OUCH! 😳 (X & Text) Colbert: "Do not compare ICE or Border Patrol agents to the Nazis.

[Cirsium]

30. You've got to be kidding

Stereotyping Nazis? "Othering" Nazis? Hating Nazis? That is your worry? Such a persecuted class of people.

The Ukrainian Hilfswillige - they weren't Nazi party members. Is it OK with you if we criticize them, or would that be intellectually lazy? We wouldn't want to stereotype them just because they helped the Nazis and committed mass murder.

How about the middle aged urban German police - "ordinary men" as described by historian Christopher R. Browning? Would it be unfair to them if we called them Nazis?

Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in Poland in 1942. Browning argues that most of the men of RPB 101 were not fanatical Nazis but, rather, ordinary middle-aged, working-class men who committed these atrocities out of a mixture of motives, including the group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms to justify their actions. Very quickly three groups emerged within the battalion: a core of eager killers, a plurality who carried out their duties reliably but without initiative, and a small minority who evaded participation in the acts of killing without diminishing the murderous efficiency of the battalion whatsoever.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/647492.Ordinary_Men