To Those Who Try to Stifle Talk of Comparing Bush and Neo-Cons to Nazis

To Those Who Try to Stifle Talk of Comparing Bush and Neo-Cons to Nazis…

The fact is that we need to discuss this issue. The people who come in here and try to shut down this discussion really ought to ask themselves -- regardless of their opinion -- what harm is done in discussing this issue as opposed to the harm that is done by NOT discussing it. It is potentially much more dangerous to remain quiet, because the one fact that cannot be denied is this: something is seriously wrong with America. Discussing what is wrong with it will take many forms and if doing a comparison and contrast to Nazi Germany is necessary to go in the direction of fixing our country, then so be it. America is well worth it. We cannot tolerate things continuing as they have for the past six years. It must stop and we'd damn well better step up to the plate.

But they will laugh at us! What about those who carry signs that compare them to Nazis?

I say let them laugh! I ask the person who says these things, “What are you so scared of?”

Think of the story of the boy that cried wolf. What harm ever came to the people in the story? The real harm came to the boy in the end. Well, so be it. If people here or else where are willing to discuss this issue, then you should not attempt to stifle that discussion. After all, this is a "discussion board" where people can exchange ideas, thoughts, and opinions -- preferably freely. However, in Bush's America, freedom is quickly becoming a relative term. Those who think everything is fine believe they have their freedom; conversely, those who think that something is wrong -- myself included -- believe that we are being stripped of our freedoms. (Freedom is on the march indeed!)

Furthermore, no one here is even talking about going out with signs. While I will submit to the fact that some people have done that, is that not their RIGHT in a truly free country?

No one has said directly that conservatives or Bush supporters are Nazis; however, the comparison ought to be made. There is no danger in that. I fail to see what you are so scared of when said comparison is made. Once more it is relative. What we do know is this -- there is a Patriot Act, there has been illegal wire-tapping, and this president has willfully chosen to ignore and violate our laws. Are people so delusional as to think that it takes killing any amount of people to make his actions morally and legally questionable? Tell me, will you regulate morality and violation of the law into a game of numbers because the Bush regime has not reached the millions? Tell me, will you deem their actions unworthy of examination because nearly 2500 American lives and untold THOUSANDS of Iraqi lives have been lost? Tell me, how many people are imprisoned in our prisons around the globe? Tell me... I dare you. I challenge you to answer these questions!

Some people will talk about Bush’s intelligence, and how the Nazis did productive things like bring Germany back from the pericipice of economic ruin. As to Bush's intelligence. I'm not of the camp that believes that he is as dumb as he seems. Personally -- and thank God for freedom because I can have this opinion, at least for the moment -- I believe it is all a big act. It seems to me that Bush and his cronies have outsmarted us -- his opponents -- time-and-time again in the last six years. It's foolish to try to say that correlation proves causation for that matter, for while Hitler may have had an IQ -- another relative term -- of "around 150," though I have studied him extensively and cannot recall him ever having taken an IQ test, he was still defeated in the end. My opinion or your opinion of Bush's IQ doesn't make a damn bit of difference, when it doesn't take a high IQ to destroy. What it also takes is a lack of morals and reckless ambition. Bush most certainly has an abundance of those, my friend.

Sure the Nazis were horrible. Yes, the Nazis were evil, but are you telling me that it will take the death of over 6 million Iraqis and US service members before you begin to raise concerns or draw comparisons? I certainly hope not, because if that is the case and you are truly in the majority, then surely we are lost.

I cannot recall who said it, but I believe it is an apt quote to apply to this discussion, "Evil men triumph when good men do nothing."

Why are people so reluctant to confront and discuss this issue?

I believe, and I may be wrong, that the answer is simple.

The same fear that Bush and his ilk use to their advantage is the same fear that makes people want to run away from what they see in the mirror. It's fear and it's denial.

Have you ever had a friend who was in an abusive relationship? You ever see how reluctant they are to face up to the fact?

You ever had a friend who is addicted to drugs? You ever notice how reluctant they are to look at what they've become?

That's an elementary answer that is only the tip of the iceberg, but I believe that a close examination will yield satisfactory, and disturbing, results.

Fear eats up itself and begets more fear which in turn begets more fear and more and more... I believe you get the point. Our responsibility as citizens who see this is to fight like hell, to intervene, to break the cycle of denial and fear.

is that neo-nazis like to cosplay.

