America loves Adolf

I know I'm in love with someone when everything I see reminds me of that one special person. And if that's how affections work, it looks to me that a lot of people are in love with Adolf Hitler. Everything seems to remind someone of Germany's mass-murdering totalitarian dictator.\nMost of the time, it's President George W. Bush, his administration or the Republican party that draws all the Hitler comparisons. In issues related to the War on Terror, a lot of authority has been centralized, so the president can make decisions with less opposition.\nOn C-SPAN last week, I saw a witness at the Downing St. memo hearing testify that Bush said, in a TV interview he gave as the Governor of Texas, that if he could overthrow Saddam Hussein, it would give him the political capital to reshape our entire nation. I'm surprised the speaker didn't draw a comparison between this interview and "Mein Kampf."\nBut the GOP are not the only folks being compared to Hitler. Warren Jeffs, leader of a polygamy group, and Walt Hanline, a school district superintendent in Modesto, Calif., have both been compared to the genocidal German dictator. Both of these men have tight control over those under their authority and allegedly punish anyone who goes against their wishes.\nUnfortunately, the rhetoric of calling someone Hitler-like can start a debate over semantics. Some think of Hitler as someone who murdered six million Jews, but others think of him as the architect of a totalitarian government. It's as if there was more than one Hitler and calling someone Hitler-like leads to a disagreement over which Hitler is being talked about.\nIf we keep talking about Hitler in such childish, simplistic terms, we can find something Hitler-like in everyone. One of my friends used to have this cat that demanded territory and if you didn't give it your space, it attacked you. If you tried to appease it, as Neville Chamberlain tried to appease Hitler, the cat just demanded more. My friend has the scars to prove it!\nSaying that someone has something in common with Hitler doesn't really prove anything because there's probably a little of Hitler in all of us. With so many evil deeds, there's a whole lotta Hitler to go around. It's not what he did, but the way we keep talking about him that proves it.\nHas your girlfriend ever tried to punish you for disagreeing with her opinion? She's a little Hitler-like! Not very Hitler-like, mind you; only a little bit. But if you exert Hitler-like domination over the TV for every game of basketball or football, you have to admit the scales are even.\nIn the case of Bush and his administration, it's not fair to call them Hitler-like unless they really are a totalitarian regime, posing a threat to the constitution of the United States. If it can be proved that they do pose this threat, stop whining about it and do something productive, like, I don't know, initiate impeachment hearings!