Remember when Obama’s White House set up an entire arm of his administration to deal with people who opposed ObamaCare? The project was known as flag@whitehouse.gov and requested the names, addresses, etc. of anyone in America who didn’t support Obama on health care. This wasn’t hidden, it was right out of the White House. Flag the fishy, as it came to be known, was nothing more than a McCarthy-esque witch (or fish) hunt. It was the early incarnation of Obama’s enemies list. Anyone who was thought to disagree with ObamaCare, anyone who was disseminating “false” information (i.e. not reading from the White House talking points), anyone who was saying “fishy” things about ObamaCare should be reported . . . to the president of the United States of America.
The direct connection to the White House was deemed the problem back then, so the Obama machine simply re-imaged flag the fishy as Attack Watch. This fabulous development went beyond simply reporting your neighbor for “fishy” ideas about Obama’s health care proposals but extended to reporting suspected thoughts: one of Attack Watch’s stated goals was the stamping out rumors before they started. Precrime, if it is indeed a “crime” to think differently than the president in the United States of America. And in case you are in doubt, yes, it actually is, now, a crime–if not in and of itself, then by virtue of the Obama administration sending various executive branch agencies “after” you until you sit down and shut up.
Looking back now, in light of what we know the Obama administration did in targeting and silencing conservatives, these Big Brother-meets-the-SS efforts to gather information on Obama’s “enemies” is sinister. Of course, I thought it was sinister then, but everyone else seemed to think it benign, no big deal. So what if Obama wants to gather masses of information on American citizens who don’t agree with him? After all, it’s not like he’d actually use the federal government to “go after” these people, right? He’s not the mafia. He’s not Hitler or Stalin or Mao. Um, okay, except now we know, for a fact, that he not only targets his enemies but sends out the IRS, ATF, etc. to harass, intimidate, frighten, and ultimately silence any and all opposition.
Leftists have mocked and belittled conservatives who’ve been warning about Obama and his traitorous horde since before he won in ’08. When we said he’s a Marxist or socialist, they sneered. When we said that he’d use the power of government against the American people, they sneered. When we said that Obama aspired to be a tyrant and dictator, they sneered. When it became clear that he’s not only a Marxist but fully committed to communism, they shrugged. When Obama used the immense power of government–the IRS, the FBI, the ATF, the EPA, and the DOJ are all we know about. So far.–they shrugged. When Obama by-passed Congress to go to war illegally or to “legislate” the DREAM Act, they shrugged.
And make no mistake, they’d care if he were a Republican, if the groups were targeted because they had “progressive” or “organizing” in their names, they’d care so much that Obama would never ever have been allowed to finish his first term (he should have been impeached over Fast and Furious and/or Benghazi, for example). This IRS scandal would have erupted in 2010 when it was first reported, as it should have, and he’d have been forced out in shame and disgrace. As he should be.
You know, I always wondered how on earth the German people allowed the Holocaust to happen. When visiting the Holocaust Memorial in Boston (it’s great), I read again Niemöller’s most famous quotation:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Socialist.Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Jew.Then they came for me–and there was no one left to speak for me.
I’d read it before, of course, but I couldn’t wrap my mind around a culture and society who would not only allow such tyranny, such evil, but who would actually cheer it.
Until now.
Now I get it.
And it’s horrifying.
Fuzzy Logic 
That there are people on the left cheering for the IRS to target the Tea Party is horrifying, but not surprising.
It is horrifying, and it’s also unAmerican. What happened to “I might not like what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it”? But yes, I guess that they aren’t really interested in America or American ideals, so no, not surprising in the end. Just terribly terribly sad.
Understand how the Left degrades and dehumanizes their opponents. Look at the way Middle America is portrayed so often in Hollywood. Look at how the Left zeallously attack Cuban-Americans– run a search for political cartoons regarding Cuban-Americans. It is yellow journalism awful. Look at how the Left loves to throw out racial attacks (n*gger is just the beginning) against Black conservatives and other racial minority conservatives.
The Left’s belief system is so inflexible that opponents are not just wrong, but are evil bigots standing in the way of inevitable progress. They believe opposition has to be silenced or destroyed– a sacrifice that they are far too eager to indulge in.
Hitler was terrible and evil, but Mao killed far more people– 45 million (I believe) in The Great Leap Forward alone. And that’s according to the Chinese government’s numbers. And they were at times beaten and then thrown into human sewage pits to drown, sliced up and then made to lay in human feces so their wounds would get infected and then die from that. True, most died from simple man-made starvation.
I don’t mean to trivialize the Holocaust in any way. But there have been numerically worse genocides since then, perpetrated by people venerated by the American Left.
At least Hitler is universally hated, Mao is HHS Secretary Sebelius’ favorite political philosopher.
Oh, Yukio, I totally agree that there were worse atrocities–or at least similarly degrading and dehumanizing atrocities–than the Holocaust, but I guess that one stands out for me because it’s the one we learned most about in school, we read The Diary of Anne Frank, etc. That’s the one that I’ve always wondered how the people themselves could let it happen.
