If you play Empire you are a racist xenophobic deplorable person.

I'm so glad X-wing doesn't take politics into the game mechanics. Save that for Star Trek Armada.

I won't be surprised if Sjw get into every fansom and come after people that pick "the evil side".

I seriously was already shamed, really not sarcastically, for playing as xenomorphs, in Aliens Colonial Marines.

It was *** *** ing me off, its not like i was really really melting people down with acid or eating them.

I could be wrong, probably am, but i swear they wanted me to just walk away from playing when the game would pick me to play as an alien, because its offensive to kill humans.

They might not have directly said this, but they were basically telling me, and anyone else really, to not kill humans, to not play as an alien.

I was merely attempting to demonstrate Stalin equaled or surpassed Hitler in bodycount. He had his fair share of Holocaust-ish exterminations too. I highly doubt the gulags were much better than the concentration camps. The reasons Hitler wins this 'popularity' contest IMO are two:

First of all USSR was not occupied so nobody got to walk into a stalinist gulag and liberate the occupants. The survivor tales are fewer and less colorful, so the shock effect is smaller.

Secondly, and that's very sad, Stalin didn't kill Western Europeans. To the media at large,what happens to people in Western Europe and US seems to be more important and more tragic than what happens everywhere else.

The Nazis made it pretty close to Soviet major cities, actually foughtht in some, although they didn't get to occupy Soviet territory like they did France, i would still considered deep incursions a serious thing.

Also am pretty sure Germans are Western European. But i think your trying to say they weren't seen that way, correct?

I was merely attempting to demonstrate Stalin equaled or surpassed Hitler in bodycount. He had his fair share of Holocaust-ish exterminations too. I highly doubt the gulags were much better than the concentration camps. The reasons Hitler wins this 'popularity' contest IMO are two:

First of all USSR was not occupied so nobody got to walk into a stalinist gulag and liberate the occupants. The survivor tales are fewer and less colorful, so the shock effect is smaller.

I recommend reading Anne Applebaum's Gulag. Hard stuff.

Willingly and knowingly deporting large groups of people to death by famine. Sending lots of the own soldiers drunk and without proper equipment to storm the enemies lines.

Also: Stalin could have bombed Ausschwitz or the supply to it without any major problems. He chose to not do it.

I was merely attempting to demonstrate Stalin equaled or surpassed Hitler in bodycount. He had his fair share of Holocaust-ish exterminations too. I highly doubt the gulags were much better than the concentration camps. The reasons Hitler wins this 'popularity' contest IMO are two:

First of all USSR was not occupied so nobody got to walk into a stalinist gulag and liberate the occupants. The survivor tales are fewer and less colorful, so the shock effect is smaller.

Secondly, and that's very sad, Stalin didn't kill Western Europeans. To the media at large,what happens to people in Western Europe and US seems to be more important and more tragic than what happens everywhere else.

The Nazis made it pretty close to Soviet major cities, actually foughtht in some, although they didn't get to occupy Soviet territory like they did France, i would still considered deep incursions a serious thing.

Also am pretty sure Germans are Western European. But i think your trying to say they weren't seen that way, correct?

The point I was trying to make in regard to occupation was the following: the allies liberated many concentration camps, took photos, found documents, made immediate contact with inmates etc and much of this has been made public. Nothing similar happened to Stalin's gulags AFAIK so the emotional impact has never been the same

IMO, one of the best example of victors writing the history is Stalin vs. Hitler. Both committed large scale atrocities,both tried to impose ther will by force onto part of the world and yet Stalin seems to be a lot less reviled than Hitler.

Or maybe it's this way because people dying en masse were a side effect of Stalin's policy and the whole point of Hitler's?

Stalin was a monster, a lot of people died because of him, there is no denying it, but Hitler was just another league.

I'd flip that, based on numbers. Hitler was a monster, millions of people died because of him, but Stalin and Mao were just another league.

He had much less time.

And yet Stalin surpassed him, even considering the different lengths of time they had at their disposal.

The Holocaust killed between 6 and 11 million jews over 4 years, so (1.5-2.75 million per year)

Stalin's provoked famine in Ukraine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor) killed between 2.5 and 7.5 million people in just 2 years, and this is only one of Stalin's genocides.

Genocide Olympics, huh?

Don't do that. Don't root for Hitler in Genocide Olypics, he always loses.

Ukraine is well and dandy nowadays (well, almost), Ukrainians survived the holomodor. Hitler's plan was to kill every signle Jew. Plus 85% of Poles, 60% of Russians (rest to be turned into slaves) and there some more subhuman ethnicities.

Fun fact: not only Jews were killed in the concentration and death camps, and not only those who died in camps were Hitler's victims.

10 million of Soviet and 6 million of Polish civilians died in WW2 as a direct result of military actions and crimes against humanity.

