The other day my oldest daughter and I watched “The Diary of Anne Frank” on television, the story of the Dutch girl who hid from the Nazis, but was finally caught, imprisoned and murdered like so many millions more.
As much as I wish it weren’t necessary, I want my kids to know about the Holocaust. To know especially that it can happen again. Indeed, totalitarian horrors have since been perpetrated by tyrants across the globe. Understanding the very real potential for man’s inhumanity to man especially when given the awful power of modern governments is the best way to prevent new holocausts.
Days later, as if to drive home the point that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, news broke about the Taliban regime in Afghanistan forcing Hindus to wear a noticeable label on their clothing to mark them as non-Muslims. This dictatorship is doing precisely what the Nazis did to Jews. Well, let’s not get carried away there are no death camps. But why take any step down that road? And guess who is providing millions of dollars in critical aid for this tyrannical regime? You’re ahead of me, I know. That’s right you and me the American taxpayers. The Bush Administration just mailed them a check for $43 million.
Our government insists that the UN impose sanctions on Afghanistan for not turning over Osama bin Laden, and yet we’re now financing the Taliban’s campaign of terror against the country’s opium farmers. Question: Would our government fund the Nazis if the Nazis agreed to advance the drug war? Are we so blind?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.