Last year when I was waiting for my breast cancer surgery, we decided to take a last minute vacation to Bavaria, which included a stay in Nuremberg as well as a later visit to Dachau, north of Munich, which was the prototype for Nazi concentration camps. While in Nuremberg, we stood in many locations where Hitler gave speeches to whip his fellow countrymen into patriotic acts that ultimately led to unprecedented crimes against humanity.
After this trip, I watched the movie Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) which is not about the trial of the “big twenty” war criminals, but instead shows subsequent trials of judges who operated under the Nazi system, sentencing people for newly invented crimes that they knew were wrong. The defense put forward in the 1961 movie is that they shouldn’t be held accountable because they were “just following orders.” In other words, the only ones who can be held accountable are the top leaders whose edicts are made with the impunity that comes with their unchecked power. The international tribunal ultimately rejected this abdication of personal responsibility, and this rejection became the basis for international law, something that was invented after World War II. Prior to that, all laws were enforced at the national level. This set the precedent and basis for international law: it’s not enough to merely follow orders when those orders are immoral. You are still responsible for your own actions.
A few weeks ago, I watched the 2025 film Nuremberg, which depicts the trial of the top Nazi leaders, in particular Hermann Goering. I had lost a lot of respect for Russell Crowe after hearing he chucked a phone at a hotel worker in a fit of pique, but his turn as Goering was perfection. He made him seem just what he was–a relatable if narcissistic human who allowed others to be casualties of his patriotic fervor and belief that might makes right. At his trial, the original Nuremberg trial, he couldn’t hide behind the Nuremberg defense because with Hitler dead, he was the highest ranking Nazi leader, and he was Hitler’s right hand man. He justified his actions on the following basis:
- He didn’t start the war, but once it began, his job was to ensure victory for Germany.
- He denied that his actions were ever dictated by a desire to murder, rob or enslave foreign peoples. In other words, his motives were justified, and the outcomes were beyond his personal control.
- He defended Germany’s suppression of opposition, stating that they “had had enough of it” and it was “time to be done with it and start building up.” Woof, that sounds familiar.
- He denied personal knowledge of the specific atrocities and placed ultimate blame on Hitler who had already died by suicide.
He remained defiant, dying by suicide hours before his scheduled hanging. His testimony, at times, calls into question the ability to hold people accountable for such heinous crimes, what we now call “war crimes.” In his opening statement, Justice Jackson said:
“Civilization asks whether law is so laggard as to be utterly helpless to deal with crimes of this magnitude by criminals of this order of importance. It does not expect that you can make war impossible. It does expect that your juridical action will put the forces of international law, its precepts, its prohibitions and, most of all, its sanctions, on the side of peace, so that men and women of good will, in all countries, may have “leave to live by no man’s leave, underneath the law.”
Many of the Nazi leaders had very high IQs. Goering’s IQ tested at 138. Hitler’s IQ was not tested, but was estimated by experts to be around 140. Aside from that, the movie (and history) have largely concluded that these were not evil people, but normal people who rationalized evil acts. They were extremely confident that they were personally right, and that their nation was superior and deserved victory. The reason it’s important to recognize these rationalizations is not because it tells us who the evil people are; it’s because normal human beings rationalize the terrible things we do to avoid being held accountable. Goering’s defenses included political logic, moral distancing, denial of responsibility and appeals to nationalism. These were all designed to hide crimes against humanity. His chief arguments included:
- “I was restoring German greatness.” (Nationalism as Moral Justification). He claimed his actions restored justice in the wake of WWI and the Treaty of Versailles that had greatly reduced Germany’s independence and military capabilities. He also used this justification to take territory (the Sudetenland) from the Czech Republic which he said was necessary to ensure German survival. Any action that strengthened the nation was recast as moral, even if it violated the sovereignty of other nations.
- “I followed Hitler’s orders, but I didn’t know everything.” This is a common refrain in the 2025 film. Goering, Hitler’s second-in-command, frequently blamed Himmler or lower level officials for the most heinous crimes committed. Goering claimed he was not aware of the Final Solution (the Holocaust which resulted in the murder of 2/3 of the Jewish population of Europe). His claim that he didn’t know is belied by the fact that he signed the 1941 order authorizing the “Final Solution,” and he had been briefed on Jewish policy.
- Actions taken were a “wartime necessity.” Goering excused atrocities committed by the Nazi regime as military strategy, saying things like “all nations do this in war” and “The Allies bombed civilians first” (which was not true). Boiled down, this argument means that war trumps all moral obligations and normal ethics. Given that Germany started the war, it also excuses waging war as a pretext for whatever crimes occur during the conflict.
- “I was protecting the German people.” This is moral inversion, or using violence against a subset of citizens to protect the whole. In declaring some of the population (their political opponents) “enemies of the state,” they could justify whatever means they used to silence dissent as a defense of the “good” citizens (their supporters).
- “Anti-Jewish Laws were bureaucratic solutions, not cruelty.” Rather than focusing on the inhumane treatment, including murder, of the newly disenfranchised Jews who had been stripped of their citizenship, Goering minimized the actions taken by referring to them as administrative, legal measures, enforcing the newly created Nuremberg laws that included exclusion from professions, restrictions on movement, self-identification requirements, detainment, and propetry seizures. The justification for these draconian laws was that the Jews had too much influence and were an economic threat. Dehumanizing a group as a “problem” justifies oppressive policies.
- “I never intended extermination.” Goering continually distanced himself from the Holocaust by claiming that his intentions were for the good of Germany, that he didn’t know what Himmler and the SS were doing. He used a three pronged strategy: Distance > Deny > Deflect.
- “This trial is hypocritical.” Because the Nuremberg trials were the first time an international court was convened in this manner, Goering claimed that these were show trials, a “victor’s justice” meaning that they were just a way for the victors to justify killing the German leaders. He claimed that it was all lawfare, and that its judgments were political, not moral. If everyone is guilty, then no one is guilty.
- “I was a soldier, not a criminal.” In essence, this is the same as what we now call “the Nuremberg Defense,” the idea that he was just following orders from a sense of duty and patriotism. In this defense, obedience and patriotism override ethical constraints, but this is the very definition of blind obedience to authority. It’s one reason that US armed forces swear an oath to the constitution, not to any human leader, and that they are obligated to refuse to follow illegal orders.
