Wow

I just finished watching Judgment at Nuremburg. It was on TV this evening, and I watch it anytime I can, because it's a very good movie (Maximilian Schell is great, if creepy, in his role as the defense attorney). Watching it tonight also served as a sort of cleansing, because I was feeling rather ill after reading this (via Good Math, Bad Math):

And [Bush] will be lying, again, just as he lied when he said: "Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic – it's just not going to work."

Not only will it work, but one can easily estimate how long it would take. If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn't possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don't speak English and are not integrated into American society.

When I read this in the Good Math, Bad Math post, I couldn't believe it. Vox Day, the author of the statement, had to have provided a context that made it clear he wasn't really comparing Germany's forceful deportation of Jews, Gypsies, Poles, political dissidents, gays, and the disabled to concentration camps to our current situation with undocumented immigrants. But no such context was to be found in the article. Desperate, I looked to Day's blog, where I found that not only was he comparing the two situations, but he is proud of doing so, and feels it's the only reasonable comparison. He writes (all emphasis, in the form of capitalization, is his):

But apparently today's column gave numerous double-digit IQs the vapors, as they were unable to ascertain that the IDENTIFICATION, FORCED TRANSPORTATION and MURDER of six million Jews in four years by the National Socialists proves that President Bush was absolutely incorrect - and presumably lying - when he stated that IDENTIFYING and FORCIBLY TRANSPORTING twelve million illegal aliens was not possible.

Quite clearly, it is. As for those who find all mention of the National Socialists or the Holocaust inherently beyond the pale, I am certainly open to hearing any suggestions that similarly prove the case. Has anyone else besides the National Socialists been identifying and transporting millions of people lately? Does anyone else put the lie to Dear Jorge? And if not, do we simply pretend that it never happened and that there are no lessons to be learned from it? Wasn't the whole point of the Shoah documentaries and the survivor recordings and the Holocaust museums to make sure that no one ever forgot?

When the Nazis regime is the only regime you can think of to compare to your present situation, red flags should go up. It's hard to separate the lesson Vox thinks we should learn from the Nazis from all of the other "lessons" that led to this one. And if we're really learning the lesson of Nazi deportations, then we'd have to pay attention to how they did it: placing people in cattle cars so crowded that it was not possible to sit, much lay down, and transporting them for days, sometimes even for weeks, without food or water. Sure, we've learned the lesson, Vox: if you want to deport millions of people over a few years, you have to do it the dirty way, and you're going to kill a lot of people in the process.

Also, I think Vox might be happy to know that the Nazis weren't the only ones to use forced deportations. The Soviets, under Stalin, did it by the millions as well, deporting Germans, political dissidents, Jews, and anyone else they didn't like, to the gulag. So, mass deportations over a short period of time are possible. Hitler and Stalin did it, therefore we can do it too! That may be a rational argument, but I can't imagine it's one anyone wants to make.