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First, They Came for Michael Medved. And I Didn't Speak Up, Because Michael Medved Is an Enormous Douche
Across the street from its massive Holocaust memorial, Berlin recently opened up a modest memorial to the approximately 10,000 homosexuals killed by Hitler. Such "moral equivalence" has Michael Medved all hot and bothered:
This commemoration follows a longstanding, misleading attempt to depict homosexuals as prime targets of Hitler. In fact, even historical material released with the memorial noted only “an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 gay men deported to concentration camps” –and by no means all of them were killed. While homosexuals surely outnumbered the less-than-one-percent of the German population that was Jewish, Jewish victims of Nazi death camps outnumbered estimated gay victims by more than 500 to 1. Persecution of any group deserves condemnation and remembrance, but it’s wrong to exaggerate the extent of victimization for politically correct P.R. purposes.
The infamous Paragraph 175 of the Reichstag Code also allowed for the castration of thousands more homosexuals. But let's have a look at this memorial that Medved says is indicative of efforts to "depict homosexuals as prime targets of Hitler," over Jews. Here's an aerial shot of the main Holocaust memorial in Berlin. It consists of 2,711 stone slabs. For comparison, note the size of the memorial next to the people walking around the outside of it:
Here's a photo of the new homosexual memorial, which consists of a single concrete slab located across the street:
Taktix®|6.12.08 @ 8:51AM|#
The google ads are getting funnier for threads including the
word "homosexual."
Anyone seeing the "Real Jock" ad right now?
Michael Medved, Savage, et al, are the scum of the earth -- lower
than tow truck drivers. They are the reason radio engineers
invented the "off" switch.
Episiarch|6.12.08 @ 8:51AM|#
Reichstage Code?
First, They Came for Michael Medved. And I Didn't Speak Up,
Because Michael Medved Is an Enormous Douche
Very true, but we must speak up for even the giant douches. This
retains our honor and allows us to point out that they
are, in fact, a giant douche.
Guy Montag|6.12.08 @ 8:57AM|#
Actually, the "Brown Shirts" were predominantly homosexual.
Their leader, Rohm, was arrested with his young male lover when
Hitler decided to transition to a more formal "gang" for state
muscle.
Rohm did negotiate for and Hitler did honor the incorporation of
the Brown Shirts into the Army and some into the SS.
The Hitler government did not have a consistant treatment of
homosexuals one way or the other, but they certainly did use
homosexuality as an excuse to remove opponents from the
landscape.
|6.12.08 @ 8:59AM|#
Taktix,
I got the "gaychubbydating.com" ad
The memorial for people with different sexual orientation is off by
itself and reminds me of a peep hole show kinda thing.
Interesting
Episiarch|6.12.08 @ 9:00AM|#
The memorial for people with different sexual orientation is
off by itself and reminds me of a peep hole show kinda
thing
Something you're familiar with, then?
Guy Montag|6.12.08 @ 9:02AM|#
On the ads, I am getting the Udall for Senate ad.
Is some odd news about to break?
|6.12.08 @ 9:03AM|#
Is it just me, or does the homosexual memorial look like a septic tank, stood on end? I wonder was that intentional?
Elemenope|6.12.08 @ 9:04AM|#
This may be my favorite H&R headline ever.
Ditto. I love freedom of speech; it provides so many opportunities
for so many douchebags to say risible things that are easy to make
fun of.
Guy Montag|6.12.08 @ 9:04AM|#
Is it just me, or does the homosexual memorial look like a
septic tank, stood on end? I wonder was that
intentional?
Its Europe, so I doubt it. Proper septic systems left with the
Romans.
|6.12.08 @ 9:05AM|#
Episiarch | June 12, 2008, 9:00am | #
The memorial for people with different sexual orientation is off by
itself and reminds me of a peep hole show kinda thing
Something you're familiar with, then?""
Only from trying to proselytize your mother.ø¿ø
j/k
|6.12.08 @ 9:06AM|#
But G*d says that we should persecute homosexuals? All you homo-lovers are going to hell. Hitler was doing G*d's work!
Guy Montag|6.12.08 @ 9:06AM|#
The proper libertarian questions are: Was this memorial built
with public funds and is dancing allowed around it?
Discuss, maybe research a bit.
|6.12.08 @ 9:13AM|#
With teh ghey ads on the sidebar, that Father's Day REASON ad
underneath the jock dating ad seems somewhat inappropriate.
