Parallels Between 1933 Nazi's & the House GOP

I know that is a provocative title, but I just learned a fact about the 1933 election that brought Hitler to power.

The National Socialist's Party led by Hitler only got 44% of the vote but because there were so many other parties running in the election, Hitler got to form the government.  After he was in office, he cancelled elections thereafter.  So WWII and the holocaust arose despite 56% of the voters in the country voting for something else.

Now we have the House GOP, which nationwide had 1 million fewer votes in the 2012 House of Representative elections but 25 more seats because of gerrymandering, refusing to govern by compromising and keeping the country running in a prudent fashion.  Is it any wonder that Obama beat Romney by getting more votes?  Is it any wonder that in the Senate races more Democrats won than Republicans?

Republicans are in the minority and have an obligation to present their point of view, but also have an obligation to keep the government running.  Stopping the government from working is the equivalent of canceling elections and starting a war as a minority party.

Is this why there is such support within the GOP for no regulation of semi-automatic weapons or gun magazines?  So Lindsay Graham, who I thought was a reasonable person, can march into war with his Bushmaster or AK47 that he keeps in his home.  I suspect he lives in a safe neighborhood so he doesn't need it to defend his property from riff faff invading his home.  So, perhaps, the GOP is getting itself into military fighting shape when they only get 44% of the vote.

I know there are statistics out there that show murders happen everywhere in the U.S. no matter what the regulation.  But should Fireman have to wait for police escorts before they respond to a fire?  Should children have to be protected by armed guards just in case a madman walks into their school?  What kind of country does the NRA want to live in?

The murder rate in the U.S. is 4x that of Britain and 6x that of Germany.  And more and more of US murders are wanton killings of randomly available targets, not gang warfare.  I don't believe video games are causing this, but they could be toned down.  I don't believe a national database will capture every mildly insane person, but a licensing procedure with interviews (and an ATF person with the guts to deny a person a license if they are thought to be unstable) might.  But so would limiting access to the weapons.  No one needs semi-automatic weapons with huge magazines.   Cities should be able to try and get handguns off the streets and license those who do have them.  We need a dog license and a drivers license, why not a gun license? I know it is in the Constitution but we don't want anyone to be able to buy a bazooka or shoulder fired missile, so why are semi-automatic weapons legal?

The GOP is a rural dominated party.  So is the Egyptian Brotherhood.  The Egyptian constitution that will install Sharia influenced processes will pass, but Cairo residents voted 57% against it.  More parallels between the modern GOP and other potentially autocratic regimes.

This is depressing, I am going to our XMAS eve traditional night out now.

Merry Christmas.  I hope we get some sanity in D.C. in our collective stocking.