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Twelve Million Cold, Dead Hands
On Thursday, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson sat for an interview on CNN with Wolf Blitzer (the relevant exchange begins at 6:48):
Carson’s views were quickly highlighted (and distorted) by liberal media, with headlines such as:
- “Ben Carson Says Guns May Have Stopped Holocaust” [BBC]
- “Ben Carson Suggests Holocaust Would Have Been Less Likely If Jews Were Armed” [ABC]
- “Ben Carson Blames Holocaust On Gun Control” [Huffington Post]
- “Ben Carson Says Holocaust Would Have Been ‘Greatly Diminished’ if Jews Had Guns” [TIME]
- “Ben Carson Suggests Holocaust Might Have Been Stopped If Jewish People Had Guns” [The Independent]
- “Ben Carson Says Gun Control To Blame For Holocaust” [Telegraph]
The Anti-Defamation League also weighed in. “Ben Carson has a right to his views on gun control, but the notion that Hitler’s gun-control policy contributed to the Holocaust is historically inaccurate,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, National Director of the organization. “The small number of personal firearms available to Germany’s Jews in 1938 could in no way have stopped the totalitarian power of the Nazi German state.”
Maybe not. But I once met a German Holocaust survivor who said that his biggest regret was that he complied with the law when Jewish gun ownership was outlawed. Never, he said, would he go unarmed again.
Survivors who migrated to Palestine shared this sentiment. Syrian Arab attacks on Jewish settlements prompted the formation of the Jewish self-defense league, or Haganah, which evolved into the modern-day Israel Defense Forces. Palestinian Jews would seek peace, but if necessary, they would defend themselves — with guns. This ethos is central to the modern State of Israel.
Today Israel finds itself in a new wave of Palestinian Arab terrorism. Hour by hour, there is news across the country of murders and attempted murders with guns, with stones, with firebombs, with knives, with screwdrivers, with vegetable peelers. In many cases, security personnel with guns were nearby and were able to respond quickly. In others, responses were longer in coming.
It’s important to note, though, that Israeli notions of self-defense have been collective rather than individual. To own a gun for self-defense, Jewish Israelis must meet strict permitting requirements, which include a demonstration of need. Anyone granted a permit is allowed only a single firearm. So it’s noteworthy that Israeli attitudes may be changing. Nir Barkat, the mayor of Jerusalem — who tackled a terrorist himself earlier this year — is encouraging Jewish residents of his city with permits to carry their weapons all the time. “One advantage that Israel has is that there are quite a few ex-members of military units with operational combat experience…. Possessing weapons increases the confidence of residents, who know that in addition to police there are many people who are not afraid to intervene. If we look at the statistics in Jerusalem and elsewhere, we see that aside from the police, civilians carrying weapons have foiled terror attacks. They will increase the likelihood of fast intervention.”
This proactive approach security has a respectable pedigree in Jewish history and theology. “If one comes to kill you, arise and kill him first,” exhorts the Talmud (BT Sanhedrin 72a), and gives examples of rabbis who did just that (BT Berakhot 58a). The rabbinic tradition understands — as did the authors of the Declaration of Independence — that we are all born with God-given rights to life and liberty. And moreover, that those rights are meaningless without the further right to forcibly resist those who seek to murder or enslave us. None of us, Jew or gentile, is required to be a victim.
Ben Carson, in his defense of gun rights, appears to understand this well. Unfortunately, the elites at the heights of journalism, government, and culture — our President among them — appear not to. Perhaps someday they will learn. In the meantime, those of us who truly value freedom will continue to cling to our guns and defend our right to keep them. Because without them, the phrase “Never again” is not much more than an empty slogan.
Published in Guns, History
This is a digression from the main point of the thread, but I really wonder about what the lefties are in fact trying to do. I’m going to suggest that it may seem as if they are “countering” bias and bigotry, but in fact they are creating and promulgating it.
The current form of prejudice monitoring by the left targets whites, who because of their privilege have no right to speak on a host of issues; Jews, who because of Israel are subject to egregious harassment; males, who are presumed to be rapists; and Asians, who because of their success are subjected to discrimination, much to the approval of the leftists who claim to be on guard against bigotry.
