Sorry I lost you there, it's like you're speaking a different language. I have no clue what you're trying to say anymore.

Who are they, them. What do you mean with Gays or the ME. Why does one group need to be worse off? Who are the people that are hurting 'others'. Who are the others in your sentence.




It's the same pattern as always, politicians exploiting/directing anger at minorities for their political gain.

politicians were able to manipulate anti-LGBT feelings for their personal gain

Same thing is happening now in the US, UK


And yes I'm pointing fingers at the UK and France for fucking up the ME

Of the more than 70 countries that criminalise homosexual acts today, over half are former British colonies. France introduced similar laws around the same time. After independence, only Jordan and Bahrain did away with such penalties

The Vet see's history repeating itself, or rhyming at least, and knows what's eventually coming, potentially sooner than later, if things keep going the way they are. So ya, he's no doubt upset about what happened in the past to stop this, only to see it happening again. It's like going through absolute hell to supposedly beat cancer, only to have signs of recurrence.

Not only that, he's no doubt aware that based on the condition the West is in overall at the moment, that now, is not the time you want to have to fight Hitler the 2nd in WW3. The kind of people you really need to join and get dirty in that type of war, are not going to bother this time around based on the past, present, and foreseeable future, and without them, it's anybody's guess as to who comes out on top this time (assuming of course it doesn't go nuclear quickly leading to total annihilation).

He's clearly legitimately worried, and is right to say what he said. Some people never learn, and some, if not many, unfortunately hafta learn the hard way because of it.

Sorry, a tired old man doesn't like the way the world develops and mourns the losses of the friends he had that gave their live? I don't see fascist propaganda, what is wrong with people.

I would disagree that it wasn't  worth. I think it was worth the sacrifice, but that is a bold statement from me, as it isn't my friends in the ground. I think he is entitled to his opinion.

I am sick and tired of people mudpiling old people that had endured far more hardships than any of us even remotely has experienced. Instead of complaining about their opinion it is up to us to build a world they can be proud of and feel justified to have died for.

Not remotely what he said. If we are to put words in his mouth he could also have complained about online idiots jumping to conclusions or big companies controlling all of our life.

Eh, there would be a country and all, these wouldn't stop to exist. History goes on and Hitler would've died at some point and things changed again.

And he isn't saying the world is worse than it would be, he said the price paid, the sacrifice is not worth it. And admittely it is a pretty steep price: a lot of valuable human lifes lost. As I said, I think the sacrifice *was* worth it, but given the price I am not saying he is totally off with his remark, or he is dead wrong.

Especially given that we a far way off of living in an utopia. We are living in a highly commercialized, strongly controlled by corporate interests world. There are homeless people, starving people, people affected by crimes and so on still in big amounts. So yeah, who are we to tell him this was worth the death of his friends.

Sorry, what is with this Turing-strawmen? Let me remind you, Turings chemical castration was forced by the *british* government *after* World War II. A non-fascist regime. So why are you applying Turing here, if his sacrifices have literally not changed the outcome as otherwise Turing wouldn't have happened.

And you pick very specific freedoms. There are lots of freedoms infringed today. Big global companies have knowledge over your life that Hitler only could've dreamed of. They are controlling your life by selecting what videos you watch, what items you most likely pick in an online shop. They are using that knowledge and power mostly for advertisment, but the Snowden leaks already revealed that governments can and will access that knowledge about you and the power over you. A Hitler today would it have much, much easier, as we have given up a lot of freedoms to corporate interest. And we haven't won much in other regards: we still have homeless, we still have people uselessly dying avoidable deaths, in the US even just of bureacracy with health care.

Let me remind you: Hitler was elected in democratic elections. Just like Trump. So, viewing from his eyes: what did his buddies die for?

Let's stop shitting over an old man that endured and sacrificed so much more than me and you can even imagine. If nothing else he at least has earned to be listened to. And not shit over because you *think* his opinion *might* damage whatever your political stance is. He deserves this respect.

Do you know what a strawman is? I am not constructing a weak version of an argument and tearing it down. I am addressing am assertion that was made in the topic of interest in this thread. The Turing example is just that, an example of a trend that existed before, during, and right after the Second World War where people were far less free than they are today with respect to control over their own bodies. The assertion Alec Penstone made was that people in Britain are less free today than they were then, but that is obviously not true if you were a woman, or gay, or poor (NHS didn't exist yet, as one example), or mentally disabled, etc. This trend actually was on the decline after the war, largely because Hitler represented the worst of it, but it nevertheless did exist in liberal-democratic societies too. That's precisely the point. 

For example, The Mental Defieciency Act of 1913 wasn't repealed until 1959 (having been passed in 1913 as the name suggests.) 

