Originally published by Communities @ Washington Times
SAN DIEGO — February 3, 2011 — Discussion about “toning down the rhetoric” continues, yet many still wait in vain for President Obama (a self professed champion of civil discourse) to take issue with Democratic Representative, Steve Cohen, who on the floor of the House of Representatives, compared Republican disagreement with our new health care law to the Nazis.
?Perhaps those inflammatory words flew quickly off his lips because that tired, old Nazi analogy has become fashionable. In fact, it was not so long ago that Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles and Governor Jesse Ventura of Minnesota offered similar “observations” with other Republican deeds.
Mahony condemned the new Arizona immigration law, likening it to the holocaust. Reality check: The problem in World War Two was not German police interrogating non-citizens. The cardinal’s irresponsible statement displays ignorance at the very least and exploitative cruelty at the very most.
If Mahony is aware of what went on in the real holocaust, he should be ashamed of himself for making such a statement. It isn’t as simple as saying, “The Nazis asked people to show their papers and now, so do the Arizona police.”
Any American who has traveled out of our country has had to show papers. Some good examples would be a passport or drivers license. How did such documentation become so controversial?
When the Gestapo looked at papers, it was often with the purpose of hauling people off to concentration camps. Nothing of the kind is going on in Arizona and to actually have to stop and say so is such an understatement, it feels strange to even have this conversation. Neither should the word Nazi be defined as a person who debates one health care system as opposed to another or a man who displays too much enthusiasm as Jesse Ventura pointed out on cable news during the last presidential election. Remember? Ventura noted that the Republican Convention reminded him of a Nazi rally. Naturally, a statement laced with such thought and wit was backed up with actual facts: It seems that when the war on terror was mentioned, Republicans shouted with enthusiasm. Evidentally this reminded Ventura of Joseph Goebbles’ ability to bring people into war. Yikes! Say it isn’t so, Jessie! Yes, we’re all tracking with you, now. The comparison is so obvious, it’s a wonder nobody else noticed it before. The Nazis encouraged a war. Republicans are encouraging a war. The Nazis had rallies. Republicans have rallies. The Nazis were enthusiastic. Republicans are enthusiastic. Evidently, all wars are the same, regardless of whether a country is attacking or fighting because she herself was attacked. And a loud rally is a loud rally, period!
Yes, these are the times we live in. If you want to take a political cheap shot, just compare the opposition to the Nazis. This show has had more performances than Phantom of the Opera.
In all fairness to Cohen, Mahony, and Ventura, many others have been known to use the word Nazi or at least the word fascist to describe Republicans, Conservatives, Evangelical Christians, and the man who probably holds the all time record of Hitler comparisons, George W. Bush. It is high time to state what should be common knowledge, but unfortunately is not: If you think Bush is even remotely similar to Hitler, it means you know nothing about Hitler, or nothing about Bush, or (most likely) nothing about either man. The same holds true when you make similar appraisals with Sarah Palin or the Tea Party movement and yes, in the interest of balance, conservatives should also be discouraged from comparing Obama to Hitler. Our country relates far too many events to the holocaust today and by doing so; we water down the real honest to goodness, vicious, evil of the Nazis, until people turn numb to the very word holocaust.
PETA (People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals) even put up a website with a picture of fried chicken next to a picture of Auschwitz, with a caption saying: “The New Holocaust.” See? Visiting Colonel Sanders and killing people in gas chambers are one and the same and if you don’t agree, you are as bad as Hitler.
Is today’s generation aware of what actually happened in the genuine holocaust of German history? Did you know that Jews were slaughtered, not because they were accidentally bombed, but because they were rounded up for the specific purpose of having their entire race exterminated? Did you know the death tally reached 6 million? Did you hear about the gassings which included women and children? How about babies thrown alive into ovens? And people are comparing this to Presidents Obama and Bush? Or to policemen who ask for a driver’s license? Or Republicans showing enthusiasm over fighting terrorists? This would be funny if it weren’t such dangerous, destructive ignorance.
Having acknowledged the foolish misuse of “Nazi concern,” there are legitimate comparisons to Hitler and Nazism in America today. If you really need to make such an analogy, some pertinent facts are in order. No, we cannot find any parallel to the latter deeds or the Final Solution and it is disgraceful when Republicans or Democrats use a word like “Nazi” as a quick, lazy method of disgracing people merely because they hold an alternative ideology. However, to place that comment in careful, delicate, specific qualification, the unfair comparison is limited to the actions of the SS and their venomous death camps. This does not mean we should ignore the early years of the Nazi movement in its embryonic form. When examining how fascists came into power gradually, some chilling familiarity is unavoidable.
Euthanasia serves as one immediate example: Mentally challenged people were quietly, systematically put to death so that Germans could foster quality lives who contributed something useful to society. Such actions were preceded with talk about selective breeding. No, this has not exactly happened yet in America but we have come dangerously close. Margaret Sanger, the much admired founder of Planned Parenthood, also believed in genetic breeding. She even had Hitler’s eugenicist write an article for her Birth Control Review.
Of course, before Hitler could get away with these deeds, he had to suppress free speech. He accomplished this by making himself popular and he made himself popular by promising to redistribute wealth amongst the rich and poor. Does any of this sound at least a little bit familiar?
To give both Democrats and Republicans a bit of a break, people are often unaware of what the extreme factions in their own party advocate, so it would be inappropriate to paint everybody with a sweeping brush here, but please think for a moment: Of the two major parties, which one advocates Partial Birth Abortion? Which one wanted to see Terri Shivo put to death? Which one encourages the suppression of free speech by shouting down guest speakers on college campuses, or seeking laws such as the Fairness Doctrine? And who vilifies the rich with promises of mandatory wealth redistribution? Who behaves like a modern day Neville Chamberlain, seeking to have peace talks with Ahamadinnejad, the snake like dictator who brags openly about his desire to annihilate the Jewish race? If we really want to locate a smaller, budding version of fascist type thought, or people who placate to Nazi style values, do we find it amongst those on the right or those on the left?
Once again, most Americans, be they liberal or conservative, are in agreement (for now at least) that the final, ultimate accomplishments of the latter Nazis must be opposed and it is unfair for either side to compare political opponents to horrific war crime atrocities. At the same time, we’d be well served to also study the early winds of fascist laced ideology. History, after all, has an uncanny way of repeating itself and seemingly harmless beliefs tend to get out of control like wild fire. Such a warning may not pass the Politically Correct litmus test of “toning down the rhetoric” but perhaps it is best to pay less attention to the tone of a remark and more attention to whether or not the remark happens to be true.
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