The Overused ‘Nazi’ Insult (Comparison of Conservatives to Hitler "Grotesque," "Obscene")

Boston Globe ^ | 6/28/2005 | Jeff Jacoby

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

THE MOST striking thing about the uproar over Illinois Senator Dick Durbin’s comparison of American servicemen to ‘‘Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or ... Pol Pot’’ is that his grotesque comparison even caused an uproar in the first place.

Of course his analogy was obscene. Of course he knew perfectly well that there is no equivalence between the treatment of several hundred Muslim detainees in Guantanamo — some of which may have been appalling, but none of which has been fatal — and the Nazis’ genocidal slaughter of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust or Stalin’s imprisonment of 25 million prisoners in Siberian slave camps or the mass murder by Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge of nearly 2 million of their fellow Cambodians.

[frankiep]

The politicians on both sides are essentially the same. They bitch and moan about each others actions in front of the microphones yet if you look at their policies and actions you will see that they are stringingly similar; and all too often, heavily socialistic in nature. All of this name calling and arguing about this or that is just a smokescreen to take our attention away from this fact.

Take big whiff everyone, we are in a world of you know what. Brought to you courtesy of the republocrat party.

[what's up]

The politicians on the Republican side do not speak against the WOT.

The other side works against Bush in the WOT every chance they get.

Big difference here between the parties.

[Zacs Mom]

[Samurai_Jack]

Oh they finally get it!?

[EdHallick]

Liberals want to compare the US to the Nazis or call Bush a Nazi, fine. They can keep doing that, and I`ll keep calling Hillary "Hitlery". They can only wish they had so perfect a name for Bush.

"Hell to pay, hell to pay, hell to pay...squaaaak!"

[MeekOneGOP]

Take [a] big whiff everyone, we are in a world of you know
what. Brought to you courtesy of the republocrat party.

[frankiep]

I've been here since February. At what point does someone cease to be a newbie?

[durasell]

At the exact moment that you agree with someone who has been here since January. At that point you become a genius...

[Textide]

I've been here since February. At what point does someone cease to be a newbie?

That question kind of follows the same theme as this article. Instead of refuting a point someone makes (who signed up after they did), some posters just pull the newbie card.

My advice is to just keep posting.

[Slings and Arrows]

[Loyal Buckeye]

As Michael Barone points out in a recent article, Durbin's speech was carefully written and presented. Durbin knew what he was saying and did it with the intent to enhance his and the Democrats power at the expense of the country and the troops.

[goldstategop]

Liberals have called conservatives nazis so often the term has turned from insult into one of flattery. You know you haven't made it in the world until you know you're described as a descendant on the most evil regimes in the history of mankind. Of course it devalues the real horrors of Nazism. Then again liberals don't care about history. Its enough they imagine their oppponents as capable of anything - and that's made politics a less pleasant form of public discourse.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

When Pennsylvania’s Republican Senator Rick Santorum, on the other side of the same debate, said of Democrats objecting to the GOP’s stand, ‘‘It’s the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942 saying, ‘I’m in Paris. How dare you invade me? How dare you bomb my city? It’s mine,’’’ why was there no outpouring of censure? When pundit Robert Novak, at still another point in the filibuster controversy, fumed that for Republicans to consider compromising with Democrats would be ‘‘like going to a concentration camp and picking out which people go to the death chamber,’’ how many commentators and talk-show hosts erupted in outrage and contempt?

The politicians on both sides are essentially the same

I'll give you the Novak analogy, since it was a direct reference to actual Nazi crimes - even though Novak clearly wasn't being literal. But the Santorum analogy was pretty tame; all he meant was that he believed in his cause and his opponents were hypocrites for condemning him for acting on his beliefs when they themselves would not have hesitated - were the tables reversed - to do as much or more than he was doing.

All the rest of the examples in the piece are Democrats. There are more examples of the Democrats using Hitler to smear Republicans, and the examples are more clearly smears. Durbin's smear was the most egregious, because he spoke of the treatment of prisoners by American guards and literally compared that to the treatment of prisoners by the most abusive people in recent history. To seriously compare prisoners who on average gained over 15 pounds of weight to those who starved to death is egregious - an unambiguous smear. The other Democrat examples are just a little less vicious - but only just so.

Jacoby - and you - engage here in false moral equivalence.

[Paul_Denton]

Well I have yet to see a Conservative Republican call our troops Nazis and call Gitmo a Gulag.

[Wiz]

ping

[ImpBill]

" We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

What will it take for the shpeople to implement their "Declared" rights?

[Zacs Mom]

"At what point does someone cease to be a newbie?"

At some point after they figure out that posting a comment condemning all republican politicans with sweeping statements which lump them in with the like durbins and labeling them all the"republocrat party" is offensive.

[OldFriend]

Nothing Rove said was or will be used by Al Jazeera to promote hatred towards the United States and coalition troops.

[frankiep]

Oh, I'm sorry. You see, I was under the impression that this was a conservative discussion board, to discuss conservative issues. I didn't know that this was in actuality a republican discussion board where party members can all get together and cheer as the Party, both passively and through its own actions, moves further and further towards the left.