A Journalist.
The fail on this is rather strong indeed.
Gawker: The GOP Just Named its Hot New Innovation Lab After a Nazi Pistol
The Republican National Committee today excitedly announced the launch of a new startup lab to bring techies and creatives together, Silicon Valley-style, to get Republicans elected. Oh, and they named it for a Nazi gun, a type of ammo, and a philosophy that puts war before peace.
Actually no, no they didn't. To claim they did is to ignore history, etymology and common sense.
You see the reporter is rather ignorant of history, Latin, and firearms nomenclature and uses this ignorance to tar Republicans with an ideology and outcome far more associated with the Left.
Really, most Americans, until Mr. Weinstein of Gawker, did not go around calling the Pistole 08, or P.08, invented by Luger "Parabellums".
Instead most everyone called them Lugers, and still do. Indeed many person just call every German pistol a Luger, including the Walther P-38, which is not a Luger.
Weinstein confabulates the origin of the term Parabellum and tries to tie it to the Nazis.
Look, Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus, known to us these days as Vegetius, coined the phrase para bellum in his work De Re Militari, which was written around 430-435 AD, or a solid 1500 years before the Nazis came to power.
Clearly, Vegetius was just a Nazi before his time.
Furthermore, Vegetius' philosphy, expressed as Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum - If you wish for peace, prepare for war. However, it did not place war before peace but instead advocated that without a strong and capable military, a nation would be at risk of attack from its opponents. It's pretty clear Weinstein has never actually read Vegetius before egregiously slandering the greatest extant military manual from ancient times as "a philosophy that puts war before peace".
Much later then Vegetius writing, the parabellum cartridge was developed in Germany, so at least he's geographically closer. But, they did it in 1902, again predating the Nazi era, though by not quite so considerable an amount. The Luger pistol itself was invented in 1908, again predating the Nazis rather nicely. To call it a Nazi cartridge and pistol is quite the stretch and a gross inaccuracy,
Of course, you know who uses the 9mm Parabellum today - The US Armed Forces. Therefore according to Weinstein the US Army would be . . . . ?
Contra Weinstein, the term "parabellum" has no "Hitlerite baggage", at least not outside his fevered imagination anyways.
In other words, Mr. Weinstein is stretching and confabulating the truth, and stretching it rather badly to try and score cheap political points.
I certainly hope Mr. Weinstein doesn't drive a Volkswagen, as after all that car company was actually created by, you know, the Nazis. Not that if he ever owned or ever drove one would make Mr. Weinstein a Nazi supporter or anything...
3 comments:
The idiocy of some people leaves me breathless.
Not only that, but the P08 was not a Nazi invention. It predates World War I. Not to mention that the US Army included a .45 ACP "Luger" pistol in it's trials that ended in the selection of the 1911 as the standard US sidearm. It did well, and might have been a US classic as well as a German one.
What a flaming schnook!
OldAFSarge - I know as soon as you think you've seen it all, along comes an even more idiotic idiot.
Scott - Yes indeed, 1908 predates the Nazis and World War 1 both. Next I expect he'll inveigh against Republicans using cars and trucks, because yep, you guessed it, the Nazis used cars and trucks too!
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