Anyway, it turns out their beef is grounded in some military conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11, Libya, and the British government trying to bring down America. Nope, not making this stuff up. But their politics aren’t really the main concern I have. Neither is their obvious misunderstanding of how our country is run in terms of checks and balances that limit the actual power the president has or in what impeachment really is and what is needed to do it. I’m most troubled by their use of the term “dictator” and their imagery likening Obama to a Nazi.
Sure I support Obama, but I would be upset if someone did the same thing with Mitt Romney or any other American politician. No one should ever liken someone to Hitler unless they are actually talking about a dictator. Yes, you get a pass to liken Pol Pot to Hitler. The leader of a democratic country? No. First of all, saying that anyone with whom you disagree is Hitler-esque is terrible debating technique. This is what is called an ad hominem attack, which is basically name-calling rather than discussing the issues. Second of all, if the politician you are attacking is not in fact a dictator, you are lying. Third, using this kind of language is a play to people’s emotion rather than their reason; it is fearmongering. And fourth, and most important, bitching about something you don’t like here in the States by insinuating you’re under the same hardships as people who underwent the Holocaust or who today live under real dictatorships is incredibly insulting to those people and downright tacky.
When I was living in Turkmenistan (an actual dictatorship), I had a student come up to me one day and say she saw on the news that a journalist in America said “if Obama doesn’t do thus and so, he won’t get re-elected.” She told me she was amazed that the journalist said that because if a journalist in Turkmenistan said something like that about their president he would end up in jail or worse. That’s the reality of life in dictatorships. If you lived in one, you wouldn’t be able to put up your stupid little hate booth. So while I get angry whenever I see some over-privileged goon spewing vitriol, I do have to acknowledge that I’m glad I live in a country where every moron has the right to say whatever idiotic thing comes to their mind.