- “Germany needed strong leadership.” This theme was used to legitimize dictatorship as a necessary form of government due to how “weak and chaotic” the Weimar Republic was, according to Nazi leadership. Harsh measures were necessary to “restore order.” Democracy was insufficient and “did not fit the German character.”
- “I only wanted what was best for Germany.” This is an example of narcissistic absolutism. Goering saw himself as a great man, a visionary, someone who was so superior and so vital to Germany’s success that opposing him meant you were an enemy of the state, the victims of his war crimes were threats that needed to be crushed, and only he and his fellow Nazi leaders were the true protectors of German culture.
| Theme | How He Used It | Purpose |
|---|
| Nationalism | “I saved Germany.” | Make crimes seem patriotic. |
| Authority | “I followed orders.” | Shift blame upward. |
| Denial | “I didn’t know.” | Avoid responsibility. |
| Minimization | “It wasn’t that bad.” | Recast atrocities as administrative. |
| Deflection | “The Allies did it too.” | Delegitimize the trial. |
| Moral Inversion | “We protected the nation.” | Justify repression as necessity. |
It’s important to understand these justifications so that we can see them for what they are. They aren’t unique to Goering or to Naziism. They hide oppressive, authoritarian or criminal acts behind a screen of supposed virtues: patriotism, duty, loyalty, tradition, protection, security, order. It’s one reason I wrote the controversial OP Loyalty is a Tricky Virtue. I think it would be hard to argue at this point that the church is not authoritarian in terms of the expectations of obedience to leaders, particularly given the injunction against criticism leveled by the current church president; it at least flirts with its own authoritarianism. It’s also a relevant topic given that the current Secretary of Defense (of War?) committed acts that are definitionally war crimes (killing unarmed so-called enemy combatants with a “kill them all” order against Narco-terrorists with no official declaration of war, no arrests, and no trials).
In the 2025 film, the psychiatrist Dr Kelley (depicted by Rami Malek) warns Justice Jackson that he is not prepared to defeat Goering on the stand, that Goering is too smart, too prepared, and too compelling in his defenses. It’s a warning worth heeding, and reading the actual transcripts is well worth your time if you haven’t. You may even recognize yourself in some of his arguments, if obviously not his ideology.
No trial provides a better basis for understanding the nature and causes of evil does than the Nuremberg trials from 1945 to 1949. Those who come to the trials expecting to find sadistic monsters are generally disappointed. What is shocking about Nuremberg is the ordinariness of the defendants: men who may be good fathers, kind to animals, even unassuming–yet who committed unspeakable crimes. Years later, reporting on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, Hannah Arendt wrote of “the banality of evil.” Like Eichmann, most Nuremberg defendants never aspired to be villains. Rather, they over-identified with an ideological cause and suffered from a lack of imagination or empathy: they couldn’t fully appreciate the human consequences of their career-motivated decisions.
But, we are not powerless, even when it feels like it. One of the most interesting exchanges in the trial was when Justice Jackson tried to determine if Goering viewed their movement as anti-democratic:
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: In other words, you did not believe in nd did not permit government, as we call it, by consent of the governed, in which the people, through their representatives, were the source of power and authority?
GOERING: That is not entirely correct. We repeatedly called on the people to express unequivocally and clearly what they thought of our system, only it was in a different way from that previously adopted and from the system in practice in other countries. We chose the way of a so-called plebiscite. We also took the point of view that even a government founded on the Leadership Principle could maintain itself only if it was based in some way on the confidence of the people. If it no longer had such confidence, then t would have to rule with bayonets, and the Fuehrer was always of the opinion that that was impossible in the long run-to rule against the will of the people.
The questioning goes on to reveal, however, that even when political opposition was completely squelched, punished by detainment in concentration camps and worse, when Parliament had been disbanded, and when all fairness in elections was eliminated, when citizens were required to acknowledge the Fuhrer’s authority, when information was reduced to pro-Nazi propaganda, when all opposing political parties were outlawed, Goering believed that the Fuhrer was subject to the will of the people. It’s similar to how we have a sustaining vote, and anyone who dissents is immediately removed, or how Reed Smoot explained that under the Law of Sarah (and D&C 132), if a wife disagreed with her husband’s choice to take another wife, he could still proceed. Her consent was “just her consent, nothing more.” If there is no recognized dissent, is consent really consent?
- Do you think Mormons have a loyalty problem? An authoritarianism problem?
- Do you recognize history repeating itself?
- If you’ve seen the 2025 film, did you find Goering more sympathetic than you expected?
- Which of these arguments do you find most compelling? Which do you find least convincing?
- Have you found yourself using these justifications to explain your actions?
- Do you think blowing up boats in the Caribbean constitutes a war crime? Is it possible to hold powerful nations accountable for war crimes, or does might make right?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
“I followed Hitler’s orders, but I didn’t know everything.” Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Highest ranking Gestapo member, tried the same defense at Nuremberg. The Gestapo & SS committed many atrocities. He was hung.
Trump and Hegseth are war criminals through and through with no regard for human rights. They’re racist against Venezuelans and a whole host of other nationalities whom they regard as sub-human. Trump recently called all Somalis “garbage.” The Trump administration sent 200 Venezuelan migrants to an El Salvador prison on suspicion of being gang members, where they faced torture. He and his ICE thugs have separated family after family of LEGAL MIGRANTS!!!! They don’t care about evidence. They don’t care about justice. They don’t care about human rights. They don’t care about the law. They want only vengeance, intimidation, power, and unchecked authority. Fascist to the core.
Human nature is to tolerate tyranny about those things we fear. Consequently, those who wish to justify tyranny will often use fear based arguments to gain public approval. The personal and social challenge is having discernment to recognize when fear concerns are warranted and when they are not. As it concerns public policy and military justification, most fear based arguments are flawed if not outright lies.
I beg those who think they are immune to the exploitation of fear to ponder what arguments and discrimination they tolerated during the pandemic. Many good people – many people who would consider themselves fair and tolerant – gave license to tyranny due to the fear they were told to have. My stake president taught that the unvaccinated were unclean and the unmasked were not welcome and he taught this and based church policy on this fear well after the local government officials said otherwise! I point this out to impress that this church action was not simply the leadership being considerate of government directives. This was church leadership being intolerant because they were fearful. What was all the more interesting is that leadership in an adjacent stake was not fearful and not tyrannical and this created a very interesting contrast of policies.
