Monday, February 28, 2011

Collective Punishment

"Bolsheviks and Nazis alike practiced collective punishment. The Reds would take hostages against 'good behavior' of residents of a town and shoot them if any resistance was offered. Nazis would sometimes kill everyone in a town near which one of their troops perished. We look at such practices with abhorrence, though US and Allied bombings probably killed a few innocent bystanders of their own. As a culture, we don’t view collective punishments as acceptable…or do we?.........The problem with gun control and other control schemes is that they violate individual rights deliberately, sometimes with excuses and more often by the 'might makes right' principle. And that’s precisely how much of the world ended up disarmed in the face of totalitarian menaces."


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2 comments:

  1. The Mad BomberFebruary 28, 2011 at 1:13 AM

    Although I am not really a fan of the book (I vastly prefer THE FOUNTAINHEAD), one of the many themes of ATLAS SHRUGGED is the disturbing, direct linkage between totalitarian and 'progressive' conceptions of collective responsibility.

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  2. Brock TownsendFebruary 28, 2011 at 12:38 PM

    Collectivists.I liked that term when I first saw it

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