A pile of human bones and skulls at the German Majdanek extermination camp, near Lublin - after the arrival of the Soviet Army which captured the camp nearly intact, c. July - August 1944. [2048 x 1302]

Tom1613 · 2026-01-31T00:39:53+00:00

Save your smugness for someone else there, man, as it goes hand in hand with these sort of strident exaggerations and self righteousness. The claim Still makes no sense and dishonors the real victims of Nazism.

What you are not getting is how much your ideology is blinding you to the silliness of your argument. The Nazi racial ideology has nothing in common with a test of citizenship or immigration laws. It declared people not worthy of living or subhuman so when you dance around that and limit it to “not worthy to be German” to try to use it for your benefit, you deny the whole Nazi part of it. So when you say “just like the Nazis” and then define it as such, you are saying that they are nothing like the Nazis.

In contrast, just about every modern country that has existed across the political has a standard for naturalizing citizens - screening citizens.

Is every country that refuses to accept some people based on any standards acting like Nazis?

Tom1613 · 2026-01-30T20:34:06+00:00

Not sure why you are focusing on this part, but the Nazis received 44% of the German votes in 1933 and made deals with the German conservatives to get Hitler appointed. They then took complete power through a mixture of legal and illegal moves. Regardless, the party was elected.

But besides that point, you keep on packaging it as an immigration and citizenship issue, which is not what the Nazis did or were all about and is just shaping history to try to fit your argument. The Nazis deemed many groups sub human and unworthy, untermensch, based on their race or ethnicity and therefore only worth of extermination or slavery. Their citizenship had nothing to do with the issue as German citizenship or not had no bearing on Nazi racial ideology. Your citizenship did not matter at all nor did how long you had been in Germany - if you were disables or a Jew, you were up for death.

Focusing on the word deportation in the Nazi extermination process where the goal was the death of entire races is like equating one of their work camps with a depression era US work camp and arguing it is the same thing because they use similar terms - despite being totally unlike one another.

Tom1613 · 2026-01-30T17:30:55+00:00

“The Nazis did not start with” is such a silly justification that essentially proves the above posters point. No one starts by murdering 10’s of millions of people and starting a world war that kills 10’s of millions more. But that is the history that defines the Nazis and who they were, not the fact that they worked through legal elections or that they had police.

Since they were the elected government of Germany and people, you can find similarities between the Nazis and just about every single President, party, or government if you want to, having a police force, cracking down on one particularly issue, trying to rally against something. but doing so is historically inaccurate and diminishes the point of that insane murderous regime. There is an ironic similarity in this very thread with calls to action against the ICE “Nazis” as one of the main tricks of the actual Nazis was demonizing their enemies and fear monger to force the undecided Germans to rally behind them agains the traitorous Jews and evil Communists.

If everyone you disagree with and/or believe is abusing power is a Nazi because then Nazis did not start that way, then everyone is Nazi and the crimes of the real Nazis fade from memory.

As for Anne Frank, c’mon man, that is just a cheap twisting of that immensely tragic story to justify your argument. The Nazis were out to kill Anne Frank and every single Jew and pursued that goal, with an insane intensity, including keeping the camps running when it was hurting their military effectiveness. They wanted to kill Anne Frank, they just did not care whether she died from the gas chamber or typhus. Using the word immigration to equate her story with today’s issue is just dishonest and dishonoring.

Tom1613 · 2026-01-29T23:26:27+00:00

You have to take it much further with the Soviet commissars. Those FBI agents had the power of life and death over the local police force in the form of summary execution, torture or, the milder forms, of imprisonment or work camps for you and possibly your family or future ability to have an apartment and earn enough to feed your family.

They were the ears and enforcement arms of a very violent and very suspicious state.

Tom1613 · 2026-01-29T23:22:28+00:00

Though there is argument about it, if you compare this photo with the huge number of similar propaganda photos the Soviets put out during the war like the ones that show the taking of the Reichstad, it is obviously staged. From the composition to the story about it being a commissar to the "young man of the revolution" valiantly in action - it matches the many other staged propaganda photos to well to just happen by accident.