It is immoral for the US government to murder any persons who are not actively a mortal threat to Americans. This means it is immoral to murder occupants of Venezuelan speedboats and it is immoral to murder goat herders in Afghanistan. Whether or not these actions are illegal can be argued but such arguments will go nowhere. For international law is impotent and American lawfare is wholly biased by partisan politics. The evidence is pretty clear that every American president of the 21st century has engaged in and authorized immoral and illegal actions – unlawful murder, violence and destruction – and yet complaints are only made when it is politically convenient.
Per the questions asked:
1) I think LDS leadership has a loyalty problem. I think members as a general rule are do not – members are similar to non-members in how they support authority. Some are especially loyal. Many are lukewarm.
2) History repeats itself because human nature is very consistent and predictable. To me one of the greatest “proofs” of The Book of Mormon is how well it gets right human politics and sociology. Amalickiah is quintessential modern American politician who creates conflict, dissension and intrigue to rise to power.
3) I have not watched either Nuremberg film
4) I believe there is merit to the argument of Nationalism. To argue otherwise is to display ignorance about how society functions and is threatened. The question of Nationalism is what ideas matter to the nation and are worth preserving for the nation? When defense of the group turns to eliminating members of the group then we ought to recognize that as a bad, awful, idea.
5) Yes I have given tolerance to tyranny in various roles in my life. Although with Covid I told my church leadership after 15 months that I would no longer follow their policies and I voluntarily removed myself from a leadership position so as to not associate myself with policies I found untenable.
6) Answered above. I do think if other nations were indiscriminately killing Americans with remote controlled arms the American people would become much less supportive of US foreign policy aggression. Americans are accepting of the status quo because they are not threatened by it.
Yes, the Trump regime has a war crimes problem — but not much will come of it in the short term with the Dept. of Justice (sic), the FBI, the MAGA Congress, and the Supreme Court all seemingly in Trump’s back pocket. But after the 2026 midterms, there will be investigations and facts will come out. After the 2028 election, people will go to jail. That’s what happened to Nixon and his cronies, and the unlawfulness of the Trump regime is much worse. The rot is far deeper this time. Some Supreme Court justices might be impeached and removed from the Court (for gross ethical lapses, not for any direct participation with Trump’s unlawfulness).
Yes, Mormons have a religious loyalty problem — because their loyalty is directed to an institution and human leaders rather than to God. Is it worse than with other denominations or religions? Hard to tell. The huge following that Trump and MAGA have within the mainstream LDS Church and probably within leadership does suggest that for all the lip service leaders and members give to the US Constitution and to the rule of law, most of them are quite happy with lawless authoritarianism if they think it advances their agenda and values. Which is quite disappointing to the rest of us.
“most fear based arguments are flawed if not outright lies”
A little ironic coming from a person whose every utterance is based on an irrational fear of “big government,” institutions, and science.
I had a BYU professor and bishop who gave a devotional at a ward campout up Provo canyon the summer before I started as a freshman at BYU. He talked about the infamous Milgram experiment, which was a series of social psychology studies in the 1960s where participants were ordered by an authority figure to administer what they believed were increasingly severe electric shocks to another person for incorrect answers. Much has been written and said about how this was an unethical study, but in the devotional he gave he talked about how instructive it was: study participants willingly obeyed an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience.
He talked very openly and candidly about the locus of our moral compas and how we should have an internal guiding morality and not be willing leaders, any leaders (political, religious, professional) when they are issuing edicts that are immoral. I was so grateful for this devotional and the moral lesson he imparted that day.
Though I am no longer actively participating, I really treasure the lesson he taught to me. I don’t think that this type of instruction is generally taught within the church, but I was grateful that he helped me to start formulating my own internal morality and the courage to depart from authoriy, even LDS leaders, when their teachings conflict with my own moral precepts.
“Do you think Mormons have a loyalty problem? An authoritarianism problem?”
I think Mormons – who know all about religious persecution and “extermination orders” – have consistently found themselves on the wrong side of history with labor rights, civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, indigenous rights, trans rights, fighting unjust wars, and the torture of “enemy combatants,” to name a few. Recently, I heard an older Boomer Mormon who once considered Russia to be America’s sworn enemy and our greatest threat, brush aside Putin illegal invasion of Ukraine, and dismiss the killing of innocent Palestinians (including children) as something “that just happens in war.”
I haven’t heard a peep from Church leaders, prominent Mormons, or Mormon influencers about any of the atrocities bring committed by the Trump regime, including these most recent war crimes or the withholding of food aid from the poor and needy. Yet, we are told every general conference that “gender is essential,” marriage is between one man and one woman,” and THE most important thing a believing Mormon can do in this life to show their discipleship to Christ, is to spend as much time a humanly possible in one of the big white buildings. Do I think Mormons have a loyalty or authoritarianism problem? I think Mormons have a moral clarity problem.
– and to respond to A Disciple, comparing the Covid pandemic restrictions and mandates to war crimes is bat shiz crazy and I think you know it.
@ A Disciple
You wrote:
“I beg those who think they are immune to the exploitation of fear to ponder what arguments and discrimination they tolerated during the pandemic. Many good people – many people who would consider themselves fair and tolerant – gave license to tyranny due to the fear they were told to have.”
We are talking about protective measures taken during a public health crisis (immunizations and the donning of masks). It’s quite a leap to label all of this as “tyranny” or “discrimination.” When we see signs outside restaurants that say, “No shirt, no shoes, no service,” we don’t assume that’s evidence of tyranny or discrimination. It’s just basic enforcement of norms — in this case, safety. The Church’s policies during COVID were about as reasonable as any, and they really threaded the needle in a difficult situation.
So much was unknown and rapidly evolving during the pandemic (airborne transmission or not? Efficacy of ventilators? Best pharmacological interventions?). How effective would immunization be against infection? I think real mistakes were made about how long schools stayed closed, and there were real tensions between protecting lives and protecting livelihoods (public health vs. economic impact). But I think some grace should be given to LDS religious leaders. And the hysteria and misinformation about vaccines continues to this day. I was an RN working at the hospital and I had people protesting against vaccines while I was treating people who were actively hospitalized and dying. A lot of this was driven by wild misinformation. Using the term intolerant is not the correct framing here, because intolerance implies discrimination based on race, nationality, religion, ethnicity, age, sex, gender, or political affiliation. This was a public health question, plain and simple.
