[quote=urbanrealtor]Accretion of power is not the monster. Poor management is the monster. I think that is as true of the terror or the inquisition, as it is of Weimar.

Put differently, I don’t believe in evil. Just incompetence.

I think those labels just muddy it up.[/quote]

Dan: You don’t believe in evil? Since this is probably the most arguable point of all, I won’t dwell on it overmuch, but I will say this: Evil does exist.

It exists in the individual, whether it’s Dahmer or Bundy or the nameless SS officer shooting a Jewish mother and daughter in a field in the Ukraine. It exists in the state, or the system, or the church or the mosque.

I don’t disagree about incompetence, and we’re truly fortunate that the Nazis were as incompetent as they were, but words like “naive” and “poor” and glib phrases like “power sharing” speak to another evil and that is moral equivalence. Things are no longer right or wrong when viewed through this prism, they’re simply different. And that excuses ALL acts and ALL actors.

Hitler devolves from being a moral monster into an incompetent that simply couldn’t get along or play well with others and he led Germany into oblivion.

Let’s not be judgmental, right? As Americans, we should remain silent about genocide because of our conduct in the Indian Wars. We can’t discuss China’s nascent imperialism because of our own forays, whether in the Spanish-American War or Vietnam. We’re silent on race and racism because we’re reminded daily about our own sorry history, whether in slavery or the rough path of the Civil Rights movement.

And people wonder why intelligent discourse is at an all-time low. Fear. Fear of being labeled politically incorrect or a racist or a sexist or an ageist. Fear of not getting the proper nomenclature down or not using the right symbols, tropes, icons, memes or rubric.

It is ALL about power, Dan, and has always been about power and no matter who you forgive or ignore or marginalize as being incompetent, it’s the same game.