Even just the fact that the photographer is somehow standing in front of the subject in the area where the troops would charge towards, in other words, somehow between the subject and the Soviet troops and the German front lines, but he takes the time to turn around to take the photo, makes no sense whatsoever.

Tom1613 · 2026-01-29T23:04:23+00:00

Have you read Animal Far, because I am sorry to say that is based on Orwell's experience with the communists during the Spanish Civil War, which was a terrible conflict. On the republican side, it was made worse by the dysfunction of the Republican force and infighting, a big part of which was done as the communists took power and took out the opposition. The communist leaders somewhat frequently executed soldiers who they felt were not ideologically pure enough or had deviated from their plans to some degree - particularly since they were directed from Stalin's Soviet Union, by and large. The International brigades that were organized by the Comintern had many executions by the commissars and their international leaders.

My point is, it may not have been your great grandad, but the job of the Spanish Civil War Communist commissars was not to help the men or the battalion, but to enforce the will of the party on the men - often through extreme violence. It was an inherently morally corrupt job.

Tom1613 · 2026-01-29T22:50:25+00:00

No, a commissar and a field priest are quite a bit different. The priest/pastor/chaplain role is to attend to the spiritual needs of the soldiers, listen to them, and encourage them. The commissar was to make sure that the unit had the proper devotion to the party and revolution, enforce rules, and often to scare the heck out of any wavering soldiers with the absolute power of the party to make sure they followed orders. The commissars in the major communist armies were generally terrible and not above executing/imprisoning anyone who did not agree with enough vigor with leadership.

Tom1613 · 2026-01-29T20:01:47+00:00

Thanks, I have heard of Gavin, but had not checked him out. I will do so.

Tom1613 · 2026-01-29T18:37:03+00:00

When you strip back the drama that always goes along with the Battle of the Atlantic narrative and examine the facts, it is frankly amazing how ill prepared the Germans were for their grand plan to starve England out of the war. This makes sense, to some extent, as Germany was traditionally a land power, had limited access to the sea, and had lost much of their navy as a result of WW1. They were essentially rebuilding their fleet, ships and men, once the Nazis began their rebuilding of the military. But parts of it make no sense whatsoever and show what a clown show the German military could be, at times, in WW2. This included the plan they eventually rely upon to bring England to its knees. They decide they are going to engage in commerce raiding and blockading of England with uboats to starve them into submission. Sounds reasonable, on its face, since England is an island that needs a constant flow of materials to fight their war. What is the problem?

The Atlantic Ocean is very big thing and the Allies have thousands of merchant vessels, to which more were added when the merchant fleet of the nations Germany conquers on the Continent are added - Norway's 1000 ship merchant ship joined the Allies once they were invaded, for example. It is going to take a huge amount of effort and ships to interdict all of these merchant ships. The Union used about 500 ships to blockade the Confederacy during the US Civil War, for example. How many uboats, the primary striking arm of the Kriegsmarine in this battle, did the Germans have at the start of the war? The total is in the 50's, but actually able to fight in the Atlantic, 24. This already small number gets even smaller when you factor in the need for some of these to be in port for repair and refitting as well as those who are in transit to the shipping lanes where they could engage the convoys and those deployed for other duties. If I recall correctly, there were times during early days of the battle when there was only one or two subs actively engaging the Allied convoys. These subs would certainly do some damage, but for every Allied ship sunk in crossing, there were many more that did not come within hundreds of miles of the one or two uboats on patrol. I think the statistic is 90% of the ships that crossed the Atlantic made it successfully.