If Lt. William Calley were still alive we could ask his opinion.
I think it’s interesting that Trump, who loves to laud himself with ridiculous praise, is now incontrovertibly the most corrupt and evil US President of all time.
Folks,
After 15 months of the pandemic we had a very good understanding of both the risk of Covid (extremely low for most people, especially youth) and the failure of interventions to prevent infection. Actually by summer 2020 we knew how low the risk was based on observed data.
We knew by August 2021 that the shot did not prevent infection or the spread of infection. This meant that labeling the unjabbed “unclean” was nonsensical given the vaccinated could also spread infection.
If you want to insist that Covid warranted discrimination than you are no different than any other tyrant. FDR put Japanese Americans in interment camps due to “fear”. Blacks were blocked from buying homes due to “fear”. And Americans were fired from jobs and told to not come to church due to “fear”.
Recall that government officials were going on TV and saying that families should not gather for the holidays and adult children should be forced to stay in the garage! Such was the nature of fear justifying inhumane behavior.
What made the Covid fear all the more bizarre is we had communities across the globe showing that people could live normally – that hiding my from the virus was unnecessary. But the power of fear is so great that counter examples were ignored. People who chose to be fearful stubbornly defended that choice! It proved very difficult to persuade fearful Americans they could return to normal.
But if you want to insist that Covid was different than please have the intellectual integrity to acknowledge that you are willing to allow tyrants to use fear to control and divide society.
And I can’t help but see the irony that Covid fear began with Trump! It was Trump who ruined everyone’s 2020 graduation, wedding and funeral. It was Trump who denied Americans their rights and liberties. Do you not realize how easy it would be for Trump to claim tyrannical powers again by announcing another pandemic? If he did, how would you respond this time?
Disciple, I will agree with your claim that the covid risks for much of the population were overestimated. I even believe that many jurisdictions should have got kids back to school much sooner based on what we know now, but you completely lost me with the assertion that we “knew” that the shot did not prevent infection. That flies in the face of all the scientific evidence. Care to explain how you came to “know” this?
I would like to know how and why a very interesting post on war crimes turned into a hackneyed Covid Pandemic & vaccine discussion (with some of the same old misinformation).
Distance > Deny > Deflect: That sums up what happened at Nuremberg. It sums up how the church deals with real problems today and yesterday. It is a perfect description of Trump’s words and actions. It’s also how the average MAGA Mormon deals with questions from other Mormons who may have read the “Red Words” in the Bible.
Right now, Mormons are more upset about the “F the Mormons” chant at BYU football games outside of Utah than they are about the President saying Senators should be executed for being Traitors when telling soldiers their responsibility to the Constitution takes precedence over obedience to the President. Finally, the Mormons who are representing us at the Federal or State level are more concerned about votes (or rigging voting) than they are holding anyone in Trump’s administration accountable to the Constitution.
Mormons can say they want to follow Christ and be more Christlike, but it all kind of falls apart when they are so rigidly Republican/partisan adherents because they don’t distance themselves from, deny what they are doing, and constantly deflect any criticism to those Democrats who are obviously socialists. The old argument “both parties do it” is getting weak.
The church has a loyalty problem, which I think is primarily a consequence of its leader infallibility problem. Only when decisions made by leaders elicit a lot of cognitive dissonance are they ever questioned.
In my opinion the most effective of the arguments you laid out is deflection. This was famously frequently deployed by the Soviet propaganda operation during the Cold War, coming to be known as “whataboutism”. It’s effective because when deployed against anyone with some ability for self reflection, it tends to leave them trapped. I had a lot of experience when one of my teenagers would regularly deploy it against me. Often there are valid counterpoints about differences and matters of degree, but litigating those points tends to derail the original conversation and thus it becomes difficult to ever win against it.
The least effective of those arguments is usually denial, because it is often not persuasive. One political commentator I follow refers to the phrase “I didn’t see the tweet” as a very common response from members of Congress to the latest outrageous social media Trump post. As if those individuals aren’t highly connected on social media in a way that it would be impossible for them to be aware what the leader of the party is saying. But sure, pretend you don’t know. Maybe it’s useful as a short-term strategy to get the media off your back for the next hour to move on with your life, but in a judicial setting it’s often easy to disprove.
On your last question, yes, blowing up those boats looks a lot like a war crime to me. The immorality of it is obvious; establishing illegality probably requires learning more specific details that we don’t currently know. I hope we get answers to those questions eventually, but I fear the system will be abused in ways that make it impossible (destruction of evidence, corrupt pardons, etc).
LoudlySublime,
The OP pointed out that one rationalizations given by Germans for supporting the NAZI regime was they were: “protecting the German people.”
Hawkgrrrl explains: “This is moral inversion, or using violence against a subset of citizens to protect the whole. In declaring some of the population (their political opponents) “enemies of the state,” they could justify whatever means they used to silence dissent as a defense of the “good” citizens (their supporters).”
Hawkgrrrl adds: “It’s important to understand these justifications so that we can see them for what they are. They aren’t unique to Goering or to Naziism. They hide oppressive, authoritarian or criminal acts behind a screen of supposed virtues: patriotism, duty, loyalty, tradition, protection, security, order.”
I absolutely, 100% agree with those words.
This is exactly what happened during the pandemic. Those who disagreed with the Covid protocols were not only shunned but they were deemed enemies of the state, banned from social media and public platforms, fired, and made second class persons. There was a tyrannical demand for absolute agreement with the pandemic narrative. This wasn’t simply a strong rebuttal to points of disagreement raised in an energetic debate. Rather, this was a sweeping Authoritarianism that demanded absolute compliance to a government approved narrative and cast any who disagreed as dangerous persons.
It is simply amazing how the tyranny of the “Covid years” has been swept away and, if mentioned, is justified by those who otherwise would declare Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism as wholly unacceptable. By the way, I spent a year going to work with the prospect that I could be immediately fired – for that is what then President Biden said I and others should suffer for not following his decree / executive order. King Trump? Yes. And King Biden. Different names. Same stripes.
Quentin,
Google: “Here’s Why Vaccinated People Still Need to Wear a Mask”. You will read that Covid vaccinated people are “silent spreaders” of the virus. Very scary!! The perfection of Covid fear is that the risk was never going to zero. And this meant if one adopted a “zero tolerance” of Covid risk than one had to live in perpetual fear.