Regarding the left, again: They don’t celebrate the diversity that Ben Carson represents, and they didn’t celebrate it when Condoleeza Rice was at State, or when Clarence Thomas was put on the Court, or when Herman Cain ran for president. These blacks are lesser persons because of their blackness to the left. They are stupid, selfish, traitorous, and ungrateful (because they oppose affirmative action, without which they would not have had any success in life).
Yes. We are a long way from the ideals of the Civil Rights era. The then common understanding of racism has been replaced by the concept of structural racism wherein only members of groups who have “power” can be racist. Guess what groups are the only groups deemed to have power.
Wow. You really do hit this stuff out of the park. Do you know about Police Chief Paul Evans who transformed Boston over the course of his career? You must know about him, given the work you do with police departments. Dumb question.
Paul Evans is a “miracle on ice” kind of story. Impossible odds. Unimaginable achievements.
The bottom line for me is that racism against Jews hasn’t gone away. When people in Arab countries are saying “Death to Jews” five times a day and the world looks away, I really lose it.
Where is the outcry against this racism? Why is this tolerated?
I read somewhere after 9/11 that the best-selling book in the Arab world was Mein Kempf.
What is killing the Middle East? Antisemitism and everythingelseism.
Never is a long time, but I think Arab anti-semitism will never go away. The cause is not, as many claim, the mere presence of Jews in Arab lands. Rather, it is the inferiority that Arabs are forced to feel by Jewish accomplishment.
This goes way back to when the Jews first starting reclaiming the land and making it green, long before there was a state of Israel, when the British were in charge, and even before that. Then came the military defeats at the hands of a tiny number of Jews against 100-1 odds. Then the modern economic success of the Jews unmatched by any Arab community, who only prosper, if at all, because of oil wealth.
Such people must be wiped from the earth if the Arabs (and the Persians) are to feel good about themselves again.
There seems to be some dispute whether Isoroku Yamamoto (the Japanese admiral who led the attack on Pearl Harbor) actually said “You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a man with a rifle behind every blade of grass.”
However, if he didn’t say it, he should have.
I think the country sucks, myself, and the one I belonged in is already gone, but I do think the US is capable of an admirable colorblindness if the left would ever drop the grievance-mongering and “celebrating of racial diversity.” The whole fuss about electing the “first black President” as if that says anything at all about his character, intelligence, principles, and talents is repulsive and counterproductive. I do not think it leads to more interracial….appreciation.
When I was growing up, my Dad had a lot of guns. Powerful guns. Now, I should explain that my Dad survived the holocaust only because my grandfather saw it coming and fled Germany, and then Europe, in the early 30’s. My Dad told me that if it ever happened here, he expected to die but he would take some of the Nazi bastards with him. Hence, the guns.
My Dad would have approved of Dr. Carson’s remarks.
Apropos of previous comments- do you know how your grandfather saw it coming?
I got to meet him, and hear him speak—fantastic.
I have pointed out, in celebratory vein, the diversity of the Republican line-up, and I get these mystified looks from my liberal friends. Like, they didn’t even notice??? And when I pointed out that, even if Hillary goes down, it can still be Time for a Female President, it takes them a long minute before they remember…oh, right. Carly. (A uterus is a uterus!)
I remember saying to a friend, back when GWB was president; Well, the one thing I like about him is that he isn’t a racist. And she was outraged that I would think this, Condi notwithstanding.
FWIW, the conversations I’ve been having with liberal friends since I embarked on my Adventure In Conservatism have been heartening; it turns out I was not alone in thinking I was a liberal while actually holding relatively conservative views and orientations.
This.
I thought long and hard about whether the title might be inappropriate, and consulted with other Ricochetti. In the end, I went with the potent imagery. Your points are well taken.
Yes, and every SS goon taken down is one less who can help round up others. These things can cascade.
The other thing about resistance is that it causes the oppressor to divert resources to deal with the resistance. As others have noted, it is well-documented that the Nazi war effort suffered because Hitler prioritized mass extermination of the Jews. If he’d had to expend more resources on population control, he may have been more vulnerable to Allied defeat earlier.
