Hitler / Obama Comparisons: Is Barack Obama Like Adolf Hitler or The Nazis?

Sources: Hitler | Obama - (CC) and GFDL respectively

Is Barack Obama like the Nazis or Adolf Hitler? Does even asking the question make you a right-wing nut or a partisan hack? Is it distasteful to mention Hitler or the Nazis to make a point? Let's take a sober look at the answers to these questions below:


Godwin's Law

Adolf Hitler seems to appear frequently in political debates. Reference to Hitler or Nazism is so commonplace that in 1990, U.S. attorney and author Mike Godwin coined an adage that has become well known on Internet discussion forums as Godwin's Law: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

Why does that seem to be the case? Because in a fierce political disagreement, there is at least one area of common ground that almost everyone will share: that Adolf Hitler was evil, unequivocally and without argument. Even self-professing moral relativists are hard pressed to maintain otherwise. Adolf Hitler was evil.

When two sides seem to disagree about everything else, that area of common ground can (if emotions don't flare as they often do) actually form a bridge of understanding and communication. People grasp for "the Hitler card" because they know their opponent will agree with the major premise that Hitler was evil. Then it's on to the minor premise, which takes the form of "...and x is just like what we agree made Hitler evil."

"Therefore x is also evil," the debater concludes.


Argumentum ad Hitlerum

The first thing to remember as we approach this issue is that it is a logical fallacy to assert that if Adolf Hitler did or believed x, then x must automatically be bad. It is an association fallacy referred to as "argumentum ad Hitlerum" in parody of the formal titles of other logical fallacies such as "argumentum ad hominem."

Just because Hitler was opposed to smoking tobacco, it does not follow that someone is evil or morally equivalent to Hitler if they abstain from tobacco use. Adolf Hitler did all kinds of things that other people do who are not morally equivalent to him. Hitler painted flowers. So did Georgia O'Keeffe. That does not make Georgia O'Keeffe a genocidal maniac by association.

But it is possible, logically sound, and perfectly fair in some cases to draw a deeper kind of comparison to Hitler. We can assert of someone (if we have the facts to substantiate our claim, of course) that they are morally or politically equivalent- or at least similar- to Hitler because their actions spring from the same ideology and/or tend to produce the same results.

In the case of U.S. President Barack Obama, we must determine whether comparisons of his policies to those of Adolf Hitler are the first kind of accusation (and therefore a fallacy) or the second kind of accusation; and if they are the second kind, then we must determine whether the the comparison is supported by the facts, or if it is a false comparison.


Obama/Hitler Comparisons

Conservatives can intuit (and some can explicitly understand and articulate) that Barack Obama's political program is similar in remarkable and chilling ways to that of Adolf Hitler's. Their argument does not commit the "argumentum ad Hitlerum" fallacy because their assertion is that President Obama's policies and worldview share the very characteristics by which we reckon Hitler as evil, not other irrelevant characteristics.

The actions of the Nazi regime, which are almost universally regarded as vile, were rooted in the ideologies and political programs of socialism, eugenics, and imperialism. Obama's ideology, associations, and governance of the United States thus far betray a fervent and unambiguous commitment to socialist nationalization and government direction of America's major industries, a eugenicist program of strict population control, and a continued policy of aggressive American imperialism and global dominance through force.

One Miami columnist disagreed with this assessment, and criticized what he considers a flippant attitude, which makes light of the Holocaust. He writes:

"I thought it would be good to make you sick, i.e., to spend a few minutes reminding some and teaching others what you invoke when you invoke the Nazi regime.

For the record, then: It was Nazis who shoved sand down a boy's throat until he died, who tossed candies to Jewish children as they sank to their deaths in a sand pit, who threw babies from a hospital window and competed to see how many of those 'little Jews' could be caught on a bayonet, who injected a cement-like fluid into women's uteruses to see what would happen, who stomped a pregnant woman to death, who once snatched a woman's baby from her arms and, in the words of a witness, 'tore him as one would tear a rag.'"