Scientifically, there are two types of vaccine applications. The classic, “live” vaccination immunized a person and made them not only immune from disease but also prevented them from carrying an infection. Due to risks with “live” immunizations, modern vaccinations are “inactive” and this allows infection but protect the person from becoming sick. This has the consequence of allowing a vaccinated person to spread a virus to others while not being aware they are infected. The modern polio vaccine is an example. Google AI informs: “a person vaccinated against polio can still carry and shed the virus”.
I was going to reply to Disciple and point out that the vaccine fears were obviously overblown, and can he admit those were totally false? Vaccines did not cause mass death, did not turn anyone gay, did not make people sterile, did not implant little tracking devices in our bloodstreams, and vaccinated people weren’t spreading the virus. (When my teen got vaccinated, he mentioned it at school and a kid in his class didn’t want to sit by him because the kid thought he could catch covid from a vaccinated person.)
And then he went and said that he believes that vaccinated people were spreading the virus.
Disciple, please take some classes that aren’t rightwing online vidoes. I bet you could audit some immunology classes at a local college or something. Learn the science. Don’t learn it from youtube influencers, but learn it from people who understand science.
Also, about all the persecution you faced — that totally depended on what state you were in. In my Republican state, I was afraid of wearing a mask in public because the Republicans had made such a huge deal about it. I was never accosted, but a friend of mine was verbally attacked when he wore a mask to a grocery store.
Comparing war crimes to a face mask and a vaccine shows you have lost all perspective.
Now back to the actual topic of discussion.
This post is well-researched and well-organized. During the protests after George Floyd was murdered by the police, I learned the difference in accountability between police and soldiers. Police get immunity while soldiers can be prosecuted for breaking laws. Police ought to be held to the same standards as soldiers. And I mightily hope that the Republican war crimes are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The fact that our rich and powerful country is flaunting international law is going to unite the world against us.
The phrase “the banality of evil” has been on my mind recently and I was glad to see it in this post. Also the point about how the Nazis who were committing war crimes were just ordinary people who loved their family and were kind to animals. That’s important. For myself, I’ve concluded that it’s dangerous to label ourselves or someone else as a good person or a bad person. Instead, we should evaluate actions. Someone who thinks he’s a good person may rationalize evil actions because his intentions are pure. Yet there’s a reason this aphorism exists: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
It’s been frightening to see the rightwing Christians start to label empathy as a sin, or a weakness that the left exploits. Empathy is the pre-eminent Christian virtue. The difference between good actions and bad actions is the effect actions have on people. Once you’ve gotten rid of empathy, you can’t see the effect your actions have on people. And that starts laying paving stones on the road to hell.
And of course, the ability to evaluate the effect of your actions on people requires facts. Actual information. Evidence. Science. All those things that the rightwing propaganda machine has destroyed.
(Disciple, the rightwing panic about the covid vaccines was caused by rightwing misinformation. Everything you learned about vaccines from rightwing sources was wrong. Seriously, it’s a shot that makes your arm sore for a couple of hours and the fact that you think that’s somehow comparable to war crimes is evidence of how deeply you swallowed that propaganda.)
Mormons have an authoritarianism problem. Others have explained it eloquently and I have very little to add. In my TBM years, I occasionally said something hurtful and rationalized by telling myself that I was just following the published lesson plan or being honest about the Lord’s moral truths. I wish I could find and apologize to those people. The Church’s constant drumbeat of obedience persuades individuals to give up their own moral compass to the Church. I fell for it for years.
Disciple, I’m thinking of starting a campaign specifically aimed at MAGA encouraging them to forego vaccines of all kinds as well as to avoid medical treatment in every case. We don’t need no stinking vaccines. Or doctors or nurses (who are among those obligated to report 6abuse). Vaccines for tetanus, rubella, mumps, shingles, Hepatitis A & B, rabies, measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, polio and a long list of other diseases would be included. Might make the death rate go up in Red States, but, hey, West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky,Tennessee, Ohio, Missouri, and South Carolina have a lot of experience with that. Are you on board?
as the tRumpist caretaker who lied about being vaccinated and infected my 94 year old Mother with Covid, which killed her within a week, motivated by fear or a complete disregard for her charge? Damn right I’m afraid of the unvaccinated. And the States I mentioned show why.
“Whataboutism is a rhetorical device where an accusation or criticism is met with a counter-accusation or by deflecting the conversation to a different issue, often using a “but what about…?” structure. This tactic is used to avoid addressing the original point by shifting blame, discrediting the accuser, or creating a false sense of moral equivalency. It is a common tool in propaganda, politics, and personal arguments, used to distract from a problem or to suggest that the original criticism is hypocritical.”
“Many of the Nazi leaders had very high IQs”
That’s a terrifying thing, isn’t it. The sad truth is that many of the Trumpists and right-wing propagandists are incredibly smart people. They’re just cynical. Thinking that lying, cheating, intimidation, and violating the law are basic necessities for survival in politics. It would be required of them if they were on the other side, so they argue. They’re obsessed with whataboutism and bothsidesism as vajra2 points out.
In the Mormon context, I used to be conservative politically. Then as I migrated out of the church, I became increasingly liberal. I thought that that was the natural trajectory. Boy was I wrong. In the ex-Mormon community I found all sorts of brash Trumpists, conspiracy theorists, libertarians, anti-liberals, etc. I still think that the truest intellectual, one who believes in real threats to humanity (climate change and other environmental problems, not wokeism being fascism and other boogeyman crap rolled out endlessly by conservative propagandists), human rights, freedom, scientific consensus, and progress, naturally allies him or herself with US liberalism and mainline progressivism. And I still think that I’m generally correct, even though there are exceptions. Academia most certainly tends liberal. And that is not because of some secret bias, programming, or liberal boogeyman. That is because true thinking naturally leads one to ideas and causes that are espoused in American liberal and progressive communities. In cutthroat environments, such as business, politics, and law, we get a lot more cynics. And often times these cynics view people at large as ignorant and study how to take advantage of them for power and money. Hence movement conservatism. A small group of very intelligent elites who play dumb in front of the cameras for their ignorant audiences, but behind the scenes know exactly what they’re doing. For people who seriously study history, sociology, anthropology, the environment, astrophysics, and a number of other fields, (and who have a soul and actually care about people) it is unthinkable to be a conservative. Because you study facts about the earth and about humanity in large number that will naturally lead you to espouse liberal ideas and ideals. I think this happened in Germany. Nazism was a fluke. The overwhelming majority of German intellectuals were liberals. They hated Nazism. They knew it was garbage. And that is what has prevailed today in Germany. One of the most intellectual, advanced, immigrant-accepting, environmentally conscious, and progressive countries on planet earth. I had the opportunity to visit Germany for the first time a few months ago. Loved it. People were great.
