The Banality of Evil

[PoliticalChic]

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 1:9

or if one wants to read the whole part:


A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever.

The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
and hastens to the place where it rises.

The wind blows to the south
and goes around to the north;
around and around goes the wind,
and on its circuits the wind returns.

All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they flow again.

All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.

What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us.

There is no remembrance of former things,
nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to be among those who come after.

Ecclesiastes 1:4-11

I don't think I ever connected that with Proust's "Remembrance Of Things Past."

Thank you for posting that.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Well...it seems you are ready to pretend that Obama attempted to sell the scam to the American people, in addition to lies about keeping your plan, and your doctor, and seeing huge reductions in the cost of your policy, the snake oil salesman boasted...

.."And we will reduce costs of healthcare by rationing both access to medical professionals and costly medicines that reduce suffering and prolong life, through the imposition of mandates by Death Panels!"


Did he say that?


That would have been the truth, wouldn't it?

I asked you if Medicare/Medicaid funding should be unlimited.

You didn't answer because the answer would be 'no', and that demolishes your 'death panel' attack because it puts you right on the pro- side of death panels.

Apparently you do. You want these programs to exist for an indefinite amount of time with an indefinite amount of funding, just as all entitlement driven government programs do these days. Essentially, people are being paid to slowly waste away and die a slow painless death.

The banality of evil here is funding these programs with no clear end goal. Help the poor? That's overly broad. To what end? Help the sick? This too. To what end? Political gain? Such undefined goals lead to open ended legislation which leads to more money being thrown at an irreconcilable problem. And if you think government dependence is the end all be all, guess again.

You don't get it. What the Right calls a 'death panel', i.e., the denying of government money for medical treatment, is exactly what the Right wants.

 

[NYcarbineer]

1. "While some of PC's article is worthy,...."
C'mon....we both know it was brilliant!

2. "... the 'banality of evil' in America would be best characterized by the people who supported Jim Crow and segregation...."

You're almost there!
Bring yourself to say it: Democrats!

a. " So, the struggle ended: Thurgood Marshall had won his cases in the Supreme Court, Eisenhower used the military to enforce the victories, Nixon desegregated the schools and building trades, and Democrat “Bull” Connor was voted out of office by the people of Alabama. And, finally, even a majority of Democrats supported civil rights. Democrat segregationists were defeated.
This was the precise moment when liberals decided it was time to come out strongly against race discrimination!"
Coulter, "Mugged," chapter one.

b. Liberal historian Eric Foner writes that the Klan was “…a military force serving the interests of the Democratic Party…”
Foner, “Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877,” p. 425






3. "....who supported Jim Crow and segregation through the 1960s and currently the Tea Party membership and the social conservatives."

Oh....see, and you were on your way to verisimilitude....and then you went back to your default lying.

Dare you to prove that the Tea Party, or conservatives endorse " Jim Crow and segregation."




Otherwise...you remain within the rolls of the slimy, bottom feeding, mouth breathing, midden-dwelling lice.

Is that how you wish to be remembered?

Many in the Tea Party, beginning with one of the most prominent tea partiers, Rand Paul,

support the right of businesses to refuse service to people based on their skin color.

Are those private businesses?

What, exactly does 'private' mean in terms of the Constitution?



Regulating one's own business is to equated with "supported Jim Crow and segregation"?
Really?

Only a fawning 'Big Government' dilettante would suggest that the total regulation of all private property is within the purview of the federal government.
And, of course, that is the view better suited to one living in a monarchy....such as you.




And that same type of individual would call Senator Goldwater a racist.


1. According to this liberal myth, Goldwater and the Republicans were racists and used racism to appeal to racist southerners to change the electoral map. To believe the tale, one must be either a reliable Democrat voter, and/or be ignorant of the history of the time.

2. Seems like everyone is familiar with Republican Senator Goldwater’s vote against the 1964 Civil Rights Act…and some even know that he explained, as a constitutionalist, that the reason was the belief that the Congress had no right to mandate how individuals must use their private property…in other words, the limits of the commerce clause.

3. “ He ended racial segregation in his family department stores, and he was instrumental in ending it in Phoenix schools and restaurants and in the Arizona National Guard.”
Washingtonpost.com: Barry Goldwater Dead at 89

Goldwater endorsed the right to discriminate on the basis of race, in business. His 'constitutionalist' grounds for that endorsement was proven wrong,

as that part of the Civil Rights act withstood a court challenge.

 

[NYcarbineer]

It's funny that so many characterize so-called death panels as evil, and yet,

none of them really oppose them, in principle.

It's funny how you missed the entire point of this thread Carbine.

The point of this thread was an inane attempt to compare the President to Adoph Eichmann; I think it might be best if we all 'missed' that point.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Many in the Tea Party, beginning with one of the most prominent tea partiers, Rand Paul,

support the right of businesses to refuse service to people based on their skin color.

