Posted on 03/26/2006 9:38:44 PM PST by Unam Sanctam
AT LAST A HIGH GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL in Europe got up the nerve to chastise the Dutch government for preparing to legalize infant euthanasia. Italy's Parliamentary Affairs minister, Carlo Giovanardi, said during a radio debate: "Nazi legislation and Hitler's ideas are reemerging in Europe via Dutch euthanasia laws and the debate on how to kill ill children."
Unsurprisingly, the Dutch, ever prickly about international criticism of their peculiar institution, were outraged. Giovanardi's critique cut so deeply that even Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende felt the need to respond, sniffing, "This [Giovanardi's assertion] is scandalous and unacceptable. This is not the way to get along in Europe."
As is often the case in the New Europe, what is said matters more than what is done. Thus, the prime minister of the Netherlands thinks that killing babies because they are born with terminal or seriously disabling conditions is not a scandal, but daring to point out accurately that German doctors did the same during World War II, is.
That being noted, one wishes Giovanardi had thought twice before raising the Nazi specter. Partly, this is because nothing we are talking about today matches the scope or magnitude of Nazi crimes. As a result, accusing people of Nazi-like behavior allows those amply deserving of moral condemnation to deflect reproaches. Thus, Giovanardi says that killing disabled babies is what the Nazis did, and the Dutch merely retort (correctly) that they are not Nazis.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
Not yet, but it is coming.
ping
I'm reminded of a quote often repeated at church, "All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to stand by and do nothing."
Wow, now they're putting them to 'sleep'. Someone slap the stupid out of them.
Abortions have killed more millions than the Holocaust.
people are not good in estimating how cruel or risky the own actions are.
I think after some time abortions might very well be seen as the major cruelty of the dark ages around the year 2000.
Or maybe we find something to top that.
Wesley J. Smith ping.
BTW it's a throughout american habit to compare all and everthing to WWII and facism (islamofacists - Hitlery, the gay agenda often related to some crude evidences the NSDAP beeing a group of gay activists etc etc.)
It's realy an obsession. It's essential to know this part of history - and it's also essential to know, that it can happen again - everywhere.
Yup, reminds of Chirac telling New Europe they missed a good opportunity to keep their mouths shut when they wouldn't go along with his plan to torpedo US foreign policy on Iraq.
Europe's masters hate it when their serfs get uppity.
That's telling yourself.
somehow your right
If you read the rest of the article, it does a good job of comparing the Dutch and the Nazis -- even to the point of their "protocols" to ensure only specific babies are euthanized.
Were the Nazis motivated purely by eugenics? I don't think so -- I think they also figured into their twisted calculations the desperately low resources the Germans had thanks to the reparations imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, and the incredible inflation that ravaged their economy. Their killing program had (what they saw as) the practical side of not expending resources keeping someone alive who would not contribute to the "Reich."
As far as comparing the Dutch to Nazis, I realize that a lot of people like to toss around the "Nazi" tag for effect, and this doesn't seem like the right place for it. But on the other hand, the Holocaust didn't flip on like a light switch. People didn't wake up one morning to newspaper and radio announcements by the German government that, "Oh, by the way, the new program of exterminating 11 million people is scheduled to start next week. Stand by for updates."
Maybe the Dutch should just be called, "Liberals." It seems to fit better.
- and again.
-Men(ace) in Black? SCOTUS goes Rogue...--
-Useless Eaters vs The Death Cult--
-Thunder on the Border-- (Minuteman Project)--
1- an unaccountable Judiciary.
2- whose life is it, anyway? Yours, or someone else's?
3- whose Country is it?
There are other vital issues, of course- but these three will determine just who we really are as a nation.
"But on the other hand, the Holocaust didn't flip on like a light switch. People didn't wake up one morning to newspaper and radio announcements by the German government that, "Oh, by the way, the new program of exterminating 11 million people is scheduled to start next week."
Exactly. Eugenics ideas started taking hold just before the Nazis took power in Germany. There were some "baby steps" (sorry, bad term in this case) toward the cheapening of innocent human life, starting with the disabled. The late Dr Francis Schaeffer pointed out that it can happen again, in fact when he produced "Whatever Happened to the Human Race" with C. Everett Koop, he was afraid that we were going down that road again, and perhaps we are.
well it's not like you would get shot if you don't abort -
(the other way arround I wasn't sure if it couldn't happen)
not every atrocity and moraly questionable way is comparable to nazi methods.
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