Reply #42: Yes, that was me.

[H2O Man]

The post that you describe as "absurd" was read and appreciated by a significant number of DUers. Of course you are entitled to your opinions, but I think that we do well to question when our government takes the role of deciding who lives and who dies in our country. While you may have supreme faith in the justice system, the simple fact is that it is not perfect: there are issues involving racism; incidents of police and prosecutors engaging in misconduct; and even sincere errors by both judges and juries. These have led to people being wrongly convicted. I believe that this increases the risk that innocent people will be the victims of capital punishment -- something that I suspect actually comes closer to denigrating the memory of those who died at the hand of Nazi Germany than my making the comparison. However, you are surely entitled to find my making the comparison more offensive than the punishment of innocent people.

More, I quoted a couple sources that others in our culture have respected as insightful thinkers -- from Gandhi to Merton to St. Thomas Aquinas -- who have made statements about the nature of those who are incapable of forgiveness, and who are convinced that redemption is not possible or of value -- and who use Hitler as an example of that type of thought system. Again, you have every right to find those fellows "absurd." From the position that you take on this case, I would expect you to .... it would be far harder to imagine that you felt that Gandhi, Merton, or Thomas Aquinas were other than "absurd" and take the aggressive stance that you do. You likely have a similar opinion of Viktor Frankl, who taught the same basic message as the other three, and might find his beliefs denigrate the memory of those who died at the hands of Nazis. I fully expect that to be the case.