America's Holocaust

So President Obama does not deserve a comparison to the Nazis because the Nazis perpetrated a genocide? Pardon me, sir- isn't Mr. Obama perpetuating a genocide!? He has been accurately described as "the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever to seek the office of President of the United States. He is the most extreme pro-abortion member of the United States Senate. Indeed, he is the most extreme pro-abortion legislator ever to serve in either house of the United States Congress."

While there is not enough space in this essay to treat of abortion, let me explain briefly that I believe unequivocally, on the basis of uncontroversial scientific facts and a sound anthropological ontology, that a unique, whole, and individual human being is created at conception. For an exhaustive explanation and defense of this belief, let me refer you to my essay entitled: "The Abortion Debate: A Reasoned, Scientific, Pro-Life Argument."

The relentless propaganda to the contrary, dehumanizing and miscategorizing human fetuses, is reminiscent of and similar to the Nazi campaign of dehumanization to justify their brutal treatment of helpless minorities like the Jews. The experimentation carried out on stem cells extracted by destroying human embryos, is chillingly like the medical experimentation carried out by Nazi scientists on their victims.


Eugenics and the Obama Administration

Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Regime were also obsessed with eugenics. They actively worked towards assuming power over Germany's and eventually, the entire world's reproductive rights, with the goal of allowing only the most desirable human beings to reproduce. Obama's appointment of John Holdren as his Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (or more informally, "Science Czar") betrays his administration's eugenicist agenda.

As an anonymous Internet sleuth uncovered after John Holdren's appointment (HT: to Michelle Malkin):

"In a book Holdren co-authored in 1977, the man now firmly in control of science policy in this country wrote that: Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not; The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation's drinking water or in food; Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise; People who 'contribute to social deterioration' (i.e. undesirables) 'can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility' -- in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized. A transnational 'Planetary Regime' should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans' lives -- using an armed international police force."

You read all of that correctly. If you don't believe me, do the research for yourself. Go out there and find it, but do not write this off and ignore it. I know that what you just read seems too horrible to be true, but it is the truth. John Holdren is our nation's "Science Czar" and he did write these terrible things in his 1977 book, Ecoscience. How can a U.S. President possibly appoint such a person to an office in the White House if he feels about that person's views what any normal and not morally-deranged person would feel?


Socialism and The Obama Administration

In popular conception, "left-wing" politics taken to the extreme produces Stalin, while "right-wing" politics taken to the extreme produces Hitler. What a stupid contrivance! Why should two mass-murdering autocrats end up on opposite ends of a political spectrum? The general American public seems oblivious to the fact that the word "Nazi" is an abbreviation for the "National Socialist German Workers Party." (In German, the word "national" is pronounced nawt-zi-uh-nal.)

Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party were socialist. The horrors inherent in socialism have made themselves all too apparent at this point on the timeline, after a century of warfare and bloodshed unrivaled in human history- the handiwork of socialist ideology and its adherents. His socialism is part of what made Adolf Hitler so evil. There can be no argument that President Obama is likewise, a socialist.

President Obama's unprecedented assumption of powers to himself and his office is remarkably and frighteningly similar to Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany. Obama has already suspended habeas corpus by claiming the right of indefinite detainment of potential terrorists without charges. This occurred very shortly after his Department of Homeland Security issued two reports labeling supporters of Ron Paul, certain amendments of the Constitution, devolution of Federal power to the states, or Pro-Life beliefs as potential terrorists.


Conclusion

This is just one of a lengthy list of examples of such abuses- all straight out of the pages of history and Adolf Hitler's playbook. In just a few months as President, Obama has been prolific in his assault on liberty and assumption of boundless executive power. You might even call it a "blitzkrieg." There is simply not enough room to catalog these abuses and yet bring this essay to a timely close (it may be too late for that already!). If you have been paying attention, you know exactly the kind of things to which I refer.

In closing, here is a recap of the questions at the beginning of this essay with their respective answers in light of the information above: Is Barack Obama like the Nazis or Adolf Hitler? Strikingly so. Does even asking the question make you a right-wing nut or a partisan hack? Absolutely not. The evidence is incontrovertible. Is it distasteful to mention Hitler or the Nazis to make a point? Sometimes, but certainly not in this case.