Brad D: “I had the opportunity to visit Germany for the first time a few months ago. Loved it. People were great.” I agree with you. The food was mid, but the people are among the best Europe has to offer. Why is that? IMO, it’s because the children of the WW2 generation forced a reckoning with what their parents did during the war–unlike many surrounding European nations. If you continue to Distance > Deny > Deflect, you fail to learn the lessons of history.
Re: the Covid hobby horse topic, as others have commented, there are several points on which I think we can all (now) agree: schools probably shouldn’t have been shut down as long as they were, and without widespread vaccine adoption of course the pandemic would continue to spread. Additionally, the virus evolved through several different variations over time, as viruses do. Hearing anyone refer to the Covid restrictions that medical doctors and virologists recommended as “tyranny” or that people who didn’t adhere were barred from all polite society and made second class is pretty damn rich in light of actual citizens being targeted with violence based on their skin color (“Papers please” is a phrase familiar to all who study Nazis). It sounds a whole lot like high school kids complaining about the “tyranny” of school uniforms. Are school uniforms dumb? Yeah, sure. Are they tyranny? Let’s keep some perspective.
Interesting that I just got an email from the NYTimes Opinion today by David French, on the subject of war crimes. He ends with this statement:
“The pride of an American soldier isn’t just rooted in our lethality. It’s rooted in our sense of honor. It’s rooted in our compassion. We believe ourselves to be different because we so often behave differently.
Hegseth, however, has a different vision, one of unrestrained violence divorced from congressional and legal accountability. If that vision becomes reality, he won’t reform the military — he’ll wreck it. And he’ll wreck it in the worst way possible, by destroying its integrity, by stripping its honor, and by rejecting the hard-earned lessons and vital values that have made the American military one of the most-trusted institutions in the United States.”
David French
New York Times Op
Dec 3, 2025
One of my memories from visiting Dachau is the sign over the gate, “work will set you free” which sounded totally inappropriate, and also something you would hear at church.
As for disciple and covid. Americas trust in its institutions had been undermined by republicans/trump. Other parts of the world still trust our health department’s advice.
Our motivation in following their advice was not fear, but respect, and concern for the lives of fellow citizens.
America lost 1,228,289 lives to covid at the rate of 3596/million. Canada’s rate was 1424/ million and Australia’s rate was 964/million.
S0 there was some ideological/ political difference between how Australia and the USA responded to the Covid. As disciple has been explaining. Because of that difference 899,015 Americans died, who would not have died if America did what Australia did.
THAT LOOKS LIKE A WAR CRIME TO ME.
I also see Israel, supplied by America as committing war crimes in Palestine, and Russia supported by trump committing war crimes in Ukraine.
On my Facebook it says the head of the EU has suggested that if Trump wants to give putin territory; rather than give him parts of Ukraine he might instead give him Alaska. What do you think?
FWIW, I found the first question to be forced – “Do you think Mormons have a loyalty problem? An authoritarianism problem?” in a blog post that was expressly about war crimes committed in earlier generations, and how there are overtones of those same justifications/logic/arguments with respect to government action today … and then the first question is about Mormons? It just seems jarring. But perhaps you were really trying to lead to that question more along the lines of “Do you think that the culture inculcated over time makes Mormons more likely to be loyal in a manner that would make them more susceptible to the type of logic Goering articulated?” Which, even then, still seems like a forced connection. This is a human nature issue, it seems to be, when boiled down to its essence. Any Mormonism time seems, to me, to be more scaffolding than source.
I found Jacob L’s anecdote about the bishop to be compelling – how I wish we could inculcate that attitude more, not just in a church but in our schools and everywhere else. Wish I could, and do, inculcate that attitude in my children.
In a religious context, the question about whether the film made Goering more sympathetic is an interesting one. We want so badly, I think, for things to be black and white – our heroes to never make mistakes, or enemies to never do something good. Life really is complex! I still believe that truly evil actions should be called out and dealt with. People should be held to account for implementing atrocious policies, just like those that commit heinous acts in the name of such policies should as well. But how do we also accommodate the reality that someone’s child, someone’s sibling, someone’s parent, someone’s friend, is also someone that can be redeemed? It’s a hard contradiction to process, and I think it’s a contradiction that I will (and feel like I should) be working through my whole life.
I watched “Judgment At Nuremberg” earlier this year. Profoundly moving. The “good Germans” were often not evil, corrupt, or depraved. They were simply indifferent. “Bad things are happening and we do not approve but we will not object because…we will get beyond this”. “We are going through a bad patch”. “He is doing some good, I think.” “There are people I look down on and perhaps their treatment is a bit harsh, but you have to break some crockery.” “There are good people on both sides.” “Arbeit Macht Frei.”
Adam F: That’s fair. I honestly sometimes don’t know how to link these topics to Mormonism exactly. I think they are important human questions, ethical dilemmas, areas where discussion is important. But when I haven’t linked things to the church, I get push back from commenters saying basically to leave this stuff to Ezra Klein, it’s a “Mormon blog” and “stay in your lane.” So it doesn’t always connect in an obvious way. It might have been easier to make the right connections if I had talked about the fact that Mormon Nazis, including the bishop who excommunicated Helmuth Huebner, were embraced by their new Utah ward after they left Germany, but tbh, I didn’t watch the Truth & Treason film, and I don’t feel personally well versed in the church’s Nazi problems of yesteryear. Their Trump problems of today may reveal a similar characteristic, but it feels like the direct line is broken. When Benson was going full Birch society, most people I knew saw him as a dangerous crackpot. Now, his fanatical views and racist, sexist conspiratorial thinking are pretty mainstream GOP.
