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by Cisco7404 on May 7th, 2010

Cisco7404

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Slavery and The Holocaust were both tragedies but Slavery Lasted for 400-475 years anyone with sense can do the math

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  • by Glenn Blaylock on May 17th, 2010

    Glenn Blaylock

    Was there a question here?

    As for your comparison, it is not a particularly good one. First of all, let me state that I am in no way trying to justify slavery. Slavery is an institution which the world would be much better off without.

    That written, there is a significant difference between the slavery engaged in by the US in the early part of our history and the holocaust. While slavery is wrong, it is not an attempt at genocide. The slavers and owners of the 18th and 19th centuries were not trying to wipe out the black race. Indeed, that would have been counter productive. Had they wiped them out, then they would not have had slaves to sell and perform labor for their masters. This is not to say that a lot of black were not killed in the slave trade. I am just saying that there was not a conscious effort to wipe them out.

    On the other hand, the Nazis were bent on doing just that to the Jews. The unjustly blamed the Jews for all of the worlds ills and, therefore, saw eliminating them as a righteous cause to eliminate a scourge from humanity. Thus, they sought out and systematically murder all of the Jews they could find in the conquered territories. They divert resources to this goal even at the expense of their war effort. They were out to exterminate every Jew that they could. Had they been allowed to they would have eliminated that race from the Earth.

    So the difference here is that one group basically had a callous disregard for the humanity of one group. Thus, they felt justified in brutally forcing them into servitude. If some died along the way of forcing the others into submission, then that was no big deal. The other bunch had an obsessive hatred for a group of people that led them to want to completely exterminate the despised people. While more people may have died as a result of slavery, those deaths occurred over a period of well over 400 years. The millions of deaths during the Holocaust occurred in less than 4 years. Finally, as of this writing, there are still survivors of the Holocaust with us today. However, the survivors of slavery died out generations ago. Both are dark spots on human history, but there are some very significant differences between them.

    One final note, in the above, when I use the term slavery, I am referring to that which was practiced by the U.S. and its founding colonies. It should perhaps be noted that slavery is not a dead institution. This is an institution that has been sanctioned throughout most of human history and there are still nations in the world that practice it today. It is a shame, it should not be, but it is.

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