Should we invest in internment camps for New Yorkers and those who quote Hitler?

Assembly Bill A416 was recently introduced in the lower house of New York State’s legislature. The bill lets the governor remove and detain any “suspected case, contact, or carrier of a contagious disease”. This can be used any time “the governor declares a state of health emergency due to an epidemic of any communicable disease.” (so it would work for flu season or systemic racism? (racism is contagious according to the United Nations))

As written, I think the law would allow the state government to round up anyone who’d been at a 50-person party if 1 out of those 50 tested positive (with a PCR machine cranked up to the max?) for COVID-19. Masks or no masks, they’ve now become “suspected cases”.

How about an unmasked individual caught on camera walking through Times Square? Based on a scientific consensus around masks, it would make sense to regard the unmasked person, after walking through a crowd of hundreds, as a “suspected case”.

How about an unvaccinated person who leaves the house and enters a grocery store? He/she/ze/they is at risk and therefore can be detained as a “suspected case.”

A similar bill was presciently introduced in 2015, 2017, and 2019. Maybe it has a good chance of passing this year, though, now that COVID-19 has changed folks’ minds regarding the proper limits of government. Would it make sense to think, from the safety of a free state, about investing in the construction of internment camps that can be leased to New York State? The bill says “such person or group of persons shall be detained in a medical facility or other appropriate facility or premises designated by the governor…” But if there is a real epidemic going on, the medical facilities will be at least reasonably full.

Separately, will there be demand for interning anyone who quotes Adolf Hitler or Donald Trump (now unpersoned by Facebook and Twitter? Where will people find the archives to know what hate looks like?)? For example, “Congresswoman Apologizes for Making an Approving Reference to Hitler” (NYT):

Representative Mary Miller, an Illinois Republican, had faced condemnation and calls to resign for declaring at a rally: “Hitler was right on one thing: He said, ‘Whoever has the youth, has the future.’”

“Each generation has the responsibility to teach and train the next generation,” Ms. Miller said at the rally. “You know, if we win a few elections, we’re still going to be losing, unless we win the hearts and minds of our children. This is the battle. Hitler was right on one thing: He said, ‘Whoever has the youth, has the future.’ Our children are being propagandized.”

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum was among the groups that had roundly criticized Ms. Miller’s remarks. The museum said it “unequivocally condemns any leader trying to advance a position by claiming Adolf Hitler was ‘right.’”

“Adolf Hitler, the Nazis, and their collaborators murdered almost every member of my family, destroyed my entire community, and ended a centuries-old culture,” Irene Weiss, an Auschwitz survivor, said in a statement released by the museum. “I implore our leaders and all Americans not to misuse this history — my history.”

Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat, called Ms. Miller’s remarks “unfathomable and disgusting,” and urged her to visit the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center “to learn just how wrong Hitler was.”

Several Illinois Democrats went further and demanded that Ms. Miller resign. They included Senator Tammy Duckworth, Representative Jan Schakowsky and Representative Marie Newman.

Why condemn when we can intern and reeducate?

Hitler, of course, has been proved completely wrong, and definitely not right about anything ever in his life, by COVID-19. Why does Dr. Fauci have such a tough time persuading Trump voters to wear masks?

“It is always more difficult to fight against faith than against knowledge.”

If you want to shut down schools for years, would it be helpful to convince people that healthy children face a substantial risk from COVID-19?

“The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.”

“What luck for rulers that men do not think.”

(but, of course, those who identify as “women” do think!)

If you want to do a one-year shutdown and outdoor mask order, does it make sense to start with a one-month shutdown and indoor mask suggestion?

“The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way, the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed.”

Use a traditional vaccine or stick people with mRNA so that their bodies actually produce what would have been in the vaccine?

“As in everything, nature is the best instructor.”

Should healthy 20-year-olds be required to get vaccinated?

“Society’s needs come before the individuals needs”

If you’re issuing executive orders, does it make sense to call anyone who questions one “anti-science”?

“The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category.”

Are exploitation of Blacks and inequality problems important enough to worry about even as the COVID-19-tagged bodies stack up?

“I don’t see much future for the Americans … it’s a decayed country. And they have their racial problem, and the problem of social inequalities … How can one expect a State like that to hold together?”

Could Trump have won in 2020 if he’d donned a Speedo for a dip in the Atlantic opposite Mar-a-Lago?

“No politician should ever let himself be photographed in a bathing suit.”

