"After America , There is No Place to Go "

[Kaya]

"After America , There is No Place to Go"
The author of this article lives in South Dakota and is very active in attempting to maintain our freedom. I encourage everybody to read this article and pass it along. I see so many parallels in this country-are we going to sit by and watch it happen? Spread the word; also contact your congressional reps; vote them out if they don't do what they should. If you don't want to be bothered, then you're part of the problem! Google Kitty Werthmann and you will see articles and videos.







America truly is the Greatest Country in the World. Don't Let Freedom Slip Away



By: Kitty Werthmann
What I am about to tell you is something you've probably never heard or will ever read in history books.

I believe that I am an eyewitness to history. I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history. We elected him by a landslide - 98% of the vote.. I've never read that in any American publications. Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force.


In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed. We had 25% inflation and 25% bank loan interest rates.
Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily. Young people were going from house to house begging for food. Not that they didn't want to work; there simply weren't any jobs. My mother was a Christian woman and believed in helping people in need. Every day we cooked a big kettle of soup and baked bread to feed those poor, hungry people - about 30 daily.

The Communist Party and the National Socialist Party were fighting each other.. Blocks and blocks of cities like Vienna , Linz , and Graz were destroyed. The people became desperate and petitioned the government to let them decide what kind of government they wanted.


We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany , where Hitler had been in power since 1933. We had been told that they didn't have unemployment or crime, and they had a high standard of living. Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group -- Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria . We were promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemployment and help for the family. Hitler also said that businesses would be assisted, and farmers would get their farms back. Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler.
We were overjoyed, and for three days we danced in the streets and had candlelight parades. The new government opened up big field kitchens and everyone was fed.

After the election, German officials were appointed, and like a miracle, we suddenly had law and order. Three or four weeks later, everyone was employed. The government made sure that a lot of work was created through the Public Work Service.


Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women. Before this, it was a custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home. An able-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn't support his family. Many women in the teaching profession were elated that they could retain the jobs they previously had been required to give up for marriage.
Hitler Targets Education - Eliminates Religious Instruction for Children:

Our education was nationalized. I attended a very good public school. The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler's picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we wouldn't pray or have religion anymore. Instead, we sang "Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles," and had physical education.
Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance. Parents were not pleased about the sudden change in curriculum. They were told that if they did not send us, they would receive a stiff letter of warning the first time. The second time they would be fined the equivalent of $300, and the third time they would be subject to jail. The first two hours consisted of political indoctrination. The rest of the day we had sports. As time went along, we loved it. Oh, we had so much fun and got our sports equipment free. We would go home and gleefully tell our parents about the wonderful time we had.
My mother was very unhappy. When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn't do that and she told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful. There was a very good curriculum, but hardly any fun - no sports, and no political indoctrination. I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it. Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home. I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing. Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By that time unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler. It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly. As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn't exposed to that kind of humanistic philosophy.
Equal Rights Hits Home:

In 1939, the war started and a food bank was established. All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn't work, you didn't get a ration card, and if you didn't have a card, you starved to death. Women who stayed home to raise their families didn't have any marketable skills and often had to take jobs more suited for men.
Soon after this, the draft was implemented. It was compulsory for young people, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps. During the day, the girls worked on the farms, and at night they returned to their barracks for military training just like the boys. They were trained to be anti-aircraft gunners and participated in the signal corps. After the labor corps, they were not discharged but were used in the front lines. When I go back to Austria to visit my family and friends, most of these women are emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat. Three months before I turned 18, I was severely injured in an air raid attack. I nearly had a leg amputated, so I was spared having to go into the labor corps and into military service.
Hitler Restructured the Family Through Daycare:

When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. You could take your children ages 4 weeks to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, 7 days a week, under the total care of the government. The state raised a whole generation of children.. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew we had been had.
Health Care and Small Business Suffer Under Government Controls:

Before Hitler, we had very good medical care. Many American doctors trained at the University of Vienna . After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries.

