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Devils' Advocate said:
You said when it comes to blame you and I come down on different sides. Could you elaborate? What is your side when it comes to blame? It interests me and I would like to understand where you differ from me. [...] Who was responsible, in your opinion Tea. Hitler? His regime? The soldiers who carried out the orders? The common folk who were too scared to challenge it? Who was to blame?
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How did this come around on me? I was asking you this? Me I'm not interested in blame, there are other ways around things.
The Holocaust, I recognise the the structure ans the actors involved in making it happen. Nazism was specifically created to save Germany at the expense of a people who was, in their eyes, less then human. The people creating and maintaining this are responsible for the idea, the people ordering violence are responsible for their acts. But every person who voted, benefited or even joined the party was never responsible for the acts of other individuals. So no individual was ever responsible for the whole of the Holocaust, each individual person has to carry their own burden.
 
Hi DA –

I know a lot of institutions have done a lot of harm down through the ages, and the Catholic Church has some quite recent issues that need resolving ... but how far back do you want to go in this blame game?

I do think sometimes people want to keep the Catholic Church and the idea of religion generally, locked in a medieval mindset. That way makes it a lot easier to criticise, and talk about 'ignorance' and 'superstition', etc. To point and laugh. To rubbish the symbology, for example, when it never crosses their minds that maybe there's more to the symbol than meets their jaundiced eye.

It's the same with theology. Most people have a view of Christian theology that's almost medieval. They have a view of Scripture that is naive. There's a huge market in the US for shallow sensationalism to such a degree that the product of some of your finest institutions I find appalling for its abandonment of sound scholarship in pursuit of a place on the NYT bestseller list.

And they'll cite people they've met as evidence, as if the bloke I met down the pub sets the standard for discussing particle physics or quantum mechanics.

So, in short, my issue is with the baggage 'they' want to load onto 'me', or onto, for that matter, God.
 
How far back should we go with this blame game? I really don't know. To be a bit more to the point though, I would excise the word blame and replace it with responsibility. What is the proper time frame for responsibility when it comes to countries, religions and so forth.

America decimated the native peoples in the building of this nation 250 years ago. Should America still be held to account for that?

Forget then. How about now? Should America be held responsible for the overall low quality of life of most Native Americans today? Are the foundation of their current miseries based on what we did back then? Or do they remain in their squalor because they don't have the initiative to improve their lot? A little of both? Who should be held responsible?
 
Responsibility....exactly....we don't blame others....we take responsibility for current conditions and work to rectify them.

As to your questions....All the way, Yes, yes, yes, yes, no, no, and take the word 'held' out and it is us.
 
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