And that's only a part of all casualities of WW2, and Nazis are responsible for every single of those deaths. Yes, in war collateral damage is uanvoildable, but it wasn't collateral damage, German war machine was purposedly targeting civilians, just compare French losses (~1,5% of population) - to Polish (~18%) and Soviet (~14%).

All of that in 6 years, with the Generalplan Ost promising much more for the future.

What is even more damaging is that nowadays some people, even here in this thread, celebrate as "heroes" or " honourable men" those who not only didn't do anything, but those who were voluntarily supporting the regime, despite having full knowledge of what's happening and means to do the oppoiste, like Rommel or von Braun. You can't be a honourable hero fighting for ******* Hitler and paving the roads for his genocides.

Schindler, von Stauffenberg, Schulz. Not ******* Rommel, the poster boy of Nazi propaganda.

Stauffenberg was no nazi, but he was absolutely a fascist. Besides I find it odd that you give Stauffenberg a pass, while Rommel does not get one.

Furthermore I agree that lack of action is a problem, but at the same time I don't see protest marches in the states against the drone war, even establishment of the NSA surveillance state is accepted under the pretence of security against terrorism which is literally breeded across the globe by the U.S. drone program. There is a lot of inaction going around the globe at all times. And let's not get into the real world, keep it fictional in the star wars universe. Fascism in space is a lot more entertaining than the real thing.

There are many Americans who are opposed to the unlimited use of drones for extrajudicial killings. There are plenty of Americans who are opposed to the government's domestic spying programs.

You're talking to one.

Obviously, we have a problem. But have you seen who we have running for President? Yikes! Panem et circenses.

I was merely attempting to demonstrate Stalin equaled or surpassed Hitler in bodycount. He had his fair share of Holocaust-ish exterminations too. I highly doubt the gulags were much better than the concentration camps. The reasons Hitler wins this 'popularity' contest IMO are two:

First of all USSR was not occupied so nobody got to walk into a stalinist gulag and liberate the occupants. The survivor tales are fewer and less colorful, so the shock effect is smaller.

I recommend reading Anne Applebaum's Gulag. Hard stuff.

Willingly and knowingly deporting large groups of people to death by famine. Sending lots of the own soldiers drunk and without proper equipment to storm the enemies lines.

Also: Stalin could have bombed Ausschwitz or the supply to it without any major problems. He chose to not do it.

Stalin supported and goaded the Warsaw uprising.

And then halted his armies outside the city until the Germans had put down the uprising. Jews fleeing concentration camps into the hands of their Soviet "liberators" basically went from the frying pan into the fire (more accurately, from the fire into the frying pan). In fact, Soviet support for Israel was largely the result of an effort to remove Jews from the Soviet Union. And in the 1980s, the Soviet Union agreed to send a significant portion of their remaining Jewish population to the US. Not so much genocide as ethnic cleansing.

One of the things that makes the Empire different from the Nazis- the Empire is the government of the significant majority of the galaxy. And the galaxy does have some legitimate evils that are opposed by the Empire.

A- What legitimate evils are opposed by the Empire?

B- Nazi Germany was a government that represented the majority of Germans. The Nazis also believed that they were opposing the legitimate evils posed by democracy, communism, individual liberty, and Judaism (they specifically believed that Jews sought to control the world and that they had largely succeeded in secrecy - the countries that fought the Nazis were Jewish puppets and Germany was the most bestest country on earth in large part because they had destroyed the Jewish conspiracy to subsume the German state within the Jewish New World Order).

In the (Legends) book Choices of one, Mara Jade is sent- as the Emperor's Hand- to root out corruption within a certain sector. Yes, the whole Empire thrives on corruption, but seeing what sorts of things cross the line is _interesting_.

In the recent (canon) Marvel arc we are introduced to a man who was born a slave to fight in the gladiator pits, and is rescued by Stormtroopers. So he works hard to join them- because he doesn't want to have anyone else have his fate.

These things don't make the Empire _good_, but certainly allow for stories of good people to not know about the evils of the Empire- and then be faced with moral decisions.

The U.S. has yet to genocide, but really that's the biggest difference.

The Native Americans would beg to differ. And if you want to learn more about it, take a look at what the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is experiencing as I type.

Or, alternate viewpoint. He was doing his job, his duty.

Ok, so the US has done Genocide.

Somebody had better explain to me why comparing the US, British Empire and Nazi Germany to each other is a huge stretch. Because I admit i don't get it.

Note: I am speaking broadly. Accepting that each has it's share of crimes against humanity (treatment of native americans, miners, What the British did to some of the colonies in Africa (though compared to the Belgians...).

Now, one can argue that the U.S, Britain and Germany are all trying to atone, make up for, it, improve things. Sure. But look. Germany is still on that list! Is it Hitlers Germany? No. But it's not Victorias England either.