As for healthcare, our tax rates went up to 80% of our income. Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families. All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing.
We had another agency designed to monitor business. My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables. Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn't meet all the demands. Soon, he went out of business. If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control.
We had consumer protection. We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers. The agents would go to the farms, count the live-stock, then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it.
"Mercy Killing" Redefined:

In 1944, I was a student teacher in a small village in the Alps . The villagers were surrounded by mountain passes which, in the winter, were closed off with snow, causing people to be isolated. So people intermarried and offspring were sometimes retarded. When I arrived, I was told there were 15 mentally retarded adults, but they were all useful and did good manual work. I knew one, named Vincent, very well. He was a janitor of the school. One day I looked out the window and saw Vincent and others getting into a van. I asked my superior where they were going. She said to an institution where the State Health Department would teach them a trade, and to read and write. The families were required to sign papers with a little clause that they could not visit for 6 months. They were told visits would interfere with the program and might cause homesickness.
As time passed, letters started to dribble back saying these people died a natural, merciful death. The villagers were not fooled. We suspected what was happening. Those people left in excellent physical health and all died within 6 months. We called this euthanasia.
The Final Steps - Gun Laws:
Next came gun registration.. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long after-wards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily.
No more freedom of speech. Anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up.
Totalitarianism didn't come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria . Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism. Now, our only weapons were broom handles. The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little eroded our freedom.
After World War II, Russian troops occupied Austria . Women were raped, preteen to elderly. The press never wrote about this either. When the Soviets left in 1955, they took everything that they could, dismantling whole factories in the process. They sawed down whole orchards of fruit, and what they couldn't destroy, they burned. We called it The Burned Earth. Most of the population barricaded themselves in their houses. Women hid in their cellars for 6 weeks as the troops mobilized. Those who couldn't, paid the price. There is a monument in Vienna today, dedicated to those women who were massacred by the Russians. This is an eye witness account.
"It's true..those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity.
America Truly is the Greatest Country in the World. Don't Let Freedom Slip Away
"After America , There is No Place to Go"

[LenInSebastopol]

This is horrible propaganda.
Larger gov't is GOOD.
Having the gov't tell you what to do is GOOD.
You need not worry about anything since you are told what, how, when, where, and until, by those that have YOUR interests in mind. They are doing it for you, and the children.
Such lies should be banned from the internet in the name of freedom of thought. The gov't should turn the internet into a utility and then regulate it in order to keep such untruths off the air. It will only disturb people.
We will change the language, and then allow only those who are pure, who eat pure foods, long to breath pure air, and demand purity through out to succeed.
We are sold on Hope & Change.

[someguy]

Excellent article! Thank you for posting. The parallels between what happened in Austria and what is happening here are incredibly clear.

[podfish]

what total nonsense. "What I am about to tell you is something you've probably never heard or will ever read in history books." is only true if you don't read history books. There's no meaningful parallels described here - for example, is she trying to claim that daycare, by definition, is the start of a slippery slope to government control of our children's lives, 'cuz Hitler did it!! and look what happened THEN!
There probably are loads of lessons to be drawn from the experiences of Europe in the thirties that are relevant today, but one of the reasons people don't go there too quickly is for exactly this reason. It generates a lot more heat than light.

[tezor]

I would also recommend the book "The Childrens Story" by James Clavell. This man wrote Shogun, Nobel House, Whirwind, Taipan, Gai-jin, King Rat and other epics. It is said he wrote the Childrens story in one sitting, and edited it only lightly. A powerful book I have always given to new teachers. READ IT. It takes very little time, and leaves an impact. We must all be aware.

[someguy]

what total nonsense. "What I am about to tell you is something you've probably never heard or will ever read in history books." is only true if you don't read history books. There's no meaningful parallels described here - for example, is she trying to claim that daycare, by definition, is the start of a slippery slope to government control of our children's lives, 'cuz Hitler did it!! and look what happened THEN!
There probably are loads of lessons to be drawn from the experiences of Europe in the thirties that are relevant today, but one of the reasons people don't go there too quickly is for exactly this reason. It generates a lot more heat than light.

Wait a second..... No one said that daycare inherently leads to fascism. We are not talking private daycare centers that are run by caring individuals looking to make an impact on their community. We are talking about government run daycare nearly around the clock like we are seeing in our public school system right now. When you won't take the time to raise your kids yourself, you have very little influence over how your kids turn out, what kind of people they become as adults. Children are highly impressionable, and our government has taken advantage of that fact by nationalizing the education standards, effectively turning our schools into factories that pump out corporate worker drones.

