Hitler is Hitler, and he is dead. Nazi comparisons, history, gun control, rant.

People comparing Obama to Hitler is nothing new.

People comparing anyone to Hitler is nothing new (and is such a pathetic and common argument that they fall back on time after time).

But that silly image juxtaposing Hitler with children and Obama with children (taken as Obama put out his new gun laws) is ludicrous.  Let me explain why!

Those in favor of gun ownership (at any cost) are declaring that both Obama and Hitler gained (and in Obama’s case, are gaining) power by disarming their people.  Straight up? This is simply NOT TRUE.  In the popularly cited examples - Hitler, Mussolini, Stain, Pol Pot and Castro - gun restrictions played absolutely no role in them getting or keeping power.

Yes, Hitler did change gun laws.  AFTER the Nazi party was in power, and his alterations actually loosened up the existing laws rather than restricting gun use or ownership. 

The Hitler comparisons have been done for years…probably because they are the only thing that the ignorant and angry can come up with.  The term “Nazi” is common lingo, and you have heard (and probably done this yourself) people adding “Nazi” to your daily vocab as an adjective.  Seinfeld used this tactic with the “Soup Nazi,” and today at work I heard someone tell a pal “Don’t be a Donut Nazi!! Let me have some.”

But politically, this is a No-No.  It’s immature and misinformed and verifies you are a dumbass.

And everyone posting this on their Facebook walls as if it is an empowering statement to “wake up” their fellow Americans makes their fellow Americans with a brain shake their head in sadness.  Oh, the ignorance.

This is the best that people can come up with??
They are history illiterate.

Or, in the case of this image in question, illiterate illiterate (hello, run-on sentences!!).

Also interesting; Hitler and Obama do not reserve the rights to using kids in photo ops.

Stalin, Chairman Mao, Castro, Kim Il-sung, Hugo Chavez, and I’ve even seen some of Gaddafi. It is nothing new and nothing shocking.
DICTATORS USE KIDS AS A HUMAN SHIELD.

Speaking of which…

When we’re going to insult people, personally and politically, can’t we be more creative? Hitler is not the Be All End All.  Yeah, he knocked off a couple million, but it didn’t end well for him, and in the grand scheme of evil, that’s not as many as most dictators murder.

The thing about Hitler is how he did it—the gas chambers and the concentration camps and all.  He wasn’t that good with disposing of the evidence.
But other genocidal maniacs kept their murders more hush-hush, and therefore don’t get the same recognition as Hitler, even though they murdered more, and sometimes in more gruesome ways.
I personally believe a lot of it has to do with Hitler’s toothbrush moustache…and the fact that is name is easier to pronounce. 

Easier than say, Mao Ze-Dong of China, who is estimated to have killed between 50 and 78 MILLION.  His M.O. was systematically depriving his people of their basic rights, and having far too many of them executed, or allowed them (purposefully in most cases) to starve to death. There was also some torture and people being beaten to death by police mobs.

Josef Stalin of course cannot be ignored.  And damn, what a moustache! How can people prefer Hitler’s?
Stalin deserves the credit for Nazi Germany’s infamous concentration camps—he inspired Hitler with his gulag system.  Russian citizens were imprisoned in them for decades (remember Lara from Dr. Zhivago..?).  And because Stalin erased people so completely, there are millions of citizens whose records of existence also vanished, and only their family members and witnesses can testify that they were actually on this earth.  Thus it is difficult to calculate just how many deaths Stalin was responsible for, but the most widely accepted figure historians can come to is 20 million.  They are still stumbling upon old mass graves in Russia from Stalin’s time, so the number continues to edge up. Some estimate the number to be as high as 60 million.
Stalin not only had the gulag labor camps, but also allowed Russians to die of starvation and neglect, as well as deciding not to help Ukrainians during the famine and allowing them to die.

And there was Franco and Mussolini and Castro, but lets skip over to some current baddies.
Like Afewerki of Eritrea, who runs the country without a constitution and forces every male to enter forced labor when they turn 18. For how long? Who knows—as long as he says and if you try to say no, you’re jailed or murdered, depending on the punisher’s mood.  Journalists, activists, and anyone who worships “wrong” is tortured. No word yet on how many he has killed, or will continue to murder.

And don’t forget Al-Bashir of the Sudan, who is better known because of the genocide and war crimes he committed in Darfur, where about 300 MILLION have been murdered since 2003.

