Posted by
The Interface on Friday, July 25, 2008 9:08:51 PM
Fairly recently we’ve had Barack Obama identifying another interesting plank of his platform which he calls a “civilian national security force,” reported, among other places, here by Ed Morrissey and here by Hugh Hewitt. Says the candidate:We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.
Foregoing a complete analysis of the premise of his statement, a premise I would contend is flawed to the very deepest level, let us also call to mind another plank of his platform put forth a little earlier, that of “community service” from the country’s youth:
So when I'm President, I will set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year. This means that by the time you graduate college, you'll have done 17 weeks of service.
We'll reach this goal in several ways. At the middle and high school level, we'll make federal assistance conditional on school districts developing service programs, and give schools resources to offer new service opportunities. At the community level, we'll develop public-private partnerships so students can serve more outside the classroom.
Barack Obama is not the first to seek to implement programs with goals such as these. One of the more successful such was the Hitler-Jugend, the Hitler Youth. A paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party, the Hitler Youth were primarily of high school age (14-18) and trained for service of various sorts, including military and paramilitary. Their role in the spread of Nazi propaganda is well documented; read the material at the above links or just Google “Hitler Youth.”
There are distinct parallels here, and one wonders if Obama is simple displaying another case of historical ignorance, or if he is simply hoping noone will be cognizant of the parallels between his proposals and the policies implemented in Nazi Germany.
Now, am I engaged in blatant fear-mongering and name-calling by presenting this material and throwing in the Nazi name? No, this is simply historical data presentation minimally at the DH5 level. I do not believe Obama to be a Nazi (for one, he’s not German), but rather a liberal socialist and leftist. This is not a charge appearing out of the blue, but the logical conclusion of an examination of his actual record. And, it is a simple fact of history that the more totalitarian the regime, the more that regime tries to control, some might say, micromanage, every aspect of the lives of its citizens.A closing item: remember the full name of the Nazi Party? The National Socialist German Workers Party.
[Historical addendum for those critics who think that the street warfare that occurred between the Hitler Youth and Communist Party workers during Hitler’s rise to power somehow proves that these two entities are ideological opposites must needs review the leftist doctrine of the dialect nature of progress recently explained here.]