I absolutely support equal rights for women under the law. However, it seems that many women these days interpret equal rights as a license to shirk their duties to care for and nurture their children. If you don't want to take care of your children and provide them with attention, affection, love and support when they need it, and teach them about the world, on a day to day basis........don't have kids!

The fact is, both parents practically have to work nowadays to just get by, due to our planned economic state, and they have no option but to leave their children in before and after school daycare programs. This is a big trend currently and something that is very frightening. Before, women worked if they wanted, but if they had children they would generally stay home, take care of the children, and tend to the home (doing things that are easy to do while simultaneously looking after the kids, like cooking, housework, etc.). Women would teach their children about the world and about critical thinking, that way they would be less vulnerable to indoctrination later in life.

With the movement for equal rights, women were convinced to view childcare and housework as burdens, things that held them back from achieving all that they want in life. Now, there is obviously nothing wrong with women achieving their full potentials......but there is a problem with them neglecting their kids and dumping them in daycare day in and day out. That's incredibly selfish. Having kids is a huge undertaking and a huge responsibility, and not a decision that a person should take lightly. If you are going to feel 'burdened' by having to care for your kids, and would rather have a career, than dont have kids! Its really that simple.

The ironic thing is that women were looking for more control over their lives, but in reality they have less control over their children's minds. The state gets to decide how children are raised these days. Parents these days don't even want to teach their kids about things like sex or drugs......they want the state to do it for them. Well, we all know how that turned out.......

Children are not stupid....in fact they are incredibly observant, and they know when they are viewed as a burden. They know that they need their parents' love and support and guidance, and they also know when their parents aren't adequately there for them. They know when they are being wronged. It is very hurtful for them, especially since they are too young to entirely understand what is happening to them. And there will be consequences for rejecting your children. Your children will reject and rebel against you.

As a side note, there's nothing wrong with the man fulfilling the nurturing role, taking care the the kids and such while the woman works and provides for the family, if it suits them better that way. But I think it is cruel to the children to have neither parent there to guide them and help them make sense of life.

[LenInSebastopol]

Wonder what Barry edited out of on your response?

Look, try to see if you can find parallels. If you can't, OK; if you want some one to help, cool. It's just slower in America due to the inertia and diversity of our country.
Take, for example, life: first abortion, then partial birth, and now folks that have pull in this administration have considered looking at shortly after birth. At the other end of the cycle there will be the denial of medical services such that we are to go gently into that night. When that poem was written England, the poets home land, it was a pang on socialized medicine. Not forty years with over 40 million purposeful takings of life! And many here will fight to keep it so, while proclaiming all animal life is "sacred".
Go figure; I can't.


what total nonsense. "What I am about to tell you is something you've probably never heard or will ever read in history books." is only true if you don't read history books. There's no meaningful parallels described here - for example, is she trying to claim that daycare, by definition, is the start of a slippery slope to government control of our children's lives, 'cuz Hitler did it!! and look what happened THEN!
There probably are loads of lessons to be drawn from the experiences of Europe in the thirties that are relevant today, but one of the reasons people don't go there too quickly is for exactly this reason. It generates a lot more heat than light.

[podfish]