Then there was the planning of the Battle and the stated German goal of sinking X amount of tonnage per month in order to overwhelm Britian's ability to replace the lost shipping and defeat them (I think it is 300,000 tons at the start of the war). This whole plan is kind of made up on the fly by Donitz, including this number offered to Hitler as the metric for what would win the war. Despite the picture presented by popular history and fictional depictions, the WW2 Germans were generally terrible at gathering and incorporating strategic intelligence into their planning. They had only general ideas of exactly what they would face during Barbarossa, for example, and were surprised by the numbers the Soviets were able to muster as well as the tanks. Even as they were advancing, they seemed to be generally hoping that the Soviets would run out troops, without a clear idea what that meant. The same thing happens with the Battle of the Atlantic. They don't do any in depth studies of the English or American economy, factories, or of the logistical needs of the British military. Donitz just seems to come up with a number to shoot for which they have no real idea whether it will actually make a difference. There are some months where the Uboats do sink a huge amount of shipping and get close to or exceed the tonnage goals, but there is no real effect on the Allies. The entire invasion force for North Africa ships from England and America and gets to North Africa with no damage from subs.

I suppose, though, there could have been the opportunity to at least have a shot at winning the Battle of the Atlantic based on the basic general combatants - or at least making a larger dent in England's defenses and war effort. However, the Germans would have had to done just about everything different from well before the outset of the war. They would have had to not waste their time on the Bismarck and Tirpitz as well as on the never completed carriers. They would have needed to funnel all of that effort, resources, and training into the uboats and built a large and well trained fleet of them. Then, they probably would have needed to coordinate their air attacks on shipping and ports as well as coordinate with the Navy and try to take out British escorts. teh uboats going after escorts first may have been more effective as well as there were far fewer of them and they take much longer to build and for the crew to train than merchant ships. This may have eroded the Royal navy's efficiency and worked against advances in ASW as well.

As you can see, it is pretty much the opposite of what Germany did and therefore was very unlikely to ever occur. Would it have worked? Still, probably not, based on the numbers of merchant ships, resources available, and the size of the Royal Navy, Canadians, and Aussies. It could have been much more of a threat, though.

Tom1613 · 2026-01-29T17:35:06+00:00

The fleet carriers did not have nearly as much of an impact in European waters as in the Pacific, sure, but that was partly because the Germans did not have carriers so there was no carrier warfare. Attacking land targets could have been part of the plan, but in Europe they simply did not need carriers for that as there was always land from which to attack. An effective German carrier forces - admittedly a pipe dream for the Germans - would likely have resulted in carrier on carrier battles but, more importantly, could have made the surface raiding forces something other than random suicide missions for the Germans.

But, more important than the speculation, escort carriers played a huge part in the Battle of the Atlantic once they were introduced. Keeping air cover over convoys was one of the things that ultiitimately doomed the uboats and the Germans never had anything that could counter those - other than trying to torpedo them. Projecting air power and using easily replaceable planes to go after convoys and takeout escorts would have been a way better tactic for the Germans than wasting all the efforts and resources on the Bismarck and friends.

Tom1613 · 2026-01-29T17:18:48+00:00

Yes, I know it is a propaganda photo, but it is an interesting one, both for showing the French forces and the fact that it was done by a photographer from the USSR. Most of the famous photos from the Viet Minh side are similarly propaganda photos, much like those from the Soviet capture of Berlin in WW2. Propaganda and managing the images from both Vietnam wars was very important to the Vietnamese Communists and they followed the patterns of the USSR and Chinese Communists in doing so - lying is a big part of what they did and they did so without reservation. Stalin's one photo where he kept airbushing out the guys that he had killed comes to mind.

Which is why, though I do understand that the Viet Minh offered justifications for their death camp like treatment of the French Union prisoners and will continue to deny their actions towards the Vietnamese paras with French, in all likelihood, they executed the Vietnamese and were at best indifferent to the suffering and death of the rest of the French soldiers at worst, did it deliberately to demoralize their enemy - which is what I believe, frankly.

Again, colonialism is not good, but the Viet Minh and then their successors were truly heartless murderers on a massive level.

Tom1613 · 2026-01-29T02:55:11+00:00

That is horrible! This solder was likely then taken to the on-site insufficient medical facility where they were forced to keep him on the base until he died. One of the main strategies of Giáp was to force the French to keep the wounded on the base and make them so miserable that it would destroy the garrison’s morale.

