We live in a world today where political opponents bludgeon each other with comparisons to the past. “Every One That I Disagree With Is Hitler” has become more than just a funny internet meme and a brilliant song. It has literally become much of the mindset of political discourse in this nation.

The problem is, of course, that virtually none of the people who hurl those quasi-history-based epithets at their opponents know anything about the history they are trying to use as a blunt force weapon. For the most part, their opponents don’t either. So instead of being able to deftly counter the accusation, they simply try to lob it back with the addition of a singular bit of historical fact that makes it sting in reverse. I’m rubber, you’re glue, bounced off of me and stuck to you!

In a world where the woke have decided that we cannot even make a reference to various evils throughout history, such as General Robert E. Lee, it’s okay for the woke to embrace the Nazi brand for their opponents. Nobody seems at all confused by this or even perplexed by its lack of logic.

We think that we have a firm grasp of the obvious and that we’re so much smarter than our forbearers. After all, goes the logic, they were slaveholders and Nazis, so they must be bad, right?

“There is always something to learn, even from your enemy,” said the Roman poet Ovid. But if all we (corporately) do is play the man and not the ball, how will we ever save ourselves from so many of the same mistakes that were made less than a century ago?