:eyes:

Look at all of the pics out there on this. I'm making these links so as not to offend those here too much:

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but the repukes can do it all they want. Hitler & Bush have in common that they have co-opted patriotism for their own good & not the good of the nation.

that, while this administration is bad, the Nazi comparison is over the top. Perhaps they feel we Gentiles know not of which we speak, as it wasn't our kin who got fried.

I don't think it's cowardice or caring what others will think. Nazi references are just touchy, is all. I'm not Jewish, so I don't claim to know what they feel, but I'm not going to put them down for saying that Nazi references bug them.

I thought they were NAZIS.

Hence, no, I'm assuming most of them have a legit beef that needs to at least be listened to.

Not that there is much difference between FREEPERS and flies.(Both eat shit and bother people)

To the OP...We've come a long was baby! Six years ago you'd have been laughed off this, or any other dem board for your post, but a lot of America is seeing the truth now. Each intolerable act has gotten us a step closer not only to 1984, but to 1934! The Wolf is back and the sheep are always the last ones to know.

It may hurt to talk about a lot of things, in the long process of growing up and growing old, but those unpleasant things we will face, serve to instill a sense of right and wrong in the traveler on his or her path through life.

FIRE...HOT. * SHIT...STINK. * LOVE...NICE. * REALITY...HARD. * NAZIS...BAD. * BUSH...JUST AS BAD, WITH LOTS EVIL TOOLS, FAR MORE ADVANCED THAN WHAT HITLER EVER DREAMED OF HAVING.(like atom bombs and super computers and ICBMs and millions of televisions in every home in the country, to name but a few)

The techniques and methods used in the Holocaust were perfected in camps and hospitals where tens of thousands of Germans were "euthanized" many because they were considered unfit to reproduce. This included mental patients, children in homes, the very sick and those in the political opposition as well as Gypsies and Jews. See

http://www.mtsu.edu/~baustin/holocamp.html

and

http://www.mtsu.edu/~baustin/euthan.html

Peace,

freefall

if we're going to call them Nazis, that is.

Many believe that 9/11 itself was an action perpetrated by this regime. It is very similar to the historical context that this thread is about. The similarities are stiking to many historians. It scares the crap out of a lot of serious people.

doomed to repeat it? uh, or is it "if we don't remember to repeat doom we are history?"

wow, by simply forgetting the order of a few words, you can change history.

think it should hopefully lead to a realization that as horrible a president Bush is, he
is not in the same league as Hitler. When I read people claiming otherwise, I do feel
sympathy for the family of those who were put in a hell hole and then executed.

I, generally, do not participate in such debates or discussions because I do not
think there is much point to such debate in the end.

There is more than enough factual information to oppose Bush on his own without
trying to 'prove' he is as bad as Hitler. In fact, I hope that Hitler is not
the standard for bad conduct a leader must reach before we recognize we don't want
him as a leader.

him before he becomes as bad as Hitler was.

Is based on the misconception that Nazi Germany started out where it ended up. The period of time in the history of the nazi regime that we need to understand is 1933 - 1938. It wasn't until '38 that the regime felt confident enough to 'take the gloves off', to become overtly totalitarian. The demarcation point is crystal night

"Die Kristallnacht, also known as die Reichskristallnacht (literally Imperial Crystal Night), die Pogromnacht and in English as the Night of Broken Glass, was a massive nationwide pogrom in Germany and Austria on the night of November 9, 1938 (including the early hours of the following day). It was directed at Jewish citizens throughout the country and portended the events of the Holocaust."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht

The regime had been in power since 1933. We have not yet had our crystal night, our regime has not yet made its intentions plain.

Bush is not in Hitler's league in the sense that he has not reached the level of crimes against humanity that Hitler ultimately reached. That does not mean that he won't get there, and it certainly does not mean that we should not look at the early years of the nazi regime to inform us about what the bush cabal is up to.

by 1945 Hitler had reached the point where he was finally as bad as he ended up getting. Bush gets worse every day too!

Here, I just posted this in another thread and in my journal. We are not going to replicate nazi germany, we are building our own nasty system.

Here are some of the key elements of the framework of the new system they are building within the facade of the old republic.

