Comparisons

There has been a lot of talk recently about Obama-Hilter-Nazi references. Though ironically must of it was started by a poster displayed by a Democrat Lyndon LaRouche supporter. Though of course there have been plenty of other references.

First off Obama is not Hitler. Just as Stalin was not Hitler and Mao Zedong was not Hitler. These other men were all deeply evil in their own ways. Am I saying that Obama and these other men all ranked equally on the evil scale? Well no, but these men all supported intrinsic evils and operated in different circumstances. The times they lived in and the people who supported them helped them all to kill others, though it was murder by proxy.

The biggest problems with Nazi and Hitler references is that it usually does not advance, but torpedoes a conversation as Godwin’s law points to. BusHilter and Obama Hitler is worthless in providing any light,

An [reference]>article today takes issue with these comparison and references some of the great evils of the Nazi regime. He makes some good points, but does this mean that any comparisons can’t be made?

Comparing intrinsic evils to intrinsic evils is not much of a cause. You can trade back and forth evils committed by one regime as compared to another. Hitler as a person was deeply disturbed and even not being a Obama fan I think it is a ridiculous comparison on the personal level. But the phrase the “banality of evil” I think can be applied to the Obama administration. The evil they support is so ingrained in them that they don’t even notice it. The Culture of Death has trained many people into an acceptance of evil that they would call a right.

But even in a Culture of Death Obama sticks out. Nazi ideology made a group of persons to be non-persons. Jews and Gypsies and anybody not fitting the Aryan mold could be classed as non-persons and thus could be killed. Throughout history whenever you wanted to justify killing a group of people certain words and phrases were used to do the task of referring to the human person as inhuman. One book written several years ago did an in depth study of the words and phrases used that were quite consistent whether the targets were slaves, Jews, or the unborn. So there is the obvious parallel in the dehumanization of human persons by both our modern culture and Nazi Germany. The murder of innocent directly result from this dehumanization.

That these comparison have come out with the health care debate is also no surprising. Nazi Germany had socialized health care. As costs increased they looked for ways to cut those costs. This directly resulted in the murder of those institutionalized or in hospitals. This did not happen overnight, but slowly developed. Zyclon B was originally developed to efficiently gas these patience. Now I don’t expect in any way to see a repeat of this even if we do go the socialized medicine route. The Nazis were brutally efficient. Our bureaucracy would certainly cause health care to result in rationing and euthanasia. There will be death of the innocents, just not on the same scale and not as evil of motive. Though in any case any form of euthanasia is intrinsically evil regardless of the intent of the “care-giver”. One thing that most people don’t realize is that it was American that often served to give advice to Nazi Germany when it came to eugenics. Some of the people that worked with Margaret Sanger and her Birth Control League and wrote for her magazine served as advisors to the Nazi regime. America at the time was on a eugenics kick and some of the laws since repealed are really disturbing.

Every person should be judged on what they do and making charged comparisons do not help. So let us focus just on what the President himself supports:

• Infanticide. State Sen. Obama decided it was better that a baby born of a botched abortion should just die and not be given any medical attention than to have any possible effect on abortion laws. He has never admitted that the last vote on this the language in the bill that was passed by the Senate was identical. The Senate bill passed 98-0. In fact when the NRLC brought this fact to light, he called them “liars.”
• Partial Birth Abortion. He also has no objection to sucking the brains out of a child as the child is being born. The child would have been taking its first breath if they didn’t reposition the child to bring out the head last.
• Abortion at any time for any reason. He does not support any restrictions at all when ti comes to abortion. He is quite happy to go along with the 50,000,000 killed and to add to that number. These children who are chopped up daily by the thousand and disposed in medical waste containers for the most part is not objectionable to him. He will hedge and haw about it being a “moral decision”, but we know what would he would prefer if his daughter was “punished with a baby.” His promise to reduce abortion given to the Pope was an obvious lie and his idea of common ground initiatives would only increase abortion. He directly supports the slaughter of innocents and is politically beholden to those who also support this.
• Public funding of abortion. His support of paying for abortion in D.C. shows that he has absolutely no problem with the public funding of abortion. One of his initial executive orders did in fact allow public funding of groups overseas who perform abortion. His divisiveness when it comes to the funding of abortion in the current health care plan also shows that he has no problem forcing people to pay for abortions. It seems his only caveat is what politically he can do in this regards.
• Embryonic stem-cell research. He has zero problems with creating human persons and then harvesting the embryo for research. Politically he has restricted this to using so-called leftover embryos from IVF. But there is nothing in what he has said and his ideology that would actually have any problem with cloning embryos and “harvesting” them. In his triumph of ideology over science at the same time he federalized the slaughter of human embryos he also stopped public funding of adult stem-cell research. So this is a President who supports morally problematic research over moral research that actually leads to cures. It is hard to see why if you are going to support public funding of research that you would choose embryonic over adult stem-cells other than a rigid ideology that once again must never admit the humanity of the human person once conceived.

So on a whole range of life issues he comes out on the side of the angels – the fallen angels. He supports multiple intrinsic evils with a smile and I did not even mention his assault on marriage by going after DOMA.. In the support of this he has told multiple lies about the extent of what he supports.

• Euthanasia. He once said his only political regret was that he did not help Terri Schiavo to die earlier. He has gone on to talk about “futile” care. “in April Obama favored some sort of government sponsored panel that would help assess treatment options with one eye on the patient’s quality of life and the other eye on the public purse.” Over and over Obama repeated the words “difficult” when it comes to this. The “difficulty” is in getting people to pull the plug to save money. Death boards is pure hyperbole, but hyperbole rooted in the truth that some bureaucratic agent will be involved in determining if you are allowed treatment.. The president can’t see human dignity at the beginning of life and it appears that he has a hard time seeing it at the end of life.

One of the blessings of the Catholic faith is what we are taught about the human person. St. Thomas Aquinas taught that people are seeking a good even when the actuality is that they have performed an evil. They are seeking some good and not seeking to do evil just to do evil. So as much as I am totally at odds with all of the intrinsic evils the President supports I don’t have to dehumanize him with derogatory terms. I can pray for his conversion while at the same time speaking out against the evils he supports.

So while for the most part comparisons of the President, his administration, and party with the National Socialism of Germany is problematic. Let us also not forget the great evils he does support and the slaughter of the innocents that he will contribute to extending, but most of all never forget to pray for him.