[Peace-discuss] Fw: What If Hitler Had Never Been Born?

[Joan Cole]

> http://www.strike-the-root.com/columns/Halbrooks/halbrooks10.html
> What If Hitler Had Never Been Born?
> by Jacob Halbrooks
>
> I'll start off with the requisite disclaimers.  Hitler was evil.  Hitler
did
> direct the Holocaust, which was an actual historical event.  Many Jews
> unfortunately died during the Holocaust.  If Hell exists, Hitler is surely
> in it.
>
> That having been said, I have some news for everyone: Hitler never killed
> six million Jews.  I am perfectly serious.  In fact, Hitler probably never
> killed any Jews, unless he accidentally hit one with his Mercedes.  This
> might sound dubious after years of government programming that "Hitler
> killed six million Jews."  But ask yourself, did Hitler personally steal
> Jews out of their homes and send them to Auschwitz ?  Did Hitler shoot
Jews
> who would not conform to his commands in work camps?  Did Hitler
personally
> pile Jews into gas chambers?
>
> Some might say that I am merely playing a game of semantics.  Of course
> Hitler could not have possibly killed six million Jews by himself, but so
> what?  He was still responsible for their deaths because as head of the
> state he ordered others to carry out their deaths.
> I will go further then.  Not only did Hitler never kill six million Jews,
> but he was not even directly responsible for their deaths.  That is right.
> The conventional wisdom is that Hitler the dictator was the greatest
monster
> ever, and that the world would be a better place if he had never been
born.
>
> I am going to set the conventional wisdom straight.  The Nazi pogrom was
> surely an atrocity, and it is important to discover who was responsible
for
> its execution.  But such a monstrous operation was too large for one man.
> When people say, "Hitler killed six million Jews" they are placing the
blame
> entirely on a single individual.  But what of the millions of Germans who
> actually did pull the trigger on Jews?  What of the millions of Germans
who
> called the Gestapo to report their neighbors?  What of the millions of
> Germans who used the electoral process to secure themselves a national
> socialist police state?  The Holocaust indeed resulted from much more than
> the actions of one man; it was the combined result of millions of people
who
> directly or indirectly used the state to aggress upon, enslave, and kill
> others.  Hitler was not the root of the problem.  He was merely the
symptom
> of a larger disease inflicting a great many of people.  That disease was
> statism.
>
> When people say that Hitler killed six million Jews, we are meant to think
> that if Hitler had never been born, those Jews would have been spared.
> There would have been no Holocaust and even no World War II.  However,
this
> is flawed reasoning.  The fact is that the problem was not that Hitler had
> control of the government, the problem was that there existed a government
> that had so much control.  If it had not been Hitler, it would have been
> someone else.  There is no shortage of men who seek to control the lives
of
> others, and wherever there exists an apparatus of coercion and compulsion,
> those men will naturally be attracted to such positions.
>
> The general thought behind the statement "Hitler killed six million Jews"
is
> that there is nothing illegitimate about state power.  This is the basis
of
> democracy, that ethics and law are not inherent in nature but rather are
to
> be devised by majority rule.  With the democratic mindset, the historian
> would point to Hitler as a reason why the people must be careful to pick
the
> right leaders.  Perhaps they will say that power corrupts.  But the
correct
> formulation is that power attracts the corrupted.
>
> Many people, especially among academia, treat the government as a proper
and
> pure institution.  The concept of government to them is perfectly fine; it
> is the way the people guide society.  The task for the people then is to
> guard against those who would make government impure.  Never does it occur
> to these professors and pundits that government itself is illegitimate,
that
> it is merely organized crime, its purpose for one group of people to steal
f
> rom and control the lives of others.
>
> This line of reasoning, that government is a legitimate means for
organizing
> society and that people must only be wary of those who would corrupt it,
is
> seen not just in historical analysis but also in contemporary issues.  The
> justification for campaign finance reform, for example, is that big
> businesses corrupt politicians by campaign donations.  Politicians are
seen
> as the guardians of peace and justice, representing the people from their
> respective districts.  The evil corporate interests stand in the way of
what
> is right though, buying off Congressmen and thus swaying them from the
Will
> of the people.  Well, some corporate interests are evil.  But it is only
> through the state that they can infringe upon anybody's rights.  The
> problem, again, is not that the wrong people are in control of power, the
> problem is that the illegitimate power exists in the first place.
>
> Details of history would surely be different if Hitler never existed.  But
> so long as the conditions existed that created Hitler, someone else would
> have stood in as dictator.  The lesson we are supposed to learn from this
> history is that "we" must never again let someone like Hitler come to
power.
> But the real lesson is not that we must choose good leaders or even that
> power corrupts, it is that wherever there exists an institutionalized
means
> of aggression, aggression will be used.  No matter what the ideals are of
> those who create it or how limited the state seems at first, once the
notion
> is accepted that any aggression is legitimate, there is no boundary on the
> aggression that can and will be eventually committed.
>
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