I’ve seen this particular quotation floating around a lot over the past several weeks, for obvious reasons. It’s from an interview with Herman Goering during the Nuremberg Trials:
Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.
The quote is cited frequently by the anti-war crowd — which seems a bit incongruous, perhaps, but, see, Goering here is supposed to of a kind with all those Evil US/UK Conspirators who, naturally, are “dragging the people along” into a war.
Eugene Volokh has some interesting commentary on this quote, which he (wisely) verified first as real via Snopes, where the full quote (with the interviewer’s questions) is given.
This broader passage, I think, provides some important context, though one can see it in the original version, too: Goering is trying to justify what happened — what the regime he ran did — by suggesting that all the regimes are the same. England, America, Russia, Germany; democracy, Parliament, fascism, communism; it’s all the same; all war is just regimes manipulation their foolish citizens. The German decision to start World War II, by this logic, is the same as the British and American decisions to resist the Germans.
So that, I think, is the problem facing those who use the quote: Their proposed moral equivalence between Goering’s Nazi Germany and America only works if they are also willing to accept Goering’s moral equivalence of Nazi Germany and Roosevelt’s America and Churchill’s England. And if they are, like I am, repelled by the latter moral equivalence — if they think that Americans really did deliberately endorse a war against Germany, or that, even if they were influenced by their elected representatives, their elected representatives were properly doing their job by exercising such leadership — then what’s the point of citing as authority a man (a monster) who was asserting it?
There’s a reason I’ve bumped Volokh up into my Gotta list.
Volokh seems to suffer from Limbaugh-ism…
Could spend time on this, but I do not want to.
Ooookay. It seems reasonable to me.
The peaceniks assert moral equivalence without evidence and Limbaugh denies moral equivalence without evidence. Volokh provides evidence here and thus transcends the stupidity, IMHO.
Godwin’s law should be quoted here. A discussion thread is dead the instant Nazis are invoked.
Sigh…
He starts from a flawed position and comes to a flawed conclusion…
a) France and the U.K. were Poland’s Allies. Germany and the U.S.S.R. attack Poland (though Germany claims Poland Started it). France and the U.K. are supposed to attack Germany, but instead they puss it out.
b) Roosevelt had been chomping at the bit to bring the U.S. into the war since late ’39. He did everything he could legally do short of bringing the U.S. into the war. He tried to influence public opinion, but failed due to the whole “America First-ers” Movement. But, providence smiled upon him and Japan attacked everybody in the Pacific starting 12/07/41.
Thus, Roosevelt got the war he had always wanted.
Just because you are fighting evil, does not mean you can not use evil’s tactics.
Volokh over simplifies, and does way too much black-and-white arguing.
“They brought up Nazis first! That means we won!”
I’m not a big fan of Godwin’s Law. While it’s easy for Nazi stuff to be tossed about casually, or used as flame bait, they do provide a good (extreme) example to draw distinctions in arguments. So does Stalinist Russia, for that matter.
Stan, then what’s the point? The quote is being thrown around to indicate draw a moral equivalence between Hitler getting the German people into a war, and Roosevelt getting the US people into a war.
Not only does your example of Roosevelt not being able to do it without an actual Japanese attack counter Goering’s thesis, but even if that weren’t so, I think that war by the US against Nazi Germany (and, for that matter, Imperial Japan) is demonstrably a more moral and just one than war by Germany against Poland and France. By making it sound like it’s all just Leaders Manipulating People, it’s being used in a distorting fashion.
And if, as you say, manipulation can be used to good ends as well as evil ones, again, drawing up the quotation for the anti-war movement is meaningless, since it says nothing as to the ends that (as they would have it) the Bush Adminstration is seeking.
That’s the point I think Volokh is making.
Godwin’s law is stupid, and short sighted at best.
History is there to show us our collective mistakes. Stalin’s U.S.S.R., Mao’s china, and NAZI Germany are examples of things not to do. They provide us with what the warning signs are, and what to do to stomp them in to the ground when they show their heads!
Ask not for whom the cattle car rolls, it roll’s for thee.
Agreed.
No wonder it is posting slowly…Dave and I are doing things at the same time…
My argument is more Political equivalence (“You don’t bring out new product out before Labor day” Karl Rove).
Part of being in a leadership position is having the ability/desire to manipulate people to your position. Clinton was unable to do this. Nixon was. Kennedy was. Roosevelt couldn’t till Pearl Harbor. Sometimes you make your own opportunities, sometimes you just get lucky (the Mexican-American war, the Spanish-American war). “Evil” people are far more willing to “make” things happen, good people are willing to wait for a good opportunity.
I happen to see the fact that Bush kept changing the reasons why we were going to war with Iraq as a way of trying to see what would stick to the wall when he threw it. Prior to 1441 he had all the justification he needed to attack, but he needed the people back him. Plus, it is always easier to get people to do what they already want to do.
The reason why Godwin’s Law has stuck is that most time it is just a cheap ad-hominem. I am not saying one cannot learn from the Nazi experience. The fact that it is so often abused, however, is that one cannot make good references to the Nazis or the Stalinists. Winston Churchill’s grandson noted that his observation that Saddam was very much like pre-WWII Hitler was dismissed by most people.