SBC ethicist's Nazi comment called "another bone-headed Baptist moment"

I heard Rush Limbaugh say the same kind of thing not so long ago. It provoked some curiosity, and some research.

National Health Care in Germany began during Bismark’s time, in the 1870’s. It began to take on a more sinister quality around the time that the Nazis rose to power. Some of the same values that we see held by the National Socialist Movement in Germany in the 1930’s and 40’s began to infect the National Health Care plan just before the Nazi’s took power.

In short, the Nazi’s did not create a national health care plan to consolidate power. But the same sacrifice of individual life and freedom in the interests of the state infected the program during the Nazi era.

ERLC President Richard Land reportedly told a Christian Coalition of Florida banquet in Orlando Sept. 26 — the night before the high Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur — that Democratic leaders were advocating reform that will result in rationing of health care. Such policies, he said, were driven by the same ideology that fueled the Holocaust.

“I want to put it to you bluntly,” Land said, according to the Florida Baptist Witness. “What they are attempting to do in health care, particularly in treating the elderly, is not something like what the Nazis did. It is precisely what the Nazis did.”

I agree.
Land went on to bestow an imaginary “Dr. Josef Mengele Award” on Ezekiel Emanuel, a doctor who is the president’s chief health-care adviser.

Opponents of the president’s plan have accused Emanuel, a medical ethicist and brother of the White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, of supporting euthanasia and rationing of health care. Mengele was a mastermind of Nazi genocide whose medical experiments at death camps earned him the nickname “The Angel of Death.”

The Anti-Defamation League called on Land to apologize and refrain from similar comments in the future.

“While we understand there are deep convictions and passions regarding the healthcare reform, whatever one’s views are, the Nazi comparison is inappropriate, insensitive and unjustified,” ADL National Director Abraham Foxman told Land in an Oct. 9 letter. “As a Holocaust survivor, I take particular offense.”

Foxman, who was born in Poland in 1940 and escaped the Holocaust under protection of his Polish Catholic nanny, said such comparisons “diminish the history and the memory of the 6 million Jews and 5 million others who died at the hands of the Nazis and insults those who fought bravely against Hitler.”

Land responded Oct. 14 saying it was never his intention to “equate the Obama administration’s health-care reform proposals with anything related to the Holocaust.”

“Now that I have had the opportunity to speak with you personally and reflect on my words, I deeply regret the reference to Dr. Josef Mengele,” Land wrote. “I was using hyperbole for effect and never intended to actually equate anyone in the Obama administration with Dr. Mengele. I will certainly refrain from making such references in the future. I apologize to everyone who found such references hurtful.”

I understand that comparisons to Nazism often derail a worthwhile debate, and the “Mengele Award” could be viewed as making light of a seriously painful memory for folks- but for Pete’s sake- the Third Reich happened, Hitler happened, and the Holocaust happened- we can’t afford to be afraid to acknowledge the similarities where they arise and be on guard lest something of that nature happen again. Nazism didn’t rise overnight in a vacuum, and human nature being what it is, and the fact that there is nothing new under the sun is enough reason to be very wary of National Health Care, and National Anything Else for that matter.

…even though the comparison is often misused and abused, that doesn’t mean that no comparison to Nazi Germany is ever valid. Mr. Land could have made the same point with less hyperbole, and maybe the meaning of what he said would have been heard… but let’s be honest- most of us occasionally engage in hyperbole when we know we are ‘preaching to the choir’.

The same thing happens on other subjects, like racism and victimhood. People cry “Racism” to shut people up without even addressing the issues, and oftentimes those who are merely reaping from their own behaviors but cry “Victim!” make it more difficult for those who are truly innocent victims to be taken seriously. However, we can’t abandon the concepts of racism or victimhood just because some people have manipulated those topics to their own ends.

Conservatives do not have a monopoly on the use of the Nazi imagery. Years ago I remember a liberal activist claiming that Ronald Reagan’s budget cuts had killed more children than Hitler’s policies every did (a ludicrous claim).

I have to agree that this is inflammatory. Sarcasm and Irony have a great and legitimate role in persuasive speech and writing. But inflammatory language tends to polarize people into their existing positions rather than to persuade. As such, it is not helpful to anyone’s cause.

A few months ago, I was writing an article about the Obama administration’s abortion policies. The gist of my article was that I found it ironic that Obama is generally supportive of abortion rights (though he’d not use that language). The underlying assumption of abortion is that a fetus is not a person, but property of the mother — an extension of her own body. She can do with it as she pleases. This is identical to the justification used for American black slavery up till the 1860’s: they are not people, but property. That our first black president embraces the same argumentation to deny another class of individuals their very right to existence is ironic.

Getting carried away, I asked a young artist in my congregation to make a cartoon. It was Obama, in a KKK outfit, having just removed his hood. Next to him is a tree, with a fetus hanging from the tree in a noose. It is a lynching scene. He is saying “We can do whatever we want to these, because they’re not people.” Jordan drew the cartoon, but would not sign it. He was scared. Wisely so.

I chickened out. I never used it. Why? Because the cartoon’s use of lynching imagery and racial overtones would have obscured the real issue: “Are the unborn people?”. The debate (assuming anybody reads my articles at all) would have been about whether or not the cartoon was racist, or whether or not it was outrageous. The story would have been about the debate, not about the issue. If the article were noticed by some liberal folk and elevated to a true story, the article would be read by more people than ever — but it would have persuaded fewer. The abortion foes would be excited. The abortion supporters would be outraged. Nobody would change their minds.

There can be a fine line between inflammatory and ironic.

Is the health-care plan Nazi-like? Let us say that Germany of the 30’s and 40’s demonstrates that a culture with little regard for life is a dangerous place to introduce a standardized health care system. Putting the bean counters in charge of moral decisions is inherently risky. In a case where the people in charge don’t know what they think about euthenasia issues, it’s downright dangerous.