Also... put me down for favorite H&R headline ever.
ktc2|6.12.08 @ 9:13AM|#
Medved, Savage, Malkin are all the brown shirts of the religious right (that movement can't die fast enough). To them 10k dead is just "a good start".
|6.12.08 @ 9:15AM|#
Mister DNA -
Agreed, although I made that joke first a week or two ago on a
*different* thread about homosexuals. But nobody understood it
then... I'm glad I'm not the only one that sees the connection.
gmatts|6.12.08 @ 9:16AM|#
"The google ads are getting funnier for threads including the
word "homosexual"
Doesn't the add for the Fathers Day gift of reason seem a little
gay? Especially because the add starts with just a young guy with
his arms around an older, creepy guy. Then the information pops up
that it's an add for Fathers Day...and to offer your father the
gift of Reason...and that the add is not for NAMBLA
And yes, I see the add for "RealJock" and it makes me happy to
think that Medved might become aware of the article making fun of
him for feigning offense to a modest monument to gays that were
systematically murdered for being gay, and that he will then have
to see an add to meet a RealJock
Episiarch|6.12.08 @ 9:18AM|#
Only from trying to proselytize your mother.
You had to try? You must be hella ugly.
|6.12.08 @ 9:20AM|#
Guy,
On the stroke of midnight Christmas eve, hundreds of fairies
materialize at the memorial and dance The Dance of the Douchebags.
As you know The Dance of the Douchbags was in the first draft of
Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. It was later changed to Dance of
the Sugar Plumb Fairies. Tchaikovsky was a poofta you know.
|6.12.08 @ 9:24AM|#
Persecution of any group deserves condemnation and
remembrance, but it's wrong to exaggerate the extent of
victimization for politically correct P.R. purposes.
What is it with the conservatives today and their insistence that
anything that they don't like, think is immoral, or are afraid to
see is merely political correctness - because nobody
actually thinks that 10,000 gays is a lot to have killed
and, even though they were a specifically targeted group.
Seriously douche bag - it's not like 10,000 people were killed, and
it just so happened that some of them were gay, and therefore they
put up a memorial specifically to those that were gay. That would
be different - this is not that.
Guy Montag|6.12.08 @ 9:28AM|#
Warren,
Then that solves half of the questions. Was this done with public
funds? If so, I am on record as being against it.
Private funds, fine with me.
David Rollins|6.12.08 @ 9:31AM|#
That's not a peep hole, it's a glory hole. Surely that sphincter will last a thousand years.
Guy Montag|6.12.08 @ 9:32AM|#
I suspect gay mafia involvement, the evidence is in the hair of the guy in the picture.
|6.12.08 @ 9:42AM|#
Actually, the "Brown Shirts" were predominantly
homosexual.
There were hundreds of thousands of men in the SA, so no, not
really. What you could say is that some of its leadership were
homosexuals.
So...how'd that work out for them? Oh, right, they were all dead by
the mid-30s, killed on Hitler's orders.
Several years before the Holocaust, the Nazis were not killing gay
people as part of the Holocaust. It was only when the Holocaust
started that the gay men began to be killed as part of the
Holocaust.
This is a terribly important point to some.
|6.12.08 @ 9:43AM|#
Guy,
I don't think privately funded memorials are allowed in the
EU.
Re: Ads,
You people still see the ads? LOL What a bunch of noobs
Re: Headline,
Not the most clever ever, but points for awesomeness.
|6.12.08 @ 9:45AM|#
I'm pretty sure this all started when a gay guy didn't let Medved into art school.
|6.12.08 @ 9:47AM|#
No gay guy would have ever approved that tasteless bunker!
Maybe there is a reason the Medved is referred to as "The Gay
Moustache"!
Guy Montag|6.12.08 @ 9:50AM|#
No gay guy would have ever approved that tasteless
bunker!
Certainly not very colorful and lacks glitter.
|6.12.08 @ 9:50AM|#
In fact, even historical material released with the memorial
noted only "an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 gay men deported to
concentration camps" -and by no means all of them were
killed.
Michael Medved, only 2,819 people died in the 9/11 attacks. No
memorial for them. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor toll was a
mere 2,388 killed and 1,178 wounded. Let's dismantle
this piece of propoganda while were at it.
Douchebag may be is too kind.
|6.12.08 @ 9:52AM|#
Medved is not a douche. Douches are refreshing. Could we instead refer to him as a yeast infection, or something?
Guy Montag|6.12.08 @ 9:54AM|#
No memorial for them.
We have a small one for the people who died at the Pentagon. The
large one is still under construction, with money from private
donations.
|6.12.08 @ 9:58AM|#
With teh ghey ads on the sidebar, that Father's Day REASON
ad underneath the jock dating ad seems somewhat
inappropriate.
I just assumed "Thank Your Dad" was some kind of euphemism.
