I feel compelled to make a few observations, which are meant to illustrate and affirm the message of this article. My authority comes from having lived for 18 years (from age 9 to 27) in a totalitarian communist regime.

Strictly speaking, "America is not yet creating" Nazis or Stalinists. Yes, there are numerous other "species" of that "genus". It is really important to recognize the evil of the genus. In that connection, notice the relabeling of their movements to avoid recognition.

The historical totalitarians all spoke of creating the New Man and of the education necessary to change all the people into the new mold. Notice that they really do not mean education, which I would define as an effort to develop, in each individual, the rational and cognitive skills and to instill the knowledge which humanity has accumulated throughout its evolution. No. By education they mean indoctrination.

I have, for decades, tried to illustrate to people that totalitarianism is to the humans what cancer is to the living tissue. A degeneration of all the basic life processes. I think that it is a true analogy.

Notice that we used to be a country of individual freedom, rights of property, of pursuit of happiness and freedom of speech (which, of course, means the freedoms of thought and of conscience).

Those freedoms and rights are all, as the author demonstrates, under attack nowadays. All of us, and I mean truly all Americans, still willing to think with their own heads and who still cherish those freedoms and rights, must resist and organize ourselves to resist always and everywhere the totalitarian indoctrination. We must help people understand the true nature of that onslaught.

Finally, I would like to ask you all to resolve that you will not, if it comes to that, under even the most painful tortures, concede to the torturer and renounce yourself as an upright and free human being.

People of Belgrade, on March 27, 1941 overthrew the government of Yugoslavia, after it had signed a pact with Hitler. They chanted in the streets: "Better grave than a slave!" Magically, it rhymes in my mother's tongue just as it does in English. This 5-year old boy still remembers that day.

Yes, there are things for which it is worth risking one's life. Ask the people who volunteer for our military services. Ask Ayn Rand and her Kira in "We the Living".

Take all this, please, as food for thought and as one man's opinion.

Isn't that kind of ironic, how much that sounds like the treatment of Germany after its defeat in 1945 ?

The LGBTs don't belong on this list -- except the minority who demand more than to be left alone.

Anyone who talks like that is some kind of totalitarian. Everyone is entitled to an opinion.

At least Takei was big enough to apologize.

Touché. Under the Pope's Spanish Inquisition they watched to see if there was smoke form a chimney at the time Jews had to bake for religious practices. Then they were tortured.

It's the old, "you are either with us or you are against us" pattern. Politicians want to mold children via government schools to be compliant and accepting of beliefs, but not hold their own idea about it. They are not above using cognitive dissonance, hypnosis or the Delphi Technique to train the minds of children and parents alike. Politicians want to criminalize free thought that disagrees with their goals. We are in for some very bad times.

that was a while ago, you should see it again.

This is the same with Muslims and Islam.

To be a "Good Muslim" you must follow those tenets. All of them...

Like the Nazi's and the German's, once enough of them are in power, then those who REALLY believe will follow suit.

Likewise this is why ISIS is gaining power and strength, because all those "Muslims" who truly believe will begin acting in the way they really want to but have been afraid to because their numbers were not great enough.

I had not read that before, woodlema. Thank you.

This underscores the theme of needing precise definitions before we can craft governing documents or even have a worthwhile discussion.

Jan

The only WWII Germans I have personally spoken with did not need to be converted - the Nazi's represented their beliefs. Without the Nazi's, they would have not carried out ill deeds against Jews and other segments of society, but they thought that the Nazi's were factually correct.

Jan

The article is frightening and true, and you have raised the stakes to a new height.

Jan

Pol Pot wasn't patient enough for you to make a "misstatement." If you had eyeglasses, that was enough to put you to death.

You are certainly not the only person to express that same fear.

Saw that in the theater in NYC when it came out.

Beautiful..Also: "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master"? Lincoln

Or if you are running some Tea Party group or one with a conservative name Regime Obama does not like, try to ignore the doorbell as the IRS is sent to audit you and the whole Big Brother alphabet soup of agencies and departments are sent to harass you.

"This attitude promises social warfare without end, because there is no peace to be had until the opposing side offers a sincere and unconditional surrender."

It promises, ultimately, more than SOCIAL warfare.

Not only is it force, it is slavery.

They are trying to FORCE one person or group to act against not only their will but their conscience.

I thought slavery was done away with. I am reminded of a quote from Abraham Lincoln regarding Liberty and Tyranny.

The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name -- liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names --liberty and tyranny.

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails today among us human creatures, even in the North, and all professing to love liberty. Hence we behold the processes by which thousands are daily passing from under the yoke of bondage, hailed by some as the advance of liberty, and bewailed by others as the destruction of all liberty.

-- Abraham Lincoln, in a speech at a Sanitary Fair in Baltimore, MD, on April 18th, 1864

to get a real feel for a totalitarian government yopu need to see "A SENSE OF LIFE" the video made about 1990 about Ayn Rand. Then it should be shown to the entirety of those who were elected to SERVE US.

They did not make people believe, they killed those who held different views and changed the textbooks on the cow like herd that remained. Look at the Nazi philosopher Heidegger who taught his University students Nietzsche so they could become Hitler's successors in expressing the soul of the German people through the power of the State.

"Yes, I mean people like actor George Takei and his odious attack on Justice Clarence Thomas. Takei called Thomas a “clown in blackface” and said Thomas had “abdicated” his status as an African-American."

And this from the man who supports the party that had him, PERSONALLY, put into a concentration camp because of his race.

"But we must never ever have our own opinions based on our own experiences and facts and rational thought, particularly if it differs from or didn't originate from the consensus of those that have a right to form an opinion--even if those only represent less than 5% of the population. "

VERY VERY SAGE advice. Advice I apply to myself daily.

An old saying: "More often than not...When the Majority Rules, that just means all the FOOLS are on the same side."

The citation is excellent. Pol Pot was a totalitarian educated at the University of Paris where it is said he could quote any passage of Marx by memory. He realized as Plato taught that he must educate the people but only uneducated could be properly given the new education so he shot the ones with their own ideas and any form of education. Under all this is the hatred of the independence of the human mind and its necessity of personal freedom. So the " auto de fe" of the inquisition was a way of burning a human to death to return their souls to god from their own false ideas. This is what dominates the left today:. Hate of the human mind which will not believe.
'

Try not paying the fine