UNSC (emotional rant)

>Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 16:23:49 -0800 (PST)
>From: "Mike J." <pmj6@yahoo.com>
>Subject: Re: [FT] UNSC (emotional rant)
>
>- --- Richard and Emily Bell <rlbell@sympatico.ca>
>wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> "Parrott, Charles P" wrote:
>> 
>> > Funny thing is, most totalitarian or authoritarian
>> governments don't start out that way.  They start as
>> benevolent democracies, republics or monarchies that
>> slowly erode citizen rights and freedoms until it's
>> too late.
>> >
>> 
>> Totalitarian or authoritarian regimes form suddenly,
>> because the previous form of government has
>> obviously failed, and the would-be dictator has "The
>> Answer".

Either a sudden change or a violent one or a series of slow
modifications
of the laws, it definitely happens (or happened) because people thought
those guys had the answer to someterrible crisis; yes, I think you are
right.

>> Yes, Hitler won a fair election.  The election was
>> fair because the Nazi thugs that beat up and
>> intimidated voters were no more (or less) brutal
>> than the thugs of any of the other party, and then
>> Hitler managed to disband or defang all of the
>> groups of thugs (including the brownshirts).
>
>While I partially agree with the first part of this (I
>would put "failed" in quotation marks), I disagree
>with the second. 
>
>The one time Hitler ran for office (for the
>presidency) he lost to Hindenburg, and by a fairly
>wide margin at that. He became the Chancellor entirely
>through backroom deals, rather than thanks to his
>electoral showing or his party's popularity (the Nazis
>never won outright majority of seats in the Reichstag,
>even in rigged elections). 

Well, first of all, some political systems, like Weimar Germany or
contemporary Italy, do not permit the direct election of the executive
chief (the chief of the government, prime minister or chancellor...
whatever) but ask for a further nomination by elected members of
parliament... the different parties form an "alliance" that will support
a
government headed by this guy or the other... that's no backroom deals,
just a different constitution. The fact that a single party do not have
a
clear majority do not make less authorized to rule... today's Germany
chancellor is a leftist, whose government is supported by Greens... so
what? Is he not a constitutionally sound governor? He won because some
parties, among them all, are the majority and could find a  commom way
to
rule things, nominate him and support him.

The oft-quoted "even Hitler
>was elected" statement is pure myth.

As you saw, no myth. Sorry.

 It's also not
>true that the various parties' thugs had "equality of
>opportunity". For one thing, the moderate leftist,
>rightist, and centrist parties did not engage in such
>tactics, only the extreme left and right (the
>Communists and the Nazis) ones did,

That's definitely true... I never heard about organized militias other
than
Communist and Nazi.

 and even then the
>German law enforcement tended to deal with Nazi thugs
>more leniently than with Communist ones. 

Well, you may remember that the Reds tried to overcome the country in a
bloody revolution and that veteran organizations were instrumental to
save
the day... most of those organizations supported, later, the Nazis... so
you can understand that the authorities took it easy, some times... they
were brothers-in-arms... TWICE! And, anyway, the violent takeover that
Nazis tried, before, winning the elections, was blunted by a limited if
very professional intervention of the army, at Munich... not exactly a
supportive attitude, I would say.

Concerning
>the "brownshirt" disbandment, the SA continued in
>existence until the end of 3rd Reich, although its
>leadership was purged after Hitler became concerned
>its agenda was not the same as his, with the gap being
>plugged by Himmler's SS.
>
>Mike J.

But the SS were not a party militia, they were a new "police" force...
with
some twists, to put it mildly.
And I heard that during the later stages of the war, the SA saw a
comeback,
even originating their own "military" branch...

Bye