Pro-Tibet Demonstrators Don't Know Much About History

Let's give them an "A" for feeling, but an "F" for history. Photographer Rowan Benum captured an amusing sign at a Pro-Tibet rally in California not long ago and it says loads about our fetid educational system in the US these days. History isn't one of the better understood subjects, but feelings are there in spades.

Of course, we understand the sentiment. The Nazis now serve as the single worst example of human evil. Say someone is a Nazi and you can't get a worse epithet. And the left in the US just loves to throw that name around at whom ever they don't like. Bush is a "Nazi," Bill O'Reilly is a "Nazi," conservatives are "Nazis," etc., etc.

So, what's more natural than calling the Chinese "Nazis"? After all, the Chinese may be responsible for killing even more people than Hitler ever dreamed of killing and they are still around to rack up an ever higher murder rate. Certainly the Russians killed more than Hitler did -- and this always makes me wonder why the word "communist" is not considered as bad a name to call someone as "Nazi," but I digress.

Now, the sentiment that the Chinese are bad and we should not be allowing them to host the Olympics while pretending China is an upstanding member of the international community is one that anyone interested in liberty and freedom should consider salient.

With that sentiment I also agree.

Unfortunately, someone didn't pay attention to their history teacher in California because, as we all know, the Nazis DID host the Olympics. It was 1936. And many people of the international community of 1936 wanted the Nazis to have the Olympics for the same reason that people today think we should allow the Chinese to have them.

It will “help” them become better members of the international community, or so goes the theory. And we can see how hosting the Olympics helped the Nazis reform themselves to join the international community in 1936, right?

Sadly, our pro-Tibet protesters need a history lesson. So does anyone who thinks it a good idea to let China host the Olympics.

By the way, the little tags at the top of the sign are Tibetan prayer cards or flags. Just in case you wondered.

(photo credit Rowan Benum)