1) installation of dominionist christian fundamentalists into government institutions. Is it theocracy yet? No, but clearly we are headed in that direction. Particularly troubling is the installation of theocrat-friendly lifetime judicial appointments, and the dominionist takeover of the air force academy.

2) HAVA-induced election fraud infrastructure. We will continue to have elections but our elections are becoming as farcical as those of the former soviet union. We will see what happens in 06, but I hugely suspect it will be worse than 00, 02, and 04.

3) permanent war. They have even relabeled it as 'the long war'. Everything they do is justified by the permanent state of emergency ushered in by the PNAC game plan enabling WTC attack.

4) militarization of many aspects of civil society. Nobody even blinked when suddenly we sprouted a department of homeland security to go along with our militarized police forces. The bill of rights has been discarded in fundamental ways by the absurdly named Patriot Act. Torture and disappearance are deemed appropriate.

5) control over mass media. The populace is left in a permanent state of confusion by a mass media clearly working at the direction of our new rulers.

6) totalitarian level data collection on citizens. They aren't looking for terrorists by amassing all this information on you and me, they are looking for us. They are building their lists of undesirables. Be afraid, be very afraid.

7) dictatorial powers claimed by the executive branch. Congress has bent over and submitted to the new regime. By not opposing their assumption of extra constitutional extra legal powers, the old republic's tripartite system came to an abrupt end.

Yes it isn't nazi Germany. It is the Christian Republic of America, living inside the facade of the former United States of America, not quite ready yet to reveal itself.

...fascism in the U. S., and publicly states that what he fought against in WWII has taken power in the U. S. I agree with him 100%.

but I can repeat it here I guess. It's not a matter of trying to stifle a debate, or of not agreeing at least on some level. It's a matter of making a difference vs making a gesture.

We are creeping in the same direction as many nations did in the 1930's, that's easy enough to show with things like the video I posted in the other thread or with the 14 points of fascism link someone else posted. When the comparison is to the style of government it's an easy debate to prove your point in, we are going in the same direction.

But the more exact the comparison becomes the more holes there are in it, and the more time we spend on silly debates about the differences rather than on the similarities in direction. Going down the same road isn't the same as being them, I'd just rather get the point across rather than get caught up in distractions about specific acts and differences. Why complicate the debate?

Because it was little steps, little removals of rights, little bits of police states, little bit of racism, little bit of this, of that...

And I'm sorry if you don't see the parallels, we are definately doomed to repeat it. What will happen when America is drained? Seriously, what will happen when there is only poor and rich - uneducated poor, and indoctrinated rich? What can be the outcome of that?

did in his first six. I compare them to Nazis because National Socialism was just another tag for fascist pyschos out to take whatever they wanted from whomever they wanted. Hitler had a personal dislike of the Jews which was taken up by his followers. That's what set him apart. With Bush it might be blacks, or liberals, or anyone who he's paranoid about like Stalin. Just because he hasn't murdered a mass of Jews doesn't mean the evil little cretin isn't above murdering masses of whoever. That's where unchecked and unopposed dictatorships inevitably lead. The similiarities between Bush's rise and Hitler's rise are indisputable. Any Americans who ignore them or blow them off are no different than the Germans who let WW2 happen.

And don't forget how many Iraqi aka Muslims have died at *s hand.

PLUS +

The number of U.S. soldiers dead or maimed

PLUS +

The victims of LIHOP/MIHOP 9/11

PLUS +

Katrina

EQUALS =

How many dead at his hands?

:scared:

It's a maddening situation.

Hekate

like alanon wives who have slipped bigtime

I have no problem with calling the Bush administration totalitarian, or fascist, because they are these things and more. But Nazis have taken a special role in history and rhetoric--they represent tyranny taken to its most horrible extreme. When Bush and friends are publically compared to Nazis, the audience will note the absence of death camps and SS marches in the US and come to the conclusion that the person making the comparison is a fool. And don't say that "Bush is starting out slow, just like Hitler did!" Even if that is true, most Americans are too bovine to understand it. Image is everything, as they say. The administration has given our side so much ammo with their warrantless wiretapping and phone call database that there's no point in tripping ourselves up by screaming "Hitler!" The fact that the Bush administration doesn't recognize the Fourth Amendment is shocking enough.

