Both slogans are strong, generalized statements. As such, they label an entire group of people and, by their internal logic, do not allow for any exceptions. This is the basic reason why these and similar slogans are not just factually wrong, but actually advance goals counter to those of the people most commonly using the slogans.

The police and the military (as organizations) are agents of the state and they execute the policies undertaken by the state. Thus, each individual police officer and soldier executing the policies of the police or military are state agents. However, they are also humans. According to an employment consulting agency, the median salary of a police officer in the United States is USD 50 348. This is noticeably higher than the median income of all full-time workers in the United States, which is USD 39 336. However, this absolute difference still places them not far above the income median (extrapolating from a chart regarding household income inequality). In short, police officers are not particularly financially privileged and they suffer from issues similar to other employed persons (fear of unemployment, rising expenses, etc.) and should thus, as individuals, not be regarded to belong to the oppressive elite which controls the state.

Why, then, are they still addressed as the enemy by many in the form of ACAB? The slogan serves to humanize and individualize a conflict which should be waged against an oppressive system. Individualizing the abstract, unclear “system” and distilling it down to any given human agent of the state is exactly what shields such a system from direct attack. Instead of attacking the oppressive system, people who subscribe to ACAB psychologically or physically attack their fellow people and thus follow the misdirection and obfuscation of the system. Divide et impera works.

ACAB and similar slogans are therefore nothing but instruments of oppression. They are fundamentally counterrevolutionary.

That’s better.

I will disregard the easier argument against such slogans as to their factual truth. Suffice to say that one police office who is not a bastard and one soldier who has never killed anyone render them wrong.

Antizionism after Auschwitz is, necessarily, antisemitism.

It got me thinking about a question which, I believe, influences many discussions on the Shoa (Holocaust), on the establishment and status of the state of Israel and on antisemitism:

Is (or was) the Shoa a historically unique occurrence?

Particularly on the political right, there appears to exist a notion that, since the Shoa is “in the past anyway” and has been stopped, there is no ‘need’ for Israel. On the other hand, many people point to the fact that rabid antisemitism still exists around the globe, from the subtle modern critique of “conspiring financial institutions” to the extreme Neonazis and Islamists who openly call for the eradication of all Jews.

Therefore I think it is important to consider the ultimate historic significance of the Shoa, in particular with regard to some seemingly discordant thoughts.

Please not that I am not a historian, nor do I have any other formal qualifications in this field. Also note that this post does not discuss the murder of people who were killed by the Nazis for reasons other than being Jewish.

Definition of ‘uniqueness’

When we wish to establish whether the Shoa was unique it might be useful to take a look at other historical genocides. Of course the definition of ‘genocide’ is hotly debated, but surely we agree that the Shoa was genocide.

Comparing the Shoa with other genocides in pure numbers shows that other historical genocides (such as the Armenian genocide or the Holodomor) at least approach the Shoa in number of people killed. However, any comparison by number must fail when we consider that even a single murdered human is innumerably terrible, regardless of motive. The Shoa as carried out by the Nazis was a highly organized, even industrialized process. While gas chambers and crematoria are good examples of this, the earlier shooting squads and gas trucks were also carefully prepared and executed.

One point where I fail to come to a useful conclusion is that of the uniqueness of the hatred expressed in the Shoa. Was the Holocaust so terrible because of the Nazis’ amount of hatred towards Jews? Did the Ottomans hate the Armenians less than the Nazis hated the Jews?

Treatment of the Shoa as unique and its implication for political arguments

If we view the Shoa as not unique, it might be argued that Jews do not need any extraordinary protection (“bad things happened to other peoples, too“). On the other hand, even if the Shoa is assumed to be unique, people could argue for the same goal: Since it cannot happen again, it is pointless to protect Jews now. This shows that it is probably pointless to debate ‘uniqueness’. In reality, everybody deserves protection. Every group of people must be protected from genocide.

Coupled with my earlier statements, it follows that debating whether the Shoa was unique leads down an interesting, but dangerous path. We should not compare the number of lives lost, nor should we wonder whether any particular group affected by racism or genocide is more worthy of protection than another.