Capitalist institutions controlled people's lives back then as well, in many ways more totally. You have to be very unaware of the history of the labor movement and capitalism to think otherwise. 

Nobody is shitting over an old man. Pointing out the biases of an old man and the use of his personal feelings by propagandists to fuel their propaganda isn't "shitting over an old man." He is being listened to, and his viewpoints are being discussed. That's what this thread is. Or what did you imagine this thread was to be? Everyone agreeing with a very controversial position and equivocating 1940's liberal democracies (as bad as they were) or modern liberal democracies (as bad as they are) with Nazi Germany? 

And I am pointing out your biases. Again, this man and many in this generation did much more than any of us to create a better world. And yes, corporate control is much more prevalent today than it was in the past with technology are more prevalent. You want to disclaim his biases, but are oblivious to your own. Again: the sacrifice of his comrades had nothing to do with Turing. That wasn't Hitler. And there are always many freedoms, and many are in conflict. He talks about some, but you make stupid comments like

"Like what other implication is there from these comments than Nazism shouldn't have been defeated during WWII?"

What is that bullshit? You implying stuff that he didn't say to fuel your own crusade.

He cannot complain about the rise of fascism again? About Putin and Trump? About the corporate control? So Turing wouldn't probably happen today, but many other things are.

And if you talk about stuff fueling fascist propaganda: currently that fuel is words that Zohran Mamdami and Keir Starmer say. Hasan Piker is currently bringing so much help to the fascist cause. You blame what an old man says instead of looking at these much more powerful or influental people and criticize them to think through what they are saying? I have not seen fascist propaganda picking up the words of this old man, but I have seen plenty for these three. So complain about them. Stop making an old man a target that helped bring about a better world, which you and I are currently profiting off (which is why I said I think the sacrifice was worth it, but then again I didn't know his comrades that have died, so what do I really know).

I think you still underestimate the immense cost he is talking about. Dead people are a very heavy cost, and if he is weighing progres and deems it too light, who am I to say he is wrong? I think you are going about this way, way too easy.

EDIT: To make it clearer: he isn't denying progress. So you bringing out some examples that aren't even connected to his fight against Hitler does nothing. He is comparing the progress to the cost. He deems it not worth it. And that is a difficult calculation, you and I may come to a different conclusion. But given the really high cost it is a conclusion he is entitled to. I don't even think he has biases, you just assume, maybe he fully agrees with your examples of progress. You only disregard the sacrifice and weigh it too lightly. You don't care enough about the people that died in the fight against Hitler. He does, because he knew them personally.

So the point of a discussion forum (that is where we are) is to discuss the topic. What exactly is the general point you're making here about my comments? That his opinion should be consumed uncritically because of a status he shared with millions of other men in his period of time and which he had little choice over? What if my grandfather and great-grandfather (both WWII Vets who fought for the Allies) disagreed with it? What then? Whose opinion takes precedence? He didn't talk about any specific freedoms. His assertion was a general assessment of the state of things then and now. Without any elaboration, we can only speculate. 

None of this was in the OP. For example, the word's "Putin","Trump" and "corporate control" weren't in the OP. If they were, my comment would be different. You seem to agree with Alec, so what freedoms are worse now generally than they were in his day? One example being brought up by others is free-speech, but if you click on The Mental Deficiency Act of 1913 link you'd see that people were put into mental institutions for decades solely for being "moral defectives." So I am not sure what sort of free speech existed then. 

My comment that you quoted was more about the people sharing this as some sort of appeal to authority about whether or not we live in freer and better societies today than his was during the war, than him specifically. If it is just his personal views that he is holding to himself, then how do we generalize it beyond that? What is the point of sharing the story in the politics sub-forum? That's what the original comment was. 

Clarify your position here. Are you saying the real fascists or those who fuel fascist propaganda are the social democrats and social liberals and not the far-right and their enablers? If so, I don't know if we're going to align here. We probably would more fruitfully discuss the freedom question.  

Anyway, I am not "making an old man a target" I am discussing what he said, which is he isn't sure that his sacrifices "helped bring about a better world" because he thinks his current world is less free than the old one. I do believe he believes that, and I don't think he intends for it to be used as propaganda for fascists. But my comments here are to express my disagreement with his position and to point out that fascists are indeed using his words as propaganda. That's the point of a discussion forum -- to discuss the topic at hand. 

He's probably talking about you finding any excuse to not have to point the finger at the actual problem which are the cultures and governments of those countries now. For how long will the super left be able to blame colonialism on everything? Yes, that was bad but you know, at some point that cop out stops working.

Maybe the west has spread bad ideologies in the past, but we have advanced. Agreed, there is always more to be done, but blaming the West for the backwards ass practices in the Middle East because of things that happened many decades if not centuries ago is very easy and shows that it just always HAS to be the white man because everybody else is a victim by default...