My sons started playing a game about ten years ago when they were in their early and mid-teens. If I was doing something, usually something perfectly normal, particularly if I told them, “Wait a minute, while I finish writing this post,” they’d say: “You know who else wrote posts?” — and the answer would be “Hitler.”
Younger son, who is… uh… like me, threw in a new wrinkle: When I got exasperated and said “Hitler” before he could, he would say “Good Lord, no. What made you think that?” with an expression of theatrical horror.
Little did I know the left would be playing this for real. And honestly, now I wonder if the kids were saying that because their teachers were already playing at this nonsense.
Look, before we go any further, yeah, Hitler was a despicable human being. I have absolutely no problems with reviling Hitler or making Hitler into a horror. He was, even if he was also an amateur compared to Stalin and a piker compared to Mao, at least when it came to killing humans in batch lots while perverting and corrupting an entire society. But he did it too, and in the list of monsters produced by mankind, he comes in pretty high.
Which is exactly why it is ridiculous that the left runs around calling everything they don’t like Hitler. I don’t know about you, but I’m offended.
Some of the (ah!) luminaries of my field are assuring us that the right wing thinks just like Hitler, and they’re probably right, in the sense that we sometimes think things like “I’d like some coffee” and “where did I put my shoes?” and “it’s raining” and “I’m cold.”
Other than that, not so much.
I mean, there are some things that we agree on, sure. Let’s take Hitler’s 25 point Nazi program. (No, you take it. I don’t want it.) Is there anything there I agree with? Actually, there are. I think well of:
- All citizens must possess equal rights and duties.
I’m also okay with the first part of this:
- We demand freedom for all religious faiths in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or offend the moral and ethical sense of the Germanic race.
I think that’s about it. I mean, there was the thing about only citizens voting, which would normally be a “duh,” but you know the Nazis had funny ideas of citizenship, so we’ll leave it alone, okay?
I’m sure that the left thinks we agree with the Nazis on matters of who can become a citizen and who deserves to be an American, but look, we’re not actually responsible for the delusional states of our fellow citizens, okay? We’ve told them any number of times that we really don’t, as a matter of fact – except for a very few sad specimens who are neither left nor right, just crazy – believe in blood-and-soil. That’s a thing of Europe and somewhat justified there, honestly, since at least the narrative of the European nations is blood-and-soil. We have told them we don’t believe any of that stuff. We’ve drawn them pictures. We’ve shouted it at them. They still refuse to hear us, because the voices in their heads are so loud.
On the other hand, if we want to find things that the left agrees with Hitler on? Oh, dear Lord. So many things. Let me see:
- We demand that the State shall above all undertake to ensure that every citizen shall have the possibility of living decently and earning a livelihood. If it should not be possible to feed the whole population, then aliens (non-citizens) must be expelled from the Reich.
Okay, the left doesn’t want to expel non-citizens. It does, however, want to control the population by “expelling” not-yet-born children.
Let’s consider other, closer points of agreement between the left and Hitler:
- That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.
- We demand the nationalization of all trusts.
- We demand profit-sharing in large industries.
- We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions.
- We demand an agrarian reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to expropriate the owners without compensation of any land needed for the common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of all speculation in land.
- We demand that ruthless war be waged against those who work to the injury of the common welfare. Traitors, usurers, profiteers, etc., are to be punished with death, regardless of creed or race.
- In order to make it possible for every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education, and thus the opportunity to reach into positions of leadership, the State must assume the responsibility of organizing thoroughly the entire cultural system of the people. The curricula of all educational establishments shall be adapted to practical life. The conception of the State Idea (the science of citizenship) must be taught in the schools from the very beginning. We demand that specially talented children of poor parents, whatever their station or occupation, be educated at the expense of the State.
- The State has the duty to help raise the standard of national health by providing maternity welfare centers, by prohibiting juvenile labor, by increasing physical fitness through the introduction of compulsory games and gymnastics, and by the greatest possible encouragement of associations concerned with the physical education of the young.
Hark, is that Life of Julia I see playing in my head?
And then there’s the undying love of the massive state:
- In order to carry out this program we demand: the creation of a strong central authority in the State, the unconditional authority by the political central parliament of the whole State and all its organizations.
The formation of professional committees and of committees representing the several estates of the realm, to ensure that the laws promulgated by the central authority shall be carried out by the federal states.
The leaders of the party undertake to promote the execution of the foregoing points at all costs, if necessary at the sacrifice of their own lives.
So, does that mean that the left is Hitler? Well, no. They are facilitating the same dehumanization and othering of all other points of view that facilitates the type of horror that happened under Hitler.
You see, they have fastened on the race aspects of how the wheels came off in Germany and how a civilized country descended into barbarism. They see race and only race to such an extent that they have converted things like culture — Latin — and religion — Muslim — into race in their heads, and if you say anything against people of the culture or religion, they’ll call you racist. I think, at this point, much like Hitler. The only people they consider white are Northern Europeans. They have obsessed on this to such an extent that trying to prevent illegal entry into the country (aka invasion) becomes “just like Hitler” because the invaders happen to tan. And separating children from people who might be their parents, but who also might be child traffickers for sexual purposes, becomes “putting children in detention camps.” And of course, the separation becomes “Hitler also separated children from their parents.”
Meanwhile, they endorse policies, including the supremacy of the collective over the individual, which has in every land it’s been tried large scale led to destruction and mass graves. Because it’s not racially based, they think to interfere with the economy, with personal choices, with careers and with the individual pursuit of happiness won’t end badly, and doesn’t lead to the same kind of horror the Nazis created.
They’re wrong, of course. They are tragically wrong since any steps that bring us closer to their program will, in fact, bring about the same type of dehumanization and death the Nazis created.
More, their calling anyone whom they oppose “Hitler” is not only inaccurate, it is despicable and monstrous.
The only thing we can do in response is my kids’ lame joke. “Yeah, you know who else was vegan?” “Hitler.” “You know who else liked dogs?” “Hitler.” “You know who else was for gun control?” “Hitler.”
Most of them won’t listen. They are lost.
But maybe the blunt treatment can snatch a few brands from the fire, and make it clear to them that not only is argumentum ad Hitleorum wrong, buy they are pointing it in the wrong direction.
They need a mirror.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member