Consider this a bookend to Ari’s post, as those are the words of Hitler according to this protester:
According to her and those like her, Hitler didn’t actively conspire to murder millions of people in the service of a racist eugenics, he passively refused to “spend the money to keep them alive.” Who are “they” here? Because she claims that “limiting Medicare expenditures in order to reduce the deficit . . . is the T-4 policy of the Hitler—of a Hitler policy in 1939,” she must be talking about those killed under the auspices of the Aktion T-4 Euthanasie: the lebensunwertes Leben, or “life unworthy of life,” i.e. the elderly, the mentally disabled and the otherwise infirm. Par for the course for those who believe in “death panels.”
However, if people like this protester possessed a perspective of more depth and extension than the Wikipedia Brand Knowledge currently bandied about conservative discussion boards and listservs, they would know, for example, that the T-4 initiative was prohibitively expensive. Its predecessor, the Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses, or “Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring,” which mandated the sterilization of the physically and mentally disabled, had been scaled back because it was too expensive. That is, they stopped, not started, the ideologically-based murders of those they considered defective because it would save Germany a few million Reichsmarks.
This should go without saying: the Nazis wanted to kill these people, they simply couldn’t afford to. In fact, it was only in 1939, after they’d planted a war on both horizons, that Hitler could justify the expense required to expand the T-4 initiative into the concentration camps.
In short, whatever Obama’s policy will be, if it is, as this protester claims, designed to reduce the national deficit, it won’t resemble Aktion T-4 one whit. Moreover, the category of lebensunwertes Leben wasn’t limited to those with mental or physical handicaps as we currently understand them: opponents of Nazi policy were routinely deemed to be insane and euthanized, meaning that so long as this protester and those like her are free to berate Barney Frank with patent nonsense, Godwin’s Law is still in full effect.
(x-posted.)
The Edge of the American West 
23 comments
August 19, 2009 at 1:23 pm
SEK
To “shorter” my own post: “Genocide is expensive.”
August 19, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Dan Miller
A little unfair to Wikipedia here, I think.
August 19, 2009 at 1:33 pm
kathy a.
i think i love barney frank. i thought i did already, but i don’t follow him closely, and a clip like this is enough to make my day.
yeah, i agree with dan — you’re unfair to wikipedia. and, yes, you are right on the reasoning — especially, that the nazis wanted to kill people, that was the goal. but this kind of nonsense is not susceptible to facts and reasoning.
August 19, 2009 at 1:42 pm
politicalfootball
I want to get a button that says, “I’m gay for Barney Frank.”
Regarding Godwin, I thought Perlstein had a nice, nuanced take in his Washington Post chat:
August 19, 2009 at 1:42 pm
SEK
Wikipedia does many things well, but one of them is to provide the illusion of expertise—by which I mean, it works too well sometimes, especially when the conclusions one wants to reach are tendentious.
For example, the best way to refute my analysis would be to cite public outcry against the Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses as a reason for their ostensible repeal, and follow that by pointing out that they were only repealed in name alone, and that such practices continued . . . to which I would reply, yes, but that’s why I chose “scaled back” as my operative verb, and a lively discussion could ensue. I don’t, however, anticipate having that discussion with someone whose knowledge about this period comes exclusively from one or two Wikipedia entries.
August 19, 2009 at 1:50 pm
ari
I almost included this clip in my post, but then I couldn’t find the funny.
August 19, 2009 at 1:56 pm
SEK
I didn’t mean to delete that last post, I meant to update it. Check out this video, which I would’ve written about, but his rage was contagious.
(You can see more of her here, but right now, I can’t bring myself to watch it.)
August 19, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Ben Alpers
CNN Headline News has apparently edited this clip to make Barney Frank look like he’s bullying this woman for no good reason.
August 19, 2009 at 2:41 pm
serofriend
Wikipedia does many things well, but one of them is to provide the illusion of expertise
I advise students to use Wikipedia purely for introductory purposes, expecting them to follow links to primary and secondary sources. I At that point, their interest in a given topic should move to edited historiography and a broader array of monographs. I’m relatively certain that clear Wikipedia citation hyperlinks encourage readers to do so. Your criticism may be self-evident, no? But, then again, publishers at Oxford University Press are currently hard at work furnishing reading publics with more in-depth short introductions.
August 19, 2009 at 2:42 pm
SEK
I advise students to use Wikipedia purely for introductory purposes, expecting them to follow links to primary and secondary sources.
In controlled classroom settings, this works. On the internet . . . not so much.
August 19, 2009 at 3:05 pm
serofriend
On the internet . . . not so much
I’ve linked to Wikipedia once on here, and I see that several commenters link to it on a regular basis. My students use wikis on a daily basis. At this point in the game, criticism of wiki links is tantamount to criticizing the horse after it left the barn. Perhaps a better approach might be to offer a word of caution. For example, make a given commenter’s motivations explicit, such as the inclusion of for introductory purposes only.
On that note, Richard Evans just published his third volume in his reassessment of the Nazi regime. Regardless of scholars’ views on Evans as a reformed postmodern historian, readers should check it out.
August 19, 2009 at 3:08 pm
serofriend
Wikipedia does many things well, but one of them is to provide the illusion of expertise—by which I mean, it works too well sometimes, especially when the conclusions one wants to reach are tendentious
That statement, for instance, was much more clear and helpful (to me).
August 19, 2009 at 3:18 pm
davenoon
It would be more appropriate to describe the protester as possessing “Conservapedia Brand Knowledge.”
August 19, 2009 at 3:34 pm
serofriend
Wikipedia Brand Knowledge
I laughed at that, but then your comment on wikis or pedias or whatever confused me, given that readers need to know why you referred to it as brand knowledge in order to get the joke. You sorta assumed a target audience, so I did, too. Still, point well taken.
I like the Conservapedia’s Disinformation section.
August 19, 2009 at 3:55 pm
davenoon
conservapedia will provide hours of diversion if you allow it…
August 19, 2009 at 4:16 pm
ari
dave!
August 19, 2009 at 6:11 pm
davenoon
i know — i’ve been under constant assault from two small children all summer… they’re great alibis for avoiding things i don’t want to do, but they also get in the way of stuff that’s really important, like blogging and playing stupid games on facebook. sheesh.
August 19, 2009 at 6:34 pm
ari
It only gets
betterworsebetterworsebetterworsebetter and worse as time passes.August 19, 2009 at 6:35 pm
davenoon
the good news is that i no longer fear death…
August 19, 2009 at 6:44 pm
kid bitzer
i no longer fear dying young.
August 19, 2009 at 6:45 pm
SEK
young, I fear dying longer.
August 19, 2009 at 6:52 pm
kid bitzer
but not longer than i feared dying young.
August 19, 2009 at 8:45 pm
serofriend
only the good die young, ya know.