All Things Considered on NPR had a interesting discussion on their May 4th show. May 4th is the 40th anniversary of the Kent State shootings. And for those keeping score, April 20 was the 40th anniversary of the fire at the Kansas Union. (As an aside, my friend Beth Lindquist was quoted in the UDK article commemorating the anniversary, here's the link to the article http://www.kansan.com/news/2010/apr/20/generation-ablaze/.) Callers uniformly reported a generational divide. Older persons, supported the Guard. One woman said that was when she realized that her parents were no longer there to protect her.
It is unfathomable to me that our government turned its guns on its own citizens and people supported the act. These shooting were probably as close as our government has gotten to Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia (and thankfully it wasn't that close.)
I bring this up because there is a lot of inflammatory rhetoric used these days. I often hear the tactics of one side or the other referred to as Nazi, or compared to the SS or jack-booted thugs. We need to use these references more sparingly. My wife descends from Jews who fled Nazi Germany prior to World War II, comparing every small injustice to Nazism makes the Nazis seem less like cold-blooded murders of millions and psychopaths and more like playground bullies.
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