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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 10, 2025

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chapters 13 and 14, not 3 and 4.

OK I see, you are quoting Chapter 13 not Chapter 3. Looks like the Babylonians are in for some Old Testament justice.

This is something I will address at greater length in my next post (note that it was me who first brought up Moses in connection with Genocide), but long story short is this: if we compare Mein Kampf and Isaiah, one is self-righteous, entitled, and enraged, and the other his humble, repentant, and resolved. Jamming on the enemy in itself has nothing to do with identity politics.

There is also an important question of fact here. The moral axiom that connects Judeo-Christian foreign policy , so to speak, from the bronze age to the 20th century is this: like a police officer making an arrest, you are obligated to handle your enemies with the lightest touch you safely can -- but no lighter, and them's the breaks. As a matter of fact, in the bronze age, the lightest touch you can safely use, when bordering a near-peer ruthless belligerent, may be enslavement or genocide (what is your other option? "I guess that war is over; whew; you can all go home now; better luck next time wiping us out and raping our wives and daughters "). But I do not believe Jews per se were threat to Germany at all -- even if Marxism was a threat to Germany (which it was), and Jews were disproportionally Marxist (which they were). The 30,000 Jews who won medals for bravery in WWI were certainly not a threat to Germany -- but many of those very men, and their families, perished in Nazi death camps all the same.

Now how did Hitler think when the shoe was on the other foot, and his own tribe was being a pest and got their asses kicked? If the allied cause was a Jewish conspiracy like Hitler charged, then he should have expected Old Testament justice at Versailles. Austria and Prussia, and their union in the German Empire, had fought bloody wars of aggression against the allies with whom they sought terms at Versailles, and in some cases against their fathers and grandfathers. So by Hitler's own logic, the allies would have been within their rights to push for a final solution to the German Problem while they had the upper hand. But the Versailles treaty, hard as it was on Germany, was not the Holocaust (not the same ballpark, not the same sport) -- and yet what did Hitler say about it? Vae Victus? No. What did we do to deserve this? Not exactly. He said it was an unfair, unjust, absolute abomination. Poor baby.

And that's identity politics: group justice with double standards. It is holding that your people are entitled to prey on others whenever the opportunity presents itself, and whining in self-righteous indignation when the shoe is on the other foot. The Hebrews didn't do that, and neither did the pagans.

Jamming on the enemy in itself has nothing to do with identity politics.

Of course it does, the friend/enemy distinction is the essence of identity politics. When the Hebrews do it it's just "Old Testament justice" but when Hitler identifies Jews as adversarial then it's identity politics? Give me a break.

It is holding that your people are entitled to prey on others whenever the opportunity presents itself, and whining in self-righteous indignation when the shoe is on the other foot. The Hebrews didn't do that, and neither did the pagans.

I'm sorry but this just shows a total ignorance of the Hebrew bible, which consists exactly of cycles of the Israelites genociding people according to the will of Yahweh and then acting like whiny victims when the shoe is on the other foot. Jews to this day still publicly celebrate the mass murder of the first-born sons of the Gentiles in Egypt. And don't get me started on Purim...

It is also just a plain fact that US intelligence shortly after WWII regarded Jews as a security threat to the United States. And of course nearly all Communist spies were Jewish. The idea that the entire notion was just "Hitlerian Identity Politics" is total bunk. There was more of a 'there' there.

Overall your analysis too heavily relies on these extremely high-level characterizations of Mein Kampf. If you are going to cite books from the Bible can you also cite passages from Mein Kampf that demonstrate your point rather than your over-reliance on super high-level characterizations of that work?

I've been accused of a lot of things -- but total ignorance of the Hebrew Bible, that's my new favorite.

It is also just a plain fact that US intelligence shortly after WWII regarded Jews as a security threat to the United States.

This is the same org that recently said right wing extremism is the greatest threat to US national security. I never took them seriously as you seem to, but maybe I should have another look.

When the Hebrews do it it's just "Old Testament justice" but when Hitler identifies Jews as adversarial then it's identity politics?

When the Hebrews do it it's "this is something written in a book, secular historians don't think it actually happened, and it's not something to do today".