I will also mention Karimov, al-Assad, Sein, Mbasogo, and Mugabe.

Can’t people reference these guys in daily conversation for once, instead of falling on the same old Hitler routine??  [“Don’t be a Donut Karimov! Share with me!”]  Let’s start a new trend people.  A trend based in education.

Welp, based on the popularity of this ludicrous Hitler/Obama comparison, that’s too much to ask.

 

 

When I attempted an interesting comparison on Facebook this morning in response to this image, to inform and inspire intelligent discourse, it did not go well.

I tried to point out that Obama is not the first person to be compared to Hitler, and that there are lots of “great Americans” that have more in common with Hitler than anything the extremists are trying to tie Obama to. 

For instance…

If we look back, George Bush Junior curtailed civil liberties in the wake of publicized disaster; he did this following 9/11 (remember the creation of the Patriot Act, and others?), and this is similar to what Hitler did in the wake of the Reichstag fire. Look it up.
And just as Hitler employed worldwide communism to justify Germany’s military increase, Bush has used Al Qaeda and his “Axis of Evil” to validate his military buildup.
Both men endorsed militarism in the middle of a recession.

And as far as Nazis, George Bush Senior was involved in financing the National Socialists, and John Kennedy’s dad openly supported them at first (he lost his position as an American Ambassador for it).

Going further into similarities (beyond the “image” if you will), both Lincoln and Hitler lost their mothers at a young age, and had strained relationships with their fathers.  They both ran their respective countries during wartime, and believed states cannot possess sovereignty on their own.  Hitler so admired this notion (that Lincoln frequently deliberated on), that he wrote about it, and the American Civil War, in Mein Kampf!

And Lincoln and Hitler both considered national deportation of a minority as a solution to their “problems”.  Luckily for Old Abe, things turned out for the best. Well, not for him personally. L

Andrew Jackson and Hitler both worked the banking systems of their country and started printing massive amounts of paper cash. Oh, and they both persecuted a minority to the point of nearly destroying a culture. Don’t leave that part out.

Hitler was a fan of the Enlightenment. Like Thomas Jefferson (and other Founding Fathers, but TJ in particular). Naziism, like America, was founded on many Enlightenment tenets.  The Declaration of Independence and Constitution were based on Enlightenment ideals (“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” was taken from Enlightenment figure Locke’s “life, liberty, and the pursuit of property”).

And like Hitler being hypocritical (he had Judaism in his family tree), Jefferson was a slaveowner.

You can even parallel our beloved George Washington breaking off from England and creating a new form of government to Hitler breaking the Treaty of Versailles and establishing a new party and new age for Germany.

So in this case, everyone needs to PIPE THE F*CK DOWN and go “I think X is wrong, but recognize that he/she is not Hitler.  Hitler is Hitler. And he’s dead.”

NEWSFLASH!

I was trying to show that any moron with access to Google Images can draw parallels between people.  You can compare Hitler to ANYONE, especially if your connection is based on a mere image.  You can compare him to the Dalai Lama or Leonardo DiCaprio or Jesus or a kitten for crying out loud (look—they both have brown eyes and they’re holding their heads at the same angle!!! Holy crap this kitten it HITLER!).

That’s all I was trying to point out.  The ignorance.

And I guess maybe I was expecting too much in hoping to open their eyes, but the response I got was even more ignorant:  “um..I’m confused. Do you like Hitler?”

No shit you're confused.  Haha!!

I’m serious.  This was really said (well, typed on Facebook) to me.

I know, it’s laughable! But dreadful. Because I pointed out how stupid it is to compare every politician you don't like to Hitler, I was accused of LIKING A NAZI. 
What the hell is this world coming to?

Please stop with the stupidity people. That’s all I am trying to say.

And I would like to conclude with a quote from Michael Moynihan, who said:

“America isn’t Nazi Germany, and it cheapens the experience of Holocaust victims to suggest otherwise.  By all means, let the debate on gun control roil. But for once, let’s leave Hitler out of it.”      Well said Mike.

Because Hitler is dead.

And I don’t like him.

Never did, now that I think about it.

P.S.

Is there a way we can force-feed history lessons and logic to the stupid…?

Go ahead and skip to 2 minutes in.  I only found this video a week after I originally posted this blog - and it sums up everything I'm trying to say! Thanks Jon!