The holocaust and world war 2 had nothing to do with wether guns were available to the german population or not. 

I believe that taltimar is making a reference to your statement on trusting the authorities, not on the availability of weapons. 

I was debating with myself wether to open that discussion or not, because it is a ugly can of worms for me. The Holocaust and WW2 are never very far away from the collective german mind.. it is not easy. Whenever I read or research its history, I can't really grasp how they were able to rationalize genocide, to perfect the process and logistics of killing millions. And how so many germans after the war claimed to never have been Nazis and to have had no knowledge about the deathcamps.. and so many got away with it. If you research trials and verdicts for warcrimes, it is appaling how many got clemency from the American occupation administration after a short time and were released. By then, the cold war was in full swing and after its founding the new federal german republic was integrated into the west and joined Nato 1955, which gradually lead to a transformation into what Germany is today. The experience of WW2 changed Germany and Europe forever though. But some characteristics and stereotypes are rooted too deeply to get rid off, and one of them is loving order and rules and trusting the authorities. That is still true, but the german mentality of today is not the same as 75 years ago. You can not compare it.

While that is likely true, Americans see that as an example of what can happen when you trust in the authorities.  That it happened only 75 years ago is proof that trust in an authority can prove to be a mistake no matter the time period, and so the 2nd amendment is, therefore, still logical.

"If it happened then, it can happen again."

As to reasons why Hitler was so popular and was able to do all he did - that can not be answered shortly. Many different reasons acummulated, loss world war 1 and the treaty of Versailles with its extensive restrictions left the German populace with a resentment against the treaty and ultimately contributed to the rise of Adolf Hitler. The form of government after ww1 in Germany (Weimarer Republic) was a unstable democracy with too many loopholes for dictatorial power for the president in cases for emergency and was abused, it had too many political parties and ultimately failed. The great depression and world wide recession fell during that time as well. Hitler was elected as chancelor in january 1933, and the people were happy to have a strong leader that wanted to bring Germany back to its glory, get rid of the treaty of Versailles and enable the people to feel proud again. Democracy was well, disregarded as a failed experiment.  And the rest of Europe was not overly against a strong Germany, either.

It is not possible to draw a completely black and white picture in regard to the holocaust either. In the last few years, historians have started to research voluntary colaboration with the Germans in france, poland, ukraine, italy.. they had so much support, and without that support Hitler would have never been able to go through with it. The Vichy regime in France opted to cooperate completly with Germany in the deportation of jews without being prompted. The french rounded up the jews in paris and handed them over to the SS.

All in all, nobody was against the holocaust, not the germans and not the rest of Europe, and knowing about it relativly early did not prompt the US to join the war, either. There are no simple answers available.

there is a genocide occuring someonwhere on earth at LEAST once per decade. Blind trust in authorities is a cause for it.

Silver and Jade understood what I was saying.

http://images.encyclopediadramatica.com/images/9/98/Gun_control_works.jpg

Hahahahaha, Utemia, I am not arguing on how WWII and the holocaust happened, simply that it seems to come down to a trust in the authorities.

Can you for once be not polemic? You just sound like a redneck hooligan all the time

lol Silver and Jade. It is all connected. Trusting the authorities in contemporary Germany will not lead to another dictatorship though, rest assured.

Well, considering the fact that I have not stated what I believe in regards to the 2nd amendment, you really have no basis for this claim, do you?

So you are attempting to insult me for an unknown reason, and I am stepping out.

That was not meant for you, Silver, but for taltamir and his poster. I should have specified that, sorry.

Trust in our authority, we promise not to abuse it AGAIN; they, like, totally learned from their mistakes!

mmm....

mmm....

"Trust in your boyfriend/girlfried, he/she promises not to cheat on you AGAIN; they, like, totally learned from their mistakes"

actually it should really be "anymore" rather than "Again"... because abuse of power has been an ongoing thing. I can name you multiple abuses of power in the USA, Australia, UK, germany, and china and russia in the past year.

And I try to limit my exposure to those because they are depressing. (Thats why I can't tell you about power abuses in the other countries of the world)

besides which, while genocide is quite horrible, it is not the ONLY form of power abuse available.

Ah.  Yes, quotes work fantastically for situations like that... 

Though German's may never encounter that same kind of situation, the fact that English colonists were especially sensitive to the abuse of authority (what can happen when you trust an authority), and  they have since seen many instances in which trusting in an authority proved to be a mistake, (Holocaust in Germany, multiple genocides through different countries, etc.).  These examples, though perhaps not affecting Americans directly, mix with the sensitivities that we have been handed down from our American history, and serve as validation that one should never trust their government fully. 

So basically,

American Revolution + More recent examples of government abuse of a people's trust = Absolute belief that the 2nd amendment should be upheld.

