No. My argument was not that I have better numbers in this specific case. That is what you guys made up. We probably will have to live with the ones currently used. They just are obvious guestimates (yes everybody knows that) and saying so doesn't make me a holocaust denier. But people will just call you one, if you think the number might be lower. Well, this thread was proof of that one. And I didn't even say I think the numbers are lower because I actually don't think they are. I just happen to have 6 family members who were on "death lists". My mom was on two. They all escaped. 2 were declared dead and couldn't convince the Soviets that they were actually alive. I don't know whether these numbers were accounted for or not. I found none of them mentioned in any public record for example. There were obv. mistakes made in the other direction too (and yes, everybody knows that).

My wider point was:

a) There should be public discussion of these numbers allowed even if this means to take holocaust deniers into account (and yes I think holocaust denial should not be a punishable offence). Leaving things to academia is dangerous because then "it" becomes just a number we tell our children to read up in a book. It is the whole "on liberty" argument again. Not saying that I bat for any of these numbers because:

b) The actual numbers are somewhat irrelevant. The numbers tattooed onto people are not. It is exactly because I think that the roots of antisemitism are alive and flourishing that I don't really care, whether there were 4 or 7 millions killed. I care about every family having lost their loved ones and about every family having to deal with the fact that their grandpa was a Nazi.

c) I don't agree with chezlaw that historians just provide "facts", or better formulated: there are plenty of historians who don't think they are. That would actually be an interesting thing to discuss but I shouldn't even have tried in this thread and never as badly as I did.

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Lol Alex, you spewed hate at Wookie like one page ago. Drop the act.

So you think the number of Holocaust victims was >6 million?

Saying there should be public discussion on the number of people killed in the Holocaust when basically all historians agree on the accepted number is basically te same as whining that there should be a public discussion on whether global warming is real because obviously those scientists are just saying that so they can get money.

Tldr: go do something to yourself that I'd get in trouble for telling you to do in this forum.

So, are you just completely unaware that New England considered secession over the War of 1812?

Your conspiracy theory is pretty lol.

Do you even know the context of those statements? It was a discussion about IDEAS about how we might have ended the war peacefully instead of with a war that killed half a million+ people. Even if those ideas were wrong, proposing them and discussing them does not equal slavery apologism. Don't believe the Flookie propaganda.

Also, 6 million minus 2 is still 6 million when you account for sig figs, you ****ing moron.

Nah, although I can understand why it would seem that way to you. I've never experienced a feeling of hate in my life. Anger and frustration, yes, but not hate.

Like, why does there need to be a discussion on the number of people murdered during the holocaust at all? It's not from a place of academic rigor. The best reason you can assign is people being obsessed with conspiracies, which generally leads you to the "the Jews are in control of everything" conspiracy.


Like swissmiss - say the numbers are wrong 2 million either way. Okay? What's your point?

I didn't mean that. The number who died is a fact, its not a matter of opinion even if we can only estimate it. Facts are different to things we have opinions on such as 'appeasement caused WW2'.

True but its not a fair fight, his got degrees and stuff in it.

That one is true. I know, I am not telling you something you don't know. My point was I should be able to say "numbers are false" without being called a antisemite or anything. I have to think over the whole PC thing, as I said. It is way less important where I live. But why don't people ask me as chezlaw did, when I say something like that? Ok, maybe you have better things to do. But then don't go into accusing-mode (not you you).


I had the wider concept of "how historians generate numbers edit: and/or facts" in my head.

First off, they are not "guesstimates" they are scientific estimates based on many lines of evidence. You don't get to say "Well, historians are just guessing, so their guess is as good as my incredibly uninformed guess."

Second, yes if you say "Holocaust deaths are lower" with no evidence, most people are going to call you a Holocaust denier and they are going to be right a staggeringly high percentage of the time.

See above. If you don't want to be accused of being a Holocaust denier, then don't say "The number is wrong" because people aren't going to assume you are complete moron who is just talking about error bars.


Leaving things to academia is dangerous? So the solution is to invite Holocaust deniers to the table because leaving it to them is totally safe?

Hey, I know scientists have known CO2 is a greenhouse gas for over a century, but let's invite internet conspiracy morons to the scientific conference because you can't leave it to academia!

Hold on, you don't get to say "the numbers are irrelevant" after insisting that the Holocaust deniers be given equal time in history journals to discuss how wrong the numbers are. Yes, of course the exact number isn't important in many ways, but it is sure important to people denying the Holocaust. It's almost ALL they talk about.

Why shouldn't I be able to call you an antisemite? Shouldn't we all be able to say what we think here in UNCHAINED?

Good question. Why don't they just ask? it cant be that its too much effort when they put so much effort into the far more arduous task of not asking.

Asking is so easy and obvious and useful that its hard to believe anyone can get credit for doing it.

Miss- you are in a crowd who exploit the emotional appeal of racism and the holocaust to bully people. They admit it, either by stating it outright or by their behavior. That is not your fault.

Your occasional clumsiness with language or informality with statistics is certainly forgivable and understandable to people who read to comprehend and understand.

The guy is probably an anti-Semite, but perhaps just taken in by them. He cites racist Holocaust deniers like David Irving.

That's easy. It's much more fun to troll. After you've identified the worthy villain, boy it feels good to put them in their place. I can't tell you how delighted I was the last ten minutes of Inglorious Basterds. The surprise ending and utterly justified hating I got to do was magnificent.

I mean, he's Jewish. IDK. Wookie's claim just seemed sketchy, so I spent 5 second finding this guy. I can buy that he's been taken in by propaganda, but that wasn't the point.

It is not bullying someone to call their opinions odious and racist. Frankly, your comparison of calling people out for their racist beliefs to "bullying" is insulting to people who experience actual bullying. Your "campaign" is stupid. That said, I sincerely hope you have a lot of sex or pinball or foot massages or cheeseburgers or whatever makes you happiest this coming weekend.

Hey, global warming was my example. Get your own!

DonovanMcnabb.gif

It is absolutely not the same:

a) There should be public discussion about anything. To penalize some sort of public discussion (as for example some sorts of holocaust denial in Switzerland are) is the greater harm then having some idiots spurting lies.

b) If there was something like an IPCC for historians, I might be less critical of them.

We took her words at face value. How are we supposed to anticipate that she's talking about uncertainty? I can't imagine anybody who was just talking about uncertainty would say the things she did, especially if they had scored 75,000 on the verbal SAT.

In that ballpark.