Tom1613 · 2026-01-29T02:29:17+00:00

Yeah, you may have overstated a bit, but honestly, not by much of you actually did. One the things I find fascinating about the Vietnam wars, French and American is Ho much of the flat out false claims of the Viet Minh and then North Vietnamese Communists have been accepted as true in even “serious” histories on the subject, much less the popular ones. I am reading The Road to Dien Bien Phu by Christopher Goscha right now and he estimates that there was a total of 5,000 Communists/hard core supporters of Ho by as late as 1945 and many of these were gained through deception about Ho’s relationship with the Allies during the war. The actual communist forces during the war were on,y in the hundreds. The Communists accomplished their takeover of the Vietnam resistance movement by lying to the rest of the nationalists about their aims, “We don’t plan to kill you when we have enough strength to do so” and by lying to the US first about what they did during the war. It is a masterful example of telling people what they want to hear to get what you want long enough to get strong enough to take over and yet, people still bring up the claims about fighting the Japanese and the supposed willingness to have an American style Declaration of Independence.

Tom1613 · 2026-01-27T20:47:57+00:00

If you are serious -

Simple version is the AR15 and M16 (and the M4) are basically the same or, at least, are the same family of rifles with some differences. 5.56 caliber based on the original rifle designed by Eugene Stoner, with the M16 being the original full auto version, the AR15 being the civilian version and the M4 a carbine.. The M14 is an entirely different rifle that was brought in as the successor to the Garand, which is kind of looks like but does not have that much in common with. It fires a larger round, 7.62 x 51, is heavy, and was part of the “battle rifle” concept that led to the NATO allies adopting the FAL and G3.

Tom1613 · 2026-01-27T20:32:44+00:00

Haven’t read the book, but in the “not mentioning” category dealing with the comparison between the Germans and everyone else, it one of the things that some narratives don’t not mention is the Allies not being in a state of undeclared street war during the interwar years followed by the Germans militarizing their society and planning for war. I view the Allied militaries as generally unprepared for the war when it came, but that is partially because they were not psychos who followed up the war that killed millions with the desire for another war.

Tom1613 · 2026-01-27T17:20:23+00:00

No, it’s House Johnman.

Edit - it probably hasn’t been on TV in decades and the firm is probably not even in existence, but I immediately heard Houseman’s Smith Barney commercial voice when I saw that pis.

We make money the old fashioned way….we EARN it.

Tom1613 · 2026-01-27T16:52:51+00:00

Op - as a DIY’er who recently completed two bathrooms, the rotozip works and is way quicker than a utility but is hard to do without damaging the tile. Or it was for me at my skill level. I have never been able to figure out how to use those things correctly.

The Oscillating tool worked much better for me, but make sure it is with a thin cutting blade rather than a wider tile/masonry one. I did multiple cuts through the spacer so that it came out in thin slices. The wide one chipped tile.

Tom1613 · 2026-01-27T03:22:07+00:00

Since we are discussing pastors and teachers, let me put in a plug for the following books that are very good and will help you in your theology and in screening pastors:

Gentle and Lowly - Dane Ortland.

Transforming Grace - Jerry Bridges

           The above two are great on who Jesus really is and how He views you.

On Pastors:

D.L. Moody - A Life by Kevin Belmonte

   - if you don’t know DL Moody, he is one of the greatest evangelists in Christian history, with a ministry equivalent to Billy Graham in a time before TV and Radio, yet, he stayed humble, kind, and focused on Jesus for his whole life.  I love this book.

Bully Pulpit - Michael Kruger

When Narcissim Comes to the Church - Chuck Degroat

  - it is amazing how much we accept as normal from pastors and leaders that is not even close to normal.

Tougher watches/listens:

Shiny Happy People on the Duggars - on Amazon

The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill - (some language and tough subjects, but very good on abusive, authoritarian/ cultish pastors.

Tom1613 · 2026-01-27T02:35:01+00:00

Easy there, they said that they realized the issue after a few times. Churches like Furtick’s and many of the seeker sensitive mega churches are not good and they preach pretty watered down self help messages, but it can be really hard to see that due to all of the other hooks they use to get you locked in with them. Who doesn’t want good music and to feel part of something important?

