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Originally Posted by DtheP47
Fair enough Eric the book was written 50 years ago but it does link the strange relationship between idiocy and evil, those cases I cited demonstrating just that, to me anyway.
The Israelis set Eichmann up in a show trial hoping to show him as a monster and despite all the efforts of the prosecution everybody could see the man was not a monster as Arendt says " It was difficult not to suspect he was a clown" He came across as a near robotic creation of Nazi bureaucracy speaking in jargon..
Anders Brevik some argued should not be given a platform and the publicity he craved in order to propagate his ethnic purity fantasies. Some thought a dark creed would emerge which if allowed into the public arena would inspire others.
Quite the reverse he came across as a complete fantasist. During his trial he stood exposed as a pitiful and deluded character whose political opinions weren't worth spit. In short he was a murder who longed to be categorised as a terrorist.
That was my theme Eric writ badly maybe, this is what these two Woolwich murderers are. The mad mullahs seekout these simpletons.
I don't know whether these two can explain what they meant in their video rants. I'd like them to try to explain. It would expose the hollowness of their actions so that an act of senselesss murder can be called just what it is plain and simple.
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It is a fascinating subject though. When I think of "the banality of evil", I think of how difficult it is to accept that ordinary, boring, "normal" folks can do evil things ... and I don't believe that anyone can come to terms with the Holocaust without accepting that, from time to time, there is evil in the world.
I think it's wrong to think of evil as something that can only be associated with monsters and extremists. The real threat from Islam comes not with the suicide bombers and the nutbar mullahs, but with the religion itself. The threat is from the muslim communities that are growing in size and number in all the western democracies. They are fifth columns because they don't ... or won't ... grasp a fundamental democratic concept: the separation of church and state. While the West foucuses on the Taliban, al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and a host of others, they are neglecting to protect their own fundamental institutions and beliefs from a threat they are nurturing within their own countries.
Whatever ... but it is nice that I can make these comments without the fear of being arrested for insulting the prophet and blasphemy, both of which, I believe, carry the death penalty in certain parts of the muslim world.