The idea that Jews receive preferential treatment because Israel was established is an expression of antisemitic hate and paranoia. The establishment of Israel (whether you want to see it as a ‘Jewish state’ or not) is, by no means ‘preferential treatment’, but a necessity. In our world, where Jews are still the object of violent, genocidal hatred (even in countries like the USA or Germany, which would normally be considered secure), a safe haven is essential. Finally, the argument of preferential treatment is a universal aspect of ethnic hatred and is usually used to discredit any attempt of a persecuted group to receive protection.

Personal thoughts as an Austrian

Could the Shoa repeat? The fact that so many other genocides have taken place is indication to me that the Shoa is not unique in its demonstration of man’s potential and willingness to be cruel. However, the Shoa hits close to home. Austria and Austrians had leading roles in the Shoa, and antisemitism remains a strong force here after the end of World War II. When I walk through Vienna, I see Stolpersteine (small, cobblestone-sized memorials for an individual victim of Nazism) every day. I wish the Shoa was unique. I wish it could not repeat.

I thank my friend Sarah for providing very valuable input and edits to this post.

Theory: People accustomed to continental civil law system don’t fully appreciate purpose + potential of lawsuits. I’ll blog about it…

— Florian Prischl (@flo_p) Juli 11, 2012

Lawsuits are not a pleasant activity for most people. They are complicated, jargon-riddled exercises, and very often exercises of futility. They cost time, sweat and money.

However, lawsuits serve a fundamental, often overlooked purpose: They are actions for justice. Each and every lawsuit, as a principle, is a series of acts intended to correct some flaw in society and, through such correction, lead to more justice. Of course, what counts as “justice” will vary wildly from society to society, and some societies will use laws lawsuits to deprive people of their inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

A second disclaimer is, unfortunately, also necessary: While I praise the fundamental function of lawsuits, I know that in all societies, they are flawed processes both by intention and design, and that through such deficiencies they can lead to monstrous injustice. Just to name a few examples, lawsuits are used to simply harass people, destroy their livelihoods or even kill them, effects which are sometimes achieved already with the threat of a lawsuit (a fact which, by itself, shows the perversity of the system we chose to uphold).

Back on message: Lawsuits and their outcomes (judgments, court orders, etc.) are the judiciary’s only means of interaction with the rest of the state. The judiciary’s primary function in a state with separated powers (legislative, executive, and judiciary) is to ensure that the executive is held to the laws enacted by the legislature. That explains my earlier statement that lawsuits and their outcomes serve justice – recall that laws are, primarily, enacted by society to enact justice. When laws are broken without consequences, there can be no justice.

“But the executive is only the government and its agents! How does this concern me?” you might ask. In fact, the executive branch of the state, the power that brings laws to life, is everyone in the state – government, its agents, private citizens and corporations. When you buy a pair of shoes, you (and the person you buy from) rely upon and enact laws just like a police officer when she arrests someone. Executive power rests in all of us.

The judiciary’s secondary function concerns the legislative power of the state. In most societies, laws are ordered in a hierarchy; with some sort of law at the top to which all other laws must adhere (this is commonly called a constitution). A judiciary must principally adhere to that constitution and void any law which runs counter to that constitution. There are many ways to achieve this: One might be to forbid the executive from carrying out actions which might be permitted under a vague law but which violate the constitution; another might be to void a law which, while formally enacted correctly, materially violates the constitution.

What does this mean for my hypothesis? Since the judiciary watches over the executive and the legislative and since court orders (which only result from lawsuits) are the only means to carry out that watchdog function, lawsuits of all kinds are the last line of defense for justice in a rule-of-law-state.

As a result, you should use this defensive mechanism whenever you perceive injustice within the state. This is contrary to what I believe many people, mostly continental Europeans, expect from lawsuits. They view them as described above, and if they use them actively, it is only for personal gain instead of justice (although the two might be the same). Hardly any European (and no Austrian…) would think of suing the state. We need to get rid of the notion that executive power is just. Under the rule of law, only the judiciary can make sure that justice is served.

By hardly expanding my collection, I seldom listened to something new. That gap was filled mostly by radio (especially Ö1′s and FM4′s late night programming) but ever since I have been working full-time, that is out of the question all too often.