My point is not that you can't draw some parallels. It's that the article being quoted as insightful is intended to rabble-rouse by making simplistic connections and it's structured to make it sound like the author has some special claim to credibility by her own personal experience and her fresh analysis of history that's been missed by more naive folk.
The whole presentation does put me off right away, I must admit, so it's hard to treat its individual points as if they were intended as real arguments. So Someguy's objection that no-one explicitly tied 'child care' to fascism is irrelevant - the whole point of this type of article is to damn by insinuation, and make people who are already uncomfortable with social changes have historical validation to their biases.
Notice the topics that are connected to furthering Hitler's agenda: public works, equal rights for women, public medical care, religion-free schooling, tax breaks for individuals and families, business regulation, consumer protection, public support of the mentally disabled, women in the military (and by direct statement, women exposed to things "unsuited to their delicate natures"), gun regulation.
I'm sure I missed a few. I just pulled out all of these by scanning her document. Each topic is tied to some extreme negative consequence, and is often paired with a Pollyanna-ish assertion that all was just peachy before. Sure little Vincent, the village idiot, was better off doing "useful manual work" for all the charming and helpful staff at her school. She does allow that they did "have a few" criminals in her mountain paradise; she doesn't really explain what the problem with gun control was; I'm pretty sure she thinks that guns would have been used to oppose Hitler (eventually... although they hadn't been useful in that way yet). Somehow a government health plan turns into a chaotic system of free healthcare for everyone, with no apparent organization or control. Everyone got free handouts, but at the same time mothers were starving.
Of course there are modern similarities - for example, the current health-care system (rationing by ability to pay) will be challenged when everyone gets access and doesn't have some kind of motivation to make wise and limited use of it. Somehow I doubt it'll follow the patterns the Austrians saw in the 30s, though. There are a lot of examples over the last century from all over the world to draw on. Few resulted in the horrors of the Nazis. And if the Russians -do- come through and rape all the pre-teen to elderly women, I'm sure it'll go into the same history books that reported on the atrocities committed by them in the 40s. So just because this kind of tripe feeds your prejudices about the grim future Obama has in mind for us, please try to avoid presenting it as if it had anything meaningful to offer. It's just an attempt to tie anything with a whiff of 'liberal' to the slippery path to damnation.

[Barry]

Wonder what Barry edited out of on your response?

I just fixed the formatting.

[LenInSebastopol]

My point is not that you can't draw some parallels. It's that the article being quoted as insightful is intended to rabble-rouse by making simplistic connections and it's structured to make it sound like the author has some special claim to credibility by her own personal experience and her fresh analysis of history that's been missed by more naive folk.

Your retort and analysis, as well written as it is, is still fallacious.
Anecdotal stories always fall into what you write in the above, thus making your assertion true, but the reader is to find worth in it and you didn't, so move on. Her experience does lend credibility by definition through self affirmation, so please do not deny the reader the possible insight or parallels derived. Your position of superiority in defense of "more naive folk" is what is most bothersome.



The whole presentation does put me off right away, I must admit, so it's hard to treat its individual points as if they were intended as real arguments. So Someguy's objection that no-one explicitly tied 'child care' to fascism is irrelevant - the whole point of this type of article is to damn by insinuation, and make people who are already uncomfortable with social changes have historical validation to their biases.

And who is not made uncomfortable by social change? Some can find "real arguments" in her writings. The 'child care' mentioned, for me, was an appeal not only to women but for all to consider what happens when we forgo the care of the most precious thing on the planet to strangers in order to pursue the acquisition of more junk-that-breaks. All things need not be brought to political terminology, but human values, which is what this article is really about, no?

Notice the topics that are connected to furthering Hitler's agenda: public works, equal rights for women, public medical care, religion-free schooling, tax breaks for individuals and families, business regulation, consumer protection, public support of the mentally disabled, women in the military (and by direct statement, women exposed to things "unsuited to their delicate natures"), gun regulation. I'm sure I missed a few. I just pulled out all of these by scanning her document. Each topic is tied to some extreme negative consequence, and is often paired with a Pollyanna-ish assertion that all was just peachy before.
Those who've read a little know life was not peachy in that land prior to Adolph. She uses that old "compare/contrast" method of writing utilizing common points that are in the public square. Is that what makes you uncomfortable about the exposition? Then be uncomfortable and address the points. German (and American) schools were not "religion free" at that time. Public works were a major point in Germany at the time as that is how they recovered from the humiliation of war reparations even faster than their European "winners". All those things are issues that had to be dealt with after the stroke of a pen, both in 1918 and 1932....not a long span yet the world changed drastically for regular folks in so short a period, and that is what she writes about: quick change to age old traditions.

