Who should resign in Canada over the Waffen SS standing ovation?

[Benjamin Frank]

Stop embarrassing yourself by attempting to defend honoring literal Nazis, good lord. We aren't talking about some poor German conscript here, the guy willingly chose to join the SS.

Stop embarrassing yourself by expressing ignorant simple binaries. Again, I've explained the complicated situation, if you feel the need to feel morally superior, go ahead, but you're not.

Not embarrassed at all actually, but thank you for your concern.

I am, in fact, morally superior to SS grandpa here, and I say that without having any high opinion of my own morality. I have never raped or murdered civilians in Eastern Europe nor sent Jews away to be mass-murdered in the Holocaust, so I feel perfectly comfortable in that assertion. No amount of faux-intellectual rambling is going to change the fact that this guy willingly chose to join the SS, and that the SS is responsible for disgustingly immoral actions.

Read the whole thread before commenting, I have nothing to add. It isn't known for certain what Hunka did and there is no claim that he participated in the Holocaust.

We are also going down a dark road when rejecting binary thinking is called 'faux intellectual rambling.'

Whether I'm being faux intellectual or not does not excuse mindless binaries.

Idiocracy here we come...

"Dude. What if, like...there was no difference between good things and bad things, maaaan?"

Seriously, is condemning Stalin going to be your version of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem routine? Is that what you want? Because I'm happy to condemn Stalin for Katyn, the destruction of Polish and Galician intellectual and religious life, the mass rapes in 1945, etc. etc. etc.--there's enough there to fill history books, and it has!--but somehow I don't feel like that's really the point you're trying to make here.

Are you arguing that Stalin was a 'good thing'?

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

Stop embarrassing yourself by attempting to defend honoring literal Nazis, good lord. We aren't talking about some poor German conscript here, the guy willingly chose to join the SS.

Stop embarrassing yourself by expressing ignorant simple binaries. Again, I've explained the complicated situation, if you feel the need to feel morally superior, go ahead, but you're not.

Not embarrassed at all actually, but thank you for your concern.

I am, in fact, morally superior to SS grandpa here, and I say that without having any high opinion of my own morality. I have never raped or murdered civilians in Eastern Europe nor sent Jews away to be mass-murdered in the Holocaust, so I feel perfectly comfortable in that assertion. No amount of faux-intellectual rambling is going to change the fact that this guy willingly chose to join the SS, and that the SS is responsible for disgustingly immoral actions.

Read the whole thread before commenting, I have nothing to add. It isn't known for certain what Hunka did and there is no claim that he participated in the Holocaust.

We are also going down a dark road when rejecting binary thinking is called 'faux intellectual rambling.'

Whether I'm being faux intellectual or not does not excuse mindless binaries.

Idiocracy here we come...

"Dude. What if, like...there was no difference between good things and bad things, maaaan?"

Seriously, is condemning Stalin going to be your version of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem routine? Is that what you want? Because I'm happy to condemn Stalin for Katyn, the destruction of Polish and Galician intellectual and religious life, the mass rapes in 1945, etc. etc. etc.--there's enough there to fill history books, and it has!--but somehow I don't feel like that's really the point you're trying to make here.

Are you arguing that Stalin was a 'good thing'?

Read the post you're quoting again. You may find an answer to this question!

[Benjamin Frank]

Stop embarrassing yourself by attempting to defend honoring literal Nazis, good lord. We aren't talking about some poor German conscript here, the guy willingly chose to join the SS.

Stop embarrassing yourself by expressing ignorant simple binaries. Again, I've explained the complicated situation, if you feel the need to feel morally superior, go ahead, but you're not.

Not embarrassed at all actually, but thank you for your concern.

I am, in fact, morally superior to SS grandpa here, and I say that without having any high opinion of my own morality. I have never raped or murdered civilians in Eastern Europe nor sent Jews away to be mass-murdered in the Holocaust, so I feel perfectly comfortable in that assertion. No amount of faux-intellectual rambling is going to change the fact that this guy willingly chose to join the SS, and that the SS is responsible for disgustingly immoral actions.

Read the whole thread before commenting, I have nothing to add. It isn't known for certain what Hunka did and there is no claim that he participated in the Holocaust.

We are also going down a dark road when rejecting binary thinking is called 'faux intellectual rambling.'

Whether I'm being faux intellectual or not does not excuse mindless binaries.

Idiocracy here we come...

