Demonization of ideas is no substitute for logic

PERHAPS it’s an offshoot of social media culture, but too many people seem to think decibel level and extremism substitute for facts and logic. We recently criticized some vaccine opponents who attacked a state senator by comparing him to Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot and Kim Jong Un. Such tactics are disturbing enough when made anonymously and at a distance. It’s far worse when an elected official embraces the same ploy in public.

During a recent committee debate on legislation to provide education savings accounts to low-income children, Sen. Ron Sharp, R-Shawnee, declared it the “Dr. Josef Mengele bill.”

Mengele was a Nazi SS officer notorious for overseeing human experimentation at the Auschwitz concentration camp. How on earth did Sharp see a connection between Holocaust atrocities and a bill to aid the poor? Because Mengele “would bleed his victims slowly and see how long they could survive,” Sharp explained, insisting ESA legislation would do the same thing to public schools.

Some people who support school choice are Jewish, so tacitly equating them with Nazi butchers is beyond offensive. When the Center for Investigative Journalism contacted one of them, Rabbi A.D. Motzen, director of state relations at Agudath Israel of America, Motzen bluntly noted that Sharp “could not have reached for a more far-fetched or more offensive comparison.” Motzen had relatives who died at Auschwitz. It’s also worth noting that the platform of the Oklahoma Republican Party declares “all parents should be allowed to use their education tax dollars for the family’s choice of schooling,” and that former President Ronald Reagan backed school choice. “I’ve long argued that more choice would lead to better education,” he said in 1988. “And so, I’ve advocated tuition tax credits and education vouchers.”

It’s quite a hat trick to tacitly equate some Jews, most Oklahoma Republicans and Ronald Reagan with one of history’s worst fiends.

Oklahoma isn’t the only place where over-the-top and historically illiterate attacks are becoming common. Golfer Rory Mcllroy got a taste recently after playing a round with President Trump. In a subsequent Facebook post, Mcllroy noted, “to be called a fascist and a bigot by some people because I spent time in someone’s company is just ridiculous.”

At this point, it’s almost impossible to list the number of times Trump supporters have been labeled everything from racists to Nazis. Even some liberals are starting to take offense.

In an interview with CBS’ Charlie Rose, former talk show host Jon Stewart noted, “I thought Donald Trump disqualified himself at numerous points. But there is now this idea that anyone who voted for him has to be defined by the worst of his rhetoric.” Yet Stewart said he knew Trump voters “that I love” who “are not afraid of Mexicans, and not afraid of Muslims, and not afraid of blacks. They’re afraid of their insurance premiums.”

To automatically denounce people as racists or Nazis, simply because of a policy disagreement, doesn’t put those people on the defensive. It merely highlights the lack of substance behind the name-caller’s arguments.