i know it is fashonable for liberals to compare bush to hitler.

but is the nuclear option being considered by the u.s. senate right now similar to the enabling act that gave hitler his power in germany?

don't republicans know that they will now always be in power?

Similar rules changes have been attempted or succeeded throughout the century and the Senate, notably by Lyndon Baines Johnson in the mid to late 1950s when he was Majority Leader. In case you don't remember, LBJ was also a democrat.

I don't agree with Frist and his posturing on rules changes. Even with your disclaimer, however, comparisons to Hitler are pretty disgusting and totally devoid of perspective in this--and most--circumstances.

Most of the politically garrulous these days could use a little less Michael Moore and a lot more 11th grade U.S. History.

but the comparison is not disgusting....

these are both examples of parties in power that are changing the rules to cement their power.

(and i am begining to think that if hitler was in power right now, he would get away with it all over again because people would say: "how can you compare him to hitler?")

Hitler systematically enslaved, tortured and murdered six million people based on ethnicity alone.

If you don't think that is beyond compare then you are stupider than I had already thought.

Like Bush and the GOP or not, I find it rather offensive to the sensibilities not only of contemporary people but also to the millions who died at the hands of Hitler and his regime.

If you were truly interested in framing debate, then use a less incendiary and more apt example. For instance, the Senate in the 1950s. Or how about FDR and his attempt to add six justices to the Supreme Court and adding a mandatory retirement age in his second term, since the sitting judges weren't to his liking.

did i say that republicans enslaved and killed jews?

NO

i said the nuclear option is similar to the enabling act

for someone getting all pissy about my lack of understand of history your being pretty narrowminded in your view of hitler. he did do more things than just kill jews.....

But I've heard all your political ramblings before. You make Bright Eyes sound like Richard Hofstadter.

Sounds like someone's got a case of the Mondays!

the only thing that i don't like about the comparrison is that whenever hitler is brough up, there's a tendency to feel like you simply can't make a comparisson because the atrocities were so awful, even if there are aspects of it that are valid. thus we end up where the reaction is "you just can't talk about that" (i think that a similar thing happened with that colorado professor who compared the 9/11 victims to little Eichmans- even if he had a point and was drawing a metaphor, reactionaries simply said that we are not to discuss anything related to Nazis); i hate situations where something is simply not said.

i see where scottycash99 is coming from, he's choosing two very specific actions and asking if there's a similarity. he's not said that bush is a genocidal fuckhead.

i can guarantee you that you havent heard ALL of my politial ramblings

and....do i know you from somewhere else that you would know my political ramblings?

I'm not saying you can't talk about it, but to infer that GWB and the GOP is aiming for the same politically structured goals is a bit of a stretch.

As I also mentioned before, there are much more apt examples of similar situations that have occured in the Senate before, several at least within the past 100 years. One example would be the rules change to prevent the filibuster in order to pass civil rights legislation against the southern bloc of Democratic Senators.

The comparison to Hitler is a plea to emotions, not a plea to reasoned discourse. Lots of situations, especially political ones, can be compared to Hitler. That doesn't mean that he is by any means the best example.

You'd think the saintly republican party would live up to its name and not repeat the stupid things FDR and LBJ did over the last century.

I think we're talking more about fascist tendencies in general, and with the Patriot Act rammed through congress and the nuclear option being proposed by the right, you can say I'm a little scared.

I think this whole rules change thing is a horrible idea, just in case that wasn't clear to anyone. I'm by no means defending Frist.

i think the comparisons to any facist regime is pretty spot on

look at america right now:

not only can the government look at your bank records without telling you, but it is illegal for the bank to even tell you that the government is looking.

"sneek and peek" search warrants

the elimination of privacy rights and the elimination of government accountability for its actions



we have one party running the executive branch, both halves of the legislative branch and 7 out of 9 supreme court justices were nominated by republicans.

but that is not enough, now they want to get rid of a provision in the senate that would protect the minority.

republicans are trying to convince their base that they are persecuted by the evil liberals.....

whether or not you hate the comparisons to hitler they are not crazy.

hitler didnt personally kill millions of jews, he convinced a nation to hate jews. how many pro-bush people do you know that say things like "we should just turn iraq into a parking lot?"

look at the books they read:



and this is a best seller....

because im a liberal i get lumped in with terrorists and am labled "evil"....

Yeah, because being conservative never got anyone called evil or compared with genocidal despots.

no, being evil gets you called evil

taking actions that mirror those of a genocidal despot get you compared to a genocidal despot....

Right, so you're justified in making these statements and they're not because you're a liberal and therefore righter. I guarantee you they employ the same reasoning, which is why we never get anywhere.

The only part of current right-wing activities that really smacks me as reminiscent of 1930's German politics is the using of nationalism as a bonding / polarizing agent. Any time a political party accuses people who don't agree with their ideas as "unpatriotic," be scared. The whole notion that disagreeing with the war, wanting us out of iraq sooner than later, protecting the environment, separating church and state, etc., are all unpatriotic, or unamerican, is absolutely terrifying if you've ever studied the way hitler was able to unite and mobilize his country.

Is it the same thing? No, not exactly. But it's similar. Remember, they were facing roughly 1000% inflation and a depression that made ours look like a "bad day at the market." We aren't under that kind of pressure. They took wheelbarrows of paper currency to market (literally) to wait in line for stale bread. Things happen when people are faced with that. People become... suggestable, in the extreme.

Bush is in no way a Hitler. But pretending that only one side of the argument is somehow "patriotic," and then saying you're either for us or against us is a trick that's been used before. You know what Nazionalismus is, right? (Nationalism.) That kind of rhetoric is going to keep people making the easy comparison, whether it's unfair and inflammatory or not.

Sessionable, if you will?

what part of protecting civil rights is evil?

what part of NOT wanting to kill people is genocidal?

you are right though, i do find my beliefs to be more right than those held by conservatives.

so America is facist b/c it's been voting Repulican and reading crappy books?

no but its leaders are acting in many of the same ways as facists act

My point is just that, whether one side is more justified than the other in their hyperbole, neither is entirely justified and as usual the answer is in the middle, but since you are as unrelenting in your broad characterization of conservatives as they are of you, you are as responsible for the lack of moderation in the debate.

Do you complain when Michael Moore sells books and movies?
Michael Moore is Sean Hannity. Just pushing different propaganda.

Thanks, Aaron.