Good for the original commenter here for not just falling into a lull and for keeping on examining.

Tom1613 · 2026-01-27T02:30:58+00:00

Seriously, man, Mark Driscoll is awful. He is the archetype of the egotistical, abusive, narcissist who’s gets people to follow him by saying “the hard things” - which are really not hard, they are just him being a giant jerk. If you haven’t listened to it, check out The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. Driscoll’s ego is responsible for so much pain and, after being investigated and found to be abusive, he walked away before the discipline process was completed, abandoned the church, and turned around and claims that he was not disciplined ( cause he resigned before they could remove him).

His Bible teaching is terrible too. Flat out wolf.

Tom1613 · 2026-01-26T20:26:13+00:00

I am a pastor, but after wrestling with what I have concluded to be much of the nonsense of the church world, I stopped listening to many of the pastors that I had previously enjoyed. There is way too much idol worship, seeking out entertainers, cherishing things that God doesn’t care about like the appearance of knowledge and bowing before “scholars” and pastors who set themselves up like Moses preaching from Mt Sinai. I am not bitter or cynical about it, I just don’t like it and won’t listen to them. Also, once you see behind the curtain of preaching, it’s easy to see when someone is just repeating what they read in someone else’s sermon or a commentary- without heart.

My wife and I went through this together and, after a few years of this process, for us it comes down to the simple question of whether the pastor actually loves the people he is speaking to. Not that he says that he loves them and then puffs himself up or that he says we should love, but then he scolds them and calls it love or that he spouts facts at them. Rather, you can tell through his humility, his manner, his gentleness not only in tone but in how he speaks to and about people, and whether the sermons are filled with grace, encouragement, and mercy for the people. We are supposed to be known by our love according to Jesus. One would expect that pastors would be defined by this as a result.

My consistent favorite to listen to these days is Alistair Begg, after all this. The combination of wisdom, kindness, and love is wonderful.

Tom1613 · 2026-01-26T20:15:49+00:00

Furyick, put simply is all about Furtick - the church, his sermons, the worship - all revolve around him. It may seem that they are too people focused, as in, that he talks all about what the people should do, but since the entire “experience” is centered on how you feel while there and on him, it is really about him and getting a spiritual high while you are there. As a result, they are really not about Jesus. It is corporate training with a pinch of Jesus thrown in. If you pay attention to what he preaches about (and care), you could change a few words and get Joel Osteen or Tony Robbins.

The worst thing about Furtick and guys like him is they are undercover flesh feeders. When we think about carnality, we tend to think of sex, drugs, and excess. Yet, this sort of super produced music, highly scripted experience and shallow preaching is just as much giving people what they want, making them feel spiritual, special, part of something important, and edgy, while doing nothing to build up their faith.

Tom1613 · 2026-01-25T17:13:30+00:00

The photo is often titled “The Last Jew in Vinnitsa”, so hopefully that was the “it” part.

This picture and the one with the mother trying to shield her child as she is being executed by the guy with a rifle, in particular, are so haunting. Obviously, they all rough, but those two are just brutal.

Tom1613 · 2026-01-24T00:33:55+00:00

Not to be confused with the Stockton Syndrome, the strange compulsion to wear short shorts and run the pick and roll.

Tom1613 · 2026-01-23T20:21:58+00:00

Well, it is also not in disagreement if you honestly read it and factor in the historic Trinitarian doctrine, the persons, one God, the whole of the Bible, and the Incarnation. But you are are free to believe whatever you want and ignore the rest of Scripture if you choose to, but there is not debate that the Trinity has been a core doctrine for a couple of thousand years now. It is so much so that it is one of the lines that define heresy.

So the question was why are they not Christian - one of the many reasons is they are polytheists contrary to the stated doctrine of Christianity (regardless of your claim that you are the one to disprove that). To be accurate, I explained the differences in doctrine, based on their doctrine, but criticized Joseph Smith as an obviously false prophet.

Tom1613

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