Myrmidons

I was watching some Television over the weekend when I came to a realization that for some reason, had never completely struck me before. As you know, I love me some history, and the program I was watching dealt with one of the most evil figures in history, involved in one of the darkest moments in history. But what struck me wasn’t how terribly monstrous this fellow had been (he’s dead now). It wasn’t his hatred or his senseless belief in a twisted and delusional ideology. The truth that I finally realized was simply this: as bad as this leader had been, it was impossible for him to even try to accomplish his goals without people – lost to history – who were willing to carry out his directives. But those orders don’t happen unless there were thousands upon thousands who both agreed with him and who were willing to actually carry out the actions that had been directed. I was… well… confused over the weekend by the actions of President Trump and his dinner companions. I get it, I am a free speech radical. For whatever it’s worth, I personally believe that Kanye West is a performer and a brand. There is very little substance there and his words are generally designed to attract attention. You know what I say… attention whores gonna attention whore. It’s what they do. But the other fellow at the dinner strikes me as one of those thousands upon thousands of people who would have read the memo’s put out by Heydrich and taken them to heart. Does he have a right to spew his anti-Jewish hatred? Yes. Do I have the right to call him a foul Nazi worshipping myrmidon who would have willingly followed Hitler to the death (and may yet)? You bet’cha… But name calling isn’t going to accomplish anything, is it? Neither will 140 character Tweets or soon-to-be-banned Facebook posts. Nor does it mean that the former President should be above critique for the having the meeting in the first place. It’s not like he didn’t KNOW who these folks are.