Op-Ed: Health care reforms are the antithesis of Nazi practice

With the health care debate seeming to degenerate into well-publicized spates of name calling and scare tactics, the following article clearly articulates the fallacy of comparing the proposed "public option" with the Nazi party's policies in Germany.

It is the nuclear bomb of epithets, a shorthand way of tarnishing any opponent. In recent weeks, Rush Limbaugh and others repeatedly have compared President Obama to Adolf Hitler and his health care policies to Nazi tactics. More than one activist showed up at a town hall meeting brandishing a swastika sign and Obama's name.

"They were for abortion and euthanasia of the undesirables," Limbaugh said of the Nazis on his radio program. "As we all know, they were for cradle-to-grave nationalized health care."

Reviewing what the Nazis actually did, and why, shows that such inapt comparisons reveal more about the attackers than the current proposals by the president or Congress.