Scariest part about Nazis
I'm currently reading the book, The Nazis: A Warning from History, by Laurence Rees. It is a fascinating study on the rise of Hitler and some of the psychology behind it. The interesting part that is frequently glossed over in discussions of the rise of the Nazi Party and the resulting Holocaust is the fact that Adolf Hitler and his party came to power in a democracy. They were elected into office.
This book examines many of the frequent excuses and rationalizations that are used by historians to explain how this could happen. He looks at the oft used, "Germans are known for their efficiency and the Nazis provided that." and the other "They were following orders." He uses interviews with people who were in the government and who lived through the Nazis' rise to power to debunk most of these rationalizations.
What Mr. Rees eventually comes down to is a combination of pride and fear. Why do I discuss this here? Well, think back seven years and think about how we felt on that Tuesday in September. We were very afraid.....I know I was! We also had our pride demolished. Into that void rode "W". He provided us with quick answers and quick responses. We attacked Afghanistan because we needed to hurt somebody right away. We passed the Patriot Act because we needed to protect ourselves against "them".
I happen to agree with both these actions, even in retrospect, but we need to keep these emotions in mind as we move forward. We are in an election year, terrorism is not gone, and there will be much talk about who can better protect us from "bad guys." Take the time to study, to think, to reflect. Don't go for the easy answer, because there isn't one. Don't give up everything just to feel safe. As my boss frequently says, "If it doesn't feel right, it probably isn't." Don't vote for someone who doesn't feel right. Think for yourselves.
Thoughts anyone?
Visit the WWII Shop at HistoryChannel.com
2 comments:
http://www.scsuscholars.com/2008/06/two-great-paragraphs.html
This says it a different way, from the link above:
Progressivism is politics as religion. Left-leaning progressivism strives to impose values on society every bit as aggressively as the Christian right pushing a moral agenda of 'family values.' Whether the supreme authority over individual liberty is a secular state or a religious one, the operative word is 'supreme.' Progressivism is ultimately about total control.
Progressivism is immune to restraint; it respects no constitutional limits on government. The progressive may prefer the near-sacramental word 'holistic' to describe the effort to create a better world, but, as National Review's Jonah Goldberg reminds us, Mussolini coined the word 'totalitarian' for the progressive vision — a society where everyone belongs, where everyone is taken care of, where everything is inside the state and nothing is outside the state, where there are no hard trade-offs.
or perhaps:
The "vision" of the anointed is a world view in which social problems exist because of the negligence or malevolence of the benighted and thus can be solved by imposing the views of the enlightened few on the rest of society via government action. To believe otherwise to view social conditions as largely outside of anyone's control and subject to innumerable trade-offs and constraints is repugnant to left-leaning political and intellectual elites, Sowell argues, because it robs them of the opportunity to display their superior concern and insight.
The "anointed" is the modern progressive.
The distance between police protection and police state can be very slim if the constitution "is only paper" and "must be reinterpreted for current circumstances".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-taU9d26wT4&feature=related
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