And comparing Bush to Hitler is foolish for factual reasons as well as pragmatic ones. The Nazis wished to conquer the world and remake society in accordance with their schizophrenic ideals. The Bush gang are simply a bunch of thieves. They've started illegal wars, emptied the treasury and run up a deficit for one purpose: enriching themselves. They don't care about military domination of the world, nor about racial theories, nor about national security, for that matter. They just want to bleed the US and the world dry.

And if we are using the criteria of nationalism and "racial theories" to differentiate between Nazis and the * administration:

1) Are the PNACs nationalists...is there some kind of miscreant idealism about them? Are they (Perle, Wolfowitz, Kristol) nothing more than the intellectual versions of patriot/militia/skin head types?

2) As to racial theories, Thom Hartman, in the The Genetically Modified Bomb (Common Dreams 10 sept 03) wrote that:

"Thus, anybody who's part of a group with a shared genetic profile may be at risk in the future, suggest the authors of The Project for a New American Century's (PNAC) report titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century."

The report notes that, 'Much has been written in recent years about the need to transform the conventional armed forces of the United States to take advantage of the 'revolution in military affairs....' They point out that our military requires a dramatic transformation, lest we lose our ability to fight future, unconventional wars. Some may be fought in cyberspace, others underwater or in outer space. And some even within our own bodies.

Consider what would happen if there was a virus or bacteria that only infected a particular type of person, killing, disabling, or sterilizing only those of a particular genetic profile. Consider the political leverage a nation would have if they could credibly threaten the extinction of all people worldwide with almond-shaped eyes, or the sterilization of everybody with a gene that tracks them back to a common ancestor or region.

Three years ago, Wolfowitz, Kristol, and their colleagues suggested this is something the Pentagon should be thinking about. Not just germ warfare, but gene warfare." http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2003/Human-GM-Bomb10sep03.htm

if nothing else Mussolini nailed it, the quote is in my Flash film link here, a work I created about three years ago called, "Bush is not a Nazi - so Stop Saying That.."

MILLIONS of people loved this one, especially the Germans :)

In case no one realizes it the Bush family has been in BIZNESS with the Nazis for a LONG time, and them's the facts.

Here's the link: http://www.takebackthemedia.com/bushnonazi.html

Turn up your speakers.

with fascism.

Nazism is a specific form of fascism and was unique to Germany in the '30s and '40s. There are other forms: Mussolini's Italy, Franco's Spain, Pinochet's Chile.

Mussolini, the founder of modern fascism, said this form of statism could also be called "corporatism" because it was the merger of state and corporate power.

Nazism conjures up black and white newsreel footage of goose-stepping troops, a raving Hitler, hysterical crowds shouting "Seig Heil," cattle cars to death camps, etc. When we say Bush is Hitler or the GOP is like the Nazis, people don't see the nuances in the parallels between them. There's a disconnect between Bush/GOP "friendly fascism" and the extreme brutality and personality cult of German Nazism.

I recommend not using "Bush is Hitler" rhetoric. Instead, study up on fascism in general, educate people about what it really is, and draw comparisons between it and Bush's GOP. There is ample evidence.

Nazi Propaganda: 1933-1945

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/ww2era.htm





The Guilty

The Reichstag Fire / The Crimes of Bolshevism / Marxist Agitation /
The Jews as the Cause / The Zionist Protocols /
Convict the World Criminals

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few days ago, Germany was astonished by the news of arson in the Reichstag. Fires were set in more than twenty places in the building. It was almost completely destroyed. The ringleader is the head of the Communist faction in the Reichstag, Representative Torgler.

At the time time the press brought another unsettling report. In the basement of the "Karl Liebknecht Building" :

secret passages

and hidden tunnels were discovered. Material that encouraged civil war was found. Detailed plans to murder both individuals and groups of Germans citizens were found. The bloody uprising was supposed to begin throughout Germany in the immediate future. There was to be murder and arson in cities and villages.

These news items had a strong effect throughout Germany. The indifferent citizen who had not wanted to see the enormous danger of Bolshevism looked in horror toward Berlin. He too realized now that Germany faced a terrible threat. The burning Reichstag building was the signal that brought every German to his senses.