If any of you are on Substack, you can check out my “secular” version of this post there: https://substack.com/home/post/p-180747030
I was listening to an article that cited Pete Hegseth’s book and his disdain for the Geneva Conventions. Apparently, he wrote a book titled “The War on Warriors” in which he essentially pooh-poohs the rules of engagement and the standards and norms enshrined in the Geneva Convention.
I wanted to respond briefly to what Brad D said about conservatism vs. liberalism. I really do try to evaluate each idea on its merits rather than through an ideological prism. There are conservative ideas I agree with, and there are liberal ideas I agree with. Quite frankly, the very notion of what counts as “conservative” has shifted dramatically in the Trump era (tariffs, borders, small government/deficit spending, etc.). All that aside, I’m finding myself more open to the idea that maybe the pendulum has swung too far toward a restrained, micromanaged military—especially in a rapidly changing environment. I’m certainly not giving my blessing to or condoning the strike on the Venezuelan boats or the “second strike” of the 2 shipwrecked individuals, but I am more open to the idea that the business of training a lethal fighting force is something I may not really understand, since I’ve never had to fight in the armed forces.
One argument I’ve heard is that mandatory minimum sentencing removes a judge’s ability to give nuanced, measured sentences based on vastly different facts. I suppose I’m open to that kind of judicious approach. So even though I don’t find myself agreeing with much of what Pete Hegseth has done—and I pretty much loathe everything he stands for—I’m still inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to military personnel who have to undergo what is essentially a DNA-level transformation and become killing machines in a way few civilians can comprehend. I don’t know what that means in practice or how to reconcile honor with lethality, but I do question whether a set of Geneva Conventions can adequately litigate every complex decision faced in situations involving truly horrific people. I just wonder if we’re guilty of a bit too much armchair quarterbacking.
One of the reasons for mandatory minimum sentencing was to mitigate the wide disparity in sentencing engendered by the personal biases of judges.
Jacob L, I think you’re missing the point. The attack on the Venezuelan boat has its roots in conservative jingoistic xenophobia. Conservatism has long beat the war drum. They’ve long pushed the idea that ‘Murica can just flex its muscles (in other words bomb and kill people, because diplomacy is for wimps) and that that will done learn them bad guys a lesson. Before the 2024 election, Trump and his propagandists were floating the idea of going to war with Mexico in order to take out the drug cartels (Trump and Trumpists have always been war and conflict hungry, Trump’s idea of being a peacemaker was always a lie). Conservatives had long fantasized about bombing Iran and spurned any and all diplomatic approaches towards preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon (Trump only made things worse by tearing up the Iran deal). Conservatism got us into Iraq (two times) where we learned Saddam a lesson and brought about a stable and flourishing country, right?
The second part of the issue is human rights, which conservatives really don’t seem to care about when it comes to immigrants, drug traffickers, and terrorists. For conservatives, it is worth it to violate human rights in the war on drugs. It is worth it to violate human rights to reduce the number of migrants to the US. True justice demands that we handle the most egregious criminal acts with decorum and without cruel and unusual punishment. Christianity (Jesus was a liberal) demands that we turn the other cheek and be forgiving. And yet Megyn Kelly just a couple of days ago said that she has no sympathy for drug traffickers and hoped that we could cut off their limbs and make them bleed out a while before killing them, so in essence torture them to death. Think of the most heinous criminal in the US. What is supposed to happen to them? We try them before a court of law and give them a sentence if found guilty. Worst case, they go to prison where they eat regular meals, have shelter, access to sanitation, and do not have corporal punishment (with the exception of the death penalty, which is carried out by lethal injection). That was the vision of the Founding Fathers. I don’t care what you think conservatism is, was, or is supposed to be. Conservatism is what it’s leading figures say it is, and their message is overwhelmingly jingoistic, xenophobic, and against even basic human rights upon which a modern free world has to be based upon.
Geoff,
I find your scapegoating of Trump in the loss of trust in government health policies so interesting. For even in “successful Australia” the people were turned off from what the government imposed. From au dot news dot yahoo there is an article about Australia’s Covid-19 response headlined, “Really did erode trust.” The article states:
Former deputy chief medical officer Nick Coatsworth has issued an apology following the release of a report into Australia’s Covid-19 response. The final report into Australia’s large-scale Covid-19 response has warned the government that it needs to “rebuild trust” with the public, with “many of the measures taken during Covid-19 unlikely to be accepted by the population again”.
…….
News site abc dot net dot au confirms the yahoo report with an article headlined “Review of COVID response finds Australians unlikely to accept lockdowns again.” This article explains:
Australia’s COVID-19 response frayed after early successes, damaging the public’s trust and making it unlikely that lockdowns or other harsh restrictions will be tolerated again, a federal government review has found.
…….
Why did so many government officials violate human rights? It is because they embraced the idea that the greatest public good was minimizing Covid casualties. We must appreciate that government officials believed they were serving the public good! The problem was they went about it with a single mindedness that made them blind to the social and personal costs and the immorality of what they were doing. And yes, denying people dying in a care center from being visited by family is immoral, and that was just one of many immoral policies.
Any and all policies advanced as for the “public good” must be challenged. For it is in the advancement of the “public good” that the most horrific social destruction has been enacted. Certainly the NAZI leadership thought they were advancing the public good. Mao Zedong, in China, argued he was promoting the public good with his “Great Leap Forward”. The result was one of the greatest famines in world history and the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge advanced the public good in Cambodia and millions died as a result.
Google AI explains: “To justify extreme measures for the “public good,” governments may demonize those who are opposed or designated as obstacles This rhetoric can lead to the systemic removal, imprisonment, or extermination of entire groups of people, as seen in historical events like genocides or political purges.”
A very good indicator of whether government is tyrannical is the government becomes intolerant of dissent. I expect government officials to disagree with criticism. It is when those officials make criticism illegal and dissent is blocked from public broadcast that we should be extremely concerned.
Brad D
When I graduated from BYU, Dick Cheney spoke at the graduation ceremony. At the time, I strongly considered walking out in protest. I did not, but I was active in protesting the US Iraq war and was vehemently opposed to the invasion of Iraq. I’m not a war-hawk. But I’m also clear-eyed with respect to foreign policy. I strongly believe in standing up against Russia and supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes. With regards to Venezuela, I don’t support any of the military strikes that have been done there. I do think we need some form of escalation in the war on supply though. We should just arrest and try these individuals.
