Everything's a Holocaust, Everyone's a Nazi

There are very few things that drive me crazy (okay, maybe there are more than a few), but one thing that really gets to me is the ease with which people like to evoke the Holocaust as some kind of measuring stick. We don't like what someone is doing, we call them a Nazi. We don't like the way a group of people is treated, we label it a Holocaust. In one of my first graduate classes I remember an openly gay man going on and on about what he called the Holocaust of homosexuals in America. I thought the comparison was ironic, given his equally open stance on Jews: he hated them, and was always ready to bash them for one reason or another.

God, people, be a bit more original -- get a different term.

And then there's Seinfeld's notorious soup Nazi (see below) -- extremely funny, but in poor taste.



Or what about the recent Ward Churchill debacle -- he thought it would be cool to call all of the victims of the World Trade Center collapse "Little Eichmans." Now, I certainly don't think he deserved to be fired for making the remark, but it's beyond gross and inappropriate.

But this one, today (well, actually a couple of months ago), from syndicated radio host Glenn Beck, is really bizarre:

Al Gore's not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization. The goal is global carbon tax. The goal is the United Nations running the world. That is the goal. Back in the 1930s, the goal was get rid of all of the Jews and have one global government.

You got to have an enemy to fight. And when you have an enemy to fight, then you can unite the entire world behind you, and you seize power. That was Hitler's plan. His enemy: the Jew. Al Gore's enemy, the U.N.'s enemy: global warming.

You can read the whole thing here.