And to many of us it is not a coincidence that the political left, which is agitating for disarming the population, is also the side of the political divide more ready to view people as members of identity groups rather than as individuals.
Agreed, 100%. There is no substitute for social capital, for the trust in your neighbors and their essential goodness, for your shared humanity. Anything less than that opens the door. (Have you read Nathan Englander’s short story, “What We Think About When We Think About Anne Frank”?)
But for Jews, an important lesson of the Holocaust is that you must have a Plan B. That kind of social solidarity is rare, and nearly unheard of when it comes to Jewish populations (the Danish example notwithstanding). The rest of the world understands “Never Again” to mean we should strive for the (utopian) goal of eliminating ethnic and racial divisions. Jews with a sense of history understand it to mean something different: Never again will we allow others to control our fate.
For all too many, it doesn’t matter. It’s all to common for people to simultaneously dismiss Israeli concerns about a mullah-precipitated nuclear Jewish genocide, insist the German Holocaust was a Jewish fabrication (or maybe just exaggerated), and call Israelis Nazis for the state’s treatment of West Bank Arabs.
How has that historical knowledge helped the Yazidis, Kurds, Middle Eastern Christians, and other minorities slated for genocide by ISIS? Ultimately, they too would have benefited from a plan B.
The Nazis weren’t opposed to government power, but who held it and to what ends. My point was they weren’t small government types, certainly not anarcho-capitalists. Those who fight the system are often, in reality, fighting for the control of it. I’m reminded of the Dead Kennedys lyric, “How many liberators really want to be dictators?”
There’s a difference between pointing out how a victim could have prevented or stopped their victimization and blaming them for not. I’ve yet to come across someone making Carson’s argument who doesn’t hold the Nazis and their collaborators responsible. If they thought the Jews had it coming, why lament their not fighting back?
Blaming the victim comes up a lot in debates about rape culture. At worst, I think the argument leads to more victims.
It can be a tough choice between wording that is powerful and that which is more accurate, but weaker. Given that it’s the headline, I can forgive your poetic license. It’s evocative and we all know what you’re referring to. My points still stand.
Nothing I disagree with here.
It doesn’t matter what he actually said. It matters what all those leftist publications say he said. The majority of Americans are certain that Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from her house. Most will even claim to have heard her say it.
Not exactly, but the tide of antisemitism wasn’t hard to spot at the time. Hitler was making no secret of his intentions, and if Hitler hadn’t come to power in Germany then it would have been the communists. Either way, it wasn’t going to be good for Jews.
If I lived in Europe today, I think I would take a lesson from my grandfather and get out now. The tide of antisemitism is rising again.
I appreciate your optimism. I tend toward pessimism (Not only is the glass half empty, but I don’t care for what’s in the glass.) – so when I encounter a self-proclaimed liberal harboring conservative tendencies, I get frustrated with their hard-headed refusal to give up on their cherished teen-aged belief system. In my experience, these folks are typically well-educated Baby boomers who never grew up.
When presidential campaigns heat up, some of the subtleties of the candidates’ choice of words get lost sometimes.
I have to salute Dr. Carson for choosing an example of the people possibly needing to fight their own government. This is a guy running to head up that government. It is equally interesting that he chose the Jews versus the Nazis rather than the slaves versus the slave owners.
There has been a movement in the past thirty years among black activists to say they freed themselves, to completely discount the soldiers who fought and/or died in the Civil War to free the slaves–and there were thousand of abolitionists in the ranks of the Union troops.
I understand the psychological ambition, however, of the black community’s saying they themselves fought the war for their freedom or they successfully escaped on their own. And it’s a messy point anyway–some did escape on their own, and some did fight off the slave owners, and some even joined the Union Army. And those efforts might have sufficient. Who knows?
I may be reading too much into Carson’s choice of example, but I see a nod of respect for the Jewish community and for all of us in his remarks. Which is a breath of fresh air in national politics these days.
I really like Dr. Carson. He is intelligent, and he thinks we are too. I think that attitude is the most important character trait in a candidate.