Russia is another example of inhuman atrocities and government-sponsored mass starvation; millions upon millions died for the utopian dream. Yet the world never learns, it seems. And now America is on the path to follow in these footsteps, a path that our Constitution does not permit, but like Hitler, Obama is slowly dismantling it and taking to himself all power. There aren’t that many left who are saying it can’t happen here, in America. Conservatives are waking up, the far lefties are cheering it. Only the squishy middle is still in denial.
I don’t mean to be preachy, and I certainly don’t mean to make light of the Holocaust.
What bothers me is how the Left continues to either ignore/deny the existence of these genocides, try to blame it on the Right somehow (like a party called the National Socialists who put out a car called the “People’s Car”– Volkswagen, and loved Hagel are on the Right). Or, worst of all, the Left works to justify these genocides as essentially the cost of doing business. “Sacrifices have to be made.” I actually hear this crap from Americans regarding Mao, Che, Kim il-Sung, Lenin… It’s plain bloodthirsty and evil– and you know I don’t use those two words much.
Certainly the Holocaust shocked the world, but aside from Israel it seems few people learned from it. And now the Left are working mightily to villainize (is that a word?) Israel and enthrone people who’s political charters explicitly state its goal of driving the Jews into the sea.
It’s ludicrous.
Oh, no, you didn’t come off as preachy at all. I was just explaining why I had always wondered how the Germans let the Holocaust happen–I’d just “always” known about that, it seems. I didn’t learn of the genocides in Russia or China (or elsewhere) until many years out of high school (where I had first read Anne Frank’s Diary–I wonder if high schools still teach that? Somehow I doubt it.).
Anyway, you hit on something that I’ve long marveled at, too, how the National SOCIALIST Party became perceived as “right wing.” It’s ludicrous and makes zero sense on its face, but leftists know that “hey, let’s kill a large percentage of the population” isn’t popular, so they hide their true intentions and blame righty. Typical. It’s also amusing how, when called on this, they babble inanely about the military, like communist dictators haven’t used their nation’s military as a domestic terror and enforcement arm in every single case and to this day.
And yes, leftists do, indeed, think that it’s A-OK to slaughter a few million men, women, and children to achieve their utopian ends. Remember Bill Ayers’ telling his fellow Weather Underground terrorists–who hold to this day the same beliefs, as does Obama–that they would “have” to “eliminate” 25 million people (that was then 10% of the entire United States’ population)? This is necessary they believe to achieve their commie ideal. No one bats an eyelash about that; indeed, as you note, many leftists actually agree that it would be best if a few tens of millions of American conservatives were “eliminated.” You know, for “The Greater Good.” It’s . . . evil. Truly. Deeply. Evil.
People still dismiss this to this day, forgetting that Hitler came to power in 1933, total power in 1934, and while the first concentration camps (not the ones we came to know the world over where the exterminations and human experimentation took place) were set up in those early days, the actual mass-extinction policies, the “final solution” that took place in the extermination camps didn’t start until 1942. Throughout that nearly 10 years, it was a steady drip, drip, drip as Hitler used propaganda, hate, and fear to inch towards this goal.
He didn’t just start rounding up Jews on day one. It took him almost a decade to get there. That’s what people just can’t seem to grasp. He started out usurping this power, dismantling that check and balance, writing the equivalent of our “executive orders” that were essentially laws, and he rounded up, first, his political opponents (on the “right”-though this wasn’t anything like our right, as you know) and those who were most dangerous to his reign (i.e. other leftists), but he quickly branched out to anyone who dared challenge or oppose his rule, including former Nazis and regular German people. Then he moved that out to include “social undesirables.” Then out again. And again.
It was slow, he gave the German people time to accept this small step, then that one, and many, just as we see today, actually cheered the early arrests and incarcerations, tortures and slaughters. They’d been taught to hate each group that was targeted and to always give Hitler their support or at the very least the benefit of the doubt, that he–and he alone–knew what was best for Germany.
It all sounds familiar, huh? All too.
Yeah, I think I see how you’re going on that, and it makes sense to a point. I’m not looking for Obama to start an intentional genocide any time soon, but there are parallels that need to be explored.
I’ve long had a criticism of the way Nazis are presented generally– you know as drooling monsters or robots or demons. There’s nothing to learn from that. We should remember that Nazis were human beings, and that rational, intelligent, well-spoken, charismatic human beings are quite capable of the evil that the Nazis committed.
We should also remember that it was the “in” thing in Germany to be a Nazi. They never had a majority but they had a plurality. The glamorous (who didn’t flee), the aristocratic, the idealists, the media, and the intelectuals all backed happily Hitler and his Nazis. It’s a hard thing for us to wrap our minds around, but the Nazis were the cool kids in Germany in their day.
And who are the cool kids now?
And now the IRS is his Gestapo.
Oh, he’s also sending out other agencies, Odie. He sent NLRB after Boeing, some thug arm after Gibson, he’s sent the ATF, FBI, and EPA after conservative groups and individuals. His gestapo, as he’s setting it up now, will be a combination of local law enforcement, the DHS, and the military. He’s already grabbed the power for the military to “arrest” anyone in America at any time with no reason, no due process, and to detain them indefinitely. He’s just seeing now, if he can get away with it. If he gets away with this DOJ/AP/Fox stuff and with the IRS tyranny, well, any bets on what happens next?
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