Are those private businesses?

What, exactly does 'private' mean in terms of the Constitution?



Regulating one's own business is to equated with "supported Jim Crow and segregation"?
Really?

Only a fawning 'Big Government' dilettante would suggest that the total regulation of all private property is within the purview of the federal government.
And, of course, that is the view better suited to one living in a monarchy....such as you.




And that same type of individual would call Senator Goldwater a racist.


1. According to this liberal myth, Goldwater and the Republicans were racists and used racism to appeal to racist southerners to change the electoral map. To believe the tale, one must be either a reliable Democrat voter, and/or be ignorant of the history of the time.

2. Seems like everyone is familiar with Republican Senator Goldwater’s vote against the 1964 Civil Rights Act…and some even know that he explained, as a constitutionalist, that the reason was the belief that the Congress had no right to mandate how individuals must use their private property…in other words, the limits of the commerce clause.

3. “ He ended racial segregation in his family department stores, and he was instrumental in ending it in Phoenix schools and restaurants and in the Arizona National Guard.”
Washingtonpost.com: Barry Goldwater Dead at 89

Goldwater endorsed the right to discriminate on the basis of race, in business. His 'constitutionalist' grounds for that endorsement was proven wrong,

as that part of the Civil Rights act withstood a court challenge.

A racist, because he believed the definition of 'private' means one can determine the usage of his property without government interference?


Interesting.


How about this dude?

1. … President Bill Clinton
argued that Colin Powell, promoted
to brigadier general during Mr.
Alexander’s tenure, was the product
of an affirmative action program.
http://cdn.virtuallearningcourses.com/ivtcontent/images/edw12_ch05_e.pdf

2. 'BILL CLINTON: IN PAST, OBAMA WOULD BE 'CARRYING OUR BAGS'
Bill Clinton: In Past, Obama Would Be 'Carrying Our Bags'


3. "Clinton praised Arkansas’ late Democratic senator J. William Fulbright, a notorious segregationist who opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. He also signed the Southern Manifesto, which denounced the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Brown vs. Board of Education school desegregation decision in 1954. Clinton called Fulbright “My mentor, a visionary, a humanitarian.”
Dems Need to Houseclean - Deroy Murdock - National Review Online

and....

Fulbright was a full-bore segregationist, voting against the 1957, 1960, 1964, and 1965 civil rights bills.
But...in 1993, Bill Clinton gave the Medal of Freedom award to a lifelong segregationist, Democrat Wm. J. Fulbright. And another life-long segregationist, Democrat Albert Gore, Sr. was in attendance.


4. Bill Clinton wrote his first letter, dated June 21, 1994, of congratulations to the UDC [United Daughters of the Confederacy] celebrating their 100th anniversary. Later Clinton wrote a letter September 8, 1994 letter of congratulation to the Georgia Division of the UDC celebrating their 100th anniversary, then August 9, 1995 welcoming to Washington, D.C. for their 1995 national convention. Each letter was given a full page with Clinton’s picture in the United Daughters of the Confederacy Magazine (UDC Magazine) giving legitimacy to the UDC.

For reference, the UDC magazine includes " a Ku Klux Klan praising book, not just the Klan of Reconstruction but the Klan of the 1920s, a book which recommends the racist books of Thomas Dixon, “The Clansman” ...
Anti-Neo-Confederate: Bill Clinton Enables Neo-Confederates & Betrays Carol Moseley-Braun: UPDATED


5. . Governor Clinton was among three state officials the NAACP sued in 1989 under the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965. “Plaintiffs offered plenty of proof of monolithic voting along racial lines, intimidation of black voters and candidates and other official acts that made voting harder for blacks,” the Arkansas Gazette reported December 6, 1989.



And....who took center stage at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina?

By gosh, it was good ol' boy and long time rapist......Bill Clinton.

Good darn thing he isn't a racist, huh?

 

[PoliticalChic]

It's funny that so many characterize so-called death panels as evil, and yet,

none of them really oppose them, in principle.

It's funny how you missed the entire point of this thread Carbine.

The point of this thread was an inane attempt to compare the President to Adoph Eichmann; I think it might be best if we all 'missed' that point.

Weren't you the guy who called them both sociopaths?

Or was that some other gomeril?

 

[Billy000]

1. When political theorist Hannah Arendt, originated the term of art, "the banality of evil," she was correctly encapsulating the idea that for much of the evil done by mankind, the horrors, its origin is no more than the desire for efficiency, a business-as-usual outlook.



a. "Arendt states that aside from a desire for improving his career, [Adolf] Eichmann showed no trace of antisemitism or psychological damage. Her subtitle famously introduced the phrase the "banality of evil," which also serves as the final words of the book. In part, at least, the phrase refers to Eichmann's deportment at the trial, displaying neither guilt nor hatred, claiming he bore no responsibility because he was simply "doing his job" Eichmann in Jerusalem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Amazing? Events that rank as some of the most heinous in history, simply getting the job done.