The daily experience of the average German citizen under the Nazis was roughly 2-3 times as bad as the average daily experience of a POC in America today.

So Nazi Germany was worse because they did to _everyone_ worse than what our country does to only 40% of it's people.

Plus the Nazis had the death camps.

Plus the Nazis had the death camps.

Which clearly is worse than just having death squadrons and death lists and concentration camps… sorry I just could not resist. It really is worse without any doubt.

Though I am not sure if the daily experienced of the average german in 1936 was 2-3 worse than from an average american today. So I find your absolute certainty in your statement interesting.

Breakfast?

Gunboat?

X-wing fix?

Sheesh...

Or, alternate viewpoint. He was doing his job, his duty.

Ok, so the US has done Genocide.

Somebody had better explain to me why comparing the US, British Empire and Nazi Germany to each other is a huge stretch. Because I admit i don't get it.

Note: I am speaking broadly. Accepting that each has it's share of crimes against humanity (treatment of native americans, miners, What the British did to some of the colonies in Africa (though compared to the Belgians...).

Now, one can argue that the U.S, Britain and Germany are all trying to atone, make up for, it, improve things. Sure. But look. Germany is still on that list! Is it Hitlers Germany? No. But it's not Victorias England either.

The daily experience of the average German citizen under the Nazis was roughly 2-3 times as bad as the average daily experience of a POC in America today.

So Nazi Germany was worse because they did to _everyone_ worse than what our country does to only 40% of it's people.

Plus the Nazis had the death camps.

America put its own citizens in concentration camps because of their ethnicity, it gave it's own people siphilis, it puts people in jail for not paying debts even though that was made illegal 200 years ago.

No country has clean hands let's not pretend any of them have the high ground.

Or, alternate viewpoint. He was doing his job, his duty.

Ok, so the US has done Genocide.

Somebody had better explain to me why comparing the US, British Empire and Nazi Germany to each other is a huge stretch. Because I admit i don't get it.

Note: I am speaking broadly. Accepting that each has it's share of crimes against humanity (treatment of native americans, miners, What the British did to some of the colonies in Africa (though compared to the Belgians...).

Now, one can argue that the U.S, Britain and Germany are all trying to atone, make up for, it, improve things. Sure. But look. Germany is still on that list! Is it Hitlers Germany? No. But it's not Victorias England either.

The daily experience of the average German citizen under the Nazis was roughly 2-3 times as bad as the average daily experience of a POC in America today.

So Nazi Germany was worse because they did to _everyone_ worse than what our country does to only 40% of it's people.

Plus the Nazis had the death camps.

America put its own citizens in concentration camps because of their ethnicity, it gave it's own people siphilis, it puts people in jail for not paying debts even though that was made illegal 200 years ago.

No country has clean hands let's not pretend any of them have the high ground.

You're right, no country has clean hands, but America is infinitely better then Nazi Germany, or the USSR.

You're right, no country has clean hands, but America is infinitely better than Nazi Germany, or the USSR.

I would not say infinitely, but it definitely need to emphasised that there are objectively worse things than others. Levelling down things which are not equal is not appropriate especially when talking about crimes against humanity.

Some things are just worse than others.

But are we not way off-topic with that?

We all would like to believe that we would. But would we? Especially when we knew what happened to the people that did?

There were people who spoke out against the Nazis when it became clearer what they really were and they met their end at the hands of the Gestapo. When standing up for what's right means arrest, death and likely changing nothing would we still do it? We all like to believe we would, but how many of us are truly prepared to die for what we believe is right?

Here's hoping none of us ever have to find out.

This sort of thing, btw, is why SJWs actually do try and make sure that we create safe spaces where active hatered is not tolerated. Far too often people don't realize that they're engaged in hateful conduct until, well, until there's a whole rhetorical structure that creates permission for border walls and internment camps.

Though I am not sure if the daily experienced of the average german in 1936 was 2-3 worse than from an average american today. So I find your absolute certainty in your statement interesting.

Average POC- person of color. African Americans, Pacific Islanders, Latinx folks, et al.

Regarding WW2, remember that the Allies made it deliberate policy to terror bomb civilians, up to and including deliberately wiping whole cities off the face of the earth. Their hands were by no means clean.

I would like to note, regarding the US specifically, that every time it conducted itself in an evil fashion, it was when its leaders violated the principles of its founding and its highest laws. I'm happy to blame the American people for allowing it to happen, but I also find it necessary to recall that every such action illegal by its own laws (up to and including the contemporary drone assassinations, funding/arming of terrorists, meddling with the internal affairs of sovereign nations, etc.). It is the fault of the people of the United States that such crimes not only happened, but go unpunished or, worse, rewarded. When it sticks to its guns, though, no country on this earth has done more good (well, except the Roman0-Byzantines).

