Rude Student = Hitler Youth
Dennis Prager writes about a students who asked rude questions of Antonin Scalia and Ann Coulter:
These symbolize to me one of the most profound differences between the Left and the Right. I do not believe the Left recognizes how thin the line between civilization and chaos/evil is.... I have a primal fear of the moral chaos that follows the breaking down of America’s real moral foundations, such as Judeo-Christian values, public decency, freedom of speech, and the military. I see in this student who screams obscenities at a conservative speaker and all the students who joined or supported him, our version of the Hitler Youth, our barbarians.
Ah, yes. Rude questions are crossing a line from civilization over into chaos/evil. Students who ask rude questions are the new Hitler Youth and are preparing the way for the gas chambers.
What is wrong with this man??
First, it doesn't appear that anyone "screamed" obscenities at Ann Coulter or Antonin Scalia. Second, Dennis Prager doesn't bother to address the substance of the questions being asked. Scalia and Coulter are the one's making sexuality a subject of public policy by proposing to regulate it — thus, while questions on it may be rude, they are also entirely appropriate. If Scalia thinks that sodomy should be criminalized, it's appropriate to ask him if he engages in it. If Coulter supports the policies of a man who, according to his wife, forcibly sodomized her for years, it's appropriate to ask her what she thinks about such activity in marriage.
To put it another way: as long as these people continue to insist that the state has a legitimate interest in banning/regulating consensual sodomy among other people, Dennis Prager has no right to insist that regular citizens don't have a legitimate interest in asking these same people about their own sexual activity. Or does Dennis Prager think that people like Antonin Scalia, Ann Coulter, and himself are so much better that they don't have to abide by the same public standards as others, like gays?
Third, it's interesting to note how, once again, Dennis Prager continues to ignore the deep connections between the Nazi government and Christians churches in Germany. There is also the fact that among the earliest targets of the Nazis were socialists, liberals, and gays — the same people targeted by people like Prager, Scalia, and Coulter. I doubt he'd appreciate that parallel being brought up, despite how much stronger it is than the lame parallel he's trying to draw between Hitler Youth and rude students.
Surely by this point someone has pointed out to him the myriad of ways in which Christians not only willingly helped Hitler and participated in the Holocaust, but also justified all of that on grounds of Christian doctrine and tradition. Isn't there anyone close to him who cares enough about his public imagine to clue him in on this error? Or has he surrounded himself with people who think like him and are just as clueless?
There is, however, a single positive thing to be found in Prager's piece: his admission that he has a "primal fear" of the "moral chaos" that he thinks will be the result of breaking down America's "real moral foundations" — which he identifies with Judaism and Christianity. This, I think, explains why he goes so far in misrepresenting facts and reality in just about everything he writes. He is afraid that unless the structures of traditional religions are defended, we'll end up with "moral chaos" and that, in turn, will lead us to another Nazi Germany. This isn't rational fear or a reasoned concern — it's a "primal fear" of what will happen if people aren't forced to conform to the value he just happens to hold dear.
Amanda at Pandagon and Digby also comment on Dennis Prager's piece.
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