Wehret den Anfängen [View All]

[tjwash]

A friend of mine, who is German, told me that saying once. It translates to “resist the beginnings.” Ever since Nazism and the holocaust, this is a very common saying in Germany, and is taught to everyone out there, and is treated as an extremely important matter. It’s about resisting and standing up against the rise of fascism, so that it never returns to them in their lifetimes again. A saying that we would better relate to in our language would most likely be “nip it in the bud.”

To see so many Americans just sit back and accept what is happening right now in our history, sickens me to no end. When a country passes a law as heinous as this, even when it is clear that it not only goes against the most basic of all basic human rights, it also goes against internationally binding treaties like the Geneva Convention, it can never end well for that country in the eyes of the rest of the world.

Basic human morality, and thousands of years of written history have tried to tell us two things; you should never make exceptions in which torture is allowed, and you should never exculpate your soldiers for "just following orders." It is the beginning of a very slippery slope for any society when the passage of laws that only apply to "good" citizens, and can be suspended for any others, start creeping in.

There was also another term, in the same vein, that my German friend told me as well; “Mitläufer.” It means “runners-with” and is a term that is commonly used to describe people that sort of just go with the flow. My point is, that the people that refuse to get outraged, and even SUPPORT this insane legislation, are not all freepers and neo-cons. Just like in the 30’s, there was a majority of people that didn’t have a burning fanaticism about fascism, or Hitler, or the Nazi party. Neither did they hate Jews or Gays. They merely got swept up in the current of the times and went with it. Much in the same way we hear friends and neighbors say things today, such as “why would I care about the Government tapping my phone? I have nothing to hide.” The new laws didn't apply to them back then, did they now? So why protest? Why be scared? Why worry about anything that does not affect me?

Unfortunately, as history has proven again, and again, it will affect them eventually. This is a law, that will take a few horrible illustrations by example to get it repealed. Another thing history unfortunately teaches us, and was best said by Abraham Lincoln; is that that the best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it without exception. Unfortunately, it is going to take having a few of the “Mitläufer” trapped in that unconscionable system, getting their story publicized, and waiting for the outrage to build nationally before any of this horrible legislation will go away.

For the record, I have intentionally NEVER compared Bush to Hitler. Or Musollini. Or Pol-Pot, Idi Amin, or Fidel Castro. Nor am I doing it now, And I never will do it. Why? To do so is to automatically give up any chance we may have to tell people what a completely misguided, and unfortunate law that this is, because the ones who need to hear it the most will automatically dismiss you as a weak kneed moron who gives in to terrorists. Besides, we should be discussing and debating the policies, morality, and logic of the Bush Administration, not which historical dictator the president is most similar to.

I would rather put the ebb and flow of our society in a historical context, as that is usually the best judge. If things continue as they are, America will soon be the pariah of moral failure; the one that everyone points to in the future as the ones to never, ever be like.

That’s not the future that I want to see for our country.