Has Putin Borrowed Hitler's Playbook?

"The condition of the Sudeten Germans is indescribable. It is sought to annihilate them. As human beings they are oppressed and scandalously treated in an intolerable fashion ... The depriving of these people of their rights must come to an end. ... I have stated that the 'Reich' would not tolerate any further oppression of these three and a half million Germans, and I would ask the statesmen of foreign countries to be convinced that this is no mere form of words." -- Adolf Hitler, Nuremberg Speech, Sept. 12, 1938

Substitute "ethnic Russians in the Ukraine" for "Sudeten-Germans," "Russia" for "the Reich" and "Putin" for "Hitler," and you will find history repeating itself with Vladimir Putin starring in the role of Adolf Hitler.

On March 12, 1938, Hitler invaded Austria and declared unification of Austria with Nazi Germany in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, which prohibited Austrian/German unification! Neither France nor Britain lifted a finger.

Plans for liquidation of Czechoslovakia had been drawn even before that. In June 1937, at Hitler's instructions, "the German General Staff undertook to draft plans for the dismemberment of the Czechoslovak state."

One draft stated, "The aim and object of this surprise attack by the German armed forces should be to eliminate from the very beginning and for the duration of the war the threat from Czechoslovakia to the rear of operations in the west, and to take from the Russian air force the most substantial portion of its operational bases in Czechoslovakia."

Concurrently, before his invasion of Austria, to gull the gullible, Hitler opened his public case against Czechoslovakia in a February 20, 1938 speech to the Reichstag.

"Over ten million Germans live in the two states (Austria and Czechoslovakia) adjoining our frontier." Hitler claimed it was Germany's duty to protect and to secure to them "general freedom, personal, political and ideological."

Konrad Heinlien, the Nazi Party leader in the Sudetenland, did all he could to foment unrest and afford Hitler a pretext to invade.

This, coupled with reliable rumors of German troop movements toward the Czech border, forced Czechoslovakia to declare a partial mobilization on May 20, 1938. To Hitler's perverted mind, the Czech response to menacing German troop movements was "an intolerable provocation."

Hitler's Jan. 30, 1939 post-invasion speech makes this unmistakably clear.
"In view of this intolerable provocation ... I resolved to settle once and for all, and this time radically, the Suedeten-German question. On May 28, I ordered preparation should be made for military action ... "

But Hitler's generals were nervous. They could not believe France would not honor its solemn treaty obligations to it faithful ally, Czechoslovakia, and that Britain would not honor its treaty obligations to France.

Accordingly, on June 18, Hitler wrote to  reassure his nervous general staff, "I will decide to take action against Czechoslovakia only if I am finally convinced, as in the case of the demilitarized zone and Austria, that France will not march, and that therefore England will not intervene."

In the months that followed, tensions rose. When the Czechs agreed to one German demand, the Germans would make further demands. What began as demands for more local autonomy within provinces of Czechoslovakia where the Germans constituted a majority, were ratcheted up to require the Czechs to evacuate the Sudetenland within five days. In an attempt to defuse the situation, British Prime Minster Neville Chamberlain flew to Germany three times. After Chamberlain's first face-to-face meeting with Hitler, Chamberlain returned to Britain and met with his cabinet. He told the cabinet that "Hitler was in a fighting mood," "that the French had no fight in them," and that "there could be no question of resisting Hitler's demands upon Czechoslovakia."

In The Gathering Storm, Winston Churchill writes that many of Chamberlain's ministers "found consolation in the notion that Hitler was merely seeming to vindicate on behalf of the Sudeten Germans 'the right of self-determination,'
and the 'claims of the minority to just treatment.' Indeed, some even inexplicably felt that 'Hitler was merely championing the small man against the Czech bully."

On Sept. 27, 1938, with the support of his ministers, Mr. Chamberlain told the British people "How horrible ... it is that we should be digging trenches
and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing. It seems still more impossible that a quarrel which has already been settled in principle should be the subject of war. However much we may sympathize with a small nation confronted by a big and powerful neighbor, we cannot in all circumstances undertake to involve the whole British Empire in war. ... If we have to fight, it must be on larger issues than that."

On Sept. 29, Hitler, Chamberlain, Edouard Daladier of France, and Mussolini attended a one-day conference that led to the Munich Agreement, which handed over the Sudetenland to Germany. On returning home, on Sept. 30, Mr. Chamberlain told the British people.

"This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine. ... We regard the agreement signed last night ... as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again."

The crowd cheered.

Later in the day, Mr. Chamberlain told the cheering crowds, "A British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time."

To his chagrin, Chamberlain learned that Hitler had no more regard for the Munich Agreement than he had for the Versailles Treaty.

First Georgia. Now the Ukraine. Putin is operating from the Hitler playbook, while President Obama is operating from Mr. Chamberlain's.

