By this point in Barack Obama’s presidency, both he and his administration have been called almost every offensive name imaginable. However, the continued trend of comparing Obama, his administration and the federal government to the Nazis among the right wing is so foul, disgusting and baseless that it’s time someone shouted from the mountaintops.
Although one can disagree with the president, his policies and those in government, it’s an entirely different situation when you compare the Affordable Care Act to acts that led to the murder of millions of innocent people.
Sadly, few castigate those on the right for their insane and downright offensive comparisons, and it’s a shame. We live in a country that prides itself on free speech, and boy, do folks like Rush Limbaugh, Ted Nugent and other like-minded, pathetic windbags take advantage of that freedom. Just because we have the freedom of speech does not mean we can’t criticize those who make purely offensive allegations because they disagree politically with the U.S. government.
Ben Carson, a harsh critic of the Affordable Care Act and contributor to Fox News, recently stated that the United States is “very much like Nazi Germany.”
How so, Carson? Is it because there’s a law that’s providing millions of previously uninsured Americans with affordable health insurance, and that’s somehow the same as the policies of the Nazis?
Perhaps we should invent a time machine and send these right-wing pundits back to Germany in the 1930s or Poland in late 1939 into the early 1940s. Maybe they’ll arrive just as the Nazis destroyed Jewish-owned businesses on Kristallnacht, or maybe they’ll witness the liquidation of the Krakow Ghetto, as thousands upon thousands of Jews were rounded up and sent to concentration camps.
If America were really becoming more like Nazi Germany, as a Jew, perhaps I should be a bit worried. But you know what? I’m not. A mandate to get health insurance doesn’t even come close to the terror that millions felt under the iron fist of Adolf Hitler and his genocide-committing goons.
We can disagree vehemently with Obama and his policies, but we should never come to the conclusion that the U.S. — home of the free — is somehow turning into Nazi Germany. When we let talking heads get away with comparing the government to the Nazis, the claim is baseless and offensive, and it ultimately makes the American government look tyrannical and in need of a coup.
How would World War II veterans — some who sacrificed everything — feel about you comparing the U.S. government to the government they fought so hard to defeat? So many landed at the beaches of Normandy and sacrificed it all to defeat pure evil. The current occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is hardly a tyrant and hardly needs thousands of American troops landing along the Atlantic seaboard to defeat him.
If we are going to compare any world leader to Hitler and his Nazi stooges, wouldn’t Syrian President Bashar al-Assad be a better choice?
Throughout the civil war that’s devastating Syria and its people, an estimated 140,000-plus people are dead as a result of the fighting. Assad’s regime has been accused of using chemical weapons on its own people, killing women and children, and ruling with an iron fist.
Despite Assad’s cruelty, the 140,000 lives lost in Syria pales in comparison to the 12 million innocent people who died as the result of the Holocaust.
Nothing and no one compares to what Hitler imposed on millions of innocent people. Nothing.
The Nazi comparisons are wrong, and the right wing knows it. For the good of our country and out of respect for the presidency and the memories of those who sacrificed their lives during World War II and the Holocaust, this trend needs to end.
[Joel Mendelson is a UF grad student in political campaigning. His column appears on Mondays. A version of this column ran on page 7 on 3/24/2014 under the headline "Comparison to Nazis is baseless and offensive"]