2. The lesson to be gleaned from the above is how easily and seamlessly evil finds a home within human nature. And, a more careful look will document how that the same kind of evil is embedded in the political philosophy known as 'Progressivism.' Begin with a look at the first Progressive President, Woodrow Wilson.

3. Wilson wrote in “The State,” 1889, that "Government does now whatever experience permits or the times demand." His writings attack the Constitution, and the ideas of natural and individual rights. Along with Frank J. Goodnow, they pioneered the concept of the ‘administrative state,’ which separated the administration of government from the limitations of constitutional government.
American Progressivism: A Reader - Google Books

Administrative government.....just getting the job done....efficiently.


a. . “…no one was more important to the origins of the administrative state in America than Woodrow Wilson and Frank Goodnow. Wilson served as the 26th President of the United States and was a leading academic advocate of Progressive ideas long before his entry into politics. Much of his contribution to Progressive thought came in his work from the 1880s,…”
The Birth of the Administrative State: Where It Came From and What It Means for Limited Government





The view was that good men of unquestioned virtue, bureaucrats, could and would carry out the best interests of society without the restrictions of law, accountability, the Constitution. And this view is the very heart of Progressives.
So...your vote means you trust these individuals with your life.




b. The new Administrative State 1) politicians were to be elected 2) technocrats, civil servants, bureaucrats, experts draft the regulations. “…the agencies comprising the bureaucracy reside within the executive branch of our national government, but their powers transcend the traditional boundaries of executive power to include both legislative and judicial functions, and these powers are often exercised in a manner that is largely independent of presidential control and altogether independent of political control.” The Birth of the Administrative State: Where It Came From and What It Means for Limited Government

[Does the name Kathleen Sebelius ring a bell?....how about the unbridled powers of the EPA?]





4. The work of Eichmann was one example of a bureaucrat attempting to be helpful, to get the job done. Related to exactly the same idea was that Progressives put forward in the United States, and, in fact led to Eichmann's plans: 'Eugenics.' Bureaucrats simply wanted to solve society's ills, ’ the use of state power to improve the racial, genetic, or biological health of the community.

a. Hitler wrote to the president of the American Eugenics Society to ask for a copy of his “The Case for Sterilization.” (Margaret Sanger and Sterilization)
German race science stood on American progressive’s shoulders.

b. ' One bestseller, Madison Grant's The Passing of the Great Race (1916), discussed the concept of "race suicide," the theory that inferior races were out-breeding their betters. President Theodore Roosevelt was one of many Progressives captivated by this notion: He opposed voting rights for African-American men, which were guaranteed by the 15th amendment, on the grounds that the black race was still in its adolescence. Such thinking, which emphasized "expert" opinion and advocated sweeping governmental power, fit perfectly within the Progressive worldview,” http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1568/is_1_38/ai_n16439695/





5. And the contemporary example of the same notions, the same disrespect for human lives, can be seen in the ObamaCare 'Death Panels,' and the 'bioethicists' who were put in charge of developing the program.
Like all good bureaucrats, they equate dollars and cents with human lives.

a. Here is the very center of ObamaCare, and the basis for its rationing and death panels:

"... comparative effectiveness research is generally code for limiting care based on the patient's age. Economists are familiar with the formula already in use in the U.K., where the cost of a treatment is divided by the number of years (called QALYS or quality-adjusted life years) the patient is likely to benefit. In the U.K., the formula leads to denying treatments for age-related diseases because older patients have a denominator problem -- fewer years to benefit than younger patients with other diseases. In 2006, older patients with macular degeneration, which causes blindness, were told that they had to go totally blind in one eye before they could get an expensive new drug..." The American Spectator : Downgrading American Medical Care




How did "progress" come to mean that human beings are no more significant than a cypher, a number, a bean to be counted?

Is this your 'brave new world?'

This OP is nothing but non sense conjecture. Nothing about it is OBJECTIVE or makes any sense. It is complete fallacy to equate Wilson, Hitler and Obama as the same individual. Not only that, but you are making the retarded deduction that any progressive is the same way.

Where do you find this garbage, Chic. Better question: why do you believe it so blindly? Why can't you think for yourself?

The fact that you think liberalism, communism, and socialism are all the same idea is just STUPID. We are talking about fundamental definitions of words.

