"Can't We All Just...Get Along?

 

With apologies to Rodney King, I believe his quote is very relevant today.  Here's how...

The Army stationed me in Germany during the Viet Nam "Police Action."

I grew to love it.  I learned the language and made lasting friendships.  I even came home with a Porshe, a Volkswagen, two cookoo clocks and a wife.  And I also learned just how the word "Hitler" bacame the very worst epithet you could possibly utter.

Like the infamous "N-word," times ten.

Few know that Germany's parliamentary system enabled Hitler and his "National Socialist Party (NAZI)" to take control of the country back in 1933.  They were mired in the aftermath of WW1 and believed his empty promises to help guide them to a better life.  No more than 30% of the country formally adopted Nazism.  And only 16% was necessary to assume governmental power.

Whereas Germany had the freedom of speech and movement prior to 1933, by '34 the Nazis had passed a new constitution making it illegal to badmouth that Party.  Or to write or publish negative commentary.  So illegal that Hitler filled his prisons with German dissidents well before he began attacking his neighboring countries or gassing the Jews.  

Guns were made illegal, removing any meaningful opposition.  Unapproved travel became illegal, forcing people to "show their papers."  Cushy jobs were only available to Party members.  And I arrived in Germany barely two decades after Hitler lost the War.  

I arrived so close in time to VE Day that most of the population were involved in it.  And they explained to me in no uncertain terms that Hitler had ruined Germany, and their lives.  And that they were doing everything possible to forget he ever lived.  His name, "Hitler," became the single most evil word you could speak.  And comparing someone to Hitler was the height of an insult.  Fighting words.  Rubbing salt in a still sore wound.

Many of my friends are Democrats.  Even "Progressives," although it's tougher to be their friends.  And many have made it a point to express their displeasure with having Trump as their President.  Loudly.  Adamantly.  Probably as displeased as I was when Joe O'Biden was sort-of elected.  

But as I'd been trained, if your guy or gal loses an election, you get drunk, lick your wounds, and then get up and go back to work.  Perhaps even advertising yourself as a member of the "Loyal Opposition."  Because, when all the chips are down, we're all Americans.  And there will be another day.  Another election.  Another opportunity to correct the corrections that previous administrations had corrected.  

But always, the "Loyal Opposition."

But no longer.  Now an infection named "Trump Derangement Syndrome" has visited itself upon the Nation.  Angry Democrats who should know better have permitted their hatred for Donald J. Trump to cloud their judgement.  Maybe its his cotton candy hair.  Or his orange complexion.  Or the fact that he has more money than they do.  But whatever, the hardest of their core even allow their "TDS" to take precedence over their love of Country.  And they evidence it every time Trump secures a victory in the courts.  Or his tarrifs begin to pay off.  Or he brokers a peace deal that been festering for decades.  Or when he starts arresting some of O'Biden's illegal aliens.  They hate him.  They hate the ground he walks on.  And that brings us up to the present...

A friend passed along a picture on the 'Net of Trump's face wearing Hitler's hat.  And Hitler's uniform.  And Hitler's moustache.  I was shocked.  "Hitler" is a place you were never supposed to go.  Yet my friend chose to forward it.  I asked him, "Do you think this is appropriate?," attempting to strike a middle-of-the-road posture.  He wrote back letting me know that if I was asking if he compared Trump to Hitler, he answered "...absolutely." 

I would ask everyone who reads this to adopt a more "liberal," i.e., neutral attitude toward politics in general and our President and his Administration, in particular.  As much as I abhored O'Biden, and Obama, I chose to only rail against their policies.  You can't change our POTUS no matter how mean-spirited and vitriolic your Internet opinions might be.  But you can make enemies by puking forth your extreme opinions for all to view...