I’m just pointing out that they’re not exclusively choosing targets on the left.

Note that the JDL sarcastically criticized Mel Gibson after his famous anti-semitic tirade.

Alas! THAT proclivity seems to be the official psychosis of our time. . .

Hitler didn’t set out to kill all the Jews — just to remove them from Germany. The original plan was more like a massive-scale segregation of the “racially pure” and…everyone else. The problem was, no one else wanted them.

After spending some time reading about the stuff that went on before the actual Holocaust, before the death camps, I’m thinking there is a lot more blame to go around. Himmler, for instance, who embodied Will Smith’s sentiment exactly: he went to his grave without any regrets, insisting that he did the right thing.

Either way…it’s pretty silly for anyone to get worked up at a comment such as this. :) And I’m trying to bring “niggardly” back — after all, it’s an etymological stranger to the similar-sounding racial slur. People should use their brains before they get offended!

The ADL has acted better than the JDL regarding this incident, but I still take issue with some of their response; I don’t think it’s true that Smith was “citing Hitler in what appears to be a positive context.” The only “positive context” that existed was the prose in the article surrounding Smith’s quote, but Smith isn’t responsible for that. And I don’t think this episode shows how important it is for celebrities to “weigh their words carefully”; the wrong-doing here was done by journalists, gossip sheets and the JDL, and it’s they who should be admonished, not Smith.

That said, on the whole I don’t think the ADL’s response was bad enough to really be objectionable, and obviously they were miles better than the JDL.

Oddly, no. And the JDL is not an ‘advocacy group’ any more than the John Birch Society is.

What he said sounds like pretty standard dorm room philosophy imo.

Like you, I assume Amp is a clever fellow and capable of both understanding and utilizing subtext. And I’ll call you on it too, as you well know.

The JDL is an extremist organization whose former leaders were charged with terrorism (one of whom pled guilty). It is hardly the leading, or respectable, Jewish or pro-Semitic organization in America. The Anti-Defamation League, on the other hand, praised Will Smith and took a swipe at those who wanted to take his words out of context.

I know you have a beef with pro-Israel groups, but this smacks of trying to hint that all such groups are crazy and overreact with cries of “anti-Semitism!” over nothing.

Now they saw trains, many trains, all of them running on time, and the trains
criss-crossed Europe and ran 24 hours a day, and they all came to a few
destinations that were alike. There, the human cargo was stamped, catalogued,
processed, executed with gas, tabulated, recorded, stamped again, cremated and
disposed. “This is Bureaucracy,” said Dionysius, and he smashed his wine jug in
anger; beside him, his lynx glared balefully. And then they saw the man who had
ordered this, Adolf Hitler, wearing still the mask of Oliver Hardy, and he turned to
a certain rich man, Baron Rothschild, wearing the mask of Stanley Laurel, and they
knew this was the world created by the god Hegel and the angel Thesis was
meeting the demon Antithesis. Then Hitler spoke the eternal words: “Now look
what you made me do,” he said.

But nobody sees themselves as a villain. People who knowingly do wrong justify it to themselves by saying that X did it to Y first, or that you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. Don’t like it? Take it up with the human brain.

I don’t think the issue is so much with the idea that nobody sees herself as a villain as with the “stuff like that just needs reprogramming,” as if Hitler might have devoted himself to something worthwhile if he’d just been given some positive outlets for his creativity and energy. Maybe some art classes or something.

Pop quiz: which do you think Bin Laden remembers better and thinks about more, the atrocities he’s committed or the atrocities of the Middle Eastern governments he seeks to overthrow? (Bonus question: in the linked situation, who sees themselves as hard-headed realists for taking actions that lead to retaliation? A. Zawahiri B. Egypt’s government C. Bush D All of the above)

And a Jewish Sunday School–I know I’m ignorant, but sometimes I feel extra ignorant. Isn’t Jewish worship always on Saturday?

The Jewish sabbath is on Saturday, but observant Jews worship every day. There’s no law that says that Hebrew school has to be on shabbat. I went to Hebrew school on Saturday mornings and after school on Wednesdays.

I don’t think what Smith said was anti-semitic. It was, however, pretty darn trite. I don’t think he necessarily deserves to be pilloried for failing to be a deep and subtle thinker, though.