I do think the cartels have amassed such strength in Mexico that some form of military action is likely warranted. But this should be in coordination and cooperation with the Mexican government. To be honest. Asa Hutchinson had the best and most comprehensive plan for dealing with narco traffickers when I watched the GOP primaries. He was also one of the most moral, upright GOP members who steadfastly opposed Trump and his insurrection and felt he was unqualified to hold office. So I am very careful not to paint all conservatives with a broad brush. Joe Biden, who I consider the best president of my lifetime, also voted for military intervention in Iraq.
One more thing I wanted to say about Venezuela: Nicolas Maduro was in all likelihood not duly elected and implemented widespread fraud to stay in power. María Corina Machado should be the president right now. Venezuela’s mass migration is the largest exodus in the hemisphere’s recent history. About 8 million people have fled the country due to a prolonged political and economic crisis that has led to poverty, violence, and a lack of basic necessities.
I used to manage a large apartment complex in Murray, and I housed many Venezuelan migrants seeking TPS. It’s super ironic that the current administration that effectively waged an insurrection and coordinated political coup to try and stay in power in 2020 is now on the verge of waging war against Venezuela. Marco Rubio knows that Maduro is illegally in power and so does the rest of the western world. I suspect that the narco trafficker attacks on drugs are simply a pretext for regime change. Do I support this? I do not. But I am also not privy to US intelligence. If Jair Bolsonaro had successfully staged a coup against Lula and remained in power (he plotted to have Lula assasinated), would the US or some other international force have been justified in a targeted strike? These are hard questions. I’m open to considering them.
A Disciple,
The downvotes speak for themselves. You’ve made your point. We don’t agree. Not all tyrannies are the same. Move along.
Jacob L,
Does giving the benefit of the doubt to boat attacks in International waters all in the name of the war on drugs also require us to simply look the other way when Trump pardons the former Honduran president who was actually convicted of drug trafficking? Or the idea that following illegal orders is not a valid defense. Why does understanding these issues require some military credential? The former seems something anyone with critical thinking skills can understand while the latter standard applies to all sorts of professions. Am I misunderstanding?
Do Mormons have a loyalty problem? Well when the current prophet is on record saying no apologies required and it’s not appropriate to criticize leaders even if the criticism is factual seems akin to the Mormons telling the Trump merch crowd to hold their dirty soda. Also in my lifetime it seems most prominent excommunications were about loyalty rather than being about protecting us from fellow congregant sex offenders, for example. YMMV.
“Does giving the benefit of the doubt to boat attacks in International waters all in the name of the war on drugs also require us to simply look the other way when Trump pardons the former Honduran president who was actually convicted of drug trafficking?”
Absolutely not. I condemn in the strongest terms possible the pardoning of Honduran president. It makes a mockery of the rule of law and spits in the face of our justice system and victims of crime and and death related to drug use and its manufacturing and distribution. It clearly was a stupid decision by our president. I’m not arguing at all in favor of any of the actions in Venezuela regarding boat strikes, the 2nd strike, or even a potential invasion. But I do admit that I don’t have a good answer for how to handle someone who is illegally in power, like Nicolas Maduro and whether that would justify external force, external sanctions, or what type of pressure would work or be appropriate for removing him from office short of military action.
Chadwick,
What I think is happening globally is that China is conducting a reverse Opium War in which the British Empire humiliated the Qing dynasty and had devastating of narcotic addiction on the health of the body politic of China.
I think what China is doing through permissive distribution of fentanyl precursors via Mexico, south America, and from China directly is their version of payback on the Western world. I also think they are using the digital equivalent of addiction (TikTok) to undermine US productivity and social structures.
I have respect for free speech and I don’t know the right answer for how to regulate social media, but I do feel that the US needs to take seriously cutting off the supply of illicit drugs. I’ve treated enough addicts in the ER to know that some people are quite simply beyond saving. The best we can do is harm reduction and triage, but then take better steps so the next generation completely avoids these life-destroying drug cycles (yes, I blame the Sackler Family and the US pharmacological complex).
China is very disingenuous when it tries to deflect from its role in the decimation and ruined lives of so many Americans when it says the US simply “needs to focus on the demand side” of the equation. That is like giving my 11-yo son a smart phone telling him to make good decisions. It’s just not a fair fight.
I agree there have to be efforts to curb drugs. But always, we will have to tolerate some drug distribution and usage. I think we could be pretty effective at reducing drug abuse if we killed anyone we found distributing or using drugs. But to do so would violate human rights in the extreme. The fact of the matter is that both the supply and demand for drugs are simply too high to eliminate entirely without abusing human rights. Somewhere we have to draw the line and accept that some things have to slip through the cracks if we want to maintain justice and due process. Combatting drug distribution has to be complex and laborious, unfortunately. Some drugs have to be legalized and regulated such as marijuana. For, the prisons are becoming too crowded and too many prisoners are there simply on drug charges.
Jacob L: If you haven’t read Edward Rutherfurd’s book China, you might really enjoy it. He’s a historical fiction writer, but very well researched, and he brings the Opium Wars to life in a very vivid way. Yes, it was horrible what colonizers did to China, and totally illegal, but then again, colonizing nations have long been willing to wink at piracy.
I agree with the assessment that this is probably about regime change since these drugs are not US-bound, and they are not the ones that are currently afflicting rural America. Don Jr’s the coke addict, not Appalacia. But why not sieze the boats and the drugs, and then try to take down the whole narco empire, not just the drug runners? It’s a lot easier to claim that we are taking out “narco terrorists” (a made up term) when the evidence and witnesses have been destroyed. Why were the survivors, who were apparently just fishermen, returned to their own countries with no charges filed? Seems sus.
Brad D
“Some drugs have to be legalized and regulated such as marijuana.”
Decriminalize, yes. Legalize, no. Please go talk to an ER physician or psychiatrist and ask her opinion of marijuana, schizophrenia, or cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome. There is a huge disconnect between the public perception’s of marijuana as harmless and what is actually happening. Marijuana is destroying the younger generation’s brain. We need to roll back the legalization of marijuana. No need to fill up prison’s with marijuana users, but we shouldn’t be legalizing recreational marijuana.
As America’s Marijuana Use Grows, So Do the Risks
The drug trade is Capitalism’s wet dream: supply and demand. Narco trafficking is simply a going concern.
Just a reminder that smoking causes about 8,000,000 deaths a year. All perfectly legal.