Raising a Kid in Nazi Germany, The N-Word

I am often one to base my arguments in the best thing we have to judge events by, history. I'm a Presentist: One who studies history primarily for the benefit of the present.

1941 Germany, Russia, Italy, or Spain, or 1982 Iran or 1995 Afghanistan or Iraq, or present-day North Korea.

Imagine you have a young kid, you are a political dissident, and your kid asks you why things are so bad. What do you say?

My goal in asking this question is to prepare for the future, if recipies for political disaster materialize, as they are brewing now.

Imagine, in 2008, again, 61% of the electorate do not vote in either primary, and the religious RWAs (see previous post) vote for Sam Brownback.

Two years pass (it is now 2010) and things have turned for the worse. How do you explain to your kid, who, by this time, at 10 years old, is familiar with American ideals of individualism? "Daddy/Mommy, why is this happening?"

How would you explain that in the past two elections (the future, now), the majority of Americans were not paying attention, were not concerned for the applicable security of their freedoms, as one branch was invertebrate and schizophrenic, the other was megalomaniacal, and the last was too passive.

Before WW1, industrialists knew what the conditions of the Great Powers truly meant (militarily, industrially), that the war would last for a long while. They did speak up, but were silenced by ignorant right-wing pro-war critics caught up in the "spirit of adventure." Some stay against boredom they got themselves into. What did these industrialists tell their teenagers off to the front?

Here's a little bit of totalitarianism: Word is that the term "nig---" is being "banned" in some townships, including NYC. Yes, it is an ugly word, an important part of our heritage. But we cannot "ban" a word! How can we enforce such a thing? The chaos that would ensue if we had censors doing WordFind on Harper Lee, Frederick Douglass, William Faulkner, etc? Isn't that what America is? And history books! How are students to know the full extent of the horror upon Blacks/*African-Americans inflicted by the wonderful US of A over the period of 300+ years if the terms by which they were described in that time are barred from use?

Worse yet (and even more bizarre) is that that poetic word is used as a term of endearment between many Blacks/African-Americans!

Look, it is an ugly word, a very degrading word, but this is supposed to be America, not 1940s Germany. The possible methods of enforcement are terrible and the consequences far outweigh any possible "good" that the law might do. We've already much betrayed our individualist ideals, let us not continue down that path further.

The government cannot cure hate through legislation. Hate has a source that needs to be addressed through education and the broadening of individual horizons. At best, the government largely profits from hate.

*: Some people prefer one term or the other, I am doing my best to please both.