The National Socialists, however, were not surprised. They saw it coming. They had long recognized the danger of Bolshevist world criminality. They had long predicted that what everyone now could see. They had warned the German people about it in a hundred thousand meetings, they had called them to battle against it in thousands of mass meetings. They organized a mass movement of millions against it.

The German people has woken up. It has risen up. It wants to fight against Bolshevist criminality. It demands its destruction, its defeat, its extermination.

snip

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/ds7.htm


False Consideration

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Front soldier X was wounded at Stalingrad and was airlifted back home. During his long months of recovery, his thoughts turned often to his dead and missing comrades and their families. He knew how relieved his family was at his return, and how great a burden the less fortunate had to bear. He used his short leave to visit the families of those who were closest to him. He was the last to see them, and it was his duty to pass on the last handshake from sons and husbands to their mothers and wives. It was a hard duty made easier by the fact that they had nearly all been men who did their duty. But it gave him occasion to reflect.

He visited a family of acquaintances. They spoke of this and that. The conversation turned to an old woman. One preferred to avoid Frau So-and-So. She was a nice enough woman, to be sure, but she said the oddest things. Recently, she said it was stupid that our soldiers had to undergo such dangers, and similar things. She caused a lot of bother and annoyance, and probably is not quite right in the head. One really cannot take her seriously.

One didn't report her to the police, our reader asked? No, one could not do that. One could hardly send her to prison or even the gallows. She was such a nice woman!

And these were fine loyal Germans, old and honest National Socialists...

The story got our front soldier thinking. He did not overestimate the matter; he knew that the hysterical old thing talked such nonsense and slandered German soldiers to get attention, and that she belongs to that irreducible one percent of fools and criminals that every nation has, even Germany. He had been near to death too often not to understand life. He was not surprised that there are such people. Rather, he was surprised that there are people who underestimate the dangers of such behavior, and that some are considerate toward such people from misplaced bourgeois sentimentality.

snip

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/sk02.htm

The Reichstag Fire = 9/11
There was no plane debris at the Pentagon.
There was no plane debris at Shanksville.
The WTC towers were pulled.

Any of these is enough to prove it.
BTW, here is finally video of the first tower as it was demolished:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ExrVgioIXvk

In Germany, where I spend much of my time, the Nazi Party is outlawed.
In 1983, a radical-right ex-SS officer wanted to start a neo-Nazi party
in Germany, and so he had to look for another name.

He and his nasty bunch found their inspiration right in the good old USA.

They call themselves "Die Republikaner."

Luckily, in Germany, these "Republikaner" usually get 1% or less of the vote.

What I find unfortunate about comparisions between the president and the Nazi chancellor is that it's essentially a failure to grasp the essential nature of power and tyranny.

Remember Lord Acton's quote, and then realize that yes - as other posters have pointed out, the lack of death camps, hour long stormtrooper marches by torchlight, Einsatzgruppen massacres, et al - makes the comparisons fatuous.

It is unhelpful to the nation to make comparisons between the current Administration and that of Adolf Hitler. Pointing out "the same things are happening here as happened in 1930's Germany" is not merely hysterical-sounding; it's also a bad analogy.

Simply say that the expected Acton-slide into tyranny is occurring with more rapidity, and you will me more accurate and also more effective.

Bush is perhaps the poorest speaker I've ever seen.

Run-away patriotism, oppression and fear were at the roots of the Third Reich and the same phenomenons are currently occurring in America.

There is some similarity between the Reich-stag fire and the World Trade center but the 9/11 event was far deadlier and more fear inspiring.

In the early years Hitler formed powerful secret police organizations to eavesdrop on citizens just like Bush.

Hitler also spirited people away to secret camps without due process of law, which brings to mind another obvious similarity.

In Germany the Jews were demonized, much like Muslims are attacked in American propaganda.

Might makes right continues to be essential in ruling philosophies of ALL tyrants, so it's not central to previous comparisons.

But your right, the current tyrant has no ability to inspire the masses with his speeches.

It's so easy, even Freepers can participate!

Think about how the fear of the type of paranoia rampant in the McCarthy era might prevent us from seeing the obvious as our government truly is infiltrated. This time the truly offending party has control of all branches of government...

