Lions and Nazis and Bears, Oh My!

Maybe it's because I was born in the waning days of World War II, but I am thorougly disgusted by all those in the current health care reform debate who so easily throw the Nazi label at those seeking a a fairer system than the wasteful, costly version we have now. They ought to be ashamed, but of course they are too enamored of their own rhetoric to blush or to see how filthy they have made themselves.

Adolf Hitler was an insane monster, full of deep hatred for Jews, Gypsies, gays, the disabled or anybody who didn't fit his crazy idea of Aryan perfection. He was surrounded by fanatics and sycophants who saw an opportunity to enhance their own power by bolstering and fulfilling Hitler's nightmarish delusions. These fanatics and sycophants actually believed in the Final Solution and the 1,000-year Reich, or at least they gave a good imitation of it. They put away their consciences and buried their souls.

I won't say that the today's rabid Nazi comparers are in the same league as Himmler, Goering, Goebbels, Eichmann and the like. But they are too dangerously close for comfort. Here's why I say that:

Modern propaganda was invited by Joseph Goebbels, and it was based on the Big Lie theory. Push the same point of view often enough and eliminate competing ideas that might create doubt, and gradually you breed fanaticism. Germans listened only to Nazi radio, watched only Nazi films and read only Nazi newspapers and magazines. It's easy to see why most German came to agree that Jews were to blame for almost everything.

Fortunately, we live in a society where a free exchange of ideas is still possible. I can read the Wall Street Journal editorial page but I can also read the New York Times editorial page. I can listen to Bill O'Reilly (did I really just write that?) but I can also listen to Keith Olbermann.

The problem, however, is that technology now permits us to voluntarily eliminate any points of view with which we disagree. The technology that was supposed to bring us closer together has instead given us the ability to cocoon ourselves and hear only what we want. I believe that today's Nazi comparers have done that to great extent. They listen to Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck but shut out any other ideas that might disagree with those right-wing commentators. This situation is very different from 1930s Germany. But the result is the same: fanaticism....unlimited hatred....unbridled, unreasoned use of disgusting and violent language.

I pray that those who show up at town halls toting assault rifles and those who proclaim that Obama should die a painful death will be forced to read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich." The only problem is that fanaticism, once bred, is harder to tame than lions and tigers and bears....oh my!