6f17fafa   
   XPost: can.politics, us.politics   
   From: me@eatmoose.yum   
      
   On 3/25/2010 1:34 PM, Joe wrote:   
   >   
   >> I don't get it.  How does dickering about the numbers change the fact   
   >> that Nazis acted to cleanse Germany of racial inferiors?   
   >   
   > It does not.  The figure is important for at least two reasons.  1)   
   >  From a purely historical stance.  How many people were executed/   
   > murdered?  Facts are important.   
      
   Precise statistics are great but hardly obtainable 65+ years after the   
   fact.  If they haven't been settled by now they never will be, and   
   discrepancies in accounting do not change the fact that a major war   
   crime happened.  There were many other serious war crimes in WWII, but   
   the endless focus on the holocaust detracts from the study of those   
   crimes.  In a way, you are actually playing into the hands of the people   
   who would exploit the holocaust... you are forever keeping the focus of   
   controversy on the thing they wish to exploit.   
      
   > 2) To combat those who deny it   
   > happened.  Again facts are important.  Those that deny just deny the   
   > facts.  But to have the facts so that others can see that it did occur   
   > and that it was not a small bunch of people but something truly   
   > monstrous in size.   
      
   Do you need to know precise numbers to know that Stalin and Mao killed a   
   lot of people?  Their forced collectivization programs starved millions   
   but nobody is hung up on the exact numbers.  Historians and researchers   
   come up with various ballpark estimates, but of course, the number will   
   never be knowable.   
      
   Why do you think the true holocaust toll can or will ever be known?  How   
   about the Peshanka Bone Fields?  Were they real or fake?  Kind of   
   irrelevant, the human toll at Stalingrad and area was well over a   
   million by all accounts.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)