Opinion > October 9, 2008

By Austin Lastowka |

The article “Democrats’ tax plan will hurt the economy,” (Oct. 2) by Maggie Van Norden makes many interesting claims.

She asserted that Barack Obama’s tax plan will hurt the economy, while ignoring the fact that John McCain would keep intact a majority of the same economic policies as the current president. It was President Bush’s time in office that allowed for the current economic meltdown to occur in the first place. That view was surprising, but not the most objectionable one. When discussing an aspect of Obama’s tax plan, she appears to have unearthed-the unsupported, downright odd claim that Obama’s tax policy hinges on patriotism — the article casually states that it is reminiscent “of what happened in the 1930s that later became Nazi Germany.” What?? The sentence itself makes no sense, but, more importantly, it displays a really ignorant trend that is far too common in political discourse: the off-the-cuff Nazi comparison. Just because you disagree with a candidate’s political viewpoint, it does not mean that the candidate espousing said viewpoint is a Hitler-in-waiting. Please be more tasteful and less extreme in your selection of historical analogy, for there is an undoubtedly a better one to be made. Perhaps a tax increase would accompany an Obama presidency, perhaps not.

We will not know this unless Obama takes office. One thing is for certain though, it takes an immensely broad mental leap to connect an American candidate’s proposed tax policy to the rise of a genocidal, totalitarian political party, one any discerning citizen would not be willing to take.