We already had the "triggering event" in 9/11. We are devolving on a pretty much predictable path as was hoped for by Osama. He may not be as crazy as we all think - or he was extremely lucky. Point is - we have the perfect "dupe" that would clearly allow the devolution into Fascism if surrounded by the right people. Notice how he's changing the surrounding people with people who are more "yes" men (and women)?

There really is good reason to think about this possibility at this time.

All of the "cards" are falling into place. There are a lot more coincidences that I'm sure you're all aware of - I'm just touching on the highlights.

Fascism -- monarchism -- theocracy -- it's all the same thing.

A belief that some minority has the right to rule the majority. It matters little if it's the true believers, a master race, a family dynasty, a ruling class, or the current DC/Euphemedia Analstocracy. It's all anti-democratic, thus Anti-American*.

This is what the stolen election of 2000 was all about. There was zero attention paid to the Will of the People of Florida and the nation. The result of the vote (not the vote count**) was well known shortly after the election when the uncounted ballots were extrapolated by precinct, and Gore won FL by tens of thousands. Any ethical, moral, real American would have conceded to Gore at that point. (Note: It is at this point that many of you have been trained by fascist propaganda to think "electoral college" and/or "close election" and that somehow some quirk in the system makes what was perpetrated legal or constitutional or something not as disturbing as the truth.)

The contract generally known as the US Constitution was put into breach on January 6th, 2001. This is the "original sin" that must be remedied.

It was this overruling of the will of the (former) American People that left us open to the 9-11 attack, which was a far less important event compared with the election theft. It simply allowed the 21st Century Neo-Fascists to have their "Reichstag fire" to consolitdate control.

The more important part was that the only global force for good in the past several decades -- the public opinion of the American People -- was taken out of the global, moral equation. Which is why prior to the election theft we could stop plane-crashing over the Pacific at the Millenium with help from Jordanian Intelligence, and after... well, not so much. We had lost our moral ascendency, our place as the court of last resort.

Certainly this is a "kinder, gentler" fascism. But did you expect goose-stepping, tanks in the streets and racial hate speech? It's much more efficient to simply scream "Mushroom clouds in 45 minutes!!" through every Euphemedia outlet in order to terrorize a population into compliance (20 guys with boxcutters pales in comparision, doesn't it?).

But make no mistake, it is fascism pure and simple.

_________
*"After Socialism, Fascism combats the whole complex system of democratic ideology, and repudiates it, whether in its theoretical premises or in its practical application. Fascism denies that the majority, by the simple fact that it is a majority, can direct human society" - Benito Mussolini 1932

**"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decided everything." -- Josef Stalin (echoed by Pol Pot, Bushes, Scalia, Rehnquist, etc...)

--
www.january6th.org

In fact Hitler, toward the end of the war, was not a NAZI. The Bush Regime does use the same game plan, true, to a fault.

Edmund Burke

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

But Then It Was Too Late




More...

http://www.thirdreich.net/Thought_They_Were_Free.html

People go in and they don't come out. I think that's called a death camp. Sounds like Hitler to me.

This is from the OSS psychological profile of Hitler. Copied from WWikipedia. Links to the full profile are there.



--IMM

It was buried in the popping off section and printed in the Life & Arts, where the comics and TV guide is:

When I hear your tired spiel about protecting Americans from the terrorists, I'm reminded of what Nazi leader Hermann Goering said when told that in the democratic United States, only Congress could declare war, and that people had a real voice: "Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy," said Goering, who, incidentally, was part of a regime that had a Reich Central Office for the Combatting of Homosexuality and Abortion. "All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country," he said.

That is the game you're playing, isn't it, George?

useful, I think. Calling Bush Hitler isn't as useful as comparing the two societies. Bush isn't charismatic enough, but this isn't 1933 either.

People have discussed these parallels since the 60s, at least.

I see nothing wrong with the discussion at all. Getting all upset about it is a sign of a shallow mind. Bush has to kill 12 million people in concentration camps or we can't discuss the disturbing similarities between now and the rise of the Third Reich? Just immaturity.

The signs of totalitarianism have been listed somewhere; stuff like incognito detention, the whole society directed toward and geared toward the government, suppression of opposition, etc. We aren't anywhere near there, but going in that direction is a valid cause of concern. I'm only glad we are so sensitive to it. We see it in the distance and can head it off early.