You people still see the ads? LOL What a bunch of
noobs.
Nah. The auto-ads are half the fun.
Is it just me, or are both these memorials drab to the point of
being insulting?
Guy Montag|6.12.08 @ 10:03AM|#
Is it just me, or are both these memorials drab to the point
of being insulting?
Just you, man.
We really need to get someone from the BRAVO channel in here to do
a proper evaluation, or maybe Jeff Gordon.
|6.12.08 @ 10:05AM|#
I can read enough to know you're full of shit, Guy.
I can read enough to know you don't know what you're talking
about.
I can read enough to know you don't know anything about the subject
beyond the anti-gay talking points.
I can read enough to know that "the Brownshirts were prodominately
gay" is a factually incorrect statement.
Don't be worm, scumbag. If you won't stand by your statements,
don't make them.
JohnD|6.12.08 @ 10:05AM|#
All of you people defending homosexuals gives me one more reason
to dislike REASON.
You're all a bunch of faggots
|6.12.08 @ 10:06AM|#
Basically, Guy, people like you and Medved are why this memorial was a good idea.
|6.12.08 @ 10:12AM|#
That "monument" looks like a prototype subway token booth. Or a giant concrete refrigerator with an in-the-door ice dispenser. It will probably win a Turner Prize.
|6.12.08 @ 10:17AM|#
Not even the Krauts, efficient as they are, would be able to rid the world of any significant portion of the giant douche population.
|6.12.08 @ 10:19AM|#
All of you people defending homosexuals gives me one more
reason to dislike REASON.
You're all a bunch of faggots
Let me guess... Republican? If you stay true to form, it sounds
like you're still about three months out from an embarrassing sex
scandal involving you, a male prostitute, and a whole passel of
recreational pharmaceuticals. You should start writing your tearful
apology now, while there's still time to proofread it!
|6.12.08 @ 10:22AM|#
Radley: Great headline, and thanks for pointing out the
continuing douchebaggery of MM.
Great snark @ 8:51, Epi.
JohnD: Yes, all of us. Even the women. Don't let the door hit you
where the dog bit you.
|6.12.08 @ 10:31AM|#
This touches on a pet peeve of mine... I had a high school civics teacher who had a sticker on his window with a star of David, the number 6,000,000 and the words "never forget." I was always troubled by the implication that those 6,000,000 deaths are more worthy of remembrance than the other 6,000,000 holocaust deaths. Don't get me wrong; I obviously understand the long-reaching ramifications of attempting to wipe out an entire race/religion. At the same time, isn't it just as important that we remember the systematic killing of homosexuals, the disabled, the Roma, alleged communists, clergy, etc.? Whether it's the result of prejudice (a likely example being Mr. Medved) or not (e.g. my high school teacher, who I don't think intended to discriminate against Gentile holocaust victims), I think it's important to end the game of ranking the significance of deaths based solely on the number of victims.
Guy Montag|6.12.08 @ 10:32AM|#
Last comment of mine on the joe can't read topic: someone else
try to find an anti-homosexual comment of mine in this thread. Not
the imagenary ones joe sees.
Back into the filter for you joe. Have fun talking to yourself.
|6.12.08 @ 10:39AM|#
I didn't call you anti-homosexual.
I called you dumb as a bag of hammers, and historically
ignorant.
Don't you worry, Guy. I had fun doing so.
David Rollins|6.12.08 @ 10:47AM|#
That's funny, I also have a sticker with the star of David on it. It reads Gun Owner.
Elemenope|6.12.08 @ 10:49AM|#
Is it just me, or are both these memorials drab to the point
of being insulting?
Nah, dude.
They're just designed by Germans.
Guy Montag|6.12.08 @ 10:49AM|#
That's funny, I also have a sticker with the star of David
on it. It reads Gun Owner.
SWEET! I need one for the 'hybrid' ;)
|6.12.08 @ 10:50AM|#
Is it just me, or are both these memorials drab to the point of being insulting?
It's not just you. Check out Stanislav Szukalski's submission * for a planned
Katyn Forest Massacre Memorial. The submission that was accepted is
rather tame by comparison.
*It's too bad the image isn't accompanied by Szukalski's essay on
the monument - it's brutally confrontational and funny as hell. He
claimed the tentacles "represent the oppressive 'isms' of the
world: communism, fascism, socialism, ventriloquism..."
KipEsquire|6.12.08 @ 10:52AM|#
Balko left out the best part: After the concentration camps were
liberated, Allied forces ordered the homosexual inmates transferred
to regular civilian prisons rather than liberate them with the rest
of the confinees, on the logic that they were in fact bona fide
criminals and not political prisoners.
