At what point does killing become genocide?

1. 60

   edmondpogiposted 14 years ago

   At what point does killing become genocide?

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2. 77

   Wesman Todd Shawposted 14 years ago

   When a particular race is targeted.  I'm of the opinion, however, that racially motivated murders are no more evil than any other murder.  Murder is evil.  It doesn't matter if it's racially motivated(Ashkenazi Jews during WWII), or economically motivated (Iraqi and Afghani murders by the U.S. government more recently)

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3. 83

   wychicposted 14 years ago

   Whenever it is done based solely on genetic or ethnic origins. We tend to think of genocide as mass killings similar to what Hitler or the US government precipitated in the not-so-distant past (both against people in their own countries as well as others), but technically even a hate crime that only affects one person is a form of genocide if it was done solely because a person was a member of a certain target genetic pool. I think what we tend to remember in history the most are those genocidal maniacs who actually succeeded in killing and displacing hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people, but unfortunately they are far from the only ones.

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4. 0

   Paul Cheslerposted 14 years ago

   It surprises me that anyone compares the war crimes of the Holocaust, where the Germans killed Jews who were absolutely no threat to them, to American soldiers, who might lose it a bit in combat when they don't know who is their enemy and who is their friend.  I don't know if you can blame the American soldiers too much for that.  The whole situation is kind of sad - however, needless killing is definitely NOT advocated.  By the way, noone even brought up the Russian gulag, brought about by Stalin, which had a death toll of 19 million total.  How about the taboo subject of what the Turkish did to the Armenians - around 2 million dead.  Yes, I know it is politically incorrect to mention this, but what happened is what happened.  With a loose definition of genocide, the killings by the Crusaders of jewish communities in Mainz, Wermz, and Blois become genocides.  (These are pretty close to be honest)  If you extend further, then countries who conquered other countries committed genocide.  When we make too big of a deal of the arguably smaller things, people will be led to take the truly big less seriously.

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