Rhetorical Request Blunder: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|''"Will no one rid me of this [[Turbulent Priest]]?"''|'''King Henry II''', of Archbishop Thomas Becket. <ref>Sadly for Becket, the people who overheard it weren't familiar with rhetorical questions</ref>}}

* [[The House of Plantagenet|Henry II]] was frustrated with Archbishop Thomas Becket, his former friend, and said something like (according to popular tradition) "Will no one rid me of this troublesome [or turbulent] priest?" or (according to a contemporary biographer) "What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?" A couple of Mooks decided to take care of it themselves, by killing Becket. Henry II took it badly, as did many in England. The reason for Henry's frustration, namely Becket defying the wishes of the king who had nominated him <ref>Henry II had been laying the foundations of the English legal system (which would, in its turn, become the foundation for the legal system of half the world). The Church objected to being expected, distinctly against the custom of the time, to obey national laws, in one of the pivotal clashes between church and state</ref>, had alienated many who already regarded Henry as an outsider (neither an Englishman or even a Norman, but an ''Angevin'') who was subverting local custom and concentrating too much power in the central government. Becket's personal popularity and the fact that he was discovered to be wearing a hairshirt under his clothing (a rather serious act of asceticism, as hairshirts are about as comfortable as a shirt made of sandpaper) only added to the outrage that a high clergyman had been openly murdered in a church; Henry had to perform public penance over the issue and Becket rapidly became St. Thomas.

* It's a common claim of Hitler apologists that the Holocaust was this. As in, his subordinates, having read ''Mein Kampf'' and knowing how he felt about Jews, decided it would be a nice favor to him if they rounded up and killed all the Jews in Europe, while he was [[Captain Oblivious|none the wiser]]. [[Insane Troll Logic|This idea]] [[You Fail History Forever|really shouldn't need refuting.]]

* In a similar vein, dictators who were also charismatic and well-remembered by the people frequently get this treatment; this is particularly true of Third-World post-independence leaders regarded as "Father of the Nation." For instance, many [[Modern Egypt|Egyptians]] believe that the well-documented torture of political prisoners in Gamal Abdel Nasser's regime must have been the result of a misinterpreted order or some such, rather than being led and organized by Abdel Nasser himself. Many other Egyptians point out that if that were true, he would still be to blame--not for being a cruel tyrant, but for being an idiot.