 

[PoliticalChic]

1. When political theorist Hannah Arendt, originated the term of art, "the banality of evil," she was correctly encapsulating the idea that for much of the evil done by mankind, the horrors, its origin is no more than the desire for efficiency, a business-as-usual outlook.



a. "Arendt states that aside from a desire for improving his career, [Adolf] Eichmann showed no trace of antisemitism or psychological damage. Her subtitle famously introduced the phrase the "banality of evil," which also serves as the final words of the book. In part, at least, the phrase refers to Eichmann's deportment at the trial, displaying neither guilt nor hatred, claiming he bore no responsibility because he was simply "doing his job" Eichmann in Jerusalem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Amazing? Events that rank as some of the most heinous in history, simply getting the job done.





2. The lesson to be gleaned from the above is how easily and seamlessly evil finds a home within human nature. And, a more careful look will document how that the same kind of evil is embedded in the political philosophy known as 'Progressivism.' Begin with a look at the first Progressive President, Woodrow Wilson.

3. Wilson wrote in “The State,” 1889, that "Government does now whatever experience permits or the times demand." His writings attack the Constitution, and the ideas of natural and individual rights. Along with Frank J. Goodnow, they pioneered the concept of the ‘administrative state,’ which separated the administration of government from the limitations of constitutional government.
American Progressivism: A Reader - Google Books

Administrative government.....just getting the job done....efficiently.


a. . “…no one was more important to the origins of the administrative state in America than Woodrow Wilson and Frank Goodnow. Wilson served as the 26th President of the United States and was a leading academic advocate of Progressive ideas long before his entry into politics. Much of his contribution to Progressive thought came in his work from the 1880s,…”
The Birth of the Administrative State: Where It Came From and What It Means for Limited Government





The view was that good men of unquestioned virtue, bureaucrats, could and would carry out the best interests of society without the restrictions of law, accountability, the Constitution. And this view is the very heart of Progressives.
So...your vote means you trust these individuals with your life.




b. The new Administrative State 1) politicians were to be elected 2) technocrats, civil servants, bureaucrats, experts draft the regulations. “…the agencies comprising the bureaucracy reside within the executive branch of our national government, but their powers transcend the traditional boundaries of executive power to include both legislative and judicial functions, and these powers are often exercised in a manner that is largely independent of presidential control and altogether independent of political control.” The Birth of the Administrative State: Where It Came From and What It Means for Limited Government

[Does the name Kathleen Sebelius ring a bell?....how about the unbridled powers of the EPA?]





4. The work of Eichmann was one example of a bureaucrat attempting to be helpful, to get the job done. Related to exactly the same idea was that Progressives put forward in the United States, and, in fact led to Eichmann's plans: 'Eugenics.' Bureaucrats simply wanted to solve society's ills, ’ the use of state power to improve the racial, genetic, or biological health of the community.

a. Hitler wrote to the president of the American Eugenics Society to ask for a copy of his “The Case for Sterilization.” (Margaret Sanger and Sterilization)
German race science stood on American progressive’s shoulders.

b. ' One bestseller, Madison Grant's The Passing of the Great Race (1916), discussed the concept of "race suicide," the theory that inferior races were out-breeding their betters. President Theodore Roosevelt was one of many Progressives captivated by this notion: He opposed voting rights for African-American men, which were guaranteed by the 15th amendment, on the grounds that the black race was still in its adolescence. Such thinking, which emphasized "expert" opinion and advocated sweeping governmental power, fit perfectly within the Progressive worldview,” http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1568/is_1_38/ai_n16439695/





5. And the contemporary example of the same notions, the same disrespect for human lives, can be seen in the ObamaCare 'Death Panels,' and the 'bioethicists' who were put in charge of developing the program.
Like all good bureaucrats, they equate dollars and cents with human lives.

a. Here is the very center of ObamaCare, and the basis for its rationing and death panels:

"... comparative effectiveness research is generally code for limiting care based on the patient's age. Economists are familiar with the formula already in use in the U.K., where the cost of a treatment is divided by the number of years (called QALYS or quality-adjusted life years) the patient is likely to benefit. In the U.K., the formula leads to denying treatments for age-related diseases because older patients have a denominator problem -- fewer years to benefit than younger patients with other diseases. In 2006, older patients with macular degeneration, which causes blindness, were told that they had to go totally blind in one eye before they could get an expensive new drug..." The American Spectator : Downgrading American Medical Care




How did "progress" come to mean that human beings are no more significant than a cypher, a number, a bean to be counted?

Is this your 'brave new world?'

This OP is nothing but non sense conjecture. Nothing about it is OBJECTIVE or makes any sense. It is complete fallacy to equate Wilson, Hitler and Obama as the same individual. Not only that, but you are making the retarded deduction that any progressive is the same way.

Where do you find this garbage, Chic. Better question: why do you believe it so blindly? Why can't you think for yourself?

The fact that you think liberalism, communism, and socialism are all the same idea is just STUPID. We are talking about fundamental definitions of words.

Well, thank you for the input, Billy.

I won't waste a minute in incorporating your viewpoint in my next post!