Sure little Vincent, the village idiot, was better off doing "useful manual work" for all the charming and helpful staff at her school. She does allow that they did "have a few" criminals in her mountain paradise; she doesn't really explain what the problem with gun control was; I'm pretty sure she thinks that guns would have been used to oppose Hitler (eventually... although they hadn't been useful in that way yet). Somehow a government health plan turns into a chaotic system of free healthcare for everyone, with no apparent organization or control. Everyone got free handouts, but at the same time mothers were starving.
Of course there are modern similarities - for example, the current health-care system (rationing by ability to pay) will be challenged when everyone gets access and doesn't have some kind of motivation to make wise and limited use of it. Somehow I doubt it'll follow the patterns the Austrians saw in the 30s, though. There are a lot of examples over the last century from all over the world to draw on. Few resulted in the horrors of the Nazis. And if the Russians -do- come through and rape all the pre-teen to elderly women, I'm sure it'll go into the same history books that reported on the atrocities committed by them in the 40s. So just because this kind of tripe feeds your prejudices about the grim future Obama has in mind for us, please try to avoid presenting it as if it had anything meaningful to offer. It's just an attempt to tie anything with a whiff of 'liberal' to the slippery path to damnation.


As for gun control not being useful against that military machine...you are right...and so were the Polish Jews in Warsaw, who for 30 days held off that machine with no more than 6 guns. I mean prior to their reduction in numbers by 90% by a governmental plan.
But you are right, such monstrous atrocities have occurred all over the planet, such as the rape and gore of the vanquished going back for more than a century. That happens in war, but do you want to know who doesn't do that now? US. And when some misfit does, the world views that trial. No, me thinks the parallels drawn make you find discomfort since it seems to cut to close to what could be the truth. Take comfort that there are those, and you may be one of them, that will fight to keep the path fee of debris. And it will happen all to often, but what makes this place right goes a bit deeper than many give credit.

[podfish]

Your retort and analysis, as well written as it is, is still fallacious.
Anecdotal stories always fall into what you write in the above, thus making your assertion true, but the reader is to find worth in it and you didn't, so move on. Her experience does lend credibility by definition through self affirmation, so please do not deny the reader the possible insight or parallels derived. Your position of superiority in defense of "more naive folk" is what is most bothersome.
It's not well enough written if you miss my point.

read what I said again - she's taking the position that the 'history' she's giving us isn't known by anyone. I think that's she's saying that everyone but her is so naive that they don't know the real past.

Some can find "real arguments" in her writings. The 'child care' mentioned, for me, was an appeal not only to women but for all to consider what happens when we forgo the care of the most precious thing on the planet ....
That's not a 'real argument'. You seem to find her hyperbolic associations resonate for you. I find them offensive and destructive of discussion. If you want to talk about child care issues with someone, once they begin by pointing out that under Nazi Germany it was a tool for taking your children away and raising them by the state, there's not much point in further conversation, is there??

Those who've read a little know life was not peachy in that land prior to Adolph. No kidding. But she 'compares and contrasts' as if it were.

Is that what makes you uncomfortable about the exposition? Then be uncomfortable and address the points.
I'm not 'uncomfortable', I'm annoyed. I think many of my posts to this forum, if not most, are more about the quality of a discussion than the ideas. I'm actually a big fan of discussions with lots of opposing ideas if they're given some weight by thoughtful development and balanced against alternative ideas. The 'ideas' here, such as they are, are featherweight generalizations with free-wheeling connections made but never justified. This is just a tract.

But you are right, such monstrous atrocities have occurred all over the planet,... do you want to know who doesn't do that now? US.
her claim seems to be we're on a path that will lead us to such things, because of our misguided attitudes toward social issues. Again, I suggest you look at the topics she raises as leading toward the Nazi solutions.


...me thinks the parallels drawn make you find discomfort since it seems to cut to close to what could be the truth. Take comfort that there are those, and you may be one of them, that will fight to keep the path fee of debris. I think the fight is compromised by things like the original post. Spurious arguments taint the discussion, lessening rather than increasing the credibility of the ideas being put forth.

[someguy]

