Words Have Power

"Yev Kassem," played by Larry Thomas
http://www.philly.com/....
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This entry has weighed heavily upon my soul for a  very long time, as addressing it means discussing one of  the greatest horrors this world has ever seen, but remaining silent makes me complicit with those who so continue to perpetrate insensitivity upon the world with neither forethought nor reflection.

I used to love the show Seinfeld and still watch it in reruns whenever time permits, and when I finally created my Facebook profile, the official fan page was among my first round of "likes."

The sixth episode of the seventh season, entitled The Soup Nazi, originally aired on November 2, 1995.  I don't know when that started to bother me, and it pains me to consider the possibility that it took a full fifteen years, when I started seeing the term "grammar Nazi" on Facebook.

The Seinfeld episode was by no means the first use of the term "Nazi" to cast aspersions upon those who  enforce strict guidelines.  In fact, while doing a little bit of research for this entry, I found that political satirist P.J. O'Rourke wrote an article called Safety Nazis for the March 15, 1982 edition of Inquiry.

Actual Facebook Screencap, Redacted
Used without Permission

It's not just that term though.

The high school that I attended closed in 2010, and with it also went The Medallion, the quarterly magazine published by our alumni association.  Although it contained articles with writing that must have made our English teacher Mister Docherty cringe, and the sports schedules were already outdated when the magazine came in the mail, there were occasionally some interesting things to read.  Just today, the alumni association announced that The Medallion will now be available in online format.  In response, someone used the term "Gestapo," and then later went on to write that he was "Totally kidding!"  *I* was not amused.  He went on to make numerous additional comments that were relevant neither to the new format roll-out nor to the scope of this blog entry.

While, of course, I take issue with the commenter who "jokingly" referred to our alumni magazine as "Gestapo propaganda," I take infinitely more issue with the alumni association - both for dignifying the comment in the first place and for de facto distancing themselves from the Church and Archdiocese that provided the backbone of the school for fifty years.  Part of me wants to ask if a formal affiliation would mean "Gestapo Propaganda," but any attempt to apply sense to the conversation will just make me look foolish.

Hyperbole
http://www.mywordwizard.com/poems-with-hyperbole.html
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It really frustrates me.

People compare our national leaders to Adolf Hitler.  I don't even have the words to express how maddening this is to me.  It's one thing to have disagreements with someone's policies, but to make such an irrational jump boggles me.  If you don't like a politician, I encourage you to reverse this idea and compare him or her to someone you love - and see how ridiculous that is to you.

It goes beyond mere hyperbole though and into the realm of the delusional, but whatever the case, it is always tragically and inhumanly insensitive to the history of the ten to thirteen million (or more) people who were systematically executed over a six-year period as part of a "final solution."

We need to find new words to express our frustrations with rules and with our rulers, because some of the ones that we are using reveal our ignorance and insensitivity.  In the meantime, whenever I see the words "Nazi," "Gestapo," or "Hitler" applied to a modern-day situation, I will lose whatever respect I may have had for the person who used those words, and his or her argument will be rendered summarily invalid in my eyes.

To be consistent....  What are your thoughts on this?  Please feel free to share your comments below.