Double Standards about Calling People Nazis

The rule is: You must NOT call anybody a Nazi unless you are talking about conservatives. Or so it seems. Democrats are always calling President Bush and other conservatives Nazis and the general idea you get is that such a practice is seen as rather clever. It certainly does not evoke shocked condemnation from all and sundry.

And it does not matter if you don't explicitly use the word "Nazi". You can use a broad hint if you like. Most conservative bloggers will remember when Al Gore referred to them as "digital brownshirts". "Brownshirts" were of course Hitler's Storm Troops (Sturm Abteilung).

So if someone thinks you are Nazi-like and indicates that by using a well known Nazi slogan like Sieg Heil in a mocking way -- as Leftists sometimes do to conservatives -- that should be OK, right?

WRONG! A New York schoolkid did just that. He added a comment to his school yearbook entry that was in fact one of the most well-known Nazi slogans. He wanted to indicate that he thought the school was excessively authoritarian.

And his teachers, being dumber than he is, did not pick it up and let the slogan go through and get printed.

And you can guess the rest. Details here

Given the prevalence of the accusations that conservatives are Nazis, I should perhaps note in passing here a a bit of basic history: Just as the Ku Klux Klan were Democrats, so Hitler was a socialist. The word "Nazi" is in fact short for "National socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch in German).

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and DISSECTING LEFTISM. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)

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