West Germany did not repeal Paragraph 175 until 1969 (which of
course still beat out Lawrence v. Texas by 34 years).
|6.12.08 @ 10:54AM|#
Now all we need is a copy of Reason to come through a time-warp from the future calling Medved "a mindless jerk whose back was first against the wall when the revolution came."
Metal Messiah|6.12.08 @ 10:57AM|#
I had a high school civics teacher who had a sticker on his
window with a star of David, the number 6,000,000 and the words
"never forget." I was always troubled by the implication that those
6,000,000 deaths are more worthy of remembrance than the other
6,000,000 holocaust deaths. Don't get me wrong; I obviously
understand the long-reaching ramifications of attempting to wipe
out an entire race/religion. At the same time, isn't it just as
important that we remember the systematic killing of homosexuals,
the disabled, the Roma, alleged communists, clergy,
etc.?
There are certain people who tend to get pissy when it's brought up
that the Holocaust wasn't limited to Jews.
Miggs|6.12.08 @ 11:09AM|#
The comments to Medved's column on Town Hall are amusing. Even his own readers think he's a douchebag for writing this garbage.
|6.12.08 @ 11:19AM|#
Well, according to "a widely-read libertarian culture site", Hitler did employ some homosexuals in the S.A. Yes, there it is, in writing. So it must be true.
|6.12.08 @ 11:25AM|#
Speaking of art criticism, where are Roger Daltry and Keith Moon, when you need them?
|6.12.08 @ 11:26AM|#
ed,
Good question. I ran a google search on "Gypsy Memorial Nazis" and
got a dead link to a May 28 Washington Post story, including the
text May 27, 2008 ... The memorial to the Nazis' Jewish victims
and the new monument will soon be joined by a third memorial
honoring the Roma and Sinti, or Gypsy ...
So, I'd say, it's going to open right there in Berlin soon.
|6.12.08 @ 11:26AM|#
The comments to Medved's column on Town Hall are amusing. Even his own readers think he's a douchebag for writing this garbage.
But Townhall being Townhall, someone had to reference "The Pink
Swastika" and include positive reviews of it by the likes of Judith
Reisman and RJ Rushdoony.
Miggs|6.12.08 @ 11:47AM|#
Unintentionally one of the 'stache's funniest columns:
A "Porno Tax" Makes Sense for California
|6.12.08 @ 12:04PM|#
I just paid a nice young memorial to wash my windows. He'll be right back; he just had to pick up some supplies.
zoltan|6.12.08 @ 12:13PM|#
Phil, let the insult stand. Douches aren't refreshing and in fact cause yeast infections.
Sean Healy|6.12.08 @ 12:39PM|#
I think it's important to memorialize homosexuals killed or persecuted by the Nazis because of their sexual orientation. I also think it's important to remember that the Nazis did not seek to erase the entire presence of homosexuals in the world. It's fair to say, instead, that the murder and persecution of homosexuals by the Nazis was incidental to their chief projects - conquering Europe, subjugating its people and eradicating Jews from the world - notwithstanding the appalling death toll. So Medved is right to say it is misleading to depict homosexuals as prime targets of Hitler - turning the Nazis into "equal opportunity" murderers mitigates the horror of their reign - even if it's douchey of him to bitch about the memorial.
zoltan|6.12.08 @ 12:47PM|#
Sean Healy, Medved is attacking a straw man. No one has depicted homosexuals as "prime targets". But they were obviously important targets if so many were intentionally killed.
Sean Healy|6.12.08 @ 12:54PM|#
I think it's important to end the game of ranking the
significance of deaths based solely on the number of
victims
I'm not sure that's what your civics teacher was up to. You
obviously didn't learn much from him/her if you think the Holocaust
(which refers specifically to the Nazi genocide of Jews, not their
general willingness to kill all sorts of 'undesirables') is
considered a special instance of mass murder simply on the basis of
numbers. If you haven't already, you should read the Nuremberg
Laws. Murderous, dehumanizing anti-Jewish animus was the defining
feature of Nazism. It is impossible to imagine the regime without
it. It was the sine qua non of the Third Reich. Take away
oppression of homosexuals and the core values remain, no? Take away
Jew-hatred, not so much. The whole etiology of the massive German
self-pity which propelled their armies over the Polish border and
beyond leads to the Nazi fever-dream of Jewish malevolence and
nowhere else. Without it, no gentile deaths for you to get ticked
off about, I'm afraid. That's the special significance.
|6.12.08 @ 12:59PM|#
Conservatives bitterly decry treating people as members of a
group and not as individual for purposes such as affirmative
action. They are right to do so.
