Well, because it's been done, and quite successfully:
On August 9, 1932, the government decreed the death penalty for those convicted of political murder. The next night a band of Nazis invaded the home of a Communist worker in the Silesian village of Potempa and stomped him to death, kicking his larynx to pieces. When the killer s were arrested, tried, and sentenced in accordance with the new law, Hitler responded with threats and demonstrations. On Sept. 2, the government gave its answer: the death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. The killers were freed by Hitler next year.There is only one way to stop them. Only one way.The civilized men in the country did not know what to do. In the words of one historian, the moderates voiced desperate "appeals to reason [But] their techniques were distinctly out of tune with the wild emotionalism that seemed to have gripped a large part of the nation" The civility cherished by the civilized men had finally been defeated by their ideas, although they did not know that this was the cause.
After years of preaching contradictions and of evading principles with an anti-ideological shrug, these men were astonished to see the nation conclude that man cannot live by principles, that reason is no guide to action, and that anything goes. After years of institutionalizing interest-group warfare, which they had justified as sacrifice or collective service, these men were astonished to see hostile gangs take to the streets and demand one anothers sacrifice. After years of undercutting the mind by preaching the primacy of gentle feeling (whether progressive, religious, or skeptical), these men were astonished to find that they had nothing more to say, and that there was no one left to listen. The moderates were helpless. The authorities were helpless. The killers were taking over.
On January 30, 1933, after due attention to every requirement of German law and of the Weimar Constitution, Nazi rule was made official It took six months for the Chancellor to transform the country into a totalitarian state."
Leonard Peikoff - The Ominous Parallels
It’s been said “History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes” (Sam Clemens?).
The 80th anniversary of that event is this summer.
Per Strauss & Howe, it’s time for another cycle.
Really doesn’t bode well for the next decade-or-so. (But then, you knew that )
The Gods of the Copybook Headings ...