This one of the most absurd postings that I have read on FR, and that is saying something. This comparison to things we do not like with Hitler and the Jews is getting old. It is intellectually lazy and dishonest. As much as I loathe what the TSA is doing, it bears little resemblance to what Hitler was doing to the Jews. Going through a pat down hardly makes anyone a German Jew. I am neither a German nor a Jew, but comparing what the TSA is doing with the holocaust is to belittle and demean what the Jews suffered under Nazi Germany.
Oh, I agree - we're not to the equivalent stage of the Holocaust - yet. Give the national socialists time. The pieces are falling in place, and the direction is clear.
Excuse me, but I also abhor the constant “Nazi” comparisons in society today. However, there is definitely an uneasy feeling that brings me around to what was done to my great-grandparents.
In order to use the airport, and air travel, we must “stand naked” in front of whom, we know not, someone behind a wall. Yes, probably a man, an overseer, is staring at my feminine naked body on the scans, as well as looking at men, and naked children. It’s inhuman to do this to the general public. It is beneath us as Americans, wishing to travel in freedom.
And then the body pat-downs. To be patted down in our private areas, man, woman, and child, by someone with a badge who is just following orders does give me creeps.
I am afraid this comparison stands, for this situation. Tyranny starts right here, sir.
I don’t like it when people go overboard with the Hitler comparisons either and I agree that we’re not at that stage yet. However, we are approaching some form of fascism if current trends continue.
Fascism- coined by Benito Mussolini from the Italian “fasci”, a 20th century ideology that emphasizes the absolute subservience of the individual to the state, a preference for collective identity over individual identity, a denial of the concept of individual rights, based on the *personality cult of a charismatic leader*. Though many fascists aspired to totalitarianism, defined as the politicalization of every aspect of life and the abolition of private civil society, *often accompanied by the omnipresent image of The Leader*, only Hitler succeeded. A summary of what I learned about fascism in Modern Political Ideologies sophomore year of college, emphasis mine.
Alternative comparisons to 0bama
Emperor Palpatine “So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause”- Padme, Revenge of the Sith
Lord Cutler Beckett “Right to habeas corpus, suspended”- POTC III
Lord Voldemort “After tonight no one will ever doubt my power again”- HP 4
Grindelwald “For the Greater Good”- Grindelwald’s motto, HP 7.
Personally Lord Beckett’s my favorite as I can totally see the One dithering as all Hades breaks loose around him and his tyrannical rule is abruptly by a rebellion. Maybe that’s just my fantasy.
FReegards
Comparing what is going on with airline travel is, I agree, a bit much to what actually was happening with Jews on trains, in death camps and other trgic events. However, I don’t think it is much overstretch to say that the blue shirted hirimgs of TSA ,from whereever they came, can be compared to the brownshirts of Germany,we know these were not necessarily the best of German citizens. It has been common practice in revolutionary practices to set up official, I would call, ‘goon’ squads. Not being an air traveler these days I can only go on reports and visual reports that show some of the blue shirts are behaving like brown shirt goons.