[Ramen]

This is a bit of pet theme/hate, so please bear with me.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Yes, Hitler came to power legally. You can blame him on stupidity by the Allies, who insisted on imposing terms after WWI intended to not merely end the war, but to humiliate and impose a crushing burden on Germany. Hitler told Germans what they wanted to hear: that they were a great people brought low by the sins and treachery of others, and that he could lead them to glory. (I've wondered on occasion how things might have been had the Allies been less concerned with revenge, and more involved with assisting Germany to become a stable and prosperous democratic state that wouldn't be interested in trying to conquer their neighbors.)

There's three things at work here.

• Oppression and humiliation (reparations + Ruhrgebiet)
• Racism and anti-semitism
• Military tech

A WWI Marshall Plan may have prevented point 1 (see Germany and Japan - two very militaristic countries) but point two was bound to blow up at some point. It wasn't just Germany, all of Europe hated the Jews. Why are we so aware of racism today? Because of the holocaust. Slavery was already known but we didn't seem to mind much.

But the most important thing is weapons tech. Sometimes I think WWII was our last chance to try it out without blowing up the entire world. Nobody envisioned the carnage that ensued and it has "educated" Europe quite thoroughly. If you look at the US that hasn't had a war on it's soil for such a long time, you can clearly see who tries to avoid war and who doesn't care (no general conscription, disproportionate social represenation in the armed forces, etc). Europe is just about in it's most peaceful era ever and this is a direct result of WWII.

But you can't really draw parallels comparing Hitler and Bush, because the surrounding circumstances are too different. Hitler came to power in a unique set of circumstances. His country had been defeated in a major war, and the sort of checks and balances that might have prevented it were largely absent. Also, Germany was a far more homogeneous society, with a population mostly ethnic Germans, who saw themselves as an oppressed group.

Actually, the situation is very similar. Both cases have an evil enemy that has struck at their very core. The opposition failed miserably in both cases. The population supported the leader in both cases. The leader was charismatic/suited the mood in both cases (for Bush this means strong leader and moral). The population wanted revenge/satisfaction/whatever. The population was fed what they wanted to hear and set for war.

I'll be one of those cheering when he leaves office, and pushing hard to get some of his more wit-wanted attempts at "security" reversed. But I was never terribly worried the US would become a police state. There are too many checks and balances built in to our political system intended to prevent that. The people who founded the country and wrote the Constitution were well aware of the dangers, as many of the original immigrants came here to escape repression.

• warrant-less wiretapping with retro-active legitimation (un-constitutional)
• guantanamo bay
• national biometric DB
• misusing international bank correspondance
• mixing of police, military and secret services
• generally more police powers, etc

Sure, the US is not a police-state at the moment but the population simply doesn't care and the checks were all circumvented via un-patriotic and opponent of a safe America.