Declaring that any statement which imparts a moral judgement on an action is "mindless binary thinking" is its own form of mindless thinking. Not everything is black and white, but not everything is completely grey either. Morality may be non-binary and fuzzy, but not so fuzzy that the guys who committed some of the worst atrocities in recorded history can be let off with a shrug and an "it was complicated".

Also congrats on coming up with the worst invocation of "Idiocracy" I've ever read. "Idiocracy is when people think the perpetrators of the Holocaust are bad" is one I've never seen before!

So, to Ukrainians the person who murdered up to 5 million of them just 10 years prior was supposed to be now considered good?

I could just as easily argue given what you're argying "Idiocracy is when people think the perpetrators of the Holodomor are bad" except that's essentially what you are saying.

[Benjamin Frank]

Stop embarrassing yourself by attempting to defend honoring literal Nazis, good lord. We aren't talking about some poor German conscript here, the guy willingly chose to join the SS.

Stop embarrassing yourself by expressing ignorant simple binaries. Again, I've explained the complicated situation, if you feel the need to feel morally superior, go ahead, but you're not.

Not embarrassed at all actually, but thank you for your concern.

I am, in fact, morally superior to SS grandpa here, and I say that without having any high opinion of my own morality. I have never raped or murdered civilians in Eastern Europe nor sent Jews away to be mass-murdered in the Holocaust, so I feel perfectly comfortable in that assertion. No amount of faux-intellectual rambling is going to change the fact that this guy willingly chose to join the SS, and that the SS is responsible for disgustingly immoral actions.

Read the whole thread before commenting, I have nothing to add. It isn't known for certain what Hunka did and there is no claim that he participated in the Holocaust.

We are also going down a dark road when rejecting binary thinking is called 'faux intellectual rambling.'

Whether I'm being faux intellectual or not does not excuse mindless binaries.

Idiocracy here we come...

"Dude. What if, like...there was no difference between good things and bad things, maaaan?"

Seriously, is condemning Stalin going to be your version of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem routine? Is that what you want? Because I'm happy to condemn Stalin for Katyn, the destruction of Polish and Galician intellectual and religious life, the mass rapes in 1945, etc. etc. etc.--there's enough there to fill history books, and it has!--but somehow I don't feel like that's really the point you're trying to make here.

Are you arguing that Stalin was a 'good thing'?

Read the post you're quoting again. You may find an answer to this question!

This is what you wrote: "Dude. What if, like...there was no difference between good things and bad things"

What is the 'good thing' here (other than possibly Stalin)?

Because that is the point I've been making all along: to a person in those parts of Eastern Europe at that time (and Finland) Stalin was just as evil as Hitler.

And with that, I have to go out.

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

Stop embarrassing yourself by attempting to defend honoring literal Nazis, good lord. We aren't talking about some poor German conscript here, the guy willingly chose to join the SS.

Stop embarrassing yourself by expressing ignorant simple binaries. Again, I've explained the complicated situation, if you feel the need to feel morally superior, go ahead, but you're not.

Not embarrassed at all actually, but thank you for your concern.

I am, in fact, morally superior to SS grandpa here, and I say that without having any high opinion of my own morality. I have never raped or murdered civilians in Eastern Europe nor sent Jews away to be mass-murdered in the Holocaust, so I feel perfectly comfortable in that assertion. No amount of faux-intellectual rambling is going to change the fact that this guy willingly chose to join the SS, and that the SS is responsible for disgustingly immoral actions.

Read the whole thread before commenting, I have nothing to add. It isn't known for certain what Hunka did and there is no claim that he participated in the Holocaust.

We are also going down a dark road when rejecting binary thinking is called 'faux intellectual rambling.'

Whether I'm being faux intellectual or not does not excuse mindless binaries.

Idiocracy here we come...

"Dude. What if, like...there was no difference between good things and bad things, maaaan?"

Seriously, is condemning Stalin going to be your version of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem routine? Is that what you want? Because I'm happy to condemn Stalin for Katyn, the destruction of Polish and Galician intellectual and religious life, the mass rapes in 1945, etc. etc. etc.--there's enough there to fill history books, and it has!--but somehow I don't feel like that's really the point you're trying to make here.

Are you arguing that Stalin was a 'good thing'?

Read the post you're quoting again. You may find an answer to this question!

This is what you wrote: "Dude. What if, like...there was no difference between good things and bad things"

What is the 'good thing' here (other than possibly Stalin)?

Because that is the point I've been making all along: to a person in those parts of Eastern Europe at that time (and Finland) Stalin was just as evil as Hitler.

The "good thing" is "not being a Waffen-SS veteran, or, if you are a Waffen-SS veteran, at least not being a completely unrepentant one." I'm starting to doubt that you're actually this dense.