As it happens, I understand why they refuse to give up on their cherished belief-system. It’s because it’s a belief-system. It’s a tribal identity. I felt it myself; it was very, very weird (still is) to even imagine voting for a Republican. Forcing yourself to think about a subject rationally—resisting the urge to slip into symbolic thinking—is difficult even when you’ve committed yourself to it. It requires a certain dedication to what I think of as scraping the windshield—crud accumulates, but incrementally, so you don’t actually notice how obstructed your view is becoming unless you bang into something hard. Like that old ’70s gag about how “a conservative is a liberal who got mugged.”
That’s why I said “at least in the sense that…” —they certainly weren’t small-government types, though it’s a little hard to know what their economic policy would have been had they ever shifted away from a wartime footing. As far as I can make out (with my limited grasp of basic economics) they were essentially into crony capitalism in a big way. And the big-business-types were happy to accept their largesse, even when it came in the form of slave labor. (A safe answer to the Dead Kennedy’s lyric is “just about all of them.” Which is why we probably should be a little suspicious of any candidate’s claim to be an Outsider.)
It’s not so much that the Jews had it coming… the discussion, which dates back at least as far as the 60s, rests upon the myth of Jewish passivity in the face of murder. In fact, many Jews accurately read the writing on the wall and escaped, others tried to escape only to find their ways blocked by immigration restrictions in destination countries. Some were patriotic enough to believe that Germany—the country they had lived in for generations—would turn around. Some had fought for Germany, considered themselves completely German, and some had even converted to Christianity (e.g. the diarist Victor Klemperer). We should add, here, that of those who escaped, many took refuge in countries like Holland and France who were later overrun by the Germans—Anne Frank’s family was among this group.
The critique extended to the behavior of Jews going “like lambs to the slaughter” to the killing pits in the East, or the gas chambers. The Jewish Defense League came into existence in 1968 (and, by the way, had and has its terrorist elements) in good part as a reaction to the belief that Jews had been passive victims.
cont.
The reality is that many of the victims were accompanied by children or other vulnerable persons who could not be abandoned. Those who could did, in fact, fight and attempt escape. Some succeeded, and went into hiding only to be caught later, some survived, some joined the partisans (though in too many occupied countries anti-semitism, along with anti- or pro-communist orientations, often divided resistance groups). There were heroic resistance efforts even within the camps. The reality, in other words, is human and complex, but what it comes down to is that the Jews as a group were about as sensible, rational, brave, discerning, realistic and hopeful as any other human beings would be were they to find themselves in the same situation.
Incidentally, the American prisoners forced to endure what later became known as the Bataan Death March outnumbered their captors by an estimated 100 to one. And these were trained men, unencumbered by small children. And yet they did not attack and attempt to overpower the Japanese captors. Hard to see how an ordinary group of civilians could have done more, with or without weapons.
I think you are reading too much into it. Nazis are the go-to example in political discussion which is why we have Godwin’s Law and argumentum ad hitlerum. There’s broad agreement that Nazism is the pinnacle of evil and Americans don’t know history well enough to pick another example of evil, except slavery, but given its ubiquity I would hesitate to draw any conclusions from Carson choosing the former over the latter.
I don’t think it’s incidental that the full name of the party was the National Socialist German Workers Party. That’s not to say their economic policies/views were indistinguishable from communists and other left wingers, but I can’t imagine they would have liberalized the economy had peacetime come. Controlling the economy is a way of controlling the people. The cronyism you mention was a way to win favor with big business and the promise of economic security is attractive to the rest of the population.
I think that’s basically the answer the band was implying with the song (though they were referring to a different sort of “outsider”).
All your points are well taken. Supporters of the right to keep and bear arms aren’t necessarily implying that the Jews (and other targeted groups) were passive, but that having weapons could have helped them to resist or escape. More uprisings like that of the Warsaw Ghetto would have been a good thing.
The resistance of the Jews didn’t prevent the Holocaust, so it’s not wrong to pose the question of what actions could have. Of course, more scrutiny should be applied to what should have been done by non-Jewish Germans as well as the governments of other world powers.
Some years ago,I tried to join the local Paranoid Anon. Chapter,but they refused to tell me where the meetings were held.They were all against me.