<<Funny how, at the time, you brought up the vote for Anschluss as part of your "proof" that Austrians were all Nazi sympathizers. Now, all of a sudden, it proves very little. Funny how that works, huh?>>
Well it might seem funny to somebody who's incapable of admitting to a mistake, but the way it works is actually pretty humdrum. I was under the mistaken impression that the Austrians voted overwhelmingly to approve the Anschluss. That would prove overwhelming Austrian support for the Nazi Party.
Well, apparently (according to you) I was wrong. There were a lot of anti-Anschluss votes, or so you say. Well, when I wasn't aware of a large anti-Anschluss vote, all I needed to analyze was the pro-Anschluss vote. It's pretty clear that a pro-Anschluss vote would be an endorsement of the Nazi Party. It wouldn't matter whether the existing Austrian government were fascist or not - - if they were fascist, the vote would be an endorsement of fascism and antisemitism and if they weren't fascist, the vote would be an endorsement of fascism and antisemitism.
When you brought to my attention the anti-Anschluss vote, it also had to be analyzed. Anti-Anschluss could be either anti-Nazi or pro-status quo. If the status quo was already fascist and anti-Semitic (and it was) then one looks for differences between the status quo and the Anschluss - - and quickly finds one striking difference, the difference between Austrian nationalism and German nationalism. Now we have an anti-Anschluss vote which can be explained as either motivated by anti-Naziism (unlikely, since the Nazi Party principles were pretty much the same as the Dolfuss government and its successor's principles) or by Austrian nationalism. On the other hand, a pro-Anschluss vote is pretty much unequivocal.
And of course the reason that I never considered the large anti-Anschluss vote in the first place was simply that I wasn't aware of it. And since I'm not one who's afraid to admit his mistakes, I turned my attention to it as soon as I discovered my error.
So you see that what seems "funny" to the irrational mind is actually not so funny to the logical mind.
I also want to remind you of this: there are many, many reasons why I believe the Austrians in general are just a bunch of unregenerate fucking Nazis. The Anschluss vote is just one of many reasons. You have an understandable reluctance to come to the obvious conclusions that I have regarding Austria, and so - - the truth being so hard to avoid - - you have a kind of desperate tendency to grasp at straws. For example: if you can just prove me wrong on the Anschluss vote argument, my whole theory collapses. It doesn't work that way - - my view of the Austrians was not determined merely by an analysis of the Anschluss vote; Anschluss voting was just one more brick in the wall. Proving that my take on that one brick was wrong doesn't mean the wall falls down; on the contrary because the wall is built of many bricks, it stays up (because it's in fact the reality of the situation) and because it's the truth that Austria is a Nazi nation, the vote can be explained in a way that is consistent with that reality, not with your fantasy of an anti-Nazi Austria.