[Benjamin Frank]

Stop embarrassing yourself by attempting to defend honoring literal Nazis, good lord. We aren't talking about some poor German conscript here, the guy willingly chose to join the SS.

Stop embarrassing yourself by expressing ignorant simple binaries. Again, I've explained the complicated situation, if you feel the need to feel morally superior, go ahead, but you're not.

Not embarrassed at all actually, but thank you for your concern.

I am, in fact, morally superior to SS grandpa here, and I say that without having any high opinion of my own morality. I have never raped or murdered civilians in Eastern Europe nor sent Jews away to be mass-murdered in the Holocaust, so I feel perfectly comfortable in that assertion. No amount of faux-intellectual rambling is going to change the fact that this guy willingly chose to join the SS, and that the SS is responsible for disgustingly immoral actions.

Read the whole thread before commenting, I have nothing to add. It isn't known for certain what Hunka did and there is no claim that he participated in the Holocaust.

We are also going down a dark road when rejecting binary thinking is called 'faux intellectual rambling.'

Whether I'm being faux intellectual or not does not excuse mindless binaries.

Idiocracy here we come...

"Dude. What if, like...there was no difference between good things and bad things, maaaan?"

Seriously, is condemning Stalin going to be your version of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem routine? Is that what you want? Because I'm happy to condemn Stalin for Katyn, the destruction of Polish and Galician intellectual and religious life, the mass rapes in 1945, etc. etc. etc.--there's enough there to fill history books, and it has!--but somehow I don't feel like that's really the point you're trying to make here.

Are you arguing that Stalin was a 'good thing'?

Read the post you're quoting again. You may find an answer to this question!

This is what you wrote: "Dude. What if, like...there was no difference between good things and bad things"

What is the 'good thing' here (other than possibly Stalin)?

Because that is the point I've been making all along: to a person in those parts of Eastern Europe at that time (and Finland) Stalin was just as evil as Hitler.

The "good thing" is "not being a Waffen-SS veteran, or, if you are a Waffen-SS veteran, at least not being a completely unrepentant one." I'm starting to doubt that you're actually this dense.

Yes, I understand your overall point of view, I just don't agree with it. I think people should consider themselves blessed to not be in such a situation rather than blindly condeming people who are.

I leave you with this

Have you ever been close to tragedy
Or been close to folks who have?
Have you ever felt a pain so powerful
So heavy you collapse
No, well
I've never had to knock on wood
But I know someone who has
Which makes me wonder if I could
It makes me wonder if I've
Never had to knock on wood
And I'm glad I haven't yet
Because I'm sure it isn't good
That's the impression that I get

Have you ever had the odds stacked up so high
You need a strength most don't possess?
Or has it ever come down to do or die?
You've got to rise above the rest
No, well
I've never had to knock on wood
But I know someone who has
Which makes me wonder if I could
It makes me wonder if I've
Never had to knock on wood
And I'm glad I haven't yet
Because I'm sure it isn't good
That's the impression that I get

I'm not a coward, I've just never been tested
I'd like to think that if I was I would pass
Look at the tested and think "There but for the grace go I"
Might be a coward, I'm afraid of what I might find out
Never had to knock on wood
But I know someone who has
Which makes me wonder if I could
It makes me wonder if I've
Never had to knock on wood
And I'm glad I haven't yet
Because I'm sure it isn't good
That's the impression that I get

[Anti-Trump Truth Socialite JD Vance Enjoying Juror]

Stop embarrassing yourself by attempting to defend honoring literal Nazis, good lord. We aren't talking about some poor German conscript here, the guy willingly chose to join the SS.

Stop embarrassing yourself by expressing ignorant simple binaries. Again, I've explained the complicated situation, if you feel the need to feel morally superior, go ahead, but you're not.

Not embarrassed at all actually, but thank you for your concern.

I am, in fact, morally superior to SS grandpa here, and I say that without having any high opinion of my own morality. I have never raped or murdered civilians in Eastern Europe nor sent Jews away to be mass-murdered in the Holocaust, so I feel perfectly comfortable in that assertion. No amount of faux-intellectual rambling is going to change the fact that this guy willingly chose to join the SS, and that the SS is responsible for disgustingly immoral actions.

Read the whole thread before commenting, I have nothing to add. It isn't known for certain what Hunka did and there is no claim that he participated in the Holocaust.

We are also going down a dark road when rejecting binary thinking is called 'faux intellectual rambling.'

Whether I'm being faux intellectual or not does not excuse mindless binaries.

