Gee, Cranky Yankee, I am a liberal too. To paraphrase whats-his-name, I agree with what you say, but will deny to the death your right to say it in that manner.

Hitler was unique only in his importance. his tendencies were not all that different from Idi Amin or Radovan Karadzic. When you dislike what someone stands for, you can always say, Oh, that guy must be crazy, must be a masochist, etc. But what you are really doing is refusing to understand him.

The German Socialists insisted on calling Hitler a "petit-bourgeois," roughly equivalent to "wimp." They thought of the Nazis as wimps. They paid for that. And if we write violent people off as crazy, we too may end up paying