Where's Ilsa When We Need Her?

Recently President Bush spoke in the town where I live. Naturally, there was something of a protest by those oppose his agenda. (I confess I was a part of said protest.) It was blatantly pandering, considering that the President was speaking to high school members of the Future Farmers of America but the topic of his speech was social security. Call me one initiative short of a campaign, but I find it a little strange that a speech to a bunch of potential farmers was about, you know, farming. Instead a bunch of 12 – 18 year old kids got to hear about how the only way to save America was to put all their money into private accounts and hope that the market never recedes again. I can just imagine several of those kids baling hay for a while and then deciding to use their weekly allowance to set up an IRA rather than buy the new 50 Cent CD. But I digress…

The disturbing part of the President’s visit was not his speech or his politics, but the loonies in the protest who started yelling at the kids, saying they were tools of the administration and not paying attention to the world around them. I mean really, imagine that! To be involved in their communities to such an extent that they got invited to a conference for their completely extra-curricular organization and got to hear the President of the United States speak! The nerve of those kids! I tried to shut most of the loonies up, but after I got yelled at several times and at least one friend almost got punched by a woman with a very large banner detailing how the Bush administration partially planned the events of September 11, I decided it was time to shy away. On the way out, however, the loonies started calling the kids Nazis.

Yup, Nazis. The Third Reich. The followers of Dur Fuhrer. Captain Insanity and his Band of Bedlamites. Obviously they’re doing more with FFA these days than they did when I was in high school, because all I remember was listening to my friends talk about winning ribbons for their prize Holsteins. But it got me thinking, and not just because my friend who almost had the literal kind of run in with the September 11 woman is, herself, Jewish: Wherefore all the Nazi talk?

Obviously, when anyone compares anything to 1930s Germany, they are doing so to make a point. But is that comparison deserving? We are a nation comfortable with hyperbole. I get that. I subscribe to it myself. But somehow, it just doesn’t flow. But, and this is especially in response to recent comments made by Messrs. Durbin, Santorum and Byrd and the countless others who have either made headlines or not with their comments, can we please stop comparing anything to Nazism? Cause here’s the thing: NOTHING COMPARES TO NAZISM EXCEPT NAZISM!

Judicial filibuster debate? Scary, but not as scary as a gas chamber disguised to look like a shower room. Ramming amendments through congress to support your ideologue agenda? Freaky, but not as freaky as the systematic extermination of 6 million people. Children at an FFA convention? Must I even go there…?

I find many arguments and positions that I disagree with and even several which I think are just down-right crazy. (See the recent push for yet another amendment to the Constitution that will formally outlaw flag desecration for an example of the latter.) None of the ideas or tactics, however, is comparable to genocide. Well, except when it actually is genocide. But that would be talking about Darfour, and Heaven forbid we do that in this country. Point being, nothing is comparable to Nazism. Nothing even comes close in modern American political discourse.

Democrats – sorry, but the points go to the Republicans this round. Senator Durbin should learn that he wins no points from making the kind of leap that he did, even though yes, Guantanamo is an issue that seriously needs addressing yesterday. Republicans, don’t go too far away now. It was your own point person on social security, Senator Santorum, who made the very same comparisons only a short while ago. And that’s not even talking about Mr. Limbaugh’s ever-so-charming moniker of “feminazis”. There’s plenty of shame to go around.