Idiocracy here we come...

Declaring that any statement which imparts a moral judgement on an action is "mindless binary thinking" is its own form of mindless thinking. Not everything is black and white, but not everything is completely grey either. Morality may be non-binary and fuzzy, but not so fuzzy that the guys who committed some of the worst atrocities in recorded history can be let off with a shrug and an "it was complicated".

Also congrats on coming up with the worst invocation of "Idiocracy" I've ever read. "Idiocracy is when people think the perpetrators of the Holocaust are bad" is one I've never seen before!

So, to Ukrainians the person who murdered up to 5 million of them just 10 years prior was supposed to be now considered good?

No. I don't see how that's relevant though, because nobody in this thread has said or even implied that. It is possible to think that Stalin is bad without joining the SS.

CLIPPED

I could just as easily argue given what you're argying "Idiocracy is when people think the perpetrators of the Holodomor are bad" except that's essentially what you are saying.

I can't even understand what this nonsense is supposed to mean. I never said the perpetrators of the Holomodor weren't bad. Thinking that Nazi war crimes were bad doesn't somehow mean that I think Soviet war crimes were good. This sentence reads like it was written by someone who recently suffered a head injury.

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

Keep the good name of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones out of this, please.

I don't think it's blind condemnation to say that this guy perhaps has not led the sort of life that entitles one to a standing ovation from the parliament of a major developed democracy. Evidently you disagree. I'll be taking this into account when interacting with you in the future.

[lfromnj]

Frank does raise the point there is a more mixed view of volunteer Eastern European legions. The Waffen SS was really the only organized branch of the German army that they could really join if they wanted to fight off the Soviets.  I can certainly understand why they would have, infact I believe I might have done the same. However to specifically honor their actions during WW2 when each minute they held meant another dozen would perish in the Holocaust is bad. This is even before any war crimes they may have done.
Regarding the whataboutism on Werner Von Braun. That is a fair debate to be had but at least when one is honoring Von Braun they aren't directly honoring his actions during WW2. They were honoring what he did for NASA. A less egregious example is the Benedict Arnold boot statue where we honor Arnold's foot and sacrifice for our country before he became a traitor.

I don't believe I am very partisan on this issue. I haven't called out Trudeau more than I called out the rest of Parliament. Rota was incredibly dumb, from what I saw he did a good job before but this was such a massive failure he had to resign. Freeland OTOH is suspicious because she really can't claim ignorance unless she plagiarized her way through college.

[Senator Incitatus]

My takeaway here: invade Canada.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

My takeaway here: invade Canada.

It's time for a special military operation to denazify Canada.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

The original poster here who clearly knows nothing of the history of the lose lose position effecting people in Poland, Ukraine, the Baltics, Belarussia and Finland between the two evils of Hitler and Stalin and is posting for cheap grandstanding/virtue signalling purposes.

This wasn't some Pole or Finn fighting an invading Soviet army in 1939 or 1940. This was a literal Nazi.

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

I repudiate the Courage the Cowardly Wumao recommendations I've been getting in this thread, by the way. I knew what he's about when it comes to recommending posts on this story and I want no part of it.

[Vosem]

I am becoming very concerned about the curriculum at the selective high school at which Benjamin Frank teaches.

[Benjamin Frank]

Stop embarrassing yourself by attempting to defend honoring literal Nazis, good lord. We aren't talking about some poor German conscript here, the guy willingly chose to join the SS.

Stop embarrassing yourself by expressing ignorant simple binaries. Again, I've explained the complicated situation, if you feel the need to feel morally superior, go ahead, but you're not.

Not embarrassed at all actually, but thank you for your concern.

I am, in fact, morally superior to SS grandpa here, and I say that without having any high opinion of my own morality. I have never raped or murdered civilians in Eastern Europe nor sent Jews away to be mass-murdered in the Holocaust, so I feel perfectly comfortable in that assertion. No amount of faux-intellectual rambling is going to change the fact that this guy willingly chose to join the SS, and that the SS is responsible for disgustingly immoral actions.

Read the whole thread before commenting, I have nothing to add. It isn't known for certain what Hunka did and there is no claim that he participated in the Holocaust.

We are also going down a dark road when rejecting binary thinking is called 'faux intellectual rambling.'

Whether I'm being faux intellectual or not does not excuse mindless binaries.

Idiocracy here we come...

Declaring that any statement which imparts a moral judgement on an action is "mindless binary thinking" is its own form of mindless thinking. Not everything is black and white, but not everything is completely grey either. Morality may be non-binary and fuzzy, but not so fuzzy that the guys who committed some of the worst atrocities in recorded history can be let off with a shrug and an "it was complicated".

