THOSE WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND HISTORY

By BRADLEY HARRINGTON Thursday, August 13, 2009

“The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force.” — Adolph Hitler, “Mein Kampf,” 1925

Health care “reform” certainly seems to be the topic of the day -- and one that is shedding much more heat than light, as it happens, with the rhetoric flying high indeed.So high, in fact, that two Jewish organizations have found it necessary to denounce it: “’Regardless of the political differences and the substantive differences in the debate over health care, the use of Nazi symbolism is outrageous, offensive and inappropriate,” Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement Aug. 6.

And more: David A Harris, president of the National Jewish Democratic Council, called the Nazi references “profoundly troubling,” Fox News reported. I, too, find such references profoundly troubling — but not in the way Harris means.

Take this quote, for instance: “Our party ... is convinced that our nation can achieve permanent health only from within on the basis of the principle: The common good before self-interest.” Or this: “A great nation now demands that its leaders abandon the politics of partisan division and find creative solutions to promote the common good.” Most citizens in America, today — including, disgustingly enough, many so-called “conservatives” — would find both quotes non-objectionable. The first is from Point 24 of the Nazi Party’s 25 Points, as enunciated by Hitler in 1920. The second is from the Democratic Party’s 2008 Platform, “Renewing America’s Promise.”

Or take this quote, for instance: “The state must ensure that the nation’s health standards are raised ...” Or this: “We believe that quality and affordable health care is a basic right.”The first? From Point 21 of the Nazi Party Platform. The second? From “Renewing America’s Promise.”

Isn’t the point clear? The Democrats, for decades, have been preaching that health care is a “basic right,” as did the Nazis. But since hospitals, drugs and medical equipment aren’t to be found growing on trees, since these are things that result from the productive work of individual men and women, to declare that such things belong to us “by right” is to declare that those men and women are to be enslaved in order to provide them. The Nazis would have been proud indeed. And if you dare show up to your congressperson’s “town meeting” to air your opinion as to the contrary, beware. Like Kenneth Gladney, a black conservative who was beaten (and hospitalized) at Russ Carnahan’s “town meeting” outside St. Louis by several of the presidentially dispatched purple-shirt SEIU goons, you run the risk of having your teeth kicked in. Gladney’s crime? Handing out “Don’t Tread On Me” flags. So much for the vaunted “tolerance” of the Democrats; so much for their accommodation of “differing points of view.” Where are the esteemed Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson now? And all the high-powered lawyers of the ACLU? So much for “hate crimes” — and so much for true justice in America, which has been hijacked instead by a loud and vociferous minority of haters bent on the uncontested establishment of tyranny. Yes, the Nazis would have been proud indeed.And as for the Republicans, Nazi history has much to say to you as well.

The GOP has had it in its power for much of the last 15 years to reverse this trend and restore the constitutional republic. Instead, the party has chosen to tax, spend and regulate, just like Democrat-Light, while the republic burned. The Weimar Republic’s conservatives — the Nationalist Party and People’s Party members — would have been proud. They, like most Republicans, abhorred capitalism almost as much as they abhorred socialism -- at least before they were dragged out of their homes and hustled off to the concentration camps by the Gestapo.And, finally, what is there to say about Mr.’s Foxman and Harris, who are upset because of the use of “Nazi symbolism” in this “debate”? Perfectly appropriate, given the ideological bent of both Obama himself and the Democratic Party as a whole — to say nothing of the last few weeks’ worth of American history. Instead of hollering about swastikas, these men would be better served by drawing the same parallels as drawn above. If the “conservatives” of the Weimar Republic had been astute enough to make such observations then, perhaps more of these gentlemen’s relatives would be alive today.

Bradley Harrington is a former U.S. Marine and a free-lance writer who lives in Cheyenne, Wyo.

"Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread." --Thomas Jefferson