That is why came up with the following New Year’s Resolution:

New Year’s Resolution: Each week, listen to at least 2 musicians/bands I’ve never listened to before. #musiclove

— Florian Prischl (@flo_p) Januar 11, 2012

I started a weekly list of new-to-me music and publish it in a public Google Doc.

The idea met with very positive response from my friends and I have received many suggestions from all kinds of genres. You can follow my list throughout the year and I invite you to let me know about your favorite band or musician! Feel free to share with me via comment on this post, via the Google Doc or on Twitter.

Finally, to let you explore the list (or at least everything that’s on YouTube from that list), I also made a public YouTube playlist for it. Enjoy!

I can already say that it has exposed me to tons of new music I would have never thought to try. While I do not like everything I listen to under this Resolution (that is not a requirement), I have found some real gems and continue to explore new things I find on my own, but mostly through recommendations and shares from my friends.

The Windbachtal valley offers beautiful green and stone-grey vistas.

I did not, until 4 years ago. That’s when I first went on the Alpine Peace Crossing, an Alpine hike commemorating the flight of these Jews and dedicated to all refugees worldwide.
My father, brother and I participated again this year, along with about 170 others the weekend of 30 June.

Already on Friday evening, the focus of this year’s hike on Tibetan refugees was made clear. A panel of Tibetan and Chinese refugees discussed their experiences, and a short documentary movie showed the plight of young children, sent by their parents across the Himalaya into India to receive education they could not get in their homeland.

Ernst Löschner, founder of Alpine Peace Crossing, speaks at the Krimml Peace Dialogue on the eve of the Alpine Peace Crossing.

Saturday morning we set out from the Krimmler Tauernhaus, where the Jews had received good treatment and nourishment before they set out over the Alpine passes in the summer of 1947. The beautiful valley there lies around 1600 meters above sea level, and we went up a side valley towards a pasture, where we stopped for a break. There, the refugees who went with us (about 15 from all over the world) briefly told us their stories – where they come from, why and how they fled to Austria. Some of them have been in Austria for 8 years and still have not received a final decision on their asylum status.

Marko Feingold, born in 1913, tells a part of the story of how he helped smuggle 5000 fellow Jews across the alps in 1947.

Like in previous years, we were also joined by Marko Feingold, the 99-year old President of the Jewish Community Salzburg who was one of the main organizers of the 1947 operation, which had to be conducted mostly illegally and under the cover of night. Marko is an exceptional person and shows an amazing perseverance – not surprising for someone who was the first Austrian to be brought to Auschwitz concentration camp. He spoke about the 5000 Jews’ motivation to flee to Palestine, the later Israel: They had been displaced during the war; most by the Nazis, some by the Soviets or simply by a local populace with an opportunity to get rid of the Jews. None of them were welcome to return in peacetime, and a move to then-Palestine, whether motivated by Zionism or not, was their best attempt at a normal life.

The cross was already there when we arrived, but we added the Tibetan prayer flags.

When we reached the pass at 2634 meters, those refugees whose asylum proceedings were not yet completed had to stay behind because they are not allowed to leave Austria. We crossed into South Tyrol, Italy after a short Tibetan mountain ceremony.
The first town on the Italian side is Kasern, where we spent the night to return on a slightly different route the next day.

The whole group (~170 people) hiking through the Krimmler Achetal valley.

Alpine Peace Crossing is a great hike through stunning landscape. However, as we walked across the snow fields, we were reminded that the Jews who took the same route did not have high-tech hiking boots, that many of them were old, infirm, pregnant, young children, and so on. Refugees today face the same and even more perilous adversity. That they take this risk already tells us about their motivation. We should embrace and welcome them while we attempt to rid the world of the injustices that made their flight necessary.

We saw many beautiful cows along the way – and some yaks!

Beautiful flowers grew all the way to 2700 meters above sea level.

Snow and water are ubiquitous in Windbachtal. Every few steps there is another little stream of water.

My brother Andreas, just below the pass.

Hiking on snow just below the Krimml Tauern pass.

Iranian rice, prepared by frying and simultaneously steaming the rice.

