Your View: A Student Reply To Sims Column

Editor, The Auburn Plainsman

In the article titled "A fear a day keeps the logic away," published Sept. 3, 2009, Andrew Sims contends that conservatives fear change, and use scare tactics to try to oppose the new health care bill.

He describes conservatives as ignorant, crazy, as roadblocks to progress and even compares them to Nazis.

His article is riddled with historical inaccuracies, insults, sarcasm and scare tactics of his own.

Allow me to begin by pointing out that socialism is defined as "a political theory advocating state ownership of industry."

As this healthcare bill would give the government more control over the healthcare industry I would have to say that this is, by definition, a step towards socialism.

Now Mr. Sims would have The Plainsman readers believe that "These German people ... their mindset was conservative, unwilling to accept change because they were afraid of the instability of questioning themselves and their leaders." Mr. Sims needs to check his facts.

The Nazi party was the German socialist party, and Adolf Hitler promised the German people change.

Nazism took hold of Germany in large part due to the economic hardships imposed by the treaty of Versailles and the fact that Hitler promised to save Germany from these hardships.

There was nothing conservative about the rise of Nazism. In fact, it would be a more apt comparison if Mr. Sims were to look at the current actions of the Democrats alongside those of the Nazis.

I do not, however, believe that comparing Americans to Nazis is a valid analogy, and is more a play on the fear of being identified as some crazy, ignorant Nazi.

Mr. Sims tells us that we should all be liberals, that we should all think the same way. We should adopt the liberal mindset so that we can remain open-minded towards anything.

Mr. Sims is advocating that we give up diversity in our thinking so that we can think like him. If we do this, we begin to pave the way for the rise of totalitarian government.

If Mr. Sims would check his history text, he would see that socialist countries give rise to totalitarian government. This would seem to be a rather logical sequence of events, as one must relinquish more and more power to the government to allow the government to give one what one wants.

It was Thomas Jefferson who said, "A government that is big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything away."

It is for these reasons that conservatives question the ideas our government puts forth. It is for these reasons that conservatives resist the movement toward socialism.

It is for love of our country, not ignorance, that we do not blindly follow the government. Mr. Sims,

I respectfully disagree with you, but I'll have the decency to refrain from calling you an ignorant, crazy, stubborn Nazi.

Thomas Dowling

senior, sociology