Also congrats on coming up with the worst invocation of "Idiocracy" I've ever read. "Idiocracy is when people think the perpetrators of the Holocaust are bad" is one I've never seen before!

So, to Ukrainians the person who murdered up to 5 million of them just 10 years prior was supposed to be now considered good?

No. I don't see how that's relevant though, because nobody in this thread has said or even implied that. It is possible to think that Stalin is bad without joining the SS.

CLIPPED

I could just as easily argue given what you're argying "Idiocracy is when people think the perpetrators of the Holodomor are bad" except that's essentially what you are saying.

I can't even understand what this nonsense is supposed to mean. I never said the perpetrators of the Holomodor weren't bad. Thinking that Nazi war crimes were bad doesn't somehow mean that I think Soviet war crimes were good. This sentence reads like it was written by someone who recently suffered a head injury.

Can you even make a comment without an insult?

I don't really care it just provides more evidence to me that you're not very intelligent.

In regards to the Holodomor, the point I was making (which I thought was obvious, but obviously not to you) is that a Ukrainian in Ukraine or eastern Poland might have been more concerned about that in 1943 than in the Holocaust or in any of the other atrocities committed by the Nazis that they may not even have been aware of.

As I said above, most people are generally self interested, so it wouldn't surprise me if he'd put the concern of Ukrainians ahead of all else, and I don't think a person should be condemned for doing that.

Let's be clear here: most Americans were aware of the Holocaust during World War II and didn't care about it, so expecting Ukrainians to 'choose the greater good' over what many of them would have rationally at that time perceived as their real enemy (the Soviets) is really stupid.

I'm aware that Hitler was also brutal to Poles and Ukrainians but not at the level of the Holodomor.

[Benjamin Frank]

Keep the good name of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones out of this, please.

I don't think it's blind condemnation to say that this guy perhaps has not led the sort of life that entitles one to a standing ovation from the parliament of a major developed democracy. Evidently you disagree. I'll be taking this into account when interacting with you in the future.

I specifically wrote: I agree he doesn't deserve praise, but the only people who should be condemned for the choices made in those Eastern European nations during World War II are those who seeked to personally profit or to murder other innocents. For people in those nations (and in Finland) both the Nazis and the Soviets were evil.

Are you now at such a stage of binary thinking that you believe that anybody who doesn't condemn this man must believe that he was entitled to a standing ovation from the Parliament of a major developed democracy?

[Anti-Trump Truth Socialite JD Vance Enjoying Juror]

CLIPPED

So, to Ukrainians the person who murdered up to 5 million of them just 10 years prior was supposed to be now considered good?

No. I don't see how that's relevant though, because nobody in this thread has said or even implied that. It is possible to think that Stalin is bad without joining the SS.

CLIPPED

I could just as easily argue given what you're argying "Idiocracy is when people think the perpetrators of the Holodomor are bad" except that's essentially what you are saying.

I can't even understand what this nonsense is supposed to mean. I never said the perpetrators of the Holomodor weren't bad. Thinking that Nazi war crimes were bad doesn't somehow mean that I think Soviet war crimes were good. This sentence reads like it was written by someone who recently suffered a head injury.

Can you even make a comment without an insult?

I don't really care it just provides more evidence to me that you're not very intelligent.

In regards to the Holodomor, the point I was making (which I thought was obvious, but obviously not to you) is that a Ukrainian in Ukraine or eastern Poland might have been more concerned about that in 1943 than in the Holocaust or in any of the other atrocities committed by the Nazis that they may not even have been aware of.

As I said above, most people are generally self interested, so it wouldn't surprise me if he'd put the concern of Ukrainians ahead of all else, and I don't think a person should be condemned for doing that.

Let's be clear here: most Americans were aware of the Holocaust during World War II and didn't care about it much either.

Being called unintelligent by you is practically a compliment.

Your point was neither obvious nor relevant. You claimed that I was "basically saying" that "Idiocracy is when people think the perpetrators of the Holodomor are bad". I made no such argument at any point. The failure of logic comes, I believe, from the knee-jerk nature of the response. Ironically enough, it is also a real example of the "binary thinking" you oppose. My claiming that your argument was bad does not mean that I was asserting the exact opposite claim. Your argument does not serve as a counter to the point I made, precisely because it is possible to think that the Holomodor and the Holocaust are both bad things. I think the Holomodor and the Holocaust were both bad things. They are not mutually exclusive.

