Quote:
Originally Posted by Ironhorse
Sorry, but it seems that you are really reaching here, to support her.
I would expect a social worker with a master's degree to have heard about and know what Auschwitz was.
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Oh, I'm not worried about supporting her. She could be a blithering idiot for all I know.
I just don't like it when an article doesn't present the whole story, or focuses on trivia rather than substance.
It's surprising what information slips through some people's educations. For example, when I moved out from Calgary, I was amazed how many people in BC had never heard of Adam Smith (when the topic of capitalism came up in conversation). Coming from Alberta I was totally blown away - he was presented as the counterpart of Karl Marx in my high school upbringing, a really well known historical figure. But there you go - not everyone gets the same education about everything.
And it really is trivia in the end. Whether or not she's heard of Auschwitz is way less significant that whether she's ever heard of the Nazi death camps and the Holocaust generally, and her views on same. But the article is incomplete there too.
I guess what I'm saying is that (1) we can't criticize her for making crude comments about Auschwitz because we don't even know if the photo she was commenting on was clearly identified as Auschwitz; and (2) we can criticize her for not knowing some basic trivia, but not for anything of substance like her views on Nazi death camps or the education of Canadians about the topic.
So basically the whole thing boils down to "she's a bad politician because she didn't know what Auschwitz was," which isn't very interesting really.