8.21.2009

On the Subject of Nazis

If I lived a thousand years I cannot imagine forgetting walking past a pile of eye glasses stacked by the thousands. Piles of shoes, human hair. Mute testimony of the deaths of millions. More than the gas chambers or the ovens, those eye glasses haunt me most of all. A last set of indignities by a culture that wasn't satisfied to merely kill. But to exterminate. To separate any last 'useful' materials from the flesh about to be obliterated. Taken from the faces of the damned moments before death. That's what made it real to me - the glasses. That and the tattooed forearms. Humans made inventory. Evil beyond evil. So you'll have to forgive my bluntness.

Stupid people are the unfortunate but inescapable bane of democracy. One hopes that stupidity doesn't drown out common sense but with the rapid ability of the Internet to rally imbeciles to almost any degree of ire needed to disrupt discourse, it remains to be seen which will win the day. None are more stupid than those who cannot tell the difference between concerned citizens debating the best way to reform healthcare and the Nazis. Civility cannot be extended to such types. The idiot women who yelled Sieg Heil to the Jewish man talking about state run healthcare in Israel may be the new poster child for some one who should be too dumb to vote. That and all the old people railing against state run healthcare out one side of their mouths while praising Medicare out of the other side. My GUT, what do they think Medicare actually is? It's ok to oppose nationalized healthcare but it should be for real reasons. I lament that in all likelihood when the final chapter is written about the USA it will say that it failed because its citizens were too apathetic to be bothered with taking the time to learn the truth and thereby granting proxy to those who would control them through manipulation of information.

I just wish that these 'concerned citizens' had the sense to understand that going to rallys with no other agenda than to disrupt, grand lies in the media, intimidation with guns, creating a sense of victimization where none actually exists and demonizing their opponents in the most vile ways actually WERE tactics used by the Nazis during their rise to power. Goebbels talked about the power of the 'big lie' to inflame and motivate the masses. One imagines that he would have loved the Internet.

5 comments:

Michael Lockridge said...

As I said before, humans are emotional creatures with some capacity for being rational. Those who seek or seek to retain power know and use that fact.

The other scare word to use regarding the evils of socialized medicine is "socialism." Filled with dark and sinister emotions, but little content. As if there were not a number of relatively successful nations around the world that are socialist.

I am reminded of the words of a friend who long ago taught school near government projects housing. He complained that the students did not know where milk came from, and that they were convinced that their own problems would be solved if the government would send more money.

Or the mother of my granddaughter who leaves her subsidized housing from time to time to protest the acts of the government that pays her to sit on her ass.

"May you live in interesting times" would be less of a curse if it included some kind of amusement clause.

"May you live in amusing times."

Yep. Like that better.

Mike

Stacy S. said...

Why aren't you my friend on FaceBook Pliny?? I just had a debate with someone that thinks Barney Frank was out of line when he was speaking to that woman who said he was a NAZI supporter. *sigh*

Asylum Seeker said...

The thing about this kind of thing is that I can tolerate stupidity in general. But these kinds of arguments (ad hitlerums ad nauseaum) not only reflect upon a certain level of stupidity, but maliciousness as well. They are not just witless enough to believe in such a meme, but are desperate and vicious enough to help propagate it. Loudly and proudly. It's funny too that they are in hysteria because government-run health care will lead to euthanasia, when the only reason why euthanasia is feared and hated itself is because of the possibility of abusing it (i.e. "death panels"). They are in a panic because of a slippery slope within a slippery slope. At least I can get a few chuckles out of that.

mac said...

I went to Dachau once while serving in the Army. I was in Germany for three years.

My one trip was enough to last a lifetime. You know I'm an atheist. BUT, I swear there's some kind of energy there. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. Many places were worse!

Having seen that, I cannot, in anything less than serious, call another person a Nazi.
These assholes that do this shame themselves and the memory of those who suffered at the hands of the real Nazis.

Anonymous said...

Pliny, I got Roe v. Wade. I'm in for a haul. It's the self-referential aspect of the law that I'll have the most trouble with.

"We thought about this because of Bob v. Bub which refers to Bubs v. Bobs. which of course means..."

I just wanted you to know I didn't forget.