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Seattle Times Editor: 'Hitler's Demands Were Not Unreasonable'
littlegreenfootballs.com ^ | May 16, 2008

Posted on 05/16/2008 8:20:57 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY

Seattle Times editorial writer Bruce Ramsey, in an effort to defend Barack Obama against President Bush’s “appeasement” speech, actually ends up defending Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, and the Anschluss (the annexation of Austria): Bush, and His Use of ‘Appeasement’.

Democrats are rebuking President Bush for saying in his speech to the Knesset, here, that to “negotiate with terrorists and radicals” is “appeasement.” The Democrats took it as a slap at Barack Obama. What bothers me is the continual reference to Hitler and his National Socialists, particularly the British and French accommodation at the Munich Conference of 1938.

What Hitler was demanding was not unreasonable. He wanted the German-speaking areas of Europe under German authority. He had just annexed Austria, which was German-speaking, without bloodshed. There were two more small pieces of Germanic territory: the free city of Danzig and the Sudetenland, a border area of what is now the Czech Republic.

We live in an era when you do not change national borders for these sorts of reasons. But in 1938 it was different. Germany’s eastern and western borders had been redrawn 19 years before—and not to its benefit. In the democracies there was some sense of guilt with how Germany had been treated after World War I. Certainly there was a memory of the “Great War.” In 2008, we have entirely forgotten World War I, and how utterly unlike any conception of “The Good War” it was. When the British let Hitler have a slice of Czechoslovakia, they were following their historical wisdom: avoid war. War produces results far more horrible than you expected. War is a bad investment. It is not glorious. Don’t give anyone an excuse to start one.

Wow.


TOPICS: Editorial
KEYWORDS: appeasement; appeasment; insane; islamicfascists; obama; presbushknesset08; seattletimes
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To: Free ThinkerNY
We live in an era when you do not change national borders for these sorts of reasons. But in 1938 it was different.

I have a hard time believing that an adult wrote this, let alone an editor of a major newspaper. My high school history teachers (and English teachers) would've been privately amused, before giving "it" a poor grade. Alas, we live in an era when you do not give poor grades "for these sorts of reasons." But, in 1980 "it" was different, lol.

21 posted on 05/16/2008 8:40:37 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: JimSEA
This editor has likely not read William L. Shirer's classic "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich". What is crystal clear to Shirer, an eye witness totally supports Bush and McCain's statements.

Bruce Ramsey likely learned everything he knows in college, from left-wing professors.

And he has learned absolutely nothing since.

Stunning ignorance. Truly stunning ignorance.

22 posted on 05/16/2008 8:40:52 PM PDT by okie01 (THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA: Ignorance on Parade)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

For a sequel, he’ll say it’s not unreasonable for Mexico to reclaim the Southwestern US because there’s a lot of people there who speak Spanish.


23 posted on 05/16/2008 8:41:55 PM PDT by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

They can’t follow this course and have things come out good for them. It may take some time, but they can’t do it for long.


24 posted on 05/16/2008 8:42:08 PM PDT by perfect_rovian_storm
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To: Free ThinkerNY

25 posted on 05/16/2008 8:42:49 PM PDT by Bobalu (What do I know, I'm a Typical White Guy)
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

They pick one sliver of information to try to make Hitler sound reasonable. But, Hitler was a mad man and obviously was not about to be appeased - as he did not reveal his real motives for taking over the eastern regions, and also his hatred of Jews, handicapped people, Catholic priests, non-Aryans such as Polish, any Slavs, Gypsies, and also homosexuals.

The writer is an idiot.


26 posted on 05/16/2008 8:44:34 PM PDT by Gumdrop
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To: Shady

“It has reached the point of no return. We are doomed to be conqured by the new facists.”

I think we are doomed to dig a lot of ditches and shoot a lot of traitors.


27 posted on 05/16/2008 8:45:18 PM PDT by BigCinBigD (")
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To: JimSEA
I would strongly advise people to check out an article by Netenyahu titled something like “We are not Czechoslovakia”. He goes over in detail how the west stabbed their “good allies” in the back and handed over the Sudetenland months after assuring their protection. This betrayal “peace in our time” did nothing to slow down Der Further. Bebi then compares Israel as being very much in the same position today and promises they won't go quietly like the Czechs. You can find it with a google search and it is worth the effort.
28 posted on 05/16/2008 8:45:27 PM PDT by joebuck (Finitum non capax infinitum!)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

The liberals will go to any lengths to defend their Messiah.


