Muse: Guilt By Association Copy
82 Responses
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I'm sure this doesn't need saying, but "don't be a dick" is the whole of the law. One strike and I will close and delete ALL comments.
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I think the quotes like " “the greatest German who has ever lived”." would be more incriminating than ownership of the book , if they're correct . But the video that Slater's post links too as evidence against Dotcom is obviously done by Dotcom as a joke , I'd have thought even Slater could do better than that . I suspect some of the other quotes from Dotcom are also out of context.
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I don't believe any books should be banned or that ownership of them implies agreement with all ideas in them. Still, Dotcom's copy of Mein Kampf is really a piece of memorabilia that just happens to be a book. Whether you then think collecting WW2 artefacts in general or Nazi ones in particular is problematic is a different question.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
Whether you then think collecting WW2 artefacts in general or Nazi ones in particular is problematic is a different question.
Dotcom is also in the position of being a German individual who's living in a country where it's entirely legal to trade in Nazi artifacts. In Germany, it's a crime. His BF2 fanaticism is well-known, so being interested in owning such historical pieces is entirely in keeping with his other interests.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
I think the quotes like ” “the greatest German who has ever lived”.” would be more incriminating than ownership of the book , if they’re correct
It's hard to say. As others have noted, it would be significant if, as claimed, there was a Nazi flag hanging in Dotcom's basement that was taken down before Campbell Live visited for a tour. But that would mean it was there at the time of the police raid -- and it's very hard to imagine that the cops would not have found a way to make that knowledge public.
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As the Americans say, the man is tone-deaf.
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Hebe,
I have always found KDC's appeal mystifying. But then I'm not the target market, so it doesn't matter. The whole KDC saga has always read like an Auckland story with a lot of knotted knickers about sfa to this provincial nobody.
Now he owns a top-of-the-tree collector's rarity by history's pre-eminent monster.... well yuk.
It's all a gift to National: class A distraction.
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While KDC isn't a beacon of purity - and mind you, he's never pretended to be one - this Mein Kampf thing is giving the impression that the Oily One has too much time on his hands.
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Hahahaha. Whaleoil is such a card. :) Talk about drawing a long bow. I am no great fan of DotCom, but the little weasel of propaganda that Whaleoil produced about KDC’s ownership of Mein Kampf would be worthy of Goebels.
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It sounds like an extension of Godwin's Law to me. (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=godwin%27s%20law)
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I've been reading some of Peter Aranyi's comments on attack blogger Cameron Slater and have to ask, why give oxygen to this sad disfunctional liar? How does it further the debate?
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Sue,
we live in a country were jewish graves are desecrated - would you want any of that sector of society considering you a hero
it's why i find dot com so confusing, but he's not hiding it, and who know maybe as someone growing up in Germany reading it is part of demystifying it all for himself? but why the rarest copy possible. He's a confusing man and it's strange that this has come out just as he's in talks with the mana party
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Someone's showing you round their house, and they open a door and say "Here's where I keep my copy of Mein Kampf that Hitler personally signed, along with my other Nazi memorabilia" -- yeah, I'd judge them.
If you are arguing that this was germane to his legal problems, then I guess the answer is no -- but is it relevant when we are talking about someone who wants to bankroll a political party that may be able to influence the composition and policies of our next government? Then I think the answer is likely yes.
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People with lots of money tend to collect stuff. KDC just happens to collect WW2 memorabilia (and very fast cars). And purchasing a rare signed copy of Mein Kampf is a shrewd investment. It will appreciate in value long after the current stock market bubble wipes out the next wave of speculators.
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
And purchasing a rare signed copy of Mein Kampf is a shrewd investment. It will appreciate in value long after the current stock market bubble wipes out the next wave of speculators.
Well, sure, but probably so are investments in companies that make land mines. That doesn’t mean I don’t reserve the right to be judgey as fuck about you if that’s the kind of investment you choose to make, you know?
Really, I think the lesson for everyone here is that any situation where you are forced to make a statement affirming your total disagreement with the Nazi party is a situation you probably want to avoid being in, *especially* if you’re trying to get into politics.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Someone’s showing you round their house, and they open a door and say “Here’s where I keep my copy of Mein Kampf that Hitler personally signed, along with my other Nazi memorabilia” – yeah, I’d judge them.
Do we know that he has “other Nazi memorabilia” apart from the book, though? (Also, Dotcom doesn't keep the book around the house. It's in storage in Europe.)
The one thing that did occur to me is that the video game connection is plausible. My younger son got very interested in Chernobyl and the USSR through playing the Stalker games. I bought him a Chernobyl staff ID badge from an army surplus store for his birthday and he was stoked. We’ve also watched a couple of documentaries about Stalin and the USSR in WW2 together.
So I’m not scandalised by the book. But if some of the other allegations turn out to be true, hmmm …
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Well, sure, but probably so are investments in companies that make land mines.
I don't think that's a valid comparison.
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I wonder if the fact the he is German and owns a copy of a book by Hitler made it news worthy to @3news. (I'm sure there is more than one politician in NZ who has a copy of that book and many other political biographies)
Isn't nice that with just a tiny scratch you can reveal New Zealand's racist side
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
I don’t think that’s a valid comparison.
Okay, the exaggeration was over the top, but the point was that something can be an investment - a good one! - and that doesn't make it not distasteful. A better comparison might be banks that made subprime mortgages, or BP after the Gulf spill. Valid investments? Probably. Liable to make people form particular opinions of you? Also probably.
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So what's the man to do with his book? Burn it? Sell it? Soak it in Chlorogene?
I'm not fascinated by KDC, though I must admit to a fascination with the desire/need to associate, or not, with him.
I'm still appalled at the memory of helicopters and the whole gogogo scene at his house. I was appalled last night with the TV3 news, then nauseated by Gower.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Okay, the exaggeration was over the top, but the point was that something can be an investment – a good one! – and that doesn’t make it not distasteful. A better comparison might be banks that made subprime mortgages, or BP after the Gulf spill.
But huge material harm flowed from each of those. What material harm comes of Dotcom owning a rare, if clearly controversial, book? My thought when Brook Sabin asked Dotcom whether owning the book was an “ethical investment” was “no, that’s not what ethical investment means”.
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I'm quite angry about this news story and the inference being made - its a book, ownership of doesn't denote anything about the owner other than possession. Let us judge the man by his character and actions not his things
This is a book that you can borrow from your local library or buy from a number of local book retailers- sure not signed but isn't it the contents that offend?
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
But huge material harm flowed from each of those. What material harm comes of Dotcom owning a rare, if clearly controversial, book?
No material harm comes from investing in companies that have stopped doing the harmful things – the spill has happened, the subprime mortgages are largely no longer offered – but you’re still investing in a company that has value partially because of actions they took that led to that harm, and the book has value because of, well, Hitler. It might not be technically unethical but at best, from my point of view, it’s utterly tasteless. That doesn’t mean it should be illegal – but like I said, any time you have to explicitly deny you agree with the Nazis…
(Note: for me, it’s not the fact he owns Mein Kampf, it’s a historical text, whatever; it’s the autographed copy bit that crosses whatever line there is to cross for an individual book.)
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Like.
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Martin Lindberg, in reply to
This is a book that you can borrow from your local library or buy from a number of local book retailers- sure not signed but isn’t it the contents that offend?
Not in this case, no.
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