Even if Ukrainians cared more about the Holomodor than the Holocaust, that doesn't justify taking a part in the Holocaust. The notion that SS members didn't know about Nazi war crimes is absurd. I've heard about the "clean Wehrmacht", but the "clean SS" is a kind of pseudohistory I haven't encountered before. Even operating under the (to be clear, completely false) assumption that gramps here didn't know what the SS was doing when he joined, he certainly knew what they did by the end of the war and the years following. The event honoring his "service" took place in 2023. He's had 80 years to learn what his comrades in the SS were doing, even if he somehow didn't know at the time.

People are self-interested, yes. But selfishness is not something to be commended, especially not when it leads to the deaths of millions! A person should absolutely be condemned for putting their concerns ahead of all else when doing so has such dire consequences. To say otherwise is insanity.
Consider the much more minor case of a robber who, in the course of a robbery, shoots and kills his target. The robber is poor and the ultimate root of his criminality is a perfectly rational selfish interest in improving his status. All he was doing was putting his own concerns ahead of those of the man he shot. Should he not be condemned?

Even if I were to accept that the American public knew about the full-extent of Nazi war crimes and didn't care, there is a massive difference between merely "not caring" about the Nazis' war crimes and actively perpetrating them.

The futility of continuing to explain this has surpassed the dissatisfaction involved in leaving a reply unanswered, so I'll be dropping this thread regardless of whether there is another response. Have a lovely evening.

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

Keep the good name of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones out of this, please.

I don't think it's blind condemnation to say that this guy perhaps has not led the sort of life that entitles one to a standing ovation from the parliament of a major developed democracy. Evidently you disagree. I'll be taking this into account when interacting with you in the future.

I specifically wrote: I agree he doesn't deserve praise, but the only people who should be condemned for the choices made in those Eastern European nations during World War II are those who seeked to personally profit or to murder other innocents. For people in those nations (and in Finland) both the Nazis and the Soviets were evil.

Are you now at such a stage of binary thinking that you believe that anybody who doesn't condemn this man must believe that he was entitled to a standing ovation from the Parliament of a major developed democracy?

Him getting a standing ovation from the parliament of a major developed democracy is the news story we are discussing, you see.

[Benjamin Frank]

CLIPPED

So, to Ukrainians the person who murdered up to 5 million of them just 10 years prior was supposed to be now considered good?

No. I don't see how that's relevant though, because nobody in this thread has said or even implied that. It is possible to think that Stalin is bad without joining the SS.

CLIPPED

I could just as easily argue given what you're argying "Idiocracy is when people think the perpetrators of the Holodomor are bad" except that's essentially what you are saying.

I can't even understand what this nonsense is supposed to mean. I never said the perpetrators of the Holomodor weren't bad. Thinking that Nazi war crimes were bad doesn't somehow mean that I think Soviet war crimes were good. This sentence reads like it was written by someone who recently suffered a head injury.

Can you even make a comment without an insult?

I don't really care it just provides more evidence to me that you're not very intelligent.

In regards to the Holodomor, the point I was making (which I thought was obvious, but obviously not to you) is that a Ukrainian in Ukraine or eastern Poland might have been more concerned about that in 1943 than in the Holocaust or in any of the other atrocities committed by the Nazis that they may not even have been aware of.

As I said above, most people are generally self interested, so it wouldn't surprise me if he'd put the concern of Ukrainians ahead of all else, and I don't think a person should be condemned for doing that.

Let's be clear here: most Americans were aware of the Holocaust during World War II and didn't care about it much either.

Being called unintelligent by you is practically a compliment.

Your point was neither obvious nor relevant. You claimed that I was "basically saying" that "Idiocracy is when people think the perpetrators of the Holodomor are bad". I made no such argument at any point. This failure of logic comes, I believe, from your habit of knee-jerk responses. Ironically enough, it is also a real example of the "binary logic" you claim to oppose. Me claiming that your argument was bad does not mean that I was asserting the exact opposite claim. Your "argument" does not serve as a counter to the point I made, precisely because it is possible to think that the Holomodor and the Holocaust are both bad things. I think the Holomodor and the Holocaust were both bad things. They are not mutually exclusive.

Even if Ukrainians cared more about the Holomodor than the Holocaust, that doesn't justify taking a part in the Holocaust. The notion that SS members didn't know about Nazi war crimes is absurd. I've heard about the "clean Wehrmacht" before, but the "clean SS" is a kind of pseudohistory I haven't encountered before. Even operating under the (to be clear, completely false) assumption that gramps here didn't know what the SS was doing when he joined, he certainly knew what they did by the end of the war and the years following. The event honoring his "service" took place in 2023. He's had 80 years to learn what his comrades in the SS were doing, even if he somehow didn't know at the time.

