|
I'm glad to see that there is a broad consensus on the idiocy of Hitler comparisons. Their ridiculousness is self-evident, and anyone who stoops to such cant should feel a twinge of pathetic shame.
On the other hand, if people feel that their government is doing evil, they should say so.
I honestly feel that the W administration perpetrated evil stuff - possibly with noble intentions, possibly not, I sure don't know. I'm happy to hear out those who would defend enhanced interrogation, warrantless wiretapping, dissembling about WMDs and all the other well-known and much-criticized actions of that recent era. So far, no one has convinced me that those actions and others were justified, I remain horrified by them, but I've managed to have plenty of civil conversations about it. I don't need Hitler as a touchstone. I can give perfectly good reasons why I think those things were fVcking evil without resorting to Godwin tactics.
So far, I can't see any justification for calling Obama evil. He hasn't really done anything much at all yet. (He sure as heck isn't the liberal Messiah some thought he would be.) The accusations against him seem to be based on presumptions about what he is going to do (even though he says he isn't), or about his nefarious origins or his hidden Islamic agenda, etc. In other words, the conversation right now isn't about things he has actually done, things that can be analyzed and disagreed about in the way that the Bush actions can. (It's still early, though.)
To be fair, similar stupid predictions were made about W. Some of my leftier friends were CERTAIN that George was going to cancel elections and declare himself leader over a martial state "until the crisis is over," which would mean never. I didn't buy this scenario for a second, even though, to those who didn't like him, it sounded plausible.
Also note - when comparisons of GWB to Hitler WERE made, it was because of actions he had actually taken. I repeat, I didn't then and don't now like the comparisons, but they did come about as a result of things Bush and company actually did do, rightly or wrongly.
So, to the reasonable conservatives we are lucky enough to have here, I hope that their objections to Obama will be over things he has actually done, or very clearly intends to do. (Like spending ginormous amounts of money, or levying a penalty on the uninsured - hey, even I can understand why people have concerns, really.)
In truth, the conversation here is nearly always leaps above that I've seen anywhere else on the interwebs.
|