My Father’s Day Wish - Know How it Always Starts

Opposing sides in American politics are not looking for intellectual accuracy so much as they are looking for words that will sting their opponents. Sometimes in U.S. politics you will hear one side or the other claim their opponents are “Nazis.”
My Father’s Day wish is that people understand on an intellectual level that the “Nazis” were only one form of many “totalitarians” in recorded history. Slapping the “Nazi” label on some person or party definitely constitutes using a word that can sting. However, what people should truly grasp is the term "totalitarian." Unfortunately they don’t.
Another problem with using the term Nazi loosely is it grossly trivializes the depth of evil of Hitler and his followers during World War II. The first Americans on the scene at places like Auschwitz and Dachau got a first hand lesson in understanding of the depths of depravity that human beings are capable of when given absolute power.
Those leaving Germany in 1945 could not help but wonder if there was something uniquely evil in the German character that allowed the extermination of 5.7 million people? History’s answer is no. Ask any Chinese citizen who survived the Japanese assault on their country during WWII, or the Mao purges that followed and you will realize that the Nazis did not have the market cornered on depravity. Still, there have been many more attempts to explain how what the Nazis did could be allowed to happen than explorations of the atrocities of Imperial Japan or Mao.
The film “Judgment at Nuremberg,” properly placed a significant portion of the blame on those who saw all of the early signs of the onset of totalitarianism and stood aside. Accordingly, the best conclusion to be drawn from watching the film and contemplating what happened in Germany is to realize that every citizen has a duty to become literate about what the concept of “freedom” truly means. Every citizen should feel a strong sense of duty to protect the freedoms of every other citizen so that all of us can remain free. Unfortunately, when people are illiterate regarding our constitution and they feel no sense of duty to protect the freedoms of others, it becomes a precursor to totalitarian disaster. Simply put, that is how it always starts.
It is important to realize that preventing the cancer of totalitarianism from taking hold is not about viewpoints that might be considered too conservative or too liberal. Preventing a totalitarian state from taking hold is about the guarding against the great human temptation of elected officials to always preempt more freedoms and take MORE power for themselves.
21^st Century history teachers have a duty to expose the scourge of totalitarianism. They are completely shirking their responsibilities. The totalitarian Stalin regime exterminated an estimated 20 million people to maintain strict control. The totalitarian rule of Mao in China resulted in an estimated 65 million deaths. It is important to understand that not all totalitarians are Nazis, though every Nazi was a totalitarian.
Because America’s public school system is manufacturing illiterate graduates at a staggering rate, American’s aggregate fear of totalitarianism falls far short of the threat itself. While it is true that most Americans of any generation know who the Nazis were and what they did, too few comprehend the true dangers of totalitarianism. And far too few know who Joe Stalin or Chairman Mao were let alone how many more of their own citizens they butchered than Hitler.
Preventing totalitarianism from getting a foothold is actually pretty simple. It begins and ends with the solemn and comprehensive protection of individual freedom. One of the main things Mao, Hitler, and Stalin had in common was they all used the term “Greater Good” to justify allowing them to acquire total authority over their societies and comprehensive control over all aspects of public and private life in their countries.
Fortunately the United States Constitution, including all of its amendments, is the best example of a nation creating strict limits on government so that it can never morph into a monster that is best exemplified by Nazi Germany, Stalin’s USSR, or Mao’s China.
Unfortunately, these days those in power are constantly subverting the U.S. Constitution so that the state can acquire total authority over the society and comprehensive control over all aspects of public and private life using “greater good” propaganda.
How about a few examples of totalitarianism metastasizing into our system? There are so many examples of the gradual acceptance of totalitarianism it is disturbing. They are everywhere. Let’s take a glance at the most striking.
1) The federal government is snooping on our emails, our cell phone calls, and text messages. The greater good excuse for this 1^st Amendment violation is national security. The federal government is doing the same to journalists and even daring to throw them in jail for not disclosing their sources. Senators like Chuck Schumer of New York, want the government to regulate and define who has press credentials so that freedom of the press can be controlled. One of the first steps towards totalitarianism is narrowing press freedoms.
2) The federal government actually spent resources to close down open space national parks and monuments during a recent political battle over the budget. Citizen’s freedoms of access to public places were arbitrarily terminated by the federal government. Nobody bothered to explain why the greater good could be achieved by using money the government said it did not have, to close down facilities that did not require funding.
3) Federal government officials have blocked investigations into the murder of border agents that were tied to guns the Department of Justice gave to Mexican drug cartel members. The greater good served for blocking the investigation, according to the government, was Richard Nixon’s favorite, “Executive Privilege.”
4) The government refused to comply with subpoenas investigating the murder of a U.S. Ambassador until a court forced its compliance. No greater good excuse was provided for this lawless act. A quick perusal of the emails showed that the government officials in question lied because they thought it would help them maintain control of power.
5) Those in charge of the federal government argued that the penalty element in Obamacare was not a tax. Then they argued before the judiciary wing of the government, that it was a tax. The greater good served was more control of health care in the hands of government officials.
6) The federal government, while claiming Obamacare serves the greater good, made a “ruling” that exempted itself from key provisions. The greater good was that the government wanted to retain its best employees.
7) Those in charge of the federal government insisted that American citizens could keep their doctors and their insurance under Obamacare. They now concede that was a lie. The greater good was more government control of health care.
8) International data clearly reveals that global temperatures have not increased for seventeen years. In support of this data the federal government blamed the poor performance of the U.S. economy so far this year on cold weather. The U.S. weather service shows that 2014 is well on its way to being one of the coldest years on record. Still, the federal government is insisting that for the “greater good” it be granted sweeping control over all forms of energy, because it claims the temperatures are rising. Anyone who points out the contradiction between low temperature trends and high temperature claims is called a “denier.” This is the equivalent of a “counter-revolutionary.”
9) The best example of the widespread onset of totalitarianism in the U.S. is the willingness of the federal government to use the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to execute suppression of political opposition by selectively denying legal status to opposition groups. Just this weekend the federal government is claiming that subpoenaed emails sent and received by Lois Lerner, who took the 5^th after publicly declaring her innocence to investigators, were somehow not backed up and are “lost.” Richard Nixon’s tape erasing secretary Rosemary Woods would seem to have nothing on Lois Lerner.
The totalitarianism con game is always built on a persistently false claim of the “greater good.” This dubious claim can provide political cover for just about any abhorrently corrupt act committed by an elected official. If a society is not vigilant about protecting its freedoms, totalitarians can steal their liberties right out from under their noses.
The sequence is agonizing. When a public education system becomes an utter failure, the majority of citizens become ignorant regarding what the most natural end game result of totalitarianism is. When this occurs, the seeds for the creation of out of control governments that can eventually be responsible for the most deplorable depravities in human history are sowed.

My Father’s Day wish is simple. I hope that every school teacher, every member of the still free press, every responsible government official, and ultimately every American citizen comes to their senses. Understanding the malignant nature of totalitarianism and why it is now well on its way to metastasizing on our nation has become the defining moment in American history. In November we need to begin the process of excising the human tumors before more aggressive and desperate treatments are called for.