February 18, 2006

IN MY OWN WAY, I'M DIETRICH BONHOEFFER'S PEER:

The Quiet Resolve of a German Anti-Nazi Martyr (STEPHEN HOLDEN, NY Times)

"Sophie Scholl: The Final Days" conveys what it must have been like to be a young, smart, idealistic dissenter in Nazi Germany, where no dissent was tolerated. This gripping true story, directed in a cool, semi-documentary style by the German filmmaker Marc Rothemund from a screenplay by Fred Breinersdorfer, challenges you to gauge your own courage and strength of character should you find yourself in similar circumstances. Would you risk your life the way Sophie Scholl (Julia Jentsch) and a tiny group of fellow students at Munich University did to spread antigovernment leaflets? How would you behave during the kind of relentless interrogations that Sophie endures? If sentenced to death for your activities, would you still consider your resistance to have been worth it? In a climate of national debate in the United States about the overriding of certain civil liberties to fight terrorism, the movie looks back on a worst possible scenario in which such liberties were taken away. It raises an unspoken question: could it happen here?

That, in a nutshell, is the source of the Left's continual Nazi references, the need to inflate their petulance into a form of great moral courage. Too bad Ms Scholl isn't around to laugh at them with us.

MORE:
Brother Driscoll has news that makes it perhaps just as well Ms Scholl isn't around.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 18, 2006 9:56 AM
Comments

in our leftist heroes' minds, their calling GWB or Cheney names in a DU comment is on the same level of courage as poor Sophie's. they are cowardly stunted worms.

Posted by: toe at February 18, 2006 10:05 AM

How is the maniacal, foam at the mouth Bush hatred any different than manaical foam at the mouth Clinton hatred?

Speaking on behalf of normal, non-extremist, reasonably sane people who make up the bulk of the country all I can say is a pox on both their houses.

May I suggest that both sides secede and form their own little nut-case countries. The left wing loonies can congregate around Berkley while Idaho seems to be the area of choice for right wing nuts. We can put a fence around you both and get on with our lives.

Posted by: bplus at February 18, 2006 10:32 AM

daniel:

It's not. The mainstream Left is identical to those who were accusing Clinton of murdering Vince Foster.

But don't flatter yourself--you're the biggest hater we've got around here.

Posted by: oj at February 18, 2006 10:40 AM

The left of the Vietnam era equated protesting the war of LBJ and Nixon to working against the Nazis, but in that case the draft (and, up to a point, the civil rights movement) gave them a body of protestors they haven't come close to matching today, in part due to the lack of a draft, and in part due to the fact that the big hole in the groud in Lower Mahattan is a reminder of what can happen by not fighting,

So the left is reduced to sputtering about the new generation of American Nazis in the White House, and staging pallid replicas of their Vietnam era marches, in hope that someone will come along to repress them and justify their accusations (Of course, they could take it a step further like the Weather Underground did and start to actively target examples of the military-industrial complex with explosive devices, but for now even the left understands that using terrorism to try and get people to oppose the war on terror is not a winning strategy).

Posted by: John at February 18, 2006 10:49 AM

A couple years back, the Oscar ceremonies commemorated the death of Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl - among others - when she died. Does anyone know if they did the same for murdered filmmaker Theo Van Gogh in last year's spectacle?

I, of course, no longer watch this crap - so I'd be grateful if someone could tell me. THANKS!

Posted by: obc at February 18, 2006 3:12 PM

OBC,

From everything I've read, Theo Van Gogh's name is virtually unknown in Hollywood except among those rarest of rare birds, the Hollywood conservative.

Posted by: Ed Driscoll at February 18, 2006 4:05 PM

Now I know why Pat Sajak has disapeared without a trace.

Posted by: Robert Schwartz at February 18, 2006 6:27 PM

Thanks, Ed!

Posted by: obc at February 18, 2006 7:25 PM

Bottom line: when you read the Bible literally all you have is an evil god.

Posted by: bplus at February 18, 2006 9:27 PM

bplus

He doesn't want to kill the sinner, just the sin. The sinners are merely caught in the crossfire. Sorta of like South Dakota pheasant hunting.

Posted by: h-man at February 19, 2006 5:29 AM

+: Good thing no one reads it literally, then.

Posted by: David Cohen at February 19, 2006 8:55 AM
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