Thanks for that, Futwick. I think I know the subject pretty well, but I've downloaded that and will read it shortly.

I have a close friend (had; he passed away a few years ago) who was born in Hungary, the son of a prominent theoretical physicist, and who was Jewish. They managed to escape by a matter of minutes, or the whole family would have been sent to the death camps. He told me much of his remembrances as a youngster, growing up in constant fear. Not just him, but his parents and friends as well.

I also had a friend, an exchange student at the University of Washington, Rolf H., German, who'd HAD to join the Hitler Youth when he was a boy, and then was essentially impressed into the Luftwaffe. He thought the idea of flying airplanes—Messerschmitt ME-109s—was fun, BUT—he had no desire to go to war against anyone. In impending dog fights with British and American planes, he said that he, and some other pilots he knew, would head for the nearest cloud bank, fire their guns until empty, then fly back to base. This, he said, was not out of cowardice. It sprung from the fact that they did not like Hitler, his regime, and what he was doing to Germany and trying to do to the whole world—and they did not feel they had any reason to kill anyone, especially when they were only trying to defend themselves against the regime of der Führer and his madness.

Rolf had a LOT to say about living under Fascism!

But more formally, I've taken Political Science, Ethics, and Philosophy, in addition to Music and English Literature, in college, so the idea that I am "brainwashed" and just "go with the flow" that Goofballupagus and Niggardly Bastard (he calls himself that, I didn't) are accusing me of is baseless personal insult founded on pure ignorance on their parts, and says more about them than it does about me.

But then, having read some of their other stuff, is anybody surprised that neither of them could find their own butts with both hands and copy of Grey's Anatomy, and that their political acumen comes from the likes of Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh?

Don Firth