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"I became commissioner of the Interior in Prussia and at the same time Minister of the Third Reich. I had taken on a heavy responsibility and a vast field of work lay before me. It was clear that I should be able to make a little use of the administrative system as it then was. I should have to make great changes. To begin with, it seemed to me of the first importance to get the weapon of the criminal and political police firmly into my own hands. Here it was that I made the first sweeping changes of personnel. Out of 32 police chiefs I removed 22. New men were brought in, and in every case these men came from the great reservoir of the Storm Troops. I gave strict orders and demanded that the police should devote all their energies to the ruthless extermination of subversive elements. In one of my first big meetings in Dortmund I declared that for the future there would be only one man who would bear the responsibility in Prussia, and that one man was myself. Every bullet fired from the barrel of a police pistol was my bullet. If you call that murder, then I am the murderer. Finally I alone created, on my own initiative, the State Secret Police Department. This is the instrument which is so much feared by the enemies of the State, and which is chiefly responsible for the fact that in Germany and Prussia today there is no question of a Marxist or Communist danger. Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
-Nazi Hermann Göring
Nazi Herman Göring
If any of this sounds familiar, it should. We have been hearing things about sacrificing some liberties for "safety from The Terrorists" since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.
Benjamin Franklin said: "Those who will sacrifice freedom for safety will lose both and deserve neither" - Ben Franklin
I'd rather trust Benjamin Franklin. How about you?
Those in the U.S. who want "our" country back are frightened of ethnic minorities gaining status, are frightened of "the other", and don't realize that diversity is the life blood of this country. The Right Wing plays on these fears, has learned how to mine this "victim" mindset to its advantage. Centrists and Leftists have, for the most part, been out to lunch while this insidious takeover has developed. The Republicans opened this box in order to gain votes and how it is the tail wagging the dog.