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From: "alrichey@xxxxxxx" <alricheparallels with 1930's Germany
Here’s a conservative spin on what we’re witnessing……
Dennis Prager on Parallels with 1930's Germany
In my last column, I described how I have come to better understand the
moral problem of the “‘good German,’ the term used to describe the
average, presumably decent German, who did nothing to hurt Jews but also
did nothing to help them and did nothing to undermine the Nazi regime.”
Watching America accept the rationally and morally indefensible physical
and economic lockdown of the country, I concluded: “Apathy in the face
of tyranny turns out not to be a German or Russian characteristic. I
just never thought it could happen in America.”In one week, it has
gotten worse. Now we are faced with a lockdown on speech the likes of
which have never been seen in America. And the parallels with Germany
are even more stark. The left-wing party (the Democrats) and the
left-wing media (the “mainstream media”) are using the mob invasion of
the Capitol exactly the way the Nazis used the Reichstag fire.On Feb.
27, 1933, exactly one month after the Nazis came to power, the German
parliament building, the Reichstag, was set ablaze. The Nazis blamed the
fire on their archenemy, the communists, and used the fire to
essentially extinguish the Communist Party and its ability to publish,
speak or otherwise spread its message. Using the Reichstag fire as an
excuse, the Nazis passed the Enabling Act, a law that gave the Nazi
chancellor, Adolf Hitler, the power to pass laws by decree — without the
Reichstag.
Now to America 2021.On Jan. 6, 2021, a right-wing mob of a few hundred
people broke away from a peaceful right-wing protest involving tens, if
not hundreds, of thousands of American conservatives and forced its way
into the U.S. Capitol. One Capitol policeman was killed after being hit
in the head with a fire extinguisher, and one of the right-wing Capitol
invaders was shot by a Capitol police officer. (A handful of others who
died in the vicinity of the Capitol did so of nonviolent causes.) Aside
from smashed windows, the mob seems to have done little damage to the
Capitol. Their intent is still not clear. It seems to have been largely
catharsis. They hurt no legislators, and if they intended to overthrow
the government, they were delusional.
Beginning the next day, the American left used the Capitol mob just as
the Nazis used the Reichstag: as an excuse to subjugate its conservative
enemies and further squelch civil liberties in America — specifically,
freedom of speech. Twitter not only permanently banned the account of
President of the United States but permanently banned him from Twitter.
Any Twitter account found tweeting Donald Trump was permanently banned.
The left was able to do all this not only by using the Capitol mob
incident but also by engaging in a series of lies.
The first was blaming the attack on President Donald Trump. Over and
over, in every left-wing medium and stated repeatedly by Democrats,
Trump is blamed for “inciting” the riot in his speech just before it
took place. Almost never is a Trump quote cited. Because there is none.
On the contrary, he did say, “I know that everyone here will soon be
marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically
make your voices heard” (italics added).
Another lie was the immediate labeling of the mob attack on the Capitol
as “insurrection.” All left-wing media and Democrats now refer to the
event as an “insurrection,” a term defined by almost every dictionary as
“an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an
established government.” As morally repulsive as the actions of the mob
were, they did not constitute a revolt against civil authority or an
established government. Disrupting the work of legislators for a few
hours — as wrong as that was — does not constitute a “revolt.”
But what proves the left’s “insurrection” label is a lie is that
Democrats and their media never once labeled the left-wing riots of 2020
— which involved the destruction by fire and/or occupation and
vandalizing of police stations, and the establishment of “autonomous
zones,” which, by definition, revolted against “established governments”
— as an “insurrection.” The enormous number of businesses burned down,
looted or otherwise destroyed was barely covered by the mainstream
media, and their violent perpetrators were almost never prosecuted, let
alone condemned, as engaging in an insurrection. Dozens of people were
killed in these riots, yet there was more outcry and condemnation
against the hourslong occupation of the U.S. Capitol than against six
months of left-wing violent riots.
Then, like the Nazi regime after the Reichstag fire, the left
immediately moved to further curtail civil liberties, specifically
conservatives’ ability to promote their ideas. Twitter and Amazon made
it impossible for the alternative to Twitter, Parler, to exist, all in
the name of preventing another right-wing “insurrection.”
In the name of the Capitol “insurrection,” the Democrats announced they
would impeach the president of the United States, though he had only 14
days left in office.
In the name of the Capitol “insurrection,” the editor of Forbes, Randall
Lane, announced that Forbes media was “holding those who lied for Trump
accountable” in what he called “a truth reckoning”: “Hire any of Trump’s
(press secretaries),” Lane warned, “and Forbes will assume that
everything your company or firm talks about is a lie.”
In the name of the Capitol mob attack, 159 law professors at Chapman
University have called for the firing of John Eastman, a tenured fellow
law professor and holder of an endowed chair at Chapman — because “his
actions Wednesday (that) helped incite a riot.” Eastman had spoken at
the Trump rally.
The professors ended their Los Angeles Times letter: “He does not belong
on our campus.”
Words well chosen.
What the left is doing is announcing — and enforcing — that
conservatives “do not belong” in our society. The parallels to 1933 are
precise. And most good Americans are keeping silent, just as did most
Germans. Though they do not risk being beaten up, are Americans in 2021
as afraid of the American left as Germans in 1933 were of the German
fascists? We’re about to find out.