Keith Ellison (D-MN) Compares 9/11 to the Reichstag Fire Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Keith Ellison sees the Third Reich today; do you?

HAT TIP to Maryland Conservatarian (who blogged about it) and Greg Kline at the Conservative Refuge podcast (who commented about it late in his podcast on July 17th.) I am mildly surprised that both men held back as much as they did.

Keith Ellison speaking to an organization called "Atheists for Human Rights" a couple weeks ago, per the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, July 8, 2007:

On comparing Sept. 11 to the burning of the Reichstag building in Nazi Germany: "It's almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that. After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it and it put the leader of that country [Hitler] in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted. The fact is that I'm not saying [Sept. 11] was a [U.S.] plan, or anything like that because, you know, that's how they put you in the nut-ball box -- dismiss you."

It's pretty miserable when a group of atheists - presumably people with habits of skepticism and possessed of the pedantic but valuable habit of demanding strong evidence for strong propositions - applauds this foolishness.

For those who do not fully know the history of the Reichstag fire, it's pretty simple: a Dutch communist burned the German parliament building. The Nazi blamed the Weimar-era Communist movement for burning it and used the burning as a pretext for seizing broad emergency powers in Germany, banning the Communist Party (which held 17% of the seats in the Reichstag), and arresting and executing major Comintern leaders.

The Democratic Party was not only not banned but is thriving, holding both houses of Congress (the Senate by the hair of Joe Lieberman's chinny-chin-chin) and standing poised to win the Presidency in 16 months. Keith Ellison was elected in that take-over effort; maybe he forgot that he won and how he won. George Bush stands a small chance of getting impeached as do a few of his senior advisers, and Bush's popularity is somewhere between Nixon's low-water mark and gonorrhea's high-water mark. The Supreme Court is marginally more conservative than it was 6 years ago but any comparison between the Supreme Court and German "courts" under the Third Reich is offensive in the extreme. There are a large number of troubling civil liberties and corruption issues surrounding the President but we read and blog about them all the time. The PATRIOT ACT subpoenas are very offensive to me, particularly when issues against institutions like public libraries, but no comparison exists.

The Reichstag Fire was not part of a broad Communist plot, according to the evidence. It was one crank's act, not an act of the Comintern or German KPD or similar organizations. The best analogy would be if Timothy McVeigh had registered to vote as a Democrat or Republican and the sitting President assassinated, executed, jailed or placed into concentration camps every Democratic or Republican political operative in the country. The fact that you are reading this blog testifies to the difference; a post-Reichstag Fire chief executive would do to bloggers today what Hitler did to the "loud, obnoxious bloggers" of his day.

9/11 was the plot not of theocratic Baptists or Methodists but theocratic Muslims. Ellison's silence on this point is deafening. It's great that Ellison is willing to step for the civil rights of atheists - about time in the U.S. Congress - but not at the expense of entertaining this sort of historical malpractice.

I like the design of Atheists for Human Rights' website - soft green, light blue. There's a lot on the site that I like in terms of content, including some well-developed video presentations. But I would take a Goldwater-esque conservative skeptic of theocracy over any organization that entertains this sort of foolishness.

The worst part about what Ellison said? He actually took the matter beyond the Reichstag Fire analogy to accuse, then coyly deny accusing, the Bush Administration of executing the 9/11 attacks itself. Ellison's warning about being placed in the "nut-ball box" is too cute by half, and insulting to our intelligence. Deliver your evidence, Ellison, or go home to your nut-ball box unless you can show that Bush operatives, not Muslims from Saudi Arabia, hijacked four planes.

I stepped up hard for Keith Ellison when Dennis Prager lost his mind six months ago over Ellison taking a symbolic, non-functional photo-op oath in his own office on the central Islamic holy text, the Qu'r'an - not from a fear of theocracy creep, mind you. Rather, Prager (who is Jewish) wanted Ellison (who is Muslim) to take an oath on a Christian Bible, and feared for the integrity of the republic were Ellison to hold his own holy book during that photo op pose. I don't know that I called Prager's rants "sacroturf" by proxy; I would today. But I wish I had exerted less effort defending Ellison, now that I know he is both at peace with CAIR's theocrats and, perversely, beloved of some fact-free atheists.