[MD] Knots

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[Platt]
What is the first division of "critical thinking?". 

[Arlo]
"Critical thinking" is not a metaphysics.

[Platt]
Rationalize the results any way you want.

[Arlo]
No rationalization needed, only an understanding of history, and a simple on a
that. 

I understand how broader perspectives frighten you, but here's one of many
places on the web that has the actual historical data.

http://www.advisorperspectives.com/commentaries/aci_092110.php

You'll see that for every election since 1934, only three times has the
President's party NOT lost seats; the very first year (1934) for Roosevelt,
once under Clinton (1998), and once under Bush Jr. (2002). Every single other
year saw the President's party, whether Dem or Rep lose seats, including under
Reagan's both terms.

This is not a revolution, it is merely the same historical trend we've been
seeing for nearly a century.

[Platt]
In July 1932 elections, the Nazis  won 37.3 per cent of the votes and became
the party with the most number of seats in the Reichstag...

[Arlo]
I take it you've looked online and now realize your comment about Hitler being
"elected" was wrong. Some progress anyway. In any event, what you say above is
simple restating exactly what I said in my post. I'll take that as a compliment.

[Platt]
They enjoyed popular support until 1943.

[Arlo]
37.3% is "popular support"? Maybe, but yes, the NSP ran on a platform of
nationalism and xenophobia. 

[Platt]
and the people were indifference to the party's persecution and then
extermination of the Jews

[Arlo]
Right, the party appealed to xenophobes and those who felt their race was
"superior". 

[Platt]
Academics went along with the rest of the highly educated populace, as is
common knowledge. 

[Arlo]
Some did. But overall academics were demonized. Many fled the country. Those
who spoke out lost their freedoms, and often their lives. It was not just Jews
who ended up in concentration camps, many "academics" ended up there too.
However you wish to paint it, "academics" were not the power supporting the
NSP, it was the nationalists, the anti-intellectuals, the racists, the
xenophobes and those who demanded a culturally "pure" homeland.

What is "common knowledge" is not what you say above, but that the NSP was a
"Volk" movement, holding its early meetings in beer halls and appealing to
those who felt "downtrodden" because of global or multicultural influences on
the superior German people.

>From Wikipedia (which, by the way, aligns with William Shirer's Rise and Fall
of the Third Reich), "The Nazis' strongest appeal was to the lower middle-class
– farmers, public servants, teachers, small businessmen – who had suffered
most from the inflation of the 1920s, so who feared Bolshevism more than
anything else. The small business class were receptive to Hitler's
anti-Semitism, since they blamed Jewish big business for their economic
problems." (Wikipedia)

Into this atmosphere of discontent and fear, Wikipedia also notes "University
students, disappointed at being too young to have served in World War I and
attracted by the Nazis' radical rhetoric, also became a strong Nazi
constituency." (Wikipedia)