A Moment of Silence please...

Today is Holocaust Remembrance day. We should all take a few moments and contemplate how one man, filled with hate, convinced an entire country to attempt to exterminate an entire people, based on their religion. And how that people very nearly WERE exterminated before a stop was put to it. Many of those who participated in the extermination claimed that "they were just following orders".

Stanley Milgram, in the 1960's, tried to validate that statement in a famous experiment where subjects were asked to give shocks to other people (who were actors and did not receive shocks, unknown to the subjects.) in increasing strength, up to and in some cases exceeding levels they believed to be lethal. Most complied even though they believed that they were harming the other subjects.

The human mind craves to comply with authority. We must guard against that need being perverted to evil ends so that such an evil never again walks the Earth. Alas, I am afraid that goal may be unobtainable.