Soft words and appeasement didn't deter Hitler; nor will they deter Putin. It is time for all Americans to read Winston Churchill's The Gathering Storm. An administration resolved to be irresolute is no match for a determined dictator.


Posted Online:  May 24, 2014, 11:00 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2014
John Donald O'Shea

If We Punish People for their Beliefs, Freedom Is Dead

At common law, all crimes consisted of two elements: an "intent" element and an "act" elements.

It was not a criminal conspiracy for two men to plan to rob a bank. The plan to rob the bank became a crime only when one or both did an act to further that intent, such as buying a hand gun to be used in the robbery.

Similarly, words alone do not constitute murder. If a man writes in his diary "I'm going to kill my neighbor," it is not murder, absent an act that effects the killing and a homicide.

The same principle is found in the First Amendment to our U. S. Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech."

In the words of our Supreme Court, "the Amendment (as it pertains to religion) embraces two concepts, freedom to believe and freedom to act. The first is absolute but, in the nature of things, the second cannot be" (Abington v. Schempp, 1963).

The First Amendment absolutely guarantees one's right to believe that God wants all men to be cannibals. It does not, however, guarantee one's right to act on that belief. While you have an absolute right to believe that its okay to eat your neighbor, if you act upon that belief, you will face murder charges.

The amendment also guarantees free speech. And if Americans -- except within narrow exceptions -- have a right to voice their opinions publicly, they certainly have a right to have private conversations.

A man can express his bigotry in a private conversation in his home or with his wife without fear of prosecution. (I am talking here of private conversations expressing opinions. I am not talking about words used to discriminate or bully, or the yelling of "fire" in a crowded theater. Words that are used to work discrimination, or to bully or to libel move beyond the realm of opinion or belief, and become "verbal acts.")

Our first Amendment was a reaction to the intolerance of medieval prosecutions of opinions and beliefs deemed "heretical." It was also fashioned as a check on the religious intolerance of colonial America, as evidenced in The Colony Laws of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Chapter 39.

It guarantees Americans both the right to speak as well as the right not to speak.

No man, for example, can be prosecuted for refusing to take an oath that he is not a member of the Communist party or Nazi party.

Jefferson and Madison saw the danger of trying to control people's beliefs. That's why Madison wrote the First Amendment which Jefferson explicated in his 1802 letter to the Dansbury Baptist Association:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, -- that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, -- that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, -- I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people (the 1st Amendment) which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state."

America came to this position knowing that no man was safe if he could be prosecuted for his thoughts -- his beliefs. Twenty-first century America seems to be rejecting that Jefferson/Madisonian notion.

To me, it is one thing to be a bigot. If you hate blacks or whites or Asians, or atheists or Catholics or Protestants or Jews or Muslims, etc., that may be wrong, evil, immoral or even reprehensible. But I fear punishing bigots solely on account of their beliefs. If people can be jailed, or be made to surrender their property, or be ostracized or deprived of their free speech rights for holding a belief deemed "politically incorrect" today, then they can just as well be deemed "bigoted" for holding the diametrically opposed "bigoted" belief tomorrow.

If today a man can be destroyed for holding traditional Catholic beliefs on marriage and homosexuality, recall that only a few hundred years ago that he would have been hauled before the Inquisition for not holding those same beliefs.

On the other hand, when a person acts upon his beliefs and wrongfully discriminates against and harms his neighbor, at that point rights must be balanced, wrongful discrimination punished and appropriate remedies fashioned.

But if people are going to be punished solely for their personal beliefs -- without acts in furtherance of those beliefs --— we are back to the days of the Inquisition -- an institution equally well-suited for enforcing the "orthodox beliefs" of whoever controls the government.

And if it is a crime to believe, others can be compelled to testify to prosecute that crime. In Nazi Germany, children were encouraged to report anything their parents said critical of the Nazi government. Parents went to concentration camps for their beliefs and political opinions.

The "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment is premised on the notion that as long as a man does not act to hurt his neighbor and only believes, that he should be left alone. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas said, "The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom."

If America reaches the point where a man can be punished for his thoughts, his beliefs and his private conversations -- with no discriminatory act in furtherance thereof -- we will live in a police state, and suffer a reign of terror.

When men are punished for their beliefs, albeit repugnant beliefs, freedom is dead.

The First Amendment which protects both freedom of religion and speech, protects both favored and disfavored beliefs and speech. It also protects truthful as well as untruthful beliefs and speech. The alternative, requires thought-police," and a police state.

The proportional and appropriate remedy for bigoted beliefs or speech is counter-speech: Speech that informs, enlightens and holds the bigot's beliefs up to scrutiny - Speech that educates in the marketplace of ideas.

Posted Online:  May 17, 2014, 11:00 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2014
John Donald O'Shea

In Defense of Corporations; They Revolutionized the World

During the years President Obama has been in office, corporations have been vilified.

