teenager. People can change and circumstances need to be taken into account.

He served in the SS. That makes him a Nazi.

“He attended kindergarten. That makes him a kindergartner.”

People can change.

Come up with something better.

[Fuzzy Bear]

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=430716.0

Ok, TheReckoning/Fuzzy answer this question then.

I would be OK with that guy being deported.  The totality of circumstances indicate that this person is a clear and present danger.

I don't believe one can say this in the case of a 95 year old who served when he was 18 in the German military and, apparently, has lived a decent life, so far as anyone has shown.  Key words are "so far as anyone has shown".  I do understand the gravity of genocide and I can understand people advocating for his deportation, even at age 95, as a deterrent to future genocides and to those who commit future genocides from seeking refuge in foreign lands under new identities to escape criminal charges and War Crimes tribunals.  But there is a totality of circumstances in this case that ought to be given weight, and part of that is that the man has never been convicted of War Crimes.  That we would take someone who entered the military at age 18, whose involvement ended at age 19, and likely did not fully know what he was getting into until after he entered the military and treat him as if he's something he has not been proven to be ought to be questioned.

There's a difference in the two (2) cases.

[Santander]

Does anyone think Fuzzy would be showing this level of compassion and mercy for a Muslim immigrant later found to have been a member of ISIS?

[Fuzzy Bear]

Can we please stop calling this man a Nazi? It seems rather unfair to hold someone to a label which they were more or less forced into 75 years ago as a teenager. People can change and circumstances need to be taken into account.

As someone whose family was reduced to a single branch by the Nazis, no.

I agree people can change and circumstances must be taken into account. I agree this person may have atoned and felt remorse. To a Christian that's what is needed to forgive. I find that capacity to forgive admirable in most cases. This man's crime is not your crime to forgive.

Whether justice comes from society or from God - as you believe - is something each of us can decide on our own, but our country must have rules and fairness. The debt owed to my people and to others is greater than this man's retirement. He should face a fully fair trial and accept that involvement excludes him from forgiveness by some of us. When he dies, God can weigh in. That might seem unfair and cold, but that coldness might disincentivize the heat of fascist ovens.

I abhor Nazism in all its forms.  I abhor Fascism.  It's ridiculous that I would have to defend this here, but I abhor these things and condemn them unequivocally.  

To Charcolt:  I abhor what was done to your family.  Nothing justifies it.  I certainly hope that those responsible received justice.  But that doesn't give you the right to libel me.  And what you said about me is a libelous personal attack.  I haven't done that to you.  

People on the Left here feel free to libel people here.  I am certainly hoping that the Moderation Team is not going to be a party to that.

[Santander]

Imagine abhorring something so much that you think perpetrators should face no consequences whatsoever.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Does anyone think Fuzzy would be showing this level of compassion and mercy for a Muslim immigrant later found to have been a member of ISIS?

It would depend how much longer after the fact this happened.

If it happened today I'd be skeptical as to the person's motives.  If it happened decades from now, that would be a different story.  We crushed the Third Reich, but our problems with Radical Islamic Terror Groups (including ISIS) remains an ongoing problem.  It would not be wrong to consider the possibility that such a person still held anti-American views.

Now if this person lived in the US for decades crime free and renounced ISIS that would be different.  Again, I would suggest people consider the totality of circumstances.  

America has always restricted the entry of people whose current ideology was a threat to National Security.  We did not allow Soviet Bolsheviks to come to the US as permanent residents; we were very selective in who we let in at all.  We did not let people we knew were active Nazis come to the US after WWII; they went other places.  

Totality of circumstances is the principle I would go on, personally if the answer to the question was up to me, personally.  But, yes, I would fairly consider the whole of a person's circumstances.

I would also apply that standard to people already here illegally.  I don't see that as incompatible with continuing to build The Wall.  I would not be opposed to a large amnesty for people who are already here IF the Wall was built and there was a commitment to enforce our present immigration laws.  I'll state this before someone else chooses to libel me.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Berger collects a German pension in part for military service and is not on the record as someone who donates all of that charitable causes. He neither claims nor is reported to be destitute.

