On Nov 18, 2005, at 3:30 PM, Martin Senftleben wrote:
crux. Hitler has spread his ideas for years, until he finally reached
The ideas were originally Hegel's and Plato's. But just because someone is spreading some bad ideas doesn't mean they can be held responsible for some third party falling for them, and acting criminally on them. That's still the acting party's responsibility, and nobody else's. Everyone has a brain. If Mr. X fails to use his properly, and gets taken in by nonsense, that is Mr. X's failure alone. One can't pass the responsibility on to the bad ideas without instituting precisely the sort of thought control that is just about the Worst Idea ever - where only a centrally approved set of politically correct ideas may be expressed at all.
Who do you (impersonal "you") want to hold responsible for setting fire to an asylum of refugees, when the person who did it is obviously brainwashed by another, strongly influencing person, who implanted the idea that foreigners are bastards, just exploiting our goodwill and misusing our hospitality?
Everyone, brainwashed or not, is responsible for what they do. Brainwashing and "following orders" are no excuse for murder, nor are they inescapable compulsions. People can have all sorts of whacky ideas, and even publish and disseminate them, but ideas are not actions, and only actions cause injury, and between ideas and actions, there's supposed to be a functioning human mind and conscience. If there isn't, an animal mind in a human body is no better than any other dangerous animal you'd shoot without thinking twice. #!