My point is not that you can't draw some parallels. It's that the article being quoted as insightful is intended to rabble-rouse by making simplistic connections and it's structured to make it sound like the author has some special claim to credibility by her own personal experience and her fresh analysis of history that's been missed by more naive folk.
The whole presentation does put me off right away, I must admit, so it's hard to treat its individual points as if they were intended as real arguments. So Someguy's objection that no-one explicitly tied 'child care' to fascism is irrelevant - the whole point of this type of article is to damn by insinuation, and make people who are already uncomfortable with social changes have historical validation to their biases.
Notice the topics that are connected to furthering Hitler's agenda: public works, equal rights for women, public medical care, religion-free schooling, tax breaks for individuals and families, business regulation, consumer protection, public support of the mentally disabled, women in the military (and by direct statement, women exposed to things "unsuited to their delicate natures"), gun regulation.
I'm sure I missed a few. I just pulled out all of these by scanning her document. Each topic is tied to some extreme negative consequence, and is often paired with a Pollyanna-ish assertion that all was just peachy before. Sure little Vincent, the village idiot, was better off doing "useful manual work" for all the charming and helpful staff at her school. She does allow that they did "have a few" criminals in her mountain paradise; she doesn't really explain what the problem with gun control was; I'm pretty sure she thinks that guns would have been used to oppose Hitler (eventually... although they hadn't been useful in that way yet). Somehow a government health plan turns into a chaotic system of free healthcare for everyone, with no apparent organization or control. Everyone got free handouts, but at the same time mothers were starving.
Of course there are modern similarities - for example, the current health-care system (rationing by ability to pay) will be challenged when everyone gets access and doesn't have some kind of motivation to make wise and limited use of it. Somehow I doubt it'll follow the patterns the Austrians saw in the 30s, though. There are a lot of examples over the last century from all over the world to draw on. Few resulted in the horrors of the Nazis. And if the Russians -do- come through and rape all the pre-teen to elderly women, I'm sure it'll go into the same history books that reported on the atrocities committed by them in the 40s. So just because this kind of tripe feeds your prejudices about the grim future Obama has in mind for us, please try to avoid presenting it as if it had anything meaningful to offer. It's just an attempt to tie anything with a whiff of 'liberal' to the slippery path to damnation.


I am not made uncomfortable by social change. There are many social changes that I would applaud wholeheartedly. Change is not the problem; after all, change is the nature of life. What makes me uncomfortable is social change without hindsight and foresight. Which is what is happening in our country right now.

I strongly disagree that this article is "just an attempt to tie anything with a whiff of 'liberal' to the slippery path to damnation." This article is written from the concern of someone who has lived through things that are hard for us to fathom, and who sees similar things taking place here. I don't have a problem with liberals.....in fact, on many issues I agree with them. I was horrified to hear Glenn Beck ranting about how progressivism and liberalism is a 'cancer' that needs to be cut out of society. That kind of hate-mongering makes me shudder. I understand that the vast majority of liberals (the people, not the politicians) are well-intentioned. I used to consider myself one, so I know exactly where liberals are coming from. Unfortunately, most liberals seem to have next to no understanding of where conservatives are coming from. Here's a great article Zeno posted awhile back that discusses this phenomenon: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccoreader/60586-conservatives-live-different-moral-universe-heres-why-matters.html (I do think the bumper sticker thing at the beginning is pretty stupid, because true conservatives are anti-war and do think dissent is patriotic. But the article as a whole has many valuable points, and it really hit on some big truths. The part about the foundations of morality really opened my eyes and helped me become more objective in my thinking.)

You already admitted that the 'whole presentation' put you off immediately. Thing is, having that kind of prejudice when you read something can cause you to misinterpret what it is saying. For example, you assert that the article has some kind of "Polyanna-ish" view of life before Hitler. Lets see, what does it actually say?

In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed. We had 25% inflation and 25% bank loan interest rates.
Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily. Young people were going from house to house begging for food. Not that they didn't want to work; there simply weren't any jobs.

The Communist Party and the National Socialist Party were fighting each other.. Blocks and blocks of cities like Vienna, Linz, and Graz were destroyed. The people became desperate and petitioned the government to let them decide what kind of government they wanted.

Sounds like a 'mountain paradise', don't you think?

You thought that the author was saying they had just a few criminals before Hitler. Read it again. She is talking about after Hitler had already been in power for at least 6 years. He had promised to rid them of crime, yet they still had a few criminals. So Hitler's next proposal was to register all the guns. You also implied that using mentally retarded people for manual labor was something that was done before Hitler. That was 1944.......again, 6 years after Hitler.

The author never said anything that would imply that their life was a "paradise" before Hitler. The whole point was that everyone was unemployed, hungry, and desperate. That was why they elected Hitler, because they believed the propaganda about how great everything in Germany was.

