Tell us what about that excerpt doesn't precisely describe what has been occurring in the US?
No one said we're going to become Nazi Germany, but Nazi Germany also didn't appear out of thin air. There were a series of actions and evolution at the state level that eventually provided the necessary preconditions for Nazi Germany to exist. I'm sure that what ended up being Nazi Germany was one of several path that Germany could have taken given those necessary preconditions that permitted its existence. We don't know what those other paths are, one of those paths could be where we end up instead. What is known, is that this ever widening gap permits individuals, possibly several acting in concert and possibly in the belief that they are doing the right thing to exert undue influence upon the political decisions of the country for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many. The two wars we have become embroiled in unnecessarily are prime examples of such acts.
We probably won't become Nazi Germany. But there is nothing going on that suggests that we won't become something that is a democracy or republic only in name, and that the will of the people and the rights of individuals simply become inconsequential. I personally have no reason to believe that we will become Nazi Germany, but I have every reason to believe that we are becoming a nation that no longer protects my rights and the rights of my fellow citizens and that we are becoming a nation that protects the self interest of the few at the expense of the self interest of the many... us.
Furthermore, there a large number of cultural precursors that existed from before Hitler was even born.
Hitler didn't invent antisemitism. Martin Luther clearly envisioned a genocide of Jews, in what was one of Hitler's favorite books. [1]
Eugenics was bigger in the U.S. than anywhere else.
The U.S. even invented modern nationalism, and it clearly remains more popular here than anywhere else in the western world. (Though, at least originally, this was tempered by the idea that Enlightenment ideals were universal, though admittedly, "Freedom" and "Liberty" are now just empty newspeak)
No no, you see, the Germans were EVIL and were knowingly doing terrible things because they enjoyed them. Hitler was drinking the blood of children while the wehrmacht paraded guns around going "BLITZKREIG! BLITZKREIG!", and everyone supped from the skulls of slaves on a daily basis.
Sadly, this was the vision promulgated by western propaganda, as the notion that a civilised group of people could end up where Germany ended up was unconscionable, and incomprehensible to most - and this visage is still stuck in the mind of most as "how NAZIsm happened", rather than the very slippery, very real slope they found themselves tumbling down.
Exactly. Instead what should have been popularized were Stanley Milgram's obedience to authority experiments that were performed to answer the question as to why many otherwise well meaning humans would collectively engage in horrible acts like extermination of a race of people. That experiment and Soloman Asch's experiments in conformity pretty much show that Americans are just as capable of the same acts as Nazi Germany.
Sadly we really don't even need those experiments to show we are also capable of such atrocities. Abu Gharaib, Guantanamo Bay, Extraordinary Rendition, WWII Japanese Internment camps and other examples from our history show that we already have.
Godwin's Law is well rooted in basic human nature.
I downvoted you for your mid-brow dismissal of the parent comment.
Yes, there are parallels between UK in 2013 and Nazi Germany in 1933. Scary parallels. People who know their history understand that authoritarianism and fascism tend to take hold within a relatively short amount of time. In Germany for example, the Nazi party was formed in 1920, came to power in 1925 and within a decade it was implementing racist and nationalist policies all over the country. We all know what that led to.
That would be the same United Kingdom that now has posters on busses in London telling illegal immigrants to go home? The one with the opt-out web-filter to stop "terrorists" and "paedophiles" who can't Google "proxy"? The one where failing to turn your encryption key over to the police will land you in jail? The one where teenagers are arrested for obvious jokes on Twitter?
The Nazis have been given this special place in history, in discussions, in almost all aspects they've been examined, such that they are seen as the extreme end of the spectrum in almost all cases, brutality, efficiency, deadliness, zealousness, etc.
Propaganda is good for motivating people, it's not good for making rational, informed decisions (indeed, it's point is to bypass rational decision making by applying to emotional cues).
The truth is, they were an entire country of people, with varying and diverse opinions on everything. The fact that we elevate them to this position does not make us less likely to follow their path, by viewing them as so distinct from us, it makes us more likely. There's a little Nazi in all of us, and the sooner we come to terms with that, the better we'll be at noticing and taming it.
