"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- My blood boiled when a friend recently forwarded me a story sent to him by a progressive-liberal friend. It was about a campaign theme that some Republican operatives were trying to get the Romney staff to sanction.
The original sender’s comment introducing the article was “The Nazis Are Back!” Here we go again. Republicans are Nazis. Conservatives are fascists. Yawn.
What embarrassing ignorance is exhibited by the “Republicans are Nazis” meme. When will the lefty Democrat dummies discover that the Nazis were socialists?
The name Nazi is from the German for German National Socialist Workers’ Party. The “human life friendly” concepts, e.g., Marxism, socialism, communism, fascism, eugenics, etc., that have led to the deaths of many millions of people since the early 20th Century come from the left side of the political spectrum. Those who support individual liberty, free market capitalism, the individual’s right to retain the fruits of their labor, generally come from the right -- at least today in our country.
Government control of most elements of the peoples’ lives, business and industry plus confiscation of earnings in order to spread the wealth around have come from the left for the last 150 years or so. The Republican Party was founded in 1854 as the party for abolition of slavery. The Republican Party not only led the fight to end slavery and ensure that those of African origin or ancestry were legally recognized as fully human, free and entitled to all of the inalienable rights acknowledged in our Constitution, but for women’s voting rights, civil rights, and black voting rights.
Since the end of the Civil War (1861-1865), every amendment to the U.S. Constitution sanctifying or expanding individual liberty began with Republican endorsement. The Civil Rights legislation that passed during the Johnson (Democrat) administration was initiated by the Eisenhower (Republican) administration. It took years to pass because of Democrat opposition. Even that wiley Democrat political power-house LBJ could not get enough of his fellow Democrats to fall in line when he was president.
It passed because of strong Republican Senate support for civil rights. Why is there such ignorance of history today? Is this by design? Circumstantial or deliberate?
From George Orwell’s iconic, classic novel 1984, first published in 1949, comes the term “down the memory hole.” It refers to the totalitarian government’s practice of “disappearing” any historical fact or previously reported news item that inconveniently gets in the path of the narrative that those who run the government want the people to believe.
You know, those inconvenient truths. In this futuristic dystopia, the people are brainwashed to believe that they are free because they have total access to free drugs and are encouraged to avail themselves of as much sex with as many partners as they wish. Instead, they live in a world that monitors them constantly and tells them how to act, speak and think around the clock. Anyone who gets out of line gets re-educated or disappears.
The state is all-powerful, and invents “enemies” that keep the people in fear, fueling their emotions with daily required “two minute hate” sessions against the manufactured enemies. The government is profoundly leftist in its totalitarian, statist view that these are not persons with individual needs and dreams, but just drones who live their empty lives in support of and subject to the whims of the state.
The memory hole device today appears to be alive and strong in our culture and our schools. Great numbers of people believe in history that never happened if they indeed know any history at all. Tell a black person, or for that matter most Democrats, that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican (as were Frederick Douglas, Mary McLeod Bethune and Carter G. Woodson) and you will likely be called a liar. But he was, and they were.
Give credit to Republicans for the constitutional amendments that freed the slaves, granting full citizenship rights, or that which provided voting rights for women. State that Republicans were the engine for passage of the 1960’s Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. Many people today will stare at you like you are speaking gibberish.
Americans should be proud of the rich history of the Republican Party’s ensuring that our Constitution’s promises extend to all of our citizens. Today’s state and congressional Republicans are fighting to save our states and Nation from economic devastation, protect individual rights and property rights, and shrink the unconstitutionally gigantic size and overreach of our ever more oppressive and fiscally unsustainable Federal government (and many state governments).
Are they perfect? Heck no!
And, yes, they should fight harder and some be replaced by stronger stock. But Nazis or Fascists? Sorry folks, those are “isms” belonging to the leftist government.
When someone labels Republicans ”Nazis,” the name caller is only revealing his abysmal ignorance. That so many people believe that it is true proves that much of the history that they should have been taught is “down the memory hole.”