People are self-interested, yes. But selfishness is not something to be commended, especially not when it leads to the deaths of millions! A person should absolutely be condemned for putting their concerns ahead of all else when doing so has such dire consequences. To say otherwise is insanity.
Consider the much more minor case of a robber who, in the course of a robbery, shoots and kills his target. The robber is poor and the ultimate root of his criminality is a perfectly rational selfish interest in improving his status. All he was doing was putting his own concerns ahead of those of the man he shot. Should he not be condemned?

Even if I were to accept that the American public knew about the full-extent of Nazi war crimes and didn't care, there is a massive difference between merely "not caring" about the Nazis' war crimes and actively perpetrating them.

The futility of attempting to explain this to you has started to eclipse the dissatisfaction involved in leaving a reply unanswered, so I'll probably be dropping this thread regardless of whether there is another response. Have a lovely evening.

1.You made an intelligent post that didn't rely on insults.

2.I've said here a number of times, there is no claim this person assisted in the Holocaust, there is a claim he took part in the killing of Poles in general in support of the Nazi cause, rather than killing Soviet soldiers (also in support of the Nazi cause as far as the Nazis were concerned.) Mass killing of Poles was also part of their activities.

http://espritdecorps.ca/history-feature/whitewashing-the-ss-the-attempt-to-re-write-the-history-of-hitlers-collaborators

3.I might be inaccurately minimizing the Galician SS's involvement (and Gramp's involvement), it's part of the way history is taught in Canada.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/canadas-soft-pedalling-ukraine-ss-galicia
Canada’s long history of soft-pedalling the Ukrainian Waffen-SS Galicia Division
Canada has spent decades overlooking and providing official cover for the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, an organization founded by the Nazis

It could be that nobody in Canada has made that claim due to this need to be politically careful in making claims about what this Ukrainian did on the side of the Nazis during the war, I don't know.

4.However, that still does not mean that 'gramps' specifically knew himself or wasn't wilfully blind for choosing what he regarded as the good of Ukraine. There is also no question Americans were also either fully aware of the Holocaust or were willfully blind (at best, or didn't care because they were anti Semitic themselves.)

Although pre Holocaust, Americans knew of the atrocities already being committed against the Jews in Germany when the U.S refused the St Louis. There are many historians who believe that the refusal of nations all over the world (not just the U.S) to accept the St Louis convinced Hitler he could get away with the Holocaust.

5.Obviously he knew later but if it is accurate that all he personally did was kill Soviet soldiers, he has no reason to hold himself personally responsible, just as, in your example (or your whataboutism), the gun makers and sellers don't hold themselves responsible when a criminal kills a person with the gun.

I'm not going to hold this person to a higher standard than people hold themselves.

I appreciate being made aware of a blind spot among Canadians and in Canadian history though.

[Benjamin Frank]

Keep the good name of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones out of this, please.

I don't think it's blind condemnation to say that this guy perhaps has not led the sort of life that entitles one to a standing ovation from the parliament of a major developed democracy. Evidently you disagree. I'll be taking this into account when interacting with you in the future.

I specifically wrote: I agree he doesn't deserve praise, but the only people who should be condemned for the choices made in those Eastern European nations during World War II are those who seeked to personally profit or to murder other innocents. For people in those nations (and in Finland) both the Nazis and the Soviets were evil.

Are you now at such a stage of binary thinking that you believe that anybody who doesn't condemn this man must believe that he was entitled to a standing ovation from the Parliament of a major developed democracy?

Him getting a standing ovation from the parliament of a major developed democracy is the news story we are discussing, you see.

This was your reply to me:
"You don't have to defend literally everything someone from your country does, Frank, even if it's Americans who are criticizing the person."

Are you now claiming that Parliament is one person?

You started this discussion with me by making it about 'gramps' not by making it about Parliament. If you had made it about Parliament, I would have replied that 'it seems nobody in Parliament was aware of his history at the time they gave him the standing ovation.' A point at least one other person here has made.

I have defended the choice 'gramps' made in an impossible situation (if he only took part in killing Soviet soldiers,) you argue he could have remained neutral but that isn't always possible in war, as I think you're aware (and as the song suggests.) And I'm not suggesting he was forced into joining the unit by the Nazis, but that there would have been enormous community pressure on him.