Is the Oval Office the World Center of Peace and Harmony?

The American president increasingly used his influence to create conflicts, intensify existing conflicts, and, above all, to keep conflicts from being resolved peacefully.

On first-time office holders…

“There is a better chance of seeing a camel pass through the eye of a needle than of seeing a really great man ‘discovered’ through an election.”

On estate tax avoidance:

“The amount of money that is in your bank at the time of your death is the extra work you did which wasn’t necessary”

Bad advice if you love having friends over ..

“don’t let what other people think, stop you from doing the things you love”

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10 thoughts on “Should we invest in internment camps for New Yorkers and those who quote Hitler?

  1. 1. I’m sure some want to see people who refuse to do their civic duty and wear masks during a pandemic internalize the negative externality they are creating via imprisonment, I just wish you folks would grow up and wear masks, despite their questionable efficacy, instead of continuing to throw tantrums.
    2. Quoting Hitler the day after white nationalists invaded the capitol buildings seems to show either a serious lack of thoughtfulness or a desire to side with white nationalists either way a discussion should be had about whether you deserve to keep your job representing your constituents.

    • This comment contains no quote from Hitler, as that would be tasteless and horrible. Instead, here’s one from Hermann Goering:

      “…It is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along…

      “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 … exposing the country to danger.”

      So do your civic duty and wear masks (in spite of the “questionable efficacy”*)!

      * In the long-ago dark ages before the Science was Settled (2019), the WHO
      published

      https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/329438/9789241516839-eng.pdf

      which stated “there is no evidence that this [mask wearing] is effective in reducing transmission”.

    • LordP: I think Californians have proven just how effective masks and shutdowns are.

      From a Facebook discussion (not deplatformed yet for some reason): The lockdowns are like Vietnam, the political and media establishment have so much invested in them, only a gradual drawdown will be permitted, regardless of the “science.”

  2. Seems pretty witless to quote Hitler as the authority for who holds the keys to the future.

  3. You’re in trouble with Dr. Fauci now! 🙂 I just thank our lucky stars that Trump was unsuccessful in his court cases to reverse the election. Instead of a MAGA riot at the Capitol, he could have been declared the winner by the electoral college, and then we’d have riots everywhere in the country. So obviously, that was the best outcome!

  4. Little known fact except to occasional metalheads: The intro. to Mötley Crüe’s breakthrough album “Shout at the Devil” starts with “In the Beginning”:

    “In the beginning
    Good always overpowered the evils
    Of all man’s sins…
    But in time
    The nations grew weak
    And our cities fell to slums
    While evil stood strong
    In the dusts of hell
    Lurked the blackest of hates
    For he whom they feared
    Awaited them… Now many many lifetimes later
    Lay destroyed, beaten, beaten down,
    Only the corpses of rebels
    Ashes of dreams
    And blood stained streets
    It has been written
    “Those who have the youth
    Have the future”
    So come now, children of the beast
    Be strong
    And Shout at the Devil”

    Tommy Lee (drummer, once married to Pamela Anderson) on what the Democrats should do, post-Trump:

    https://consequenceofsound.net/2019/08/motley-crue-tommy-lee-trump-political-tweet/

    I don’t think anyone has condemned Tommy Lee for quoting Hitler as a positive affirmation and call to the youth. They were worried about “satanism”.

  5. It would be interesting from a sociological point of view to establish a database of all of Hitler’s writings and most important quotes so that statements from politicians and members of the media and popular culture could be compared against it to establish a “Hitler Congruence Index.”

    That way, any time someone says something that even tangentially resembles something Hitler said, Twitter and Facebook could have a little meter on the bottom of the post showing the degree to which the post agrees with something Hitler said.

    This problem can be solved! I’m sure Google Deep Mind has already done it.

    • Hmmm… now that you mention it, Biden is quoting Hitler approvingly by choosing to bring two German Shepherds (Hitler’s favorite breed) to the White House. Should Biden be forced to resign if he says “Hitler was right about dogs”?

  6. “The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way, the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed”

    The Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History, a research organization dedicated to the study of German history of the 20th and 21st century, confirmed to Reuters these words are misattributed to Hitler. “Whoever invented this quote, it was not Hitler and it has never been written in Mein Kampf”, a spokesperson for the Institute told Reuters on email. “We do not know in which context the author of this post is trying to manipulate a discussion by an invented “Hitler”-quotation,” they added.

    You can google the original Reuters yourselves.

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