The principal motivation which drives most to commit atrocities is a deep-seated cowardice. For someone who was 'just following orders' then and is enjoying the fruits of his evil now, that part of him does not seem to have changed.

[ProudModerate2]

Can we please stop calling this man a Nazi? It seems rather unfair to hold someone to a label which they were more or less forced into 75 years ago as a teenager. People can change and circumstances need to be taken into account.

As someone whose family was reduced to a single branch by the Nazis, no.

I agree people can change and circumstances must be taken into account. I agree this person may have atoned and felt remorse. To a Christian that's what is needed to forgive. I find that capacity to forgive admirable in most cases. This man's crime is not your crime to forgive.

Whether justice comes from society or from God - as you believe - is something each of us can decide on our own, but our country must have rules and fairness. The debt owed to my people and to others is greater than this man's retirement. He should face a fully fair trial and accept that involvement excludes him from forgiveness by some of us. When he dies, God can weigh in. That might seem unfair and cold, but that coldness might disincentivize the heat of fascist ovens.

I abhor Nazism in all its forms.  I abhor Fascism.  It's ridiculous that I would have to defend this here, but I abhor these things and condemn them unequivocally.  

To Charcolt:  I abhor what was done to your family.  Nothing justifies it.  I certainly hope that those responsible received justice.  But that doesn't give you the right to libel me.  And what you said about me is a libelous personal attack.  I haven't done that to you.  

People on the Left here feel free to libel people here.  I am certainly hoping that the Moderation Team is not going to be a party to that.

Oh here we go again.
Fuzzy trying to scare Atlas users by using the term "libel." Oh ... we are all shaking in great fear.

[7,052,770]

Can we please stop calling this man a Nazi? It seems rather unfair to hold someone to a label which they were more or less forced into 75 years ago as a teenager. People can change and circumstances need to be taken into account.

The Nazis knew that the vast majority of people wouldn't be able to handle being a concentration camp guard. They only assigned people who wouldn't crack - deranged sickos who would enjoy it - to that job. The idea that he was just some sweet, innocent teenager forced into a role he didn't want doesn't really square with history.

It has been a long time, and maybe he really has changed, but we shouldn't whitewash or excuse the person he was in the 1940s.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Can we please stop calling this man a Nazi? It seems rather unfair to hold someone to a label which they were more or less forced into 75 years ago as a teenager. People can change and circumstances need to be taken into account.

The Nazis knew that the vast majority of people wouldn't be able to handle being a concentration camp guard. They only assigned people who wouldn't crack - deranged sickos who would enjoy it - to that job. The idea that he was just some sweet, innocent teenager forced into a role he didn't want doesn't really square with history.

It has been a long time, and maybe he really has changed, but we shouldn't whitewash or excuse the person he was in the 1940s.

In truth, we don't know what kind of teenager this man was, or what he was told about the "job" they placed him in by the Nazis.  We definitely should not whitewash what happened here, but we don't have to present this man as worse than he was and is either.  The fact that this man was not convicted of War Crimes by the German Court is highly relevant here.  The man is not a criminal; at least not by the verdicts of Courts.  

As for what kind of person he was back in the 1940s, he was an underage teenager until 1944 when he turned 18, and then he turned 19 in 1945 when the war ended.  From 1939 to 1945 he lived in a nation waging a World War; these were his formative teenage years.  This is not a middle aged German of the time who had a hunch about what was going on in the camps and tacitly approved; this was a kid who became an 18 year old "adult" in a nation at war and a nation about to lose a war.  Think about that for a minute.  

[America Needs R'hllor]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/20/us/nazi-guard-deported-trnd/index.html

It’s a travesty that this goosestepper evaded justice for so long. If he lived in my neighborhood, it would’ve been a different story.

https://www.memphisflyer.com/NewsBlog/archives/2020/12/11/german-prosecutors-drop-case-against-former-nazi-guard

The man is 95 years old now.  He was 19 when he served in the SS in a Concentration Camp.  His time at this job was short and he was not part of the killing, nor did he witness any killing.  These are the findings of a German Court.