Cooking is a wonderful application of chemistry and physics, and when I cook, I perform experiments: I have a hypothesis of the outcome (delicious food), I decide on a set of rules to carry out the experiment (recipe) and follow them (take the right ingredients and prepare them). If the outcome corresponds to my hypothesis, I know that the method works. For any meal, there is a maximum achievable level of tastiness (MALT) limited by the quality of the ingredients and the recipe. There is also only one MALT, which is only achieved when everything fits together perfectly. That is not to say that any other mixture will taste bad – but there is only one mixture where it will taste as good as it can. Therefore, one set of discrete values for each method provides the MALT. If you put in too much or too little salt, it will taste worse than it could. Naturally, there is a band of tastiness, a set of more than one outcomes where the meal will still taste good or even great.

Rigatoni Novelli, prepared with a recipe by Viennese restaurant Novelli.

It would be a fallacy to assume that there is only one perfect MALT. Since everybody has different tastes, everybody will have a different MALT, and while some amount of salt might lead to MALT for one person, your results may vary.

How can you apply this to your next cooking session?

1. Think about a recipe before you use it. Specifically, note the order of ingredients and how each will influence the finished meal. For example, most of the time you should add pepper as late as possible (after serving), because its tastiness (but not spiciness) decays quickly when heated.
2. Taste each ingredient (except raw meat and eggs) before you use it. Try to find its taste in the finished meal.
3. Taste the meal often, in all stages of preparation. The earlier you detect some mistake, the easier it is to correct.

If you can read German, I recommend Werner Gruber’s Die Genußformel: Kulinarische Physik (ISBN 3902404590), where I got some really great inspiration for cooking in general and its scientific nature in particular.

For English readers, less scientific, but still great writing about cooking is provided by Reverend Chef, my friend Elaine’s blog. I especially liked her posts on playing with food and on the perfect Mint Julep.

Happy Cooking!

1. I was walking home from work today through Vienna’s Stadtpark and passed some tourists who took pictures of each other. They pointed their DSLRs at each other, almost directly facing the setting sun in the west, and I doubt their photos turned out as more than an underexposed mess.
2. A friend recently asked me what camera they should buy to “shoot beautiful photos”.

Yellow Flowers in Stadtpark, where I pass through on my way to work. (Shot with my digital compact.)

Apparently, many people think that you need a great camera to take great photos. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The answer to my friend’s question is “it doesn’t matter” and the rising number of tourists I see carrying a DSLR are really just lugging around excess weight.

Photographers make good photos, not cameras. While it is good to have an at least somewhat-decent camera, hardly anybody actually needs a DSLR with interchangeable lenses today. Compact cameras such as Canon’s PowerShot G line or the Sony CyberShot DSC-H series offer relatively better optics than what typical DLSR kit lenses offer and are much cheaper. While the typical DSLR sensor is larger (and therefore better) than that of a compact, I find that it hardly matters in day-to-day applications; anybody who does more than just hobbyist “prosumer” work will get a high-end system anyway (which costs at least eight times as much as a high-end compact).

How much of a good photo is created by the camera? I would say not more than 10%, maybe 20%. The other 80-90% are all the work of the photographer, and some small corrections in the set-up will go a long way in the finished photograph. (Hint: Don’t take a photo with the sun directly in front of the lens!) I have owned a DSLR for several years now, but stopped using it a while ago and replaced it with two other things: Analog cameras and a digital compact.

I was lucky to inherit some high-quality analog equipment from my grandfather, who was a professional photographer. This equipment is what I use almost exclusively when I want to do ”serious”, more-or-less thought-out photography (as you can see on my Flickr profile). For everything else – such as snapshots of everywhere I go – I have a compact digital camera which cost me about EUR 250. This is a relatively high price for a compact, but still little when compared to even the most basic DSLR sets. I am absolutely content with the quality of the photos and have, so far, never missed my DSLR when it came to shooting digital photos. I carry around the compact wherever I go, which would be impossible with the DSLR.