I find it strange that you're more concerned with arguing with me about this, than with the people here who still whitewash the history of the Nazi Pope (AKA Hitler's Pope) when that discussion come up a while back.

[lfromnj]

One thing to note is that most of the Ukranian Nazi collaboration came from Ukranians in the region of Galicia who ethnically cleansed/genocided the Poles. Obviously the Poles weren't great to them but atleast since Pilsudskis coup in 1925 it was a bearable existence.  Galicians were not affected by the holodomor as they were part of Poland during the event.

[Benjamin Frank]

I am becoming very concerned about the curriculum at the selective high school at which Benjamin Frank teaches.

If there is a problem with the curriculum, it wouldn't just be at where I taught (I took leave and then took early retirement.)

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/canadas-soft-pedalling-ukraine-ss-galicia

Canada’s long history of soft-pedalling the Ukrainian Waffen-SS Galicia Division
Canada has spent decades overlooking and providing official cover for the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, an organization founded by the Nazis.

"There are monuments to the unit at cemeteries in both Alberta and Oakville, Ont., both of which avoid any mention of its SS origins, instead referring to it as the 1st Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army."

What do you want from me?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It is rather unlikely that he would have been unaware of the Holocaust, as in the eastern part of the former Pale of Settlement it took on a different form to further West: 'the Holocaust by bullets'. People were rounded up and shot, often with the assistance of local nationalist militias. The largest and most infamous incident was at Babi Yar, just outside Kiev/Kyiv, but smaller incidents occurred from the Baltics to the Black Sea coast and they all added up. You can't hide something like that; everyone in the region (and it is a very large region) will have known. I will refrain from wondering whether he might have been involved himself, though that would have been before his SS membership.

As to the Holodomor/Terror Famine, while I'm sure that awareness of it will have stoked further pre-existing extreme nationalist sentiment in Galicia, the region itself was not affected by it as it was part of the Second Polish Republic at the time. While a lot of surviving Galician SS veterans (including Hunka) appear to have justified their actions with reference to the Soviet Union in later decades, their primary political opponent (as they saw it) was the Poles, which is why they carried on murdering those members of the Polish community of Eastern Galicia who had not been deported (temporarily as it happened) to Siberia (by... er... Stalin...) right up until the Eastern Front collapsed.

Anyway, the Zelensky government has always been careful not to honour these ancient creeps back home despite lobbying from certain groups, and people like this will have murdered, or been involved in the murder of, some of his relatives. Diplomacy means that this angle has been downplayed in the coverage, but it really does add something extra to the offensive stupidity of this incident, and I note that the first member of the Canadian government to say in public that Rota's position was untenable was the Foreign Minister.

[CumbrianLefty]

There were unaligned Ukrainian partisans, your realize.

Sure.

That doesn't make Ukrainians fighting Soviets in World War II in defence of Ukraine clearly wrong, just as it doesn't make Finns fighting Soviets in World War II in defence of Finland clearly wrong. Stalin was as evil as Hitler and, less we forget, was an ally of Hitler from 1939-1941.

"So between 1939 and 1941, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union are allies. And Stalin actually provides very substantial support to Nazi Germany. So when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June of 1941, this time it was Stalin who is taken by surprise."

At best, you are engaging in the Historian's fallacy.

Ukraine was under attack by the Nazi war machine intent on dismantling Ukrainian statehood and turning the Ukrainian population into a permanent slave class. I don't think they were defending Ukraine at all.

Yes, a tough position for anybody there, since Stalin had already done that and was intent on maintaining it. But, it's probably impossible to know what this guy believed at the time. It's called 'the fog of war' for a reason.

Well he voluntarily joined a Waffen-SS regiment, so my inclination is not to be charitable.

That's the crux isn't it, its one thing to see Nazis as the "lesser evil" or even "useful idiots" after the Holodomor and all the rest of it - but getting into the Waffen SS was a mark of loyalty to the wider project, people were even screened for "soundness" beforehand (though this probably did degrade a bit in the chaotic closing days of the war) Hunka knew just what he was doing, virtually certainly.

[Aurelius2]

I repudiate the Courage the Cowardly Wumao recommendations I've been getting in this thread, by the way. I knew what he's about when it comes to recommending posts on this story and I want no part of it.

I also repudiate all recommendations I've gotten from that clown on my posts discussing this matter the last few days.

Acknowledging Eastern Europe has a Nazi problem does not mean I support your commie tyrant friends or their successor's in Putin's stooges, brain genius. I concede nothing to you and your tyrannical aims which seek to squeeze every good and joyful thing from this world.