It is currently fashionable for those on the left to compare President Donald Trump with Adolf Hitler.
I can understand young people with little knowledge of WWII and German history from 1930 through 1944 engaging in that hyperbole on the immigration issue.
I cannot understand any adult who lived through those years equating our president to Hitler.
On June 30, 1934, Hitler ordered the summary execution of the leaders of his own SA (Sturmabteilung, translated literally, Storm Detachment).
He personally arrested Ernst Roehm, the head of the SA, conveyed him to prison in Munich, and executed Roehm in his cell without trial. Roehm had been Hitler’s best friend.
Gregor Strasser, the No. 2 man in the Nazi Party who had crossed Hitler, was arrested in Berlin and murdered in his cell. Former Chancellor Von Schliecher and his wife were shot dead in their home by Hitler’s men. Von Schliecher was Chancellor Hitler’s predecessor. Hitler crushed his own storm troopers to win the support of the German army.
Then there was the “final solution.” Over six million Jews were murdered by Hitler’s Nazis. Jews died of starvation, disease, and poor living conditions. They were shot down in the streets, and sent to gas chambers in extermination camps. Children were reunited with their parents only in death.
Hitler raped Austria, devoured democratic Czechoslovakia in two bites, made war on small peaceful Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and Greece.
He savagely unleashed his military on Poland, France, England and the USSR. Some 26 million Russians, and 5.8 million Poles died. German military casualties are estimated at 5.3 million, including Austrian conscripts.
Anybody opposing Trump’s immigration policies who compares Trump with Hitler is nuts. Mr. Trump has not arrested and murdered without trial a single political opponent, or his critics in the media.
Hitler invaded his neighbors. Our president hasn’t invaded anybody. And to compare placing children who cross our border illegally into detention facilities for 20 days with children sent to Auschwitz or Treblinka for extermination is absurd.
On Feb. 24, 2017, before the present furor, the Chicago Tribune wrote that “Nearly 60,000 children came across the border without their parents during the fiscal year ending in September.”
Were they to be allowed to roam free? Unless detained, how would they ever be placed? Reunited? Calling the president’s immigration policies racist or him Hitler is, at best, a puerile diversion from the real immigration issues that Republicans and Democrats should be discussing.
Isn’t it about time these issues, and others, are calmly, conscientiously and publicly discussed?
1. How many immigrant laborers does our country’s workforce need each year?
2. What level of skills should the immigrants have?
3. How many immigrants should we accept for humanitarian reasons?
4. What is the true cost of providing immigrant children with an elementary and secondary education (including salaries and pensions of teachers, administrators, etc., as well as school supplies and busing)?
5. What is the true cost of providing housing assistance for illegal immigrants? Foster care? Medical care? Meals?
6. What do illegal immigrants pay in federal and state income taxes? FICA?
7. How many illegal immigrants commit felonies? Serious misdemeanors? What is the cost of incarcerating these individuals? Probationary services? Parole services?
8. How many illegal aliens are driving without financial responsibility? What are the costs to others from accidents caused by uninsured illegals?
9. How many total dollars will we spend providing services for illegal immigrants? Would these dollars be better spent on the elderly, veterans, the disabled, inner-city schools, our infrastructure, etc.?
10. Out of every 1,000 illegal aliens who enter our country, how many have felony records in their own country? How many are drug dealers, mules, cartel enforcers, gang members, Islamist terrorists, medical doctors, engineers, teachers, scientists?
How do we keep bad people out? Calling Trump names will solve nothing.
It is, however, a lot easier, and perhaps more politically expedient, for Democrats and anti-Trumpists to engage in name-calling than it is to fix the mess.
There are many good reasons to admit aliens into our country, but admitting them to gain votes is not one of them.
Posted: QCOline.com July 5, 2018
Copyright 2018, John Donald O'Shea
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