State sponsored crime

[bumab]

The holocaust was legal. Slavery was legal. Exploitation of minorities was legal.

All were legal within their specific contexts- now, many would refer to them as "state-sponsored crimes." I certainly would. But, for the people at the time, they were just following orders, they were within the law- the morals which most people operate by usually is the law of the land.

So the questions:
How likely is it that the participants would recognize state-sponsored crimes at the time? Would you? Does the recognition of a state crime require some internal morality guide, not affixed to the state, or are laws simply written by the victor- so the Holocaust was wrong because we won. If Germany had won, presumably it would still be legal. Is there any state crimes going on right now in your home country?

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by bumab

... How likely is it that the participants would recognize state-sponsored crimes at the time?...

Sidestepping the semantic argument about whether something is a "crime" if it is not technically illegal, I think you are asking is whether a state will recognize or be recognized for immoral behavior.

History suggests the answer is "yes", but the lag time can be pretty uncomfortable. Nazi death camps, Apartheid, slavery in the US, pogroms in the USSR, genocide in Rwanda, etc. were all recognized as immoral by outsiders, and some fought to address the issues. The timeliness and the degree of success by the outsiders certainly varied.

I think you were asking whether the "insiders" were aware of the immorality. Interesting question. The real monsters of history (Stalin, Hitler, Hussein, etc) are odd folks. The surprising issue is the status they are granted by their respective populaces and/or cronies. There is a movement in Russia right now to re-elevate Stalin as a victor/leader (in a positive way) in spite of his murder of approximately 20 million Russians. It is fair to say that I do not understand this.

[UncleAl]

The holocaust was legal. Slavery was legal. Exploitation of minorities was legal.

Absolutely legal and vigorously pursued. Anybody who didn't like the status quo should have departed to a place that was different - or departed and started their own place. Eastern North America was settled by cuckoo-cuckoo religious minorities suffering oppression at home. They arrived and promptly oppressed to the max, starting with enslavement and murder of bothersome indigenes. If you like large scale examples, WWI and WWII.

Is there any state crimes going on right now in your home country?

Taxes, traffic citations, eminent domain, War on Drugs, War on Poverty, Patriot Act, Department of Education, Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, NASA, porkbarrel politics, political patronage... and the "insurgency" in Iraq.

Support evolution - shoot back.

[Turtle]

___I always have to come back to Stanley Millgram on this, with his seminal work Obedience to Authority. It was just such incidents as the Nazi death camps & the Melai(sp) masacrre that prompted the study in the first place.
___It isn't just the State one has to challenge, but any authority pushing "immoral" behavior. In my view, this means understanding where authority hides itself so you can strip away the curtain.
___

[Fishteacher73]

Not to beat a dead horse, but religion is often a powerful tool in convincing others to do immoral things. Just look today at the state of homosexual rights. Even Spain has granted same-sex marriages and it has a huge christian constituancy.

How about captial punishment? We even have US laws against murder, yet it is done with a vigor (quite notably here in TX, here a single county in Huston has a higher rate of death row inmates than many states).

The US has been listed as one of the worst violators of human rights in the world due to our treatment of "suspected terrorists" in the some what open Gitmo, to other admitted prison camps abroad uin undisclosed locals.


We have many other issues here in the states that are probably less acknowledged, such as polution, slavery (still), consumerism, etc. etc.

[Skippy]

Originally Posted by Fishteacher73

Not to beat a dead horse, but religion is often a powerful tool in convincing others to do immoral things. Just look today at the state of homosexual rights. Even Spain has granted same-sex marriages and it has a huge christian constituancy.

Whoa, Whoa, Whoa.... Spain may have a huge Christian base, that means nothing about its representative leaders forcing a right on them.

Originally Posted by Fishteacher73

How about captial punishment? We even have US laws against murder, yet it is done with a vigor (quite notably here in TX, here a single county in Huston has a higher rate of death row inmates than many states).

As I ahev learned to do so well on this site, look up the definition of murder: "The unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice." By definition, capital punishment is not murder. (Houston is in Harris County, not the other way around)

Originally Posted by Fishteacher73

The US has been listed as one of the worst violators of human rights in the world due to our treatment of "suspected terrorists" in the some what open Gitmo, to other admitted prison camps abroad uin undisclosed locals.

Listed by people who hail Castro and China as champions of humanity.

Originally Posted by Fishteacher73

We have many other issues here in the states that are probably less acknowledged, such as polution, slavery (still), consumerism, etc. etc.

Is this Julianne Malveaux?

[Skippy]

Originally Posted by Fishteacher73

Not to beat a dead horse, but religion is often a powerful tool in convincing others to do immoral things. Just look today at the state of homosexual rights. Even Spain has granted same-sex marriages and it has a huge christian constituancy.
How about captial punishment? We even have US laws against murder, yet it is done with a vigor (quite notably here in TX, here a single county in Huston has a higher rate of death row inmates than many states).
The US has been listed as one of the worst violators of human rights in the world due to our treatment of "suspected terrorists" in the some what open Gitmo, to other admitted prison camps abroad uin undisclosed locals.
We have many other issues here in the states that are probably less acknowledged, such as polution, slavery (still), consumerism, etc. etc.

This kind of trash is why no one respects the teaching profession anymore.

[Skippy]

Originally Posted by bumab

The holocaust was legal. Slavery was legal. Exploitation of minorities was legal.

All were legal within their specific contexts- now, many would refer to them as "state-sponsored crimes." I certainly would. But, for the people at the time, they were just following orders, they were within the law- the morals which most people operate by usually is the law of the land.

So the questions:
How likely is it that the participants would recognize state-sponsored crimes at the time? Would you? Does the recognition of a state crime require some internal morality guide, not affixed to the state, or are laws simply written by the victor- so the Holocaust was wrong because we won. If Germany had won, presumably it would still be legal. Is there any state crimes going on right now in your home country?

Suggested reading:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by Fishteacher73

..The US has been listed as one of the worst violators of human rights in the world due to our treatment of "suspected terrorists" in the some what open Gitmo, to other admitted prison camps abroad uin undisclosed locals....

Fish, you have to admit that this says a lot more about the bias of the writers than about the actions of the US.

There is no shred of moral equivalency between making a prisoner wear women's underwear on his head and lopping off a captive's head on video.

[Fishteacher73]

You speak as if everyone has judeo-christiam morals, bio . What can be constured as morally grey in one construct may be abhorant to another. Putting panties on your head may not sound too rough, but it has a much higher moral impact in Islamic cultures than in christian view. (much like a baykyard bbq with a few burgers sounds like a party is not that morally clear to a hindu). It is probably paramount to having Fred Phelps get a boyfriend. People seek to impose their morals upon others with no real regard to what moral system others are in and act surprised that they have offended or angered them. This is a big issue in our current situation in the middle east.