There are some things that are just completely incomprehensible to me. Maybe someone else can put it this into words I can understand:
The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) unequivocally opposes and condemns all invocations of the Holocaust in political discourse.
Does this sort of prohibition also apply to invocations of the Soviet, Chinese, and Cambodian genocides as well? Or is there something special about the Nazi regime that means it is special? If so, then why? And how does one determine this “specialness” in advance rather than just memorizing some rules someone made up?
Further along that same line I have had numerous people tell me my “Jews in the Attic Test” is “brilliant”, “genius”, “one of the best things you have ever written” and it got me a “Thinking Blogger Award”. But one Jew I pointed it out to told me, “I agree with everything you say here but you must change the name. You don’t realize how offensive that is to Jews.”
What?
I. Just. Don’t. Get. It.
In our lifetimes then, we’ve gone from “Never Forget” to “The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) unequivocally opposes and condemns all invocations of the Holocaust in political discourse.”
It would be shocking but for the fact that there is a) a significant number of socialist Jews in this country and presumably elsewhere, and b) a well entrenched “offendedness” industry. It says, “We are offended, therefore you owe us something.” It has come to the point where being offended gives you an advantage (and that offends me greatly I can tell you. Why, I am so offended…)
In short; they’re insane. Don’t over think it. You can’t fix all the crazy. You can only appeal to those who are looking for the truth.
I have to ask, did your friend actually explain why it was offensive? I’m not sure you actually get to claim offense if you can’t explain why it’s offensive.
For many liberal (nonobservant) Jews, their ethnic identity is built entirely around their status as victims of the Holocaust (or descendants thereof) rather than shared religion or culture. Whenever another person or group uses the Holocaust as a metaphor or co-opts it for another purpose, their identity as Jews is threatened.
@Rauðbjorn, He doesn’t quite qualify as a friend. And I had a bunch of other more important things to talk to him about so I just let it drop. I may get another chance in the next few months and if we have the time I will bring it up.
You’re not supposed to use the word, “retard” anymore, either. Folks with mental deficiencies and their supporters/caregivers don’t like to be reminded of their specific faults. As Rauðbjorn observed, many in the Jewish culture base their identity on being victims. If you’re a victim, it’s not your fault – somebody else did it (whatever “it” is) to you, and you have no responsibility in the matter. Being offended and insulted gives even more credence to the concept.
If you bring up the Holocaust in current political discourse, it would only be to try to prevent a new one. But if you can prevent a Holocaust now, doesn’t that mean that the Holocaust could have been prevented back during Hitler’s regime? They don’t want to even consider that possibility – it severely damages the “victim” complex, and it also means that all those deaths may have well been preventable (and the collective guilt over that thought would be hard to accept.)
So, we’ve gone from “Never again” to “Okay, one more time.”
“You’re not supposed to use the word, “retard” anymore, either.” Yeah; Glen Beck is all over that one too, having someone in his family that was classified as retarded. That is a clinical term describing a specific IQ range. So too are “moron” and “idiot” therefore, presumably, we shouldn’t call anyone a moron, idiot, etc. Those are real, clinical terms that apply to real people and some of those real people may have relatives who are in the offendedness movement and they’ll claim victimhood if we “co-opt” their family member’s classification. The whole thing is retarded.
“Retarded” in the more general, or non-clinical, sense means simply “slowed down” as in, “the timing of my engine’s ignition is retarded at idle speed and advanced at higher RPMs”. In that sense, much of our society is retarded by statist and tribal thinking. Sorry, Glen Beck, but a word is a word and words have useful meanings. I’ll use that word as I please, and if some people are offended by the truth that’s their own problem and they should think a little bit more about that.
There is another way of looking at this though. If I call a socialist “retarded” Glen Beck may be offended because his retarded relative is being called a socialist by association. No one wants to be accused of being a socialist when they’re not. Not even retarded people.
Interestingly, back when the holocaust was universally said to have been perpetrated by “the far right” it was all perfectly OK , respectable and responsible to invoke it in political discourse. (remember the films we were shown in school back in the 1960s and ’70s? “THIS is what happens when the Far Right gets total control…”) Now that it’s more widely understood to have been perpetrated by socialists (now that the truth is out) the holocaust is taboo. See how that works?
It’s codependency. Think of these people as the wife married to her drunk emotionally and sometimes physically abusive husband. When codependency and mascot status collide, the result is lies so powerfully effective, that black is white and the the Holocaust is something best not talked about because it surely can’t happen again.
I notice that their list of abuses only goes as far back as the beginning of the Obama administration. I wonder if they were as offended when it was liberals comparing Bush to Hitler. All they say here is:
“Progressives and Democrats who, on rare occasion, have participated in this disturbing trend”
Rare occassions, indeed.
The source of the censorship is Democratic party activists. Are you surprised? It is a simple rule: OK for any Democrat to continue comparing Republican policy to Nazi atrocities, but Republicans can’t, or shouldn’t, do the same to Democrats. I hope that this helps explain things!
I don’t get it either. My liberal roommate said recently that the Washington Redskins should have to change their name because it’s offensive to Native Americans. I just can’t comprehend their thought processes sometimes.
Joe,
I’d love to hear Charles Heller (AZCDL, JPFO) weight in on this…
—- Aaron
Hell, Albert Einstein was a retard. He said so himself, as in “My intellectual development was retarded.” I hang out with some auties on the ‘net, and this word is like the proverbial red flag to a bull to some of them. Being (I think) at least an half-aspie m’self, I certainly do sympathise, as I’m sure our host (cough, cough) will too, but tend to point out that if one derogatory term is outlawed, the yahoos will just start up a new one.
Oh, according to Professor Grandin, to get a bovine’s attention one should use something yellow, not red.