Demonizing Your Opposition

My dad was drafted into the Army as soon as he graduated from high school in 1945. The war with Germany was over and the new draftees were being trained for the Pacific War. The Japanese were known to be fanatically brave, tenacious and often brutal to those who had surrendered to them. By 1945 Japanese brutality to prisoners was well-known to the young draftees being trained for the invasion of Japan and soldiers like my dad had no illusions about ever surrendering to such an enemy should things look grim. As my dad put it years later, “it was easy to hate the Japs and the Army encouraged it.”

Fortunately the war ended before my dad and millions of other American soldiers had to invade the Japanese mainland. Since the soldiers like my dad were trained to hate the Japanese the government thought it wiser to send them to Germany for occupation duty rather than risk hate filled soldiers on a surrendered Japanese population. In other words it was no longer to necessary to demonize the enemy for they were they enemy no more.

While one might at least understand the reasoning behind demonizing an enemy during wartime, especially when you know the enemy you are demonizing is guilty of the worst atrocities against your own people.

The Nazi’s for example serve as the enemy easiest to demonize. The Nazi’s record of murder is obvious to all unless you are the President of Iran or Venezuela who deny the holocaust. And frankly, it’s not like the Nazi’s don’t deserve the demonization. While others may fit the bill (Stalin. Pol Pot) it is the Nazis and the memory of them that serves as  an example among left leaning people who seek to demonize those they perceive to be their enemies.

The Tea Party is now the poster child of demonization by the left. It would seem that since the left cannot compete with rational, fact based argument their only option is name calling and comparing the Tea Party to Nazis or racists. Within the last couple of days two more examples of this kind of demonization have emerged. It would be one thing if the incidents were isolated and confined to the irrational, lunatic, angry left but increasingly you see this kind of thing with rank and file left who simply repeat what they hear from their so-called leaders.

In Texas a government teacher called the Tea Party Nazis. This is a person entrusted to teach children?

In a similar incident Herman Cain responded to Morgan Freeman’s demonization of the Tea Party as racist. Cain said that Freeman was sadly ignorant and not offended. Cain of course is black and is extremely popular with Tea Party supporters, an inconvenient fact, that has to baffle deep thinkers like Freeman.

Stop and think about this for a moment. Tea Party supporters such as myself are compared to racists who hang black people like the Klan did and the Nazis who exterminated millions of people just because I support limited government, the idea of a flat tax, and financial integrity for our country that is swimming in debt. I’m opposed to crony capitalism and crony socialism which is what we have now as well as spending our way into further debt. For this I am labeled a Nazi and racist?

It is the leaders of the left who are really more responsible for the demonization of  the opposition. Sure they do not use the same language but they communicate the same message. Recently, President Obama, in giving yet another campaign speech vilified the opposition by saying they favor the oil companies and the wealthy and have left the poor and middle cast to fend for themselves. What?

The President in fact never tires of demonizing the Republicans and the Tea Party by constantly scaring old people by saying grandma will be thrown to the curb if the Republicans succeed in repealing Obama care. Frankly, I’m scared for my children and grandchild who will paying for the reckless policies of the left

When the President and his closest supporters use softer demonization language like they are fully aware it is code language for Nazi and racist. They do it because it serves them. Publicly they can decry it but privately approve since it may get them votes.

Ironically, the right, meaning the Republicans and the Tea Party have largely refrained from similar language when characterizing their opponents. Saying that Obama and his socialist policies are taking the country down the wrong road is not quite in the same league as calling him a “Stalinist” (Stalin murdered millions) or a Che’ a bandit posed as a revolutionary and a murderer.

I realize that politics is all about playing hard ball but playing low ball should be beneath all responsible leaders. The fact it is not beneath the leader of the Democratic party should be alarming since the rhetoric he uses simply fans the flames of hate and results in absurd charges of Nazism and racism.