"During interrogations in the U.S., the accused admitted that he had guarded prisoners in the Meppen area for several weeks. He did not observe any mistreatment of prisoners. He was not aware of any deaths among the prisoners. He was not used to guard an evacuation march. Additional information is not to be expected when the accused is questioned in Germany."

If the man had been found to have actively participated in murders I'd be less sympathetic, but he was not found to have done so.  He was 19 years old when this happened, and asking for a transfer in the outfit he was with isn't quite like asking the US Army for a reassignment.  It also doesn't mean you'd get one.  He was 19 years old and was only in this possession short term.

I do not know what this man was like in life.  I don't know what he did while in America.  Perhaps this is a just outcome, but I can't square this deporation with the action Biden has taken in halting other deportations that will keep MS-13 gang members (who are committing crimes in the United States in the here and now) from being deported.  This man is 95 years old, he was acquitted of War Crimes in a Court, and he was 19 at the time.  He's not a hero.  But he was a person doing what HE needed to do to keep himself alive in a situation that no 19 year old person should be in.

I will say this:  If this man is to be deported, so be it.  But construction on The Wall needs to be restarted and those who are in INS custody that have so been designated ought to be deported as quickly as possible.  I'll change my mind if you can show me that his role was bigger than what is documented here.  But you haven't done so to date.

Ok, you're truly lost now.

[Hindsight was 2020]

So Fuzzy is now treating a freaking Nazis with more sympathies rhetoric then he uses for BLM? JFC 🙄

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I don't think they realize why that post was so misguided considering their subsequent posts appear to argue he doesn't deserve to be deported (i.e. it's not a matter of hypocrisy but misunderstanding).

I'm curious whether you think the ban on deportations in Veritatis Splendor would preclude us from deporting this man, as he does not appear to be any kind of threat to the public at this stage of life. I believe you have generally taken a very hard line on its interpretation previously?

I think that's the fairly obvious outcome of straightforwardly applying that teaching, yes. I don't like that fact at all, but, well, there are a lot of moral positions I hold on principle that have applications that I don't like. If there weren't such a(n in my reading) clear Catholic teaching against deportation, obviously former concentration camp guards, regardless of their stage in life, would be at the top of the list to be kicked out.

What bothers me about the way the right-wing posters in this thread (present interlocutor excepted) have been talking about this is that, far from objecting to deportation on principle, they're, as you say, calling into question whether a former concentration camp guard deserves it--or even whether he deserves it more or less than common or garden Central American gangsters! Since these posters largely don't have Nazi sympathies themselves, it's a clear case of ideologized lib-owning tunnel vision brain rot.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

The concept of “justice” is no more than man’s illusion of being the arbiter of morality.

Man has been debating the meaning of justice for many years, but to my knowledge only the hardest of materialists have denied its existence altogether. Fundamentally, there is an aspect of justice that is rendering until someone what they are due. Without justice as a real moral principle, guilt and innocence do not matter, nor do credit and debit. The concept of owing anything to anyone would be, at best, a convenient moral fiction agreed to by social contract insofar as it increases utility. Retribution for sin, if such exists at all, would be naught but an arbitrary whim; the answer to the Problem of Evil would be that there is no such thing as good or evil in any real sense. Christianity, along with most other religions would make no sense.

It is not the concept of justice that gives man the illusion of being an arbiter of morality, but its abolition that does, by rendering guilt or innocence irrelevant.

It’s not that justice isn’t real. It’s that man sucks at it. It would’ve been better to say that the idea that man can bring justice is an illusion, not justice itself.

If an illusion, then a necessary one.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Retributive justice is a net negative. This is not only retributive justice, however; it's a deterrent, at the very least, to those who think they can escape punishment for these kinds of crimes with the passage of time.

[Santander]

This may be the last Nazi war criminal to be deported. Now the government should ramp up efforts to deport the various African, Central American, and other war criminals in the US.