A Monument is a Reminder Not Just of the Past but of the Future As Well

by E.P. Unum: The New York Times published a story about ten years ago, written by Melissa Eddy about a new monument in Berlin, Germany remembering and recognizing the 300-plus-thousands of people with mental illness and intellectual disabilities who were systematically murdered by the Nazis prior to and during World War II. We are reminded that these were among the first innocent, defenseless people to be killed by a regime whose atrocities and unspeakable horror were a stain on humanity. But, now, almost three-quarters of a century later, they are among the last to have their suffering publicly acknowledged.

A 79-foot-long wall of blue-tinted glass now stands at Tiergartenstrasse 4, the site where dozens of physicians plotted and carried out the killings of patients arranged through medical channels under a program known as “Operation T4.” Before the program was halted in 1941, some 70,000 people had been killed in the first gas chambers at six sites across Germany. The Nazis’ early success paved the way for mass slaughter that would later be carried out on an even larger scale against Jews, Catholics, Poles, Gypsies, and others in the death camps.

And, today in our “modern woke world” accentuated by a ‘cancel culture ignorance’, we find ourselves face to face with terror and horror once again. This time, the perpetrators are not called Nazis. Instead, they are Al Queda, the Taliban, ISIS, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and dozens of other meaningless names, all having one thing in common: they spew hatred and contempt for anyone or any group who happens to disagree with them.

If history has taught us anything, it is: You cannot negotiate with terrorists. You cannot reason with a mob. You cannot enter into a meaningful discourse because their hatred and contempt for those who have different opinions or beliefs than theirs and different values about life, is greater than reason, exceeded only by their invoking a perverted version of their “religion” best characterized as fanatical. Their contempt for American exceptionalism and the foundations of our Constitutional Republic fueled by teachers and professors who are more concerned with distorting history rather than teaching it is contemptible.

At their very core is a profound lack of respect for their fellow man and, like the Nazis, they need to be defeated and crushed, not “dismantled” and made into a “manageable problem”. There simply is no place for these people and their despicable acts as part of humankind. You cannot control terror or revolution by appeasement, a lesson we have been taught time and time again throughout history.

“Every human life is worth living”: That is the message sent out from this "Berlin memorial,” Monika Grütters, the then German Minister for Culture, told a crowd gathered for the opening ceremony. “This memorial confronts us today with the harrowing Nazi ideology of presuming life can be measured by ‘usefulness.’ ”

Tens of thousands of other psychiatric patients — including children, as well as people with physical disabilities, deemed severe enough to prevent them from “contributing to the workforce” — were killed through 1945 by starvation or drug overdose. Their families were issued death certificates with the cause of death falsified.

Sadly, the stigmatization of people with psychological and physical illnesses and intellectual disabilities did not end after 1945. We see it today in the continued use of the word “retarded” when describing people with intellectual disabilities. We read about it from university academics and would-be philosophers who suggest that women pregnant with a child with Down Syndrome (or any, other disorder rendering the child as less than “perfect”) should consider abortion as a “solution” and a way to avoid “bringing a child into the world with special needs”.

We are frustrated and shocked when we see governments adopting programs like the Gronigen Protocol in the Netherlands whereby a panel of physicians, in consultation with parents, may terminate the life of a severely disabled child at birth, rationalizing such actions as “avoiding a lifetime of pain and suffering” not to mention “unnecessary expense for the state.”

All life is precious and should be treated and respected as such. The “value” of a child is not measured by its “potential for usefulness” but by the love we share with him or her. Have we not learned that by now? Shouldn’t we be spending time teaching our children this and letting them know that we will become better people when we learn to regard all those with disabilities as people to be respected, not problems to be confronted!

So, this monument, like other monuments, helps us to not only remember the past but to serve as a reminder to learn from it and to never repeat those errors in the future.

When we tolerate fanatical groups tearing down monuments of our past because they want to wipe out history as it actually was, it is an attempt to live in a world of fantasy. And, when people in charge encourage this, allow it to take place, they themselves are retreating into fantasy, demanding that everyone else join them in this make-believe world.

The result is that society becomes impervious to reality and eventually, the entire population develops the habits of fact-avoidance and lying. After a while, no one can see a crisis developing and worse, admit that one exists.

Equally important is to remember always that the modern-day craze of cancel culture is essentially robbing all of us and future generations of the chance to learn from our past to forge a better future for our children and grandchildren.

“Woke” is actually a “Yoke” We cannot allow this to continue.
-----------------------
E.P. Unum is US! H/T McIntosh Enterprises - March 2, 2021.

---

Tags: E.P. Unum is US!, McIntosh Enterprises To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!