The Swiss have deliberately made it very, very difficult to perform a conventional invasion of their country; the geography makes it a natural fortress and they've studiously added to it.
If conventional invasion is impossible, then the next option is weapons of mass destruction. Relatively cheap and effective. The Swiss have no WMD deterrent of their own, therefore they have to bet on survivability. Hence the bunkers.
As a country they definitely take the very long view.
Keeping bunkers actually works well with that. And they're not really wasted space — people use them as wine cellars, washing rooms or whatever else.
They also turned away plenty of Jewish refugees, as well as secreting gold stolen from concentration camp victims.
Their record during WWII is shameful.
Its ridiculous to single out the Swiss as shameful in WW2, looking at norms 70 years ago would make all people "shameful" in some way.
Are you actually equating all acts of 'shamefulness' during the 30s/40s at the same level? Your statement is tantamount to equating the actions of the allies with the axis, which is obviously ludicrous. The Swiss acted uncharacteristically selfishly and shamefully, even when compared to the record of the US. There's no need to jump to some half-baked defense of the Swiss, they deserve every bit of criticism leveled at them for their actions during WW2.
The first of which was exactly the same in the US (and possibly less justified; given it's size, the US could have absorbed Jewish refugees much more easily than the Swiss).
The second was almost certainly done at a smaller scale by US banks, and is mostly just because the US didn't have the opportunity since fewer Holocaust victims had their Gold in American banks than Swiss banks. It's ridiculous to think that Americans were so much more moral than the Swiss just because they had fewer opportunities to steal.
If there are other things that the Swiss did that were so shameful, I am interested in knowing.
Well, that's not really true. Your post acted as a rebuff of the criticism of Switzerland, based on the logic that the US undertook similar actions. You said Switzerland "shouldn't be singled out" for criticism, yet OP wasn't singling Switzerland out but merely adding information to the topic at hand, which was Switzerland's record during WW2. So why even bring the US up? Nothing they did eliminates the need to remind people of Switzerland's abhorrent actions during WW2, and yet you still state this shouldn't be done ("Its ridiculous to single out the Swiss as shameful in WW2.")
Secondly, the statement that I quoted of yours made quite a specific argument that you didn't mention most recently, regarding how Switzerland's actions should be viewed in perspective of the times. I argued it was fallacious to say that flattening the morality of the issue just because standards were lower during the war results in less of a need to discuss Switzerland's crimes during this time. You haven't attempted to refute this point, yet your latest post still made the statement that "I was only replying specifically to the two claims that you made [Swiss rejection of refugees and theft from Holocaust victims]" (which is aside from the fact that I am not the original author of the post you first responded to.)
So it's still curious why you felt the need to rebuff gadders criticism of the Swiss during WW2 given that it was on topic, even acknowledging similar actions take by the US.
The reason I bring up the context of other countries at the same time period is not to say the actions are admirable, I am providing context of what else was happening at the same time. I think many people don't fully realize that actions that used to be routine would be reviled through the lens of today's politics and norms; examine any one country and you can easily condemn anyone.
I assumed the response most readers would have with that knowledge is to vilify the Swiss while still holding the Allies in high esteem.
However, in the credit column, they have that whole "Defeating Nazi Germany" thing, which Switzerland does not.
Edit: My apologies, there were clearly plenty of other atrocities (eg Rape of Nanking if you consider that as part of WW2), but it is simply is not accurate to claim that Swiss were evil and the US were shining knights.
I don't have some across the board policy, perhaps because friends have been scarce of late. Since basically no one speaks to me, I don't currently have any need to make judgement calls of that sort. But my personal history suggests I am disinclined towards sweeping judgements of any sort. (shrug)
This is not to say all they did was right, and the fact that they still keep making and selling weapons is not exactly great as well, and a lot of Swiss were unhappy with sheltering any refugees, but the general idea of keeping neutrality and protecting as much as they could — which was, basically, people already there — was good. Remember, also, that Switzerland helped many troubled countries in later years.
(I have nothing new to say about the Holocaust.)
It's not like the US welcome Jewish refugees either.
Similarly, in wartime, everyone needs strictly neutral parties to get a lot of the humdrum business of war done.
Through Swiss front companies the Nazis could obtain critical war supplies (vanadium, I think it was); similarly the allies could obtain critical intelligence through the availability of Switzerland as a staging post into Austria and Germany.
"These credits and the deliveries of war material and other products [...] contributed to the war efforts of one of the belligerents. Not only had we abandonded integral neutrality, but - even worse - in so doing, we were as a rule deviating from the very notion of neutrality. "
http://www.uek.ch/en/schlussbericht/synthesis/ueke.pdf
Almost 600 pages but if you have a spare bit of time and really interested you could do a lot worse than looking at this, it is one of the most candid introspective pieces about world war II.
The morality of the death penalty itself is a reasonable thing to argue over. The idea that some current implementations (chair, gas) are better than firing squad (or hanging/beheading for that matter) seems nuts.
Of course, given the choice, I'd probably choose to go the same way as my dog went. Sleep.
Of course, while this is a very humane way to execute an euthanasia (either of animal or a human), talking about the least inhumane way to carry out an execution is somewhat ridiculous. The most humane way is to just not do it.
Also, it's totally off-topic.
As far as I can tell from my hasty research, all states in the USA claim lethal injection as their primary method (note: 17 states do not practice capital punishment). A few still have electrocution, firing squad, hanging, and gas chamber on the books, but they seem to be vestigial laws or "backups" in the event that lethal injection is deemed unconstitutional.
That said, according to this site [0] there have been recent executions by firing squad (2010), electrocution (2010), hanging (1999), and gas chamber (1999).
[0] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/views-executions?order=exec_...
When I lived in Switzerland I was surprised to find that every modern building has a nuclear bunker in the basement, and that even now they are kept up: supplies are rotated, there are inspections, etc. At first it seemed quaint, but then I realized that as arguably the richest country in the world, they're not as interested in getting richer as they are in preserving what they have -- thus different forms of insurance, including even bunkers. I now find that quite smart, actually.