The nazis in the attic

A sign of the times is the emergence on the Internet of Godwin's Law.  Mike Godwin is the person who noted that "if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Adolf Hitler or his deeds, the point at which effectively the discussion or thread often ends."  Some people have chosen to interpret that observation to mean that when a "Hitler comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever made the comparison loses whatever debate is in progress."   That conclusion is an evasion of those nazi ideals that are, in fact, embraced by a large segment of American society.

In recent protests against the restrictions imposed to limit the illness and death of the covid-19 pandemic, the protestors have yelled that the leaders who have imposed the behavioral rules are nazis with gestapo tactics that are taking away their freedom.  The pandemic has uncovered a pernicious attitude among the people that demolishes the basic premise of our founding that "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."  Those who condemn the measures taken to eliminate the suffering and death caused by the coronavirus suggest that life and liberty are not for everyone. Former Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey said, "Of course, everybody wants to save every life they can — but the question is, towards what end, ultimately? Are there ways that we can... thread the middle (sic) here to allow that there are going to be deaths, and there are going to be deaths no matter what?"  In other words, what's the point of saving lives? Of holding all lives as equally valuable and worth saving?  And there is the mayor of Grants, NM, who said there was no sense shutting down the economy just because of a virus that, like the flu, needed to be left to “take its course.”   The loss of some lives is not worth the effort to prevent.

These statements ring with the attitudes that enabled the Holocaust.  And the Holocaust is the touchstone of our moral values.  It is the event against which we measure our moral purpose.  When we adopt those attitudes which undergirded the Holocaust, we have abandoned those moral values that we fought the nazis to defend.    The real lessons of the Holocaust have been forgotten.  Many Americans are too stupid to have learned those lessons or so possessed by fascist and racist ideologies that they believe in the nazi cause.

The Holocaust did not begin as an anti-semitic  pogrom to kill Jews, or kill gypsies, or others hated by the super race.  It began as program to kill the infirm, the crippled, the aged, the mentally challenged--those that Hitler termed "useless eaters" and "burdensome lives."  He established six killing centers for the purpose of ridding the country of those he regarded as economic impediments.  It was okay to kill if it keeps the economy running smoothly.  That is the attitude upon which the Holocaust was built.  Death is a solution.

And that belief is being loudly proclaimed by Trump collaborators as their way of addressing the pandemic.  Some repeat Trump's original claim that the pandemic is a hoax.  Some insist that the country be opened up despite the spread of the virus and consequent death.  One Trump collaborator said:  “Mother Nature has to clean the barn every so often.How real is it? Who knows? So what if 1 percent of the population goes? So what if you lose 400,000 people? 200,000 were elderly, the other 200,000 are the bottom of society. You got to clean out the barn. If it’s real, it’s a positive thing, for God’s sake.”

It sounds like Hitler is still invading.  And winning.