Somehow, this ostensible principle has dissolved in the case in
favor of a niggling debate over whether the homosexuals were
murdered as members of a generally targeted group or as members of
a group targeted when it served the needs of the Nazis. Are these
people really arguing that mass murder is a lesser offense when
coupled with hypocrisy?
Quibbling over the exact nature of who was targeted and why is a
game for holocaust deniers. Every single murder by the Nazis was an
equal crime against humanity. It is an historical fact that large
numbers of people were killed for being , or being accused of
being, homosexuals.
A person who claims a belief in absolute morality should avoid
arguments of moral relativity when faced with undiluted evil.
Medved should be ashamed of himself.
gmatts|6.12.08 @ 1:05PM|#
"Where's the gypsy memorial?"
It's actual a series of memorials consisting on little statue of a
gypsy girl, that is asking seemingly innocent questions, surrounded
by a group of adult statues that pick-pocket those people looking
at the statue of the little girl.
|6.12.08 @ 2:28PM|#
Murderous, dehumanizing anti-Jewish animus was the defining
feature of Nazism.
I thought it was trying to conquer all of Europe, eventually the
world. Sure without the Holocaust the Nazi's go from uniquely evil
to merely evil. However, the Holocaust involved killing all that
were determined to be impure, which included, in addition to Jews,
homosexuals and the Roma.
|6.12.08 @ 9:27PM|#
This is the kind of crap that happens when you give someone of limited intellegence three hours of airtime a day and tell them to fill it...
|6.12.08 @ 10:41PM|#
Having lived in Berlin for some time I can attest that the
Holocaust memorial is massive. And it is not the only one. There
are symbols all over the place. The one for gay victims certainly
is tiny, based on the photo, compared to the main memorial. Mr.
Medved's problem is that he is a right-wing type who hates gays. He
certainly is no libertarian.
Correction, the Brown Shirts were not predominantly homosexual even
if Ernst Rohm was. In the infamous raid on the SA conference where
Rohm was arrested other leaders had girls in their beds and were
arrested as well. Nor was homosexuality the excuse used to arrest
him. Hitler's top people have convinced him, falsely by the way,
that Rohm was planning a coup. They wanted Rohm out of the way. So
that arrest was not related to homosexuality at all.
The Nazis did have a consistent policy toward homosexuals. It was
illegal and if discovered could lead to arrest and incarceration in
a concentration camp.
Gmatt: the word is ad for advertising not add as in addition. And I
don't see how that ad could look like it is for Nambla since there
is no boy in the ad but two adults. And yes, it does look more gay
than anything else.
As for the design. Yes it does look like a concrete closet with a
peephole. It was designed that way to symbolize how people who were
gay had to hide in Nazi Germany but that if someone did peep in and
see them they could be arrested and sent to Dachau.
Were homosexuals prime targets of the Nazis? The Nazis thought so.
They had a system of symbols to designate the prime categories of
prisoners. While the Star of David designated Jews the Nazis put a
pink triangle on the homosexuals. Clearly they thought them a major
category -- at least major enough to warrant a special designation
in the camp for identification purposes. And clearly enough of them
were arrested that the symbol was needed at all.
Sean Healy|6.13.08 @ 7:03AM|#
I thought it was trying to conquer all of Europe, eventually
the world.
No, the defining feature of Nazism, consistent from its first
statements (most explicitly in Mein Kampf) through its final breath
was Jew-hatred. Psychotic Jew-hatred is what enabled Nazi
fanaticism and fuelled its imperial drive.
However, the Holocaust involved killing all that were
determined to be impure, which included, in addition to Jews,
homosexuals and the Roma
You see, it is precisely this kind of lazy overstatement that I
suspect Medved is trying to oppose. There is a common misconception
that the Nazis had a problem with impurity in general and the Jews
just caught the worst of it. Wrong. The Nazis had a problem with
Jews in particular and the general application of their mode of
Jew-hatred also caught up other perceived threats to German purity
and/or superiority. Obviously when you believe yourself to be part
of a master race, the lives of others become especially cheap. I
would argue that the German master race concept depended entirely
on the subjugation of the Jew. The Jew, as constructed by Nazism,
was everything the German was not. As such Nazi oppression of the
generalized 'other' began with anti-Semitism.
jtuf|6.13.08 @ 11:22AM|#
Holocaust remembrance groups routinely mention non-Jewish victims of Nazis. When I visited it, the Holocaust Museum in DC had information about all the people Nazis targetted. Medved's objections are not representative of remembrance groups.
jtuf|6.13.08 @ 11:26AM|#
The Nazis rose to power by scapegoating others. Once they locked up one group, they went to the next.
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