September 1

Today in 1939 Poland was invaded by Germany, jumpstarting what would end up being the largest armed conflict this planet has ever seen. A few details most people don't know about the invasion of Poland:


-It was actually a joint Soviet-Nazi invasion with the Germans invading from the West and the Russians from the East, Poland never stood a chance.
-The ideological inspiration for conquering Poland was Hitler's misguided notion that there was a section of his Reich that laid on the opposite side of Poland and had been cut off from the rest of the Aryans after World War I and the resulting Treaty of Versailles (the Nazis called this the Polish Corridor).
-The event that triggered the invasion was dubbed the "Gleiwitz Incident" in which the Gestapo dressed as Polish soldiers blew up a German radio station near the border with Poland. This has been come to be known as "The Eve of World War II"
-The Polish high command saw the invasion coming and understood they had little chance. They initiated The Peking Plan on August 20th where Polish war ships were evacuated to British controlled ports. Live to fight another day as they say.
-The invasion started with the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) bombing the Polish town of Wielun at 4:40am. Over 75% of the town was destroyed
-Over 20,000 Poles were executed by the German army during September
-The total Polish death toll during the invasion was ~200,000

RIP the 65 million that died in the following years.


















German soldiers executing Poles

History Lesson

It seems in this day and age, many of us have acquired a false sense of US infallibility. This belief that we, as a nation, can't do anything wrong is a very dangerous mindset to have. Let's rewind about a century to see what I mean.....



The year is 1907 and the State of Indiana (don't poke fun at Indiana, it happens to be my favorite state) has just passed the Compulsory Sterilization Law which states that 'confirmed criminals', 'idiots', 'imbeciles', and 'rapists' are to be forcibly sterilized. This means that the state will sterilize criminals and mentally retarded people. The sad thing is that Indiana was a trend setter in this case (rarely happens now-a-days) and 29 other states adopted similar laws (as well as Nazi Germany). California moved into the "forefront" of eugenics as it really embraced the program (now you know why California liberals scare me quite badly) and they forcibly sterilized about 20,000 people (out of about 60,000 sterilized total in the country)(source: http://www.toolan.com/hitler/append1.html).



























This is about as arrogant as a society can get, telling someone they aren't of high enough value to control their own reproductive function (not to mention being completely and totally unconstitutional). Would society be better off if certain elements were not allowed to procreate? Who knows (by what standard are we measuring 'better'? who is setting the direction of society? It's a dangerous game). But what I do know is that taking away the freedom to have your own offspring unequivocally violates someone's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And we (as citizens of the Land of the Free) let this go on openly and did little to nothing to prevent it.


Bottom line (other than the fact that Hitler used California's forced sterilization program as a framework for the Third Reich's eugenics program) is that we may think we are hot stuff because we have the most technologically advanced military or the strongest economy (or had rather), but we are just like everyone else, prone to making mistakes and missteps. So let's not get carried away and think we can't F it all up.