Part one in my hopefully long running series of trying to clear out all the corrupt code infesting the atheist/skeptic scene. Now, anyone here remember when Ophelia Benson said TAM was like Nazi Germany for her (except it wasn’t – or something)? Well, here is the solution: Don’t read Ophelia Benson:
Do read Suzanne Zeller-Hirzel:
Frau Zeller-Hirzel actually did face up to the Nazis, back in the day. She was, along with Hans and Sophie Scholl, a member of the White Rose, the students who, at the zeroth hour, tried to stop the Nazi government by distributing leaflets against the regime. By ‘distributing’ I mean ‘dumping them by the hundreds all over campuses and and cities.
Here’s the text from one of those leaflets. Still stands up today:
Nothing is so unworthy of a civilised nation as allowing itself to be governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct. It is certain that today every honest German is ashamed of his government.
Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes – crimes that infinitely outdistance every human measure – reach the light of day? If the German people are already so corrupted and spiritually crushed that they do not raise a hand, frivolously trusting in a questionable faith in lawful order of history; if they surrender man’s highest principle, that which raises him above all other God’s creatures, his free will; if they abandon the will to take decisive action and turn the wheel of history and thus subject it to their own rational decision; if they are so devoid of all individuality, have already gone so far along the road toward turning into a spiritless and cowardly mass – then, yes, they deserve their downfall.
You can find a collection of these leaflets here.
Suzanne Zeller-Hirzel was until quite recently (she sadly passed away last December) the last survivor of the White Rose. Many were killed, others imprisoned for their activities.
Now you might think that being eighty years old and having seen off one of the worst tyrannies in human history would be enough for one lifetime. You would be wrong. In her old age, she joined the struggle against Islam. Here is a good interview with her.
The fanaticism, the absolute claim of possessing the only truth and the spiritual simplicity are very similar between Islam and the Nazism. […] Critics of the Nazi ideology were then immediately arrested. We have not yet reached that point. But if we do nothing, it will come back to that. Then they might lock up the critics of Islam.
They are certainly getting there. In a related note, the reborn White Rose, with her blessing, were recently convicted of “inciting racial hatred” and being “far right” by a German court. Fortunately, this has been overturned for being just too stupid for words.
Such people are far too few. Think of her and her lost comrades whenever you wonder whether it is worth it to make waves.