It goes without say that corporations, like individuals, can behave badly and even criminally. But without corporations, there would be no modern America as we know it. It is not an overstatement to say that the "corporate form" allowed American business to produce the greatest economy that the world has ever known.

The corporation is not a modern invention. It was recognized in Roman Law in the Code of Justinian (reigned 527-565). The Dutch chartered the Dutch East India Co.; Charles II, the Hudson Bay Co. But such corporations were created by Royal or parliamentary grants.

In 1844, William Gladstone (England) and his Parliamentary Committee on Joint Stock Companies produced the Joint Stock Companies Act of 1844. It allowed establishing of a company as a separate legal person. The advantages largely were administrative; the act allowed creation of a unified entity to handle the affairs of the investors. It could sue and be sued just like a natural person. No longer did all the shareholders have to be named as plaintiffs, and no longer did all have to be individually named and served with process to be made defendants. The corporation also could buy, sell own and mortgage property.

It was not until 1855, however, that the English Parliament passed the Limited Liability Act that allowed investors to limit their liability in the event of business failure to the amount they had invested in the company, Shareholders now were liable directly to creditors only to the the extent that they had not paid for their shares in full. New York had passed a limited liability act for shareholders in 1811, but only to shareholders in "manufacturing" corporations.

These laws taken together allowed the financing of the Industrial Revolution. No longer did investors have to wheedle a royal or parliamentary grant. For the first time in history, it was possible for ordinary people to create a "corporation" through a simple registration procedure. Corporations now could have a perpetual existence. The business no longer had to "wind up," as in the case of the death of a member of a partnership. The business could sue and be sued. It could buy, sell, own and mortgage property as if it were an individual. Finally, English investors could pool funds to raise the giant pools of money needed to create railroads, steamship lines and great manufacturing concerns.

Limited liability meant that an investor could choose to risk a portion of his net wealth, without fear that if the venture went bankrupt the rest of his fortune would be seized to pay the debts of the venture. This was also fair to the creditors of the corporation because they knew up front the "authorized capital" of the business -- the total pool of money put at risk by the stockholders.

While there were earlier corporation acts in America, the Delaware General Corporations Act of 1899 has been the model for other such acts in the county.

It allowed any three or more persons to establish a corporation for the transaction of any legal business.

The Delaware Act of 1899 gave corporations the following powers:

1. To have a perpetual existence;

2. To sue and be sued;

3. To hold, purchase, mortgage and convey real and personal property for its corporate purposes;

4. To appoint officers and agents as required for its business purposes, and to suitably to compensate them;

5. To make bylaws fixing the number of directors to manage the affairs of the corporation.

The Certificate of Incorporation was required to (a) state the name of the corporation, (b) its principal place of business, (c) the nature of the business to be transacted, (d) the total authorized capital stock of the corporation (not less than $2000), (e) when the corporation was to commence operations, (f) whether its existence was limited or perpetual, and (g) whether the private property of stockholders shall be subject to the payment of corporate debts, and if so to what extent.

In a further effort to protect creditors, the corporation was barred from paying stockholders a dividend except out of surplus or net profits, and required to make accurate financial reports.

The advantages of the corporate form are obvious. When an individual dies, his business ends. When a partner dies, the partnership is dissolved, and a new partnership has to be set up, if the business is to continue. When a shareholder or a director of the corporation dies, the business goes on.

When an individual opts to go into business as an individual, he not only exposes his investment to creditors, he also exposes his entire wealth to their claims. The same is true of a traditional partnership or tradition joint venture. (Yes, there can be limited liability partnerships).

Limited liability allows the corporation to go to hundreds, thousands or even ten thousands of investors to raise the enormous sums necessary to finance an airline, a canal or even a company to put privately-owned satellites in orbit.

A corporation can abuse the powers granted to it. But so can a person, a partnership, an association or a government. Corporations aren't perfect because they are run by people. But at their worst, they have never been as bad a governments (e.g., Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia).

Without them, America would not have great railroads, airlines, auto companies, computer companies and charitable foundations. And we might well have lost World War II.

Today it is fashionable to be against allowing corporation to make political donations and expenditures. But corporations are people: managers, employees, and stockholders.

When individuals, associations, unions, PACs and the government speak against corporations and demand laws that control how corporations do business, basic fairness requires that corporations have the right, on behalf of themselves and their directors, stockholders, employees and customers, to make corporate expenditures and support politicians who are sympathetic to the their interests and those of their stockholders, customers and employees. Just because a person is employed by a corporation, he doesn't surrender his right of free speech if he happens to speak for a corporation.

If corporations speak falsely, the preferred 1st Amendment remedy is not to bar them from speaking; it's counter-speech to expose their falsehoods.

Posted Online:  May 06, 2014, 11:00 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2014
John Donald O'Shea