Monty python banned, Mein Kampf approved!

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AlexDTX

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I feel that I have a pretty good idea of the things hitler tried to convey. I just disagree with them and view them as a window into the mind of a deranged man instead of the justification for his actions.
There are some very interesting things he says. For one thing, he analyzes the propaganda used against Germany during WWI and realizes that the propaganda that the German government used on its own people were weak. He admires how Britain portrayed the Germans as barbarians, which fortified the British soldier's resolve to fight harder against the Germans, whereas the German propaganda portrayed the British soldiers as weak and incompetent. He points out that when the German soldiers faced the ferocity of the British, they not only quaked but lost faith in the German government. He was an astute military tactician.

His blitzkrieg attacks during WWII showed a brilliant military understanding. I would not be surprised if Mein Kampf is standard reading at West Point as all other military campaigns of history would read. It is up there the Art of War.

What grieves me most about what I am reading is his racism. He did believe that the Aryan race to be superior to all other races, although there is no sense that he wanted to impose Aryan culture upon all other cultures. The book was written while in prison many years before becoming the chancellor of Germany.

This is clearly a Darwinian point of view. There are no races, only families of man that comprise the ethnic diversity of mankind. He clearly thought poorly of blacks as an inferior "race". Such a view suggests that while he may have borne the moniker of "Christian," since Germany had been a Lutheran state for centuries, there is no sense in his writing that he knew Christ at all. If anything he was a deist like Benjamin Franklin, who acknowledges a God but doesn't see God in ordinary human affairs.
 
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Belk

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Nithavela

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His blitzkrieg attacks during WWII showed a brilliant military understanding. I would not be surprised if Mein Kampf is standard reading at West Point as all other military campaigns of history would read. It is up there the Art of War.

 
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FireDragon76

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Hitler did not come up with the Blitzkrieg combined-arms doctrine. Blitzkrieg grew out of traditional German emphasis on manouvre warfare, in contrast to America which advocated what Germans called "materiel warfare" (which is still our military doctrine)

Germany had good generals and an excellent military, but Hitler was a failure as a commander in every way. He destroyed Germany, and in the end many of his own generals wanted him dead. Hitler's early successes were all down to French complacency and war-weariness.
 
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grasping the after wind

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"What is or is not permissible in Texas prisons is largely decided by mailroom staff, the newspaper found. Content and imagery are only part of the criteria applied; many books are banned because their bindings or covers could be used to smuggle contraband. For obvious reasons, maps are also banned.

“Mein Kampf is on the approved list because it does not violate our rules,” said Jason Clark, TDCJ deputy chief of staff."​

I am currently reading Mein Kampf and I find the story fascinating. His goal was to restore Germany as an independent nation and to defend it from the advance of Communism which is a Jewish creation: Karl Marx, Lenin and Trotsky were all Jews. His intention was not to kill Jews but communists, but all the communists in Germany were Jews. He definitely believed that the Germans were a superior race, which is nonsense, but he was not trying to take over the world as the allies portrayed.

No he was trying to take over Europe and cleanse it from inferior races through genocide. He may well have had it in for Communists( they were his chief rivals ) but even if every Communist had been a Jew ( really hard for me to understand how anyone could believe this) why did he kill all those Jews that were not Communists? Or will you also claim that not only was every Communist in Germany was a Jew but that every Jew in Europe was a Communist? If the rules in this prison allow Mein Kampf but don't allow Monty Python , I think it is the rules that are the problem. I see no reason to censor any of the works mentioned. Monty Python , however, IMO is a much superior and more believable work of fiction than Mein Kampf or Das Kapital . Hitler and Marx both were second rate minds compared to Cleese and Co..
 
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jayem

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I wonder whether Das Kapital is also available to prisoners?

I imagine so. I suppose it can always be introduced into prisons under the otherwise innocuous guise of 'economic philosophy.' ;)

Reading Das Kapital would be cruel and unusual punishment. I have a translation of the version edited by Friedrich Engels. (Who co-authored The Communist Manifesto with Marx.) I couldn't make it past page 3. It's 800+ pages of what has to be the densest, most minutely detailed, abstruse, esoteric, and intolerably boring prose ever written. Spending 75 years in solitary confinement would be easier to take.
 
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Motherofkittens

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He admits that he was an anti-semite. But why do you think I am defending him? Do you not consider it a matter of an open mind to see both sides of a story?

Yes, of course, but what you are saying is not accurate. And, although you should get all sides of the story that doesn't mean they are all on equal ethical or intellectual footing. Reading one book (and it was probably translated and long enough ago and in a different enough culture that the average person of today couldn't understand it easily) by Hitler himself, before he got into power is not getting in accurate picture. For obvious reasons.

However there actually are parts where he does discuss genocide and German expansion in Mein Kampf.

Sadly, a lot of American prisons already have many skinheads, neonazi's, etc. Hitler, himself in Mein Kampf describes how he because radicalized and it happens all the time. Radicalization, it doesn't just happen to some Muslims.

I don't think we should prohibit reading of literature. But it is very, very important that we also give everyone the tools for critical thinking and how to correctly evaluate what is factual and what is not.
 
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AlexDTX

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Yes, of course, but what you are saying is not accurate. And, although you should get all sides of the story that doesn't mean they are all on equal ethical or intellectual footing. Reading one book (and it was probably translated and long enough ago and in a different enough culture that the average person of today couldn't understand it easily) by Hitler himself, before he got into power is not getting in accurate picture. For obvious reasons.

However there actually are parts where he does discuss genocide and German expansion in Mein Kampf.

Sadly, a lot of American prisons already have many skinheads, neonazi's, etc. Hitler, himself in Mein Kampf describes how he because radicalized and it happens all the time. Radicalization, it doesn't just happen to some Muslims.

I don't think we should prohibit reading of literature. But it is very, very important that we also give everyone the tools for critical thinking and how to correctly evaluate what is factual and what is not.
So, then you have read the book from cover to cover and know for certainty what you are saying? I hope so, I appreciate honest scholasticism.
 
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Motherofkittens

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So, then you have read the book from cover to cover and know for certainty what you are saying? I hope so, I appreciate honest scholasticism.

Yes. My family and church we're extremely anti semitic. They blame the world's ills on the devil and the "ACjews". As in "anti Christ Jews". Pretty disgusting. They think Yahweh used Hitler, among others to "rightly judge those that rejected his son." Unfortunately I'm familiar with prejudice and prejudicel writings.

But even if Mein Kampf, didn't say anything "too" egregious, so? If Saddam Hussain, wrote a book before he was in power we wouldn't turn to it to judge his rule. We would and do look at people's actions or lack of actions while in positions of power and control.
 
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Aryeh Jay

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Yes. My family and church we're extremely anti semitic. They blame the world's ills on the devil and the "ACjews". As in "anti Christ Jews". Pretty disgusting. They think Yahweh used Hitler, among others to "rightly judge those that rejected his son." Unfortunately I'm familiar with prejudice and prejudicel writings.

But even if Mein Kampf, didn't say anything "too" egregious, so? If Saddam Hussain, wrote a book before he was in power we wouldn't turn to it to judge his rule. We would and do look at people's actions or lack of actions while in positions of power and control.

I am happy that you no longer attend that church.
 
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