I am seriously tired of hearing Adolph Hitler being compared to George Bush, and now there is a new one--a local issue, but involving someone many people across the country have heard of: Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the "toughest sheriff in America," of Maricopa County, AZ. Sheriff Joe has been of late doing something scandalous. He and his deputies have been arresting illegal aliens and putting them in jail. I know, I know. Shocking.
Because of this behavior, the Mayor of Phoenix, Goofy Phil Gordon, has been
reduced to spluttering indignantly at Sheriff Joe's nerve. It seems to be interfering with Gordon's fervent desire to be the Mayor of the number one Sanctuary City in America.
And now we have been subjected to a "column" written in a local, neighborhood type paper, calling Joe Arpaio our "Little Hitler," and comparing his rounding up of illegals to Hitler's Brown Shirts coming into Jewish neighborhoods to pull Jews from their homes and deport them, in his words, "to the afterlife." This making light of the Holocaust has now caused ME to be reduced to spluttering indignantly. I have written a scathing rebuttal to that paper, and the editor has already told me he plans to print it. Now I am going to share with you some of what I told him, and anyone else who is flinging the unholy name of Hitler around with abandon.
The Left is particularly fond of this type of unfettered flinging. It is easy for them to hate a good man, for they know they will pay no price whatsoever for any evil that spews from their lips. I agree with George Bush on almost nothing, because I am a Conservative for the most part, and he is not. But there is nothing about him that lends itself to a comparison to Hilter. The Left is fond of this type of hyperbole, however, because they are clueless as to what it is really like to live under a dictator bent on destroying everyone for whom he has disdain. It is safe, here in America, to call President Bush names and make up the most outrageous lies about him. No one is going to kill you for it, or haul you off to prison.
My husband was born in West Prussia, now Poland, in 1941. He lived in East Berlin and then fled to West Berlin as a small child. He can attest to the ravages caused by Hitler, and the eternal shame of being a German in the aftermath of the Holocaust. He is an American citizen now, and though he also disagrees with much of what George Bush has done as President, it pains him to hear ANYONE compared to Hitler. There is no one who CAN be compared to Hitler. There are other evil beings, to be sure, but he is unique. Kim Jong Il, Saddam Hussein, Stalin--all right up there, but I think Hitler stills reigns supreme as Evil Incarnate.
I must request that you nutty lefties educate yourselves on the history of WWII. I realize that public schools do not really teach it accurately anymore. Revisionist history abounds in textbooks throughout our country. So I have a reading list for you. Some of these are very old books, but I bet you can find them on good old Amazon.
Start with the two volumes of Victor Klemperer's diaries of the Nazi years, "I Will Bear Witness," which cover the years from 1939 through 1945. Professor Klemperer was a Jew married to an Aryan (the only reason he survived), living in Dresden. Reading someone's diary is very different from reading a later wrap-up of the events that occurred over a period of time. You live almost every day with him, his wife, their neighbors and friends. You feel the desperation and fear, experience the near-starvation, mourn the loss of all the things that make life worth living--his job, home, health, and of course, people he loved. These two books will pull you into Life with Hitler with startling clarity.
Years ago, a friend gave me a battered paperback called "Treblinka." It was published in the 1960s, and may be out of print, but once again--check Amazon. It is worth searching for, though it is not for the faint-hearted. I suspect few on the Left will be able to get through it. They have a collective aversion to confronting REAL evil, preferring instead to label George Bush, second-hand smoke, SUVs, and climate change as their evils. They bury their heads in the sand and think that Islamic terror is really just a response to the many evils WE perpetrate on the world. As I said in a previous post, the world is upside down and inside out. Good is bad, black is white. If one can read all of "Treblinka," one will have a clearer picture of what evil REALLY is, as well as what true courage is. Here's a clue: it ISN'T bravely shouting conservative speakers off podiums at a university.
Another book well worth reading is the story of a young American G.I. who was part of the company that liberated one of Hitler's concentration camps. Seared into my mind forever, though it has been a while since I read it, was the soldier's description of stumbling through the camp, desperately searching for someone, anyone, who might still be alive. He came across a jumble of people,I believe it was in an old train car, and saw a mother with a baby at her breast. At last, he thought, there must be survivors! But no, both of them were dead, the baby's little mouth still attached to the mother's nipple. It nearly did him in. Me too. The book is "Where the Birds Never Sing," by Jack Sacco.
I think this tendency to invoke pure evil from the past to smear people we are put out with in the present must stop. It cheapens the suffering of so many, and insults the memory of their unspeakable terror and torture. I can only attribute it to cowardice and the refusal to step up and identify the real evils of today, and take them on. Here's another clue: George Bush isn't one of them. Neither is Sheriff Joe.
On this Memorial Day weekend, take time out from shopping or barbecuing to reflect on the Americans who gave their lives to save the world from Hitler and his allies, all bent on destroying and conquering Europe, Asia, eventually us--the world. Our veterans and our current military deserve our most heartfelt thanks and praise, for who else stands between us and the evil that is out there today? Not, I think, the Loony Left.
If further reading is sounding good to you, try "The Commandant of Auschwitz." I read it in high school, in the 1960s, so it may be hard to find as well, but search on. It will be worth it. We must understand what has occurred in the past so that we can prevent it in the future. Refusing to face evil, pandering to evil, pacifying evil, cuddling up to evil, pretending evil is actually good, have never, ever made evil go away. Leave Hitler on the ash heap of history, but make sure you KNOW that history.