A party like the original German Nazi party could never rise to power unless there had been enough incredibly dumb, ignorant, racist and xenophobic people in the German populace to manipulate, incite and dumb down. The current GOP shows every sign of being in the stage the original Nazi party had been in the 1920s. My father who lived in Germany when the Nazis took over, ended up in Dachau and miraculously survived, kept referring to the GOP as a "nascent Nazi party" until the day he died in California a few years ago. Unlike anyone on this board, he actually knew what he was talking about when the subject of Nazism came up.

The GOP has always had the ideological and psychological/psychotic ingredients necessary to become a full-blown Nazi party. My father who was a holocaust survivor and a brilliant historian kept saying for years that he could see no daylight between the GOP, especially in its Southern version, and the early Nazi party. The teabaggers/birthers/town hell mobs=German white trash mobs egged on by the Nazi propaganda apparatus who beat up Jews, burned down synagogues and vandalized Jewish businesses leading to Kristalnacht and the horrors that followed .

Sure Prof. Gates could have avoided the whole thing if he'd played nice, thanked the officer for suspecting him and demanding his ID, and sent him on his way with a friendly wave. But if the professor felt he was being racially profiled, and was pissed about it, then right or wrong, why should he have to shut up and take what he perceived as biased treatment from a cop? He had surrendered his documents. That was his only obligation (and even there, he could have, if he'd wanted, demanded that the officer return with a warrant first).President Obama should not apologize to Crowley. Nor should Prof. Gates. Crowley, if he is as good as he says he is, and as sensitive to racial issues as he claims he is, should apologize to Gates, both for suspecting him, and for the wrongful arrest. If he does that, I suspect Gates will apologize too, for calling Crowley a racist. The bottom line here is that a man was arrested in his home after falsely being suspected of being a burglar by a policeman who made the arrest soley out of pique at being disrespected by the man he was wrongly suspecting.If we still live in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, it seems clear who should be apologizing in this case.

Why is it that cops can be incredibly rude and overaggressive toward civilians with no repercussions whatsoever but a civilian has to take their crap while keeping his mouth shut? That stupid and racist cop was shown two different pieces of identification by Gates yet insisted on ordering him out of his own house. Gates may or may not be arrogant and full of himself, I don't know him personally, but he was within his rights in standing up to that cop. Frankly, I believe that the cop knew damn well that Gates was the resident of the house in question and possibly even knew exactly who he was, but his conduct was very similar to that of many cops:be as aggressive, contemptuous and unpleasant as you can to civilians to make sure they know who's in charge. The police always close ranks behind their rogue cops and we do live in a de facto police state without even realizing it.

Over the years, I have seen numerous occasions where police officers treat civilians rudely, arrogantly and occasionally violently, for no reason at all. The civilian was not being antagonistic, wasn't rude and didn't behave like an a**hole, which Gates supposedly did. In a real free society, civilians who believe they haven't done anything wrong should always peacefully confront cops who arrest or badger them and demand a thorough explanation from the cop. The cops works for us and are supposed to serve us, not the other way around.

Cops should be as courteous to citizens as a Singapore Airline flight attendant is to her passengers. They are supposed to serve the public and are employees of the citizenry. A former (decorated) white police officer once told me that if you planted a listening device in a room in which white cops were hanging out, you would mistake it for a KKK gathering. He told me that had he been black, he would be scared out of his mind any time a white cop glanced his way.

The sexual preference and any other aspect of Spacy's private life are absolutely nobody's business, ever. The same thing should apply to politicians running for office. The public has a right to know about their ideas, plans and competency, while their sexual preferences, their spouses, lovers, children, favorite sorts team/food/color, etc, is none of the public's business and never should be.

That these days, fringe people who are very clearly deranged and raving mad have been made mainstream by the establishment media. Alan Keyes, Liz Cheney and their likes who clearly belong in a padded room with soft music piped in and burly nurses coming in periodically to administer their medication are interviewed as if they were sane, rational people.

why is raving insanity such an integral part of the Right wing.

Because their notion of a nation-state is one in which whites are perpetually the ruling class due to their supposed inherent superiority, the executive and legislative branches are dominated by a corporate oligarchy that pays for their elections and expects to be serviced afterwards, a bizarre, extremely belligerent and oppressive fundamental interpretation of christianity is the de-facto state religion and the country is a xenophobic empire in a perpetual quest for world domination.