Now that modern politics and real-world history is out of the way, I'll try to make this post actually topical.

One of the truths about despotism is that it is highly dependent upon locality. Nero was a monster, if you lived in Rome. He was a non-issue for the most part if you lived elsewhere. Phokas was a monster, if you lived in Constantinople, and his allowing the Persians to conquer much of the empire made life terrible in occupied territory, but across most of the Mediterranean things were largely unchanged. In contrast, Hitler was able to extend his despotism very far, through the wonders of modern technology. Likewise the communists were able to made life miserable for somewhere around half the world.

The Empire is in an interesting place in that regard. They had access to technology the likes of which we can only imagine (literally, since that's what Science Fiction and Science Fantasy are all about). Yet the reach of the Empire into the daily lives of its citizens was most likely closer to that of a Nero or a Phokas than to a modern despot like a Hitler or a Stalin. I suspect that there is a point where scale simply overwhelms technology. The Imperial Fleet may be vast, but the Empire is bigger. Those who live on Coruscant, Corellia, or other core planets are likely going to feel the weight of the New Order more than others, and certain local planets that have special import or that offer special provocation will likely not do too well (Alderaan, Lothal, etc.). The vast majority probably actually saw an improvement, as bureaucratic excesses and corruption were curbed and many of the pervasive criminal enterprises that would have inhibited their lives would have been suppressed.

None of that excuses the excesses of the Emperor or his equally evil subordinates, but it does argue for the underlying structure that they established.

I was merely attempting to demonstrate Stalin equaled or surpassed Hitler in bodycount. He had his fair share of Holocaust-ish exterminations too. I highly doubt the gulags were much better than the concentration camps. The reasons Hitler wins this 'popularity' contest IMO are two:

First of all USSR was not occupied so nobody got to walk into a stalinist gulag and liberate the occupants. The survivor tales are fewer and less colorful, so the shock effect is smaller.

Secondly, and that's very sad, Stalin didn't kill Western Europeans. To the media at large,what happens to people in Western Europe and US seems to be more important and more tragic than what happens everywhere else.

While the Goulags were definitly terrible they were designed to work the people to death. Executions were performed using guns, mostly. The KZ were build from ground up for mass execution, slaughterhouses for humans. There sure was work the inmates were forced to do, but it wasn't the main focus.

To the numerous people that died that likely won't make a difference, but in narrative the latter is just that bit more shocking. No person working at a KZ could possibly be convinced these institutions existed for any purpose but murder. Someone working in a Gulag could easily blame the deaths on the bad supply situation in which the "criminals" they held of course had to be considered after the general population.

Oh, and it is technicaly incorrect that no Western Europeans died under Stalin, as there were a bunch of German prisoners of war who never came back. I have read the last letter some more distant relative of mine (the letter was in possession of a grand-aunt) who was in that situation. Curiously enough he writes nothing at all about the situation in the camp, so you would guess that there wasn't anything to be written that could get past the censors. It was all good wishes for home and the hope of returning sooner rather than later.

If you play Empire you are a racist xenophobic deplorable person.

I'm so glad X-wing doesn't take politics into the game mechanics. Save that for Star Trek Armada.

I won't be surprised if Sjw get into every fansom and come after people that pick "the evil side".

I seriously was already shamed, really not sarcastically, for playing as xenomorphs, in Aliens Colonial Marines.

It was *** *** ing me off, its not like i was really really melting people down with acid or eating them.

I could be wrong, probably am, but i swear they wanted me to just walk away from playing when the game would pick me to play as an alien, because its offensive to kill humans.

They might not have directly said this, but they were basically telling me, and anyone else really, to not kill humans, to not play as an alien.

Wouldn't (shouldn't here is your daily reminder to never, ever, under anycircumstances preorder video games) you be shamed for plaing Aliens: Colonial Marines in the first place anyways?

Post patching colonial marines is actually very fun co-op. But now we are going REALLY off track and cementing my reputation as an unnecessary contrarian (But for 10 bucks I really did enjoy colonial marines).

Happy Canadian thanksgiving.

What's for dinner on Canadian thanksgiving, back bacon and Lebat blue?

It should be...

I'm sorry but Canadian Bacon < Real Bacon.

The most recent episode of Rebels is relevant to this topic.

PLUS HOBBIE, WEDGE, AND RAKE!

Post patching colonial marines is actually very fun co-op. But now we are going REALLY off track and cementing my reputation as an unnecessary contrarian (But for 10 bucks I really did enjoy colonial marines).

Happy Canadian thanksgiving.

I hear the fan made patch makes it fun he lowered alien health but made them lightning quick so your bowls get suitably puckered.

The most recent episode of Rebels is relevant to this topic.

PLUS HOBBIE, WEDGE, AND REDSHIRT!

FTFY