mutilated misquotes from burns's 18 Sep 2003 classic prose may follow: Thankyou for your interesting comments -which I have snipped- (and also the acompanying url's) which, btw, are not in conflict with my vague recollection that some of your previous posts on these sorts of subjects indicate that you are an expert in this area. I certainly am not and so I happily defer to you in almost all aspects of this discussion.
I do, however, have some difficulties with the information you have provided. With respect to all but the last paragraph of your comments, the information you provide is the official government version provided to the public, is it not? Would you dispute my impression that some of the actual operations of the agencies concerned have, from time to time, deviated somewhat and also that significant portions of what these agencies do/have done/are asked to do is carefully and diligently kept off the public record? Second, the casual attention I have paid to how these sorts of agencies evolve (as well as some of my experiences during this life I am living) do not give me confidence that the moral character of their operations will improve over time. In contrast, the characterization which you present of the Third Reich's SS is much less the official version of the owning government and more a factual description of what the agency actually was, is it not? To be fair, one would need to refer to www.thirdreich.gov.ge/ss, don't you think? :-) To be an accurate comparison, it seems to me, one would need to present all of either the official versions or the factual versions or preferably both but not most of one and only one of the other. Additionally, it seems to me that one would need to exercise some care to ensure that one's comments dealt with each of the agencies under discussion at comparable points in their 'lives'. In the case of the German SS, your comments seem based on the very end (which should, of course, have come much sooner:) of their existence whereas your comments on the other agencies are at an earlier point; in the case of the cSiS, at least, near the very beginning. So, I can accept your comment that 'none of these are akin in any way to the [Third Reich's] SS' provided you allow me to add phrases such as 'at the present time', 'according to our governments' official descriptions' and 'disregarding rogue operations'. I also think that your phrase 'in any way' may be somewhat too strong. Also, although the subjects raised in your comments and above are fascinating to me, I really do think that the trends towards greater and greater fascism in today's societies are overall rather more important than the technical details of some of their present/previous political and bureaucratic manifestations. And I still think the name change(s) leading to the cSiS were/are sardonic and hilarious. ymmv R -- http://www.quen.net "Fix reason firmly in her seat and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there is one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." --Thomas Jefferson _______________________________________________ General mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/general
