From: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 23:09:07 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Germans, Nazis, Jews, and My Beliefs
Message-ID: <ad36cf860d0210045924@[205.199.118.202]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



With all of the recent developments, including the comments against
censorship and in favor of measures to route around censorship, and the
charges of pro-Nazi sentiment, let me state some of my beliefs:

* I strongly believe, to the point of certainty, that the events described
variously as "the Holocaust" and "the gassing of Jews" occurred. I first
encountered photos in "Life" magazine, circa 1966, and nothing I have seen
since then has even slightly shaken my belief that Hitler and his
government oversaw the extermination in the most barbaric manner of several
millions of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, cripples, etc.

* However, I am very fond of German culture in general. Though my ancestry
is essentially Scandinavian (Denmark, Norway) and Anglo-Saxon (Scotland,
England), I have felt more affinity for things Germanic than for things
French, Italian, Spanish, etc. Perhaps it was my interest in science, where
Einstein, Heisenberg, Schodinger, etc., reigned supreme (though Darwin and
Newton were no slouches!), but I felt an affinity for Germany that I did
not feel for, say, France (though I lived for a year in the south of
France, near Nice, as a child).

* By "German culture" I mean: Einstein, the Rhine, beer, Beethoven, Mozart,
castles, the Alps, Salzburg, Goethe, Heidelberg, and of course, the
language (which is a root language of English, naturlich, and part of the
"Indo-Germanisches," or "Indo-European" family of languages...proto-IE goes
back a lot further than either Greek or Latin, which are just variants of
PIE).

* Nothing about the Third Reich appeals to me, excpept that they had some
pretty good scientists. (And I believe that Schrodinger, Heisenberg, and
others dragged their feet on alerting Hitler and his advisors to the real
prospects for atomic bombs...in a way that Einstein, Bohr, Fermi, Szilard,
and dozens of others in the U.S. at that time did not.) As one opposed to
the excesses of government power, I view the excesses of the Third Reich as
an object lesson about the dangers of totalitarianism.

* I believe that much of "Jewish culture" is, for historical reasons,
closely related to German culture. It is understandable that so many Jews
hate Germans and German culture, but also sad. (I don't mean the newer
Israeli/Hebrew culture, but the Yiddish/German culture, which was so shaken
by the Holocaust that, sadly in my opinion, it cannot acknowledte its
essential Germanness.)

* As far as racial or ethnic differences go, I believe the so-called races
are essentially indistinguishable, except for superficial differences in
appearance, stature, pigmentation, etc. (And a comparison between Watusis
and pygmies will reveal that "Negroids" are as varied in stature--and
basketball skill--as any differences between Negroid, Caucasoid, and
Mongoloid.) That all the races and sub-races, from Australian Aboriginal to
European to Asian to American Indian can interbreed with identical
fertility rates suggests no genomic differences. In fact, it strongly
suggest that evolution as we normally think of it essentially stopped some
tens of thousands of years ago, which makes a lot of sense.

And there you have it. Let no one call me a Nazi.


--Tim May



Boycott espionage-enabled software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1  | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."