I'm a Libertarian living in Humboldt County, CA. I've lived here in Eureka since 1973 and joined the Libertarian Party in 1992. This blog will mostly focus on local political issues, but I may stray into state and national issues as well, when I can't help myself. Please post your comments by clicking on the "comments" link at the bottom of each post. Although I do moderate comments, you need not be a registered user to post them.
I found Anthony Gregory's piece on blue state fascism a fun read. I don't really like the way so many of us go around calling each other fascist, but I suppose it's appropriate in some instances.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 6:28 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
We Americans are fond of reciting the old quotation, "Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it."
And then we go around chipping away at our understanding of one of the greatest horrors of all human history. Nazism.
When we call another person a Nazi, we dilute the reality of Nazism in the minds of people who are alive today.
Given a few more years or a few more generations, people may no longer believe such horrors as the Holocaust really happened.
When we let words be misused, we are forgetting the history that gave us those words.
Words seem like such small, insigficant things. But they are not. They shape the contours of our thinking, and our thinking shapes future events.
I'd suggest that Nazism came into being with the support of people like you who dismiss any concerns of that same Nazism.
I might actually see your point, though.
The Nazis were not fascists. They were allied with fascists.
Fred, I cared so much about the dangers of Nazism that I took two courses in the subject of Modern German History at HSC back in 1971even though they didn't move me any closer to graduation. I care deeply about that era in world history. I wondered how a beast like Hitler was able to come to power and use his power as an absolute (totalitarian) ruler. I feared back in 1971, the Nixon Years, that America might have been losing our democratic republic because the Executive Branch of government was exceeding the powers outlined in the Constitution. I'm glad I studied the rise of Hitler and related events, because it helped me understand the differences between the two situations.
I am a life-long hater of everything the Nazi Party stood for.
You wrote: "I might actually see your point, though." I'm glad. Just think of the old story of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf!" The boy liked the hubbub he caused in his country village when he shouted "Wolf!" So he called it out often. Eventualy, his neighbors were sick of the boy and his false cries of "Wolf!"
So one day, when a wolf really did appear, and the boy screamed for help, crying "Wolf!" - nobody came. And the wolf ate the boy.
That is the point I was trying to make about people who lightly call others "Nazi" or "Fascist."
Maybe this is a clearer way to express the idea than the first way I tried.
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