Once, twice, three times a posting...

Double post.

The experience of world war 2 changed the way authority percieves itself in Germany as well. It is complicated, or maybe not, because the knowledge of what the generation of my grandfather did is always present. You can well believe that that knowledge prevents too much abuse, even though some will be around in any government. And "never again" is a political mantra here, it is cultivated that we as a people were responsible for unspeakable horrors and that THAT makes us responsible to work tirelessly to prevent it from ever happening again in Germany or anywhere else. The "anywhere else" is hard to accomplish because genocide sadly is something that is occuring with alarming frequency.

Don't be riddiculous. World War 2 did change Germany and Europe forever.

I am actually not a native US citizens. I emigrated to the USA, and I have seen trust in authority backfire elsewhere in the world. All human rights stem from peoples ability to defend themselves with force against would be opressors. In other words, weapons.

Forever is a very long time. look how europe has been appeasing any would be dictator. look how the world stood idly by as genocides occur everywhere in the world. I was a little over 10 when I first saw a genocide, and after years of being drilled about how the holocaust changed the world (I was in israel at the time), I waited and wait and never did the "world" do anything to help. I have since seen several other genocides... Rowanda being a prime example.

Where were your "forever changed europeans" then?

You don't even have an argument, you are living in fantasy world where bad things never happen when you trust in authority. Again and again it happens, during OUR livetimes, but you bring about 70 year old examples and pretend that they changed everything forever and ignore any proof to the contrary, including all the genocides occuring in your lifetime.

This discussion began with utemia mentioning that when it comes to certain "American" ideals, such as why the 2nd amendment is necessary, some Americans cannot discuss the matter objectively.

This is my reason why many cannot discuss it objectively, and why, (using his example of the 2nd amendment) it is still viewed as a logical amendment to have.

I didn't imply that it is only in the United States that such a trust has backfired.

You have a valid point with all that you said. The world does seem to stand idly by, and I wish I knew how to change that. But tell me, how would you react? Which army would you send to interfere? There is no worldpolice that actually can stop something, all one can realistically strive for is preventing it in your own country. And that is being done.

But tell me, which dictator do you mean with

That is a warped view, and isn't it telling that those who lobby for human rights like amnesty international, the red cross etc are  for peaceful ways of dealing with each other? I find it difficult to reconcile what I know about human rights movements with your claim about the importance of weapons.

addendum to 44: I said earlier that we as a people try to stop genocide from occuring ever again, but that is a very idealistic and sadly an unrealistic goal. Politics and geopolitical entanglements, history and globalization seem to supersede human rights all too often.

The US is a prime example that war is good business, and I could phrase a conspiracy theory about how some western industrialized countries do not really wanting certain civil wars in Africa (ie kongo)  to stop because the chaos enables them to buy cheap natural resources and to sell their weapons to the warring factions as a bonus.

But what I said about the Holocaust and its effect for contemporary Europe is also true. There are no perfect answers.

Getting back to the original point, "I am certain that essential systems could be repaired in time to prevent the complete breakdown of society and anarchy and restore order" is wishful thinking.  According to the New Scientist article linked to in this post, melted transformer hubs cannot be repaired, only replaced.  That means recovery would take months or years.

That article is talking about a solar flare event, which would affect more of the planet than a nuke scenario.

gangs started taking over, shooting police, mass rapes, looting... you send in the national guard and suddenly it is all gone.

It wasn't really that bad to begin with, actually -- the mayor was repeating a lot of false rumors to the press.  Popular Mechanics story

For those interested in the result of an EMP (however unlikely, or likely) might find the EMP Commission's report interesting.

http://empcommission.org/docs/A2473-EMP_Commission-7MB.pdf

Are you really sure that all civilized social behaviour will go out the window as soon as your own survival is threatened? Humans are a social animal and can adapt, and I have not only faith in the ability of my german authorities lol but also in that which makes human civilization possible to begin with. If everybody for themselves would be the main driving force in human behaviour, humanity would not have developed as it has. So - im no sociologist or anthropologist or cultural expert, but I have seen myself that even the greatest challenges - like for example being a war refugee - do not deter or stop life from going on.

I agree with utemia there.  "Nature, red in tooth and claw" is an ideology -- humans are not as violent nor as selfish as conservatives think they are.  We just tell stories about how violent we are to intimidate other people and how dangerous other people are so we'll look to the State for protection. 

Humans actually have more adaptations for working together than almost any other species besides ants (emotional mirroring, an instinct to specialize that leads to division of labor and trade, and language).  We're not going to have anarchy; organization is going to arise.  It just matters whether we come out with a toxic organization like Stalinism or a better one.