You know it quite surprises me too to find that many Germans raised during that era still consider Hitler in fairly favourable terms. They refer to his uncommon excesses as "mistakes" but say he was brilliant, and many of the aspects of that flawed regime need revisiting. I would say the mistakes defined the man, and we need never revisit an iota of that sort of regime. Despite the amazing revitalization, organization, and technical progress of that society, it was from the get go, so deeply aberrant at its roots, that it can be safely chucked out with the bathwater, the tub, the shower curtain, the tiles, commode, and medicine chest.
The fundamental flaw from which we can learn and never need stop learning, is the one that distinguished the early American government of the 1770's from many others. Governing is only legitimate if it is with the consent of the governed. (Hamilton) And that consent must be continually renewed without coercion, or it loses its legitimacy. The German government was formed only partly thru election, and then thereafter always by backroom deals, murder, and armed tyranny. 62% of voting Germans never selected or once said in any forum that they supported Hitler's government. Many tried to kill him. Even his foremost officers. It is true these facts have been revisited before, but in the end they speak more loudly than any amount of "we did not know" or "we did not participate" -- that the Reich era experience would not have been the choice of the majority of Germans if they could have effected change or had free choice.
Arbitrary practices and tyrannies need never be legitimized no matter the present danger to a society.
The fundamental flaw in many liberal's reasoning about how to prevent the excesses of government is that they usually start with the assumption that some good government is in power and there is some freedom of action within the power structures of government. Not only is that assumption tragically naive, but it is outright dangerous. You cannot do other than to "follow orders" if you are in the army, police or other branch of government. There is NO room for conscientious objection at war or peace. But there is room to allow dissent within a constitution if is so explicitly allowed. It is the only place freedom and good sense is preserved. Not within rigid stratification of 'thou shalt not' laws, and 'we are the good guys, therefore what we do is right' philosophy.
Any attempt for a society to stamp out any sort of unpopular thinking, writing or gathering, are the same tools that the Nazis used to manufacture consent for their machinery of terror to operate. Unfortunately to preserve freedoms you have to preserve every opinion that you don't like before you preserve any that you do.
I do not see a free society in North America today. I see a society that pretends to be free. It is as oppressive as the Nazi regime was. It is far more effectively controlled. Most of the death camps have been closed. When the entire society is a prison camp, there are no need of special camps. No need to execute either when control is absolute. Where there is no fear of domination, when the right machinery is in place, a dictatorship of the governing elite need not be afraid of this group or that.
Power is more effectively maintained by a hidden corruption than absolute decree and armies marching in the streets. Dictatorships thrive when the people are at peace. Government's need large labour forces, to do their bidding and keep their cronies rich and powerful. Some people would be aghast at prison camps, etc.. and they are really not necessary with an all pervasive, video cam overseen, checkpoint gridded police apparatus that keeps every man in thrall. Who needs Auschwitz? We have ATM's.
Commentators in the KGB were on record as admiring the apparatus of North American governments in tracking and controlling their population. They indicated that it was far more effective and penetrative than their own. We could simply afford more apparatus, cards, check points, etc.. Driver and driver's license checks formed a tracking system, how augmented by health cards, social insurance, bank cards, phone numbers postal addresses internet etc... that poorer less computerized societies -- (every country other than than the G7) -- simply could not afford. Our armies of civil servants, comprising one in 8 men women and children, is the largest and most automatically connected in the history of man. Also in many ways without the overt day to day violence of the Nazi regime, one of the most cradle to the grave oppressive and controlling. Benign you say? No rampant murder and mayhem? So who needs it? Control and suppression is control and suppression. Why did they have Boston Tea Party? It was not because of death camps in Massachusetts.. the Colonists were not on Indian Reserves..
The Pharaohs of Egypt would have died to have had one CDN government department with all its data bases, and electronic checking from coast to coast. Egyptian Manpower and Immigration, 15,000 offices and 150,000 employees from the Nile Delta to Sudan.. wow, the Hittites will never get us now.. We have them on the run.. Attila the Hun would have been thrilled too..
We don't even need the Nazi uniforms. Our civil servants obey orders (of their union leaders) without question .. if we want to be Nazis all we have to do is flip and switch.. the power structure, the lack of protection of rights, that is already in place.. nobody can argue, or they go to jail, sig heil!
EC<:-} |
