Nazi leaders on trial at Nuremberg

At first glance, you wouldn’t mistake me for a Nazi. First of all, I’m a Jew. My maternal grandfather was a rabbi, as was my wife’s maternal grandfather. I spent most of my career in medical oncology, working on a salary in a large public hospital, and caring for many minority patients. My political and social views could be described as moderately conservative. To top things off, my father’s eldest brother was murdered in the Holocaust. So who could possibly mistake me for a Nazi?

The colleague.

During the Bill Clinton impeachment scandal, I was discussing the problem with colleagues at the hospital lunch table. The subject of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr came up. Starr had been appointed to investigate the Clinton scandals, including the Monica Lewinsky affair.

An older colleague condemned Starr for subpoenaing the records of Monica Lewinsky’s book purchases. My colleague believed that this opened the door to government control of books. I explained that Monica claimed that she had bought specific books as gifts for Bill, and Starr was trying to verify her story. If she lied about this, she might be lying about other things as well. But in fact, she wasn’t lying.

I added that this didn’t mean Starr was trying to control our reading material. After all, he also subpoenaed the infamous blue dress, and this didn’t mean he wanted to control women’s clothing fashions.

At this my colleague flew into a rage, declaring, “You’re a Nazi, and people like you put Hitler into power.” This accusation was so out of line that I hardly knew what to say. I suspected that the man was in an early stage of dementia, which restrained me from giving him a stiff left jab to the nose.

I never spoke to him again. I might possibly have forgiven him for insulting me. But I could never forgive him for trivializing Nazism and the Holocaust. If a moderate conservative was a Nazi, how bad could Nazis be?

The “friend.”

My wife and I had been friendly with another couple for years. We had eaten dinner together numerous times, at both of our homes and at restaurants as well. The couple was more liberal than we were, but we spent most of our time discussing nonpolitical subjects.

Some time ago, I had a health scare. Things came out alright, but at the time my wife was understandably quite worried. My wife’s birthday was near, and her friend took her out for lunch, both to celebrate the birthday and to give her a respite from her concerns. The conversation went well, dealing with personal matters.

Suddenly, the woman blurted out that she could continue to meet my wife for lunch, but she and her husband could no longer have dinner with us, because I was a “Nazi.” My wife sat dumbfounded. She is rarely at a loss for words, but this attack came so unexpectedly that she didn’t know what to reply – especially in view of the fact that my wife was observing her birthday, as well as being troubled by my health problems.

Later my wife assumed her former friend was referring to my website. But at the time, all she could do was to get up, walk out, and never speak to the woman again. The woman was much shorter than my wife, which quite possibly saved her from having a lunch dumped on her head.

The historic meeting.

Not long after these events, I attended a small meeting of conservatives. I talked to a black man. I asked him how other African Americans reacted to his conservatism. He replied that more than once, he had been called a “Klansman.”

I told him about how I had been called a “Nazi.” Then I held out my hand, saying “This is a historic event. The black Klansman meets the Jewish Nazi. All we need now is a gay homophobe and a xenophobic immigrant, and we’ll have quite a poker game.”

The man burst out laughing and shook my hand enthusiastically. We both left the meeting smiling broadly, but the whole thing was really sad. The harsh intolerance of leftists, who claim to be so “tolerant,” is truly hypocritical. The rigid conformity of leftists, who claim to support “diversity,” is truly abhorrent. The offensive language of leftists, who claim to exemplify “sensitivity,” is truly painful.

So when the Washington Post compares Donald Trump to Hitler, remember that leftists have developed the bad habit of calling anyone who disagrees with them a “Nazi,” and even comparing him to “Hitler.” This not only defames that person terribly, but even worse, it trivializes what Hitler and the Nazis did. People like that, and not Trump supporters, are the ones who are truly deplorable.

No, I’m not a “Nazi.” In fact, the man who called me a “Nazi” was closer to being one himself. He, like many leftists, wants to shut down opposing views, bully dissenters into silence, and enforce a rigid conformity. He, like many leftists, attacks nonconformists viciously – verbally for now, but perhaps physically if given the opportunity. Our job is to prevent them from getting the opportunity. Remember that on Election Day.

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