we are them

as we banter about registering muslims, imposing religious tests on immigrants, and so on, i want hit us over the head with what i take to be a fundamental political/moral fact: we are the very same sort of people as the people who enacted the holocaust or the killing fields. those people were under the impression that they were doing something good and striking a blow for progress and civilization. whatever your political vision - especially right or left - what i want from you is a chastened sense of your own liableness to be wrong. a little bit of that might be enough to keep you from confidently imposing your nightmare on the world.

the genocidal killer in the mirror