There's a colloquial "rule," generally used by people who would be most disadvantaged by the act, that says that if, during an argument or debate, anyone likens his or her opponent to Hitler, then the argument is over, and the person who used the Hitler reference loses. It's kind of a dumb manipulation, or rhetorical trick, but I've encountered people who trot it out.
I bring this up, because I got an e-blast from some group called everylibrary.org, and it included the title of this post. Specifically, it talked about another group called "Moms for Liberty," which was described as a "well-funded dark money organization," and the quote (supposedly from Hitler) was "He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future." "Moms For Liberty" used that quote. No one manipulatively interpreted them as being like Hitler. I included the upper case letters, because that's what was written in the e-blast. If this really came from Hitler, and it was something he said, then there were no upper or lower case letters. If it was something he wrote, then there would have been.
And then, everylibrary tells you terrible things about "Moms for Liberty," wants you to sign a petition, and wants you to donate money. (No matter what anyone says, doesn't say, does, or doesn't do, someone wants you to donate money. As I always say, if I donated the minimum requested amount to every organization which I myself consider very worthy, I'd go broke fast. So I pick the ones I pick -- which I realize are arbitrary, I donate monthly, I don't donate to the others -- not because they're unworthy -- and I don't increase the donations every time any of the organizations to which I donate says they have an emergency, which all of them always do. I don't have that kind of money, and I just can't do it. As it is, most of my credit card bill every month is donations.)
Anyway, let's think about the quote attributed to Hitler. Assuming Hitler said that, which he very well might have (I looked it up on Bing, and it was "attributed" to Hitler in 1935. But there were no upper case letters in the attributed quote, so if it came from Hitler, he must have said it, not written it.), he wasn't the only person to have recognized the critical importance of capturing the youth market.
The tobacco industry very famously hit upon the same approach. My favorite Kevin Smith movie is "Dogma," and when a group of the good guys were trying to appeal to George Carlin's character, Catholic Cardinal Glick, and mentioned the tobacco industry, Carlin's character said "If we only had their numbers." It's certainly true that the religions recognize the same importance of capturing the youth market.
In fact, whether it's religion, politics, or any of a number of things, people tend to stay with what was in their upbringings. I know of some exceptions, and so do you, but that's the tendency. As I have said a million times, we don't call childhood the "formative years" for nothing.
Whether or not anyone has "gained" the futures of young people depends in part on how much they "owned" them when they were young, and how much these erstwhile youngsters achieve independence. One of the things all or almost all of my patients have heard me say (some repeatedly) is that it is the job of children, from as soon as they're old enough to start doing their job, to become capable and independent, including independent of their parents, and it is the job of parents to permit and even encourage their children to become capable and independent, including independent of them. And I tell them that if they have no other way of thinking about this, they should realize that if everyone gets his and her wish, the offspring will outlive their parents. If the offspring are not capable and independent, including independent of their parents, by the time the parents get old and die (and the offspring are now in their 40s, 50s, 60s, or maybe 70s), the offspring are in deep trouble.
I never owned my children. I never wanted to. I set an example for them. If it appealed to them, and they wanted to follow it, fine. If not, they found their own paths. I'm not they, and they're not I. That's as it should be.
Hitler would be very disappointed to find out that the German people have come to agree that they made a terrible mistake in the 1930s and WWII, they've been remorseful, they've paid reparations to the people Hitler told them were the antichrists, and they're doing vastly better now. Germans today insist that students learn about the Nazi years. Hitler may or may not have "owned" their youths, but he did not "gain" their futures.
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