You complained that the author didn't explain what the problem with gun control was. Well, for one thing, if the British had taken guns away in the colonies, the United States would never have been created! We wouldn't even be sitting here having this conversation! The colonies overthrew their tyrannical government, using guns. The fact that no such thing had happened in Austria by 1944 is testament to the effectiveness of the gradualism used by Hitler. He registered and took their guns away before the true reality of what was happening sunk in for the people.

In fact, gradualism is the biggest parallel in the whole article, in my opinion. Hitler didn't just come in and invade, he gradually changed society bit by bit until one day, there was fascism. If he had done it all at once, people would have resisted. But by the time they realized they'd been had, it was too late. Their guns were gone.

And just think, Hitler didn't even have television to distract everyone!

[Tars]

It's not well enough written if you miss my point.

I hope you'll pardon a little aside. It looks as if you have set your text size at "1". On my 3-year-old monitor, it makes the text-size so small as to be very difficult to read. Perhaps it looks right on an older lower-resolution monitor? Don't know, but the small size is really distracting from whatever you are saying.

Apologize for interrupting the flow...

[LenInSebastopol]

It's not well enough written if you miss my point.
read what I said again - she's taking the position that the 'history' she's giving us isn't known by anyone. I think that's she's saying that everyone but her is so naive that they don't know the real past.
I pray you are not the kind that believes that simply writing well should convince all to believe as you do!
There are verifiable facts she cites, but she is in the position to giver her experience and how it came to be in her POV, all due to first person voice. So she may write that "it isn't known by anyone". If I went to the inauguration of the president and told you my account, none would know MY account but me, and that ain't making it to the history books; all the same bands, folks, etc, but not my take.
You need not believe she is writing as such and you may believe it is propaganda however that belief system does not negate the facts of the issues posited, the opinions based those facts, though for some reason you may find her last statement, "this is an eye witness account" to be spurious, though you've not given a reason, other than "it disturbs the force".


That's not a 'real argument'. You seem to find her hyperbolic associations resonate for you. I find them offensive and destructive of discussion. If you want to talk about child care issues with someone, once they begin by pointing out that under Nazi Germany it was a tool for taking your children away and raising them by the state, there's not much point in further conversation, is there??
You aren't a big fan of Godwin's argument, I see. So it's for a good reason, however the role of the state is always up for grabs. I gather you don't agree with Plato's Republic as he advocates a similar plan, but he was never called a such names, all the while those discussions are still hot and relevant. I've met children and adults raised by the state and they don't give the warmest of moments, generally speaking.


I'm not 'uncomfortable', I'm annoyed. I think many of my posts to this forum, if not most, are more about the quality of a discussion than the ideas. I'm actually a big fan of discussions with lots of opposing ideas if they're given some weight by thoughtful development and balanced against alternative ideas. The 'ideas' here, such as they are, are featherweight generalizations with free-wheeling connections made but never justified. This is just a tract.
You do give quality input into this forum, however I fail to see your point here. Your characterization of "featherweight generalizations' on the material eludes me....there is substance to the material, at lest for me, and I fail to understand your reaction. Yes, if we are not careful the same could happen here, is that what bothers you? I suppose I don't understand your terminology 'justified' and 'free wheeling connections' as well as 'tract'.


her claim seems to be we're on a path that will lead us to such things, because of our misguided attitudes toward social issues. Again, I suggest you look at the topics she raises as leading toward the Nazi solutions. I think the fight is compromised by things like the original post. Spurious arguments taint the discussion, lessening rather than increasing the credibility of the ideas being put forth.
So we don't have misguided attitudes towards social issues? We are all of one mind? I didn't think so either. It seems that there is a notion that 'it can't happen here', is that your problem with the OP?
I don't find the OP containing spurious arguments, however she does lead one down the road of "you better watch out" and I find that does resonate. The Germans of 1930s were well educated (meaningless) with long standing Christian values imbued in their culture (meaningless) and sound ethics (meaningless) then it is spooky that some runt savior could come along and have them forged into a monstrous society capable of all manner of human atrocities. It could damn well happen here; that is the message she puts out, I received and do not understand your reaction to such. I suppose I am one of those that the president sneered at when he told those wealthy West Coast benefactors, "they just cling to their guns and religion" and such an attitude makes it ripe for me to hold forth. To underpin Goodwin's Law, sounds like that's what Adolph did as well.....