29 posted on 05/16/2008 8:45:35 PM PDT by LifeOrGoods? (Liberalism=stupidity=Obama=false 'hope'=true defeat)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Jonah Goldberg just wrote a great book explaining how progressivism is American fascism.

I believe him.


30 posted on 05/16/2008 8:46:49 PM PDT by JHBowden
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To: Free ThinkerNY
to “negotiate with terrorists and radicals” is “appeasement.”

Yes, it certainly is.

Negotiating with these types is not the same as negotiation with friends or even neutral parties. It is giving up something to someone who deserves nothing, in return for what should not need to be purchased.

No different than buying back, at a 'bargain price' your own property from a thief, when the proper response is taking what is rightfully yours, and leaving the thief hanging from the nearest tree.

31 posted on 05/16/2008 8:48:26 PM PDT by ApplegateRanch (The Great Obamanation of Desolation, attempting to sit in the Oval Office, where he ought not..)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
The borders of Bohemia had been the same for centuries. When Czecho-Slovakia was created after WWI, they kept the historic boundaries, although some of the border districts had a majority of German-speakers. The Sudetenland had belonged to Austria before, not to Germany (unless you want to count the medieval Holy Roman Empire as Germany).

Hitler was just looking for pretexts--if there hadn't been a German-speaking minority in Bohemia, he'd have found some other reason. The border districts are mountainous, so until the Czechs were forced to give them up, they could have made a German invasion very costly.

The French were also involved in the Munich conference.

32 posted on 05/16/2008 8:48:38 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: goodnesswins

I just read the comments
They were outstanding.
I could never top them.
I don’t know what is harder to believe, that someone
named Bruce Ramsey wrote this “think-piece” or that a Seattle newspaper published it.
I would advise everyone to read the comments, which obviously come from the last sane people in Seattle.
There are gems of wisdom and insight into the Left scattered throughout.


33 posted on 05/16/2008 8:51:06 PM PDT by supremedoctrine ("Time is the school in which we learn that time is the fire in which we burn"--Delmore Schwartz)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Springtime for Hitler and Germany.


34 posted on 05/16/2008 8:52:09 PM PDT by razorback-bert (If yer gunna regret this in the mornin, we kin sleep til afternoon.)
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To: All

35 posted on 05/16/2008 8:54:30 PM PDT by Fox_Mulder77
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Hitler actually comes across much the same as the radical islamists, communists, and liberals. He wants complete control, but he nibbles away at it with seemingly innocuous things first. As the appetite grows, so do the demands.


36 posted on 05/16/2008 8:56:50 PM PDT by SlowBoat407 (ANWR would look great in pumps.)
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To: okie01
Bruce Ramsey likely learned everything he knows in college, from left-wing professors.

And he has learned absolutely nothing since.

okie01, thanks for the opportunity to throw out my favorite line on these types:

Educated beyond his intelligence!!

37 posted on 05/16/2008 8:57:48 PM PDT by T-Bird45 (It feels like the seventies, and it shouldn't.)
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To: Gumdrop
The writer is an idiot.

The writer in questiion works for the Seattle Times. "Idiot," therefore, is assumed; and "openly treasonous," an easy 60/40 shot. ;)

38 posted on 05/16/2008 8:58:50 PM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle (If McCain really CAN "win without conservatives," then why do you care if I vote for him or not?)
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To: dbehsman
"I honestly don't know what else to add. These people are just simply nuts. This is no longer an issue of policy differences, this is now an issue of sanity."

Bears repeating......

39 posted on 05/16/2008 8:59:28 PM PDT by SW6906 (6 things you can't have too much of: sex, money, firewood, horsepower, guns and ammunition.)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Bruce Ramsey has a long history of this kind of “attitude”
Look up someone named Garet Garrett,who vehemently opposed our going to war against the Nazis in WW2, hated FDR for it, and was part of a collective mind-set that was not much more than a hop, skip and jump away from other social phenomena of that ‘39 -’42 period like the German American Bund. They were not alone either—Joe Kennedy and Lucky Lindy, anyone? Bruce Ramsey , an apparent Libertarian, has also written/reviewed for LewRockwell.com.


40 posted on 05/16/2008 8:59:38 PM PDT by supremedoctrine ("Time is the school in which we learn that time is the fire in which we burn"--Delmore Schwartz)
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