So why do “regular” folk still use a DSLR? Certainly there is a lot of prestige associated with them and they have a reputation for better image quality. That, however, is wrong for all intents and purposes of an average user. Don’t be afraid to pay a little less – you will appreciate the flexibility and comfort of a digital compact over a DSLR’s weight and unwieldiness!

In Western Liberal Democracies (a term we use in debating to denote a more or less coherent group of countries where classically liberal and democratic values are largely observed), the general idea has been to maintain liberal societies, where the state may only prohibit some specific actions which society deems harmful or dangerous.

I don’t think we live in such a society any more (if we ever have). More specifically, it does not seem that people think this way. Instead, when I hear people complain about something, they ask “Why is this permitted?”, “Why does the state allow this?” or “I can’t believe this is allowed!” Such statements express a sentiment that everything is prohibited unless allowed (and, even worse: allowed specifically only be the state, an authority we did not create ourselves). Where does this sentiment come from?

Maybe it is a reaction to our innate idea that one is always right. Accordingly, ideas or actions that do not correspond to one’s own values should be prohibited. In a society, what is right and wrong is determined not by individuals, so what society regards as wrong is prohibited. This is fine when it concerns ideas or actions definitely harmful to others (murder, for example). However, when you think you’re right and everything else is wrong, of course everything else will also be useless or even harmful and should be prohibited. Murder is a good example where societal ethics and morals trump individual advantage. Being able to take a defend your ideas in public (freedom of expression) is a good example where personal (or small-group) interests trump societal rules (that the protesters are wrong).

Belief in authority also plays a big part. I avoid saying “trust in authority”, because in my experience, people do not have much trust in real-world authority (that is, state actors such as the police). Rather, they believe that there is some more-or-less natural, mythical high authority; something that understands them and what they (or society) want and believe. This is where such people’s question of “Why is this permitted?” comes from. Surprisingly, belief in authority lasts very long. The Habsburg empire, which had a relatively solid, well-run and far-reaching bureaucracy, impacts people’s life in Central Europe to this day, as people in areas formerly subject to Habsburg rule still trust and believe in authority more than people in other areas. (Full paper: Becker/Boeckh/Hainz/Woessmann - The Empire Is Dead, Long Live the Empire! Long-Run Persistence of Trust and Corruption in the Bureaucracy)

Austrians are particularly susceptible to belief in authority, as it provides a convenient way to absolve oneself of any responsibility (Austrians hate responsibility). Anybody who has ever held a party in Vienna can confirm this: Your neighbors will not ask you to be quiet; they simply call the police to do that job for them.

That said, it becomes clear that most societies live somewhere between liberalism and prohibitivism. Sure, the law is liberal, but there are so many laws, rules and regulations and they are so vague that is becomes impossible to decide if a certain action is actually prohibited or not.

What can we do about that? We need to assume more responsibility for ourselves, because with responsibility comes authority. If you can honestly say that you are responsible and liable for your actions, you have authority over those actions and everything associated with them. If we take individual responsibility for society serious, the result will be more individual authority instead of deferring to the vague notion of state power.

There is not enough debate in our world. We have plenty of quarreling, name-calling and talking past the point; however, most public discussions are no more than each participant positing their views as unshakable truth. Little if any convincing is ever attempted. I seriously believe this is a big problem in public discourse. Yes, we should argue, fight and battle with words—because you might be wrong, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk! I want to argue, persuade and convince. I expect others to do the same, which eventually leads to meaningful debate as we start to understand why we want to convince each other. From there, it is a small step to actually understand an opponents’ position and maybe not accept, but at least appreciate it.

What I blog:

Lots of things pass through my head every day, and this blog aims to document those that keep me pondering for more than an hour or so. Specifically, I want to focus on issues of law and economics, debating and public discourse, liberty and individualism, state action and policy as well as daily politics. You should still find plenty of distraction when I blog about photography and food.

Occasionally I might blog in German, especially on topics mostly relevant only to Austria. I apologize in advance.

Who I am:

I was born in 1986, grew up mostly in Austria and have lived in Vienna since 2005. There, I studied law and now work as an associate in the competition law practice of a large regional law firm. I am a passionate debater with Debattierklub Wien and have participated in and organized many tournaments worldwide. I love to shoot photos, cook and climb mountains.