Okay, just stop it. No more Hitler comparisons. No more Nazi references.

This is a debate over the American health care system, people; now get a grip, and stop using the scare tactic of invoking one of the most evil regimes of the modern world, because it is scary. Not for what it says about the Nazis, but for what it says about the American protesters and members of the media willing to use such a tactic to block President Obama’s desired health care reforms. You don’t have to like Obama’s proposals, feel free to disagree and argue and protest against them, but dump the Nazi rhetoric right now.

Let’s make a comparison of the facts, keeping in mind that I am an historian and not an expert on government health policy. On one side, you have the Democratic presidential administration of President Barack Obama, which wants to increase the number of Americans with health insurance by providing a government-run, public option in addition to the existing private insurance plans, which millions of people cannot afford and hence the desire for reform. Many members of the public, however, are understandably concerned about whether the cost of such a program will drain public resources and add red tape and bureaucratic handcuffs rather than improve health services.

On the other side, you have the fascist Nazi administration of Adolf Hitler, one of the most odious, racist, violent governments to ever rule in the modern era of western civilization. (Josef Stalin killed more than Hitler, but not because of racism—he just murdered people whom he disliked or who made him nervous, which was pretty much everybody.) The Nazis began systematic killings with the Aktion T4 program, in which ill and deformed children, and, later adults, were killed quietly in a Berlin villa in an attempt to cleanse German society of these unproductive citizens who drained public resources, as well as cleansing the Aryan gene pool as part of the Nazi “racial hygiene” mandate. The program grew and gave birth to the Holocaust and the death of millions.

Except for the possible concern about the cost of care to the tax-paying public, comparing the two is a pretty big stretch. Like stretching a rubber band from Washington to Berlin not only across time zones, but also eras of time. So are the people using this form of “protest”—comparing Obama to Hitler—so obtuse as to not realize what they are saying? I would like to think so, because as a proud American I hate to see our nation cast in such a bad light, and I hope it’s all just a misguided mistake. Unfortunately, the answer seems to be yes and no, depending of whom you’re speaking—the media or the public.

The conservative media are most certainly aware of what they are doing when, for example, a November 2008 editorial in the Washington Times defines what it calls “America’s T4 program—trivialization of abortion, acceptance of euthanasia, and the normalization of physician assisted suicide”—and predicts the new administration and Congress are unlikely to halt it. Additionally, the Washington Times editorial page in February 2009 made a quick but not easily overlooked comparison to “Hannah Arendt’s observation about the banality of evil”—a reference to the title of Arendt’s 1963 book about the trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann, who helped organize the Holocaust—when discussing government involvement in health care, before claiming what it calls the “efficiency based approach to health care reform” was born of the Nazi T4 program. And conservative ideologue Rush Limbaugh said on his syndicated radio show with 15 million listeners, “Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate.” He said separately, “They accuse us of being Nazis, and Obama’s got a health care logo that’s right out of Adolf Hitler’s playbook.” This led Holocaust survivor and director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham H. Foxman, to rightly state in an August 7th press release, “Americans should be able to disagree on the issues without coloring it with Nazi imagery and comparisons to Hitler. This is not where the debate should be at all.”

And yet largely with the help of members of the media pushing these comparisons, this direct assault of Nazi accusations has been taken up by a contingent of the public, who seemingly are less aware of the historical significance and get most if not all of their news and take their lead from conservative outlets like the unfair and unbalanced talking heads of Fox, Limbaugh’s radio program, and the Washington Times, whose vitriolic talking points these public protesters seem to be parroting.

One protester said at a town hall meeting, “Adolf Hitler called his program ‘The Final Solution.’ I wonder what we’re gonna call ours.” Others held signs depicting Barack Obama with a Hitler moustache. Do they know their history? Do they not see the irony in trying to voice their passion about providing the most beneficial medical care for our country by invoking the spectre of the most infamous program of mass murder ever conceived, involving the carefully planned genocide of millions of people? In fairness, antiwar protesters depicted George W. Bush as Hitler in some of their posters, rhetoric, and even in a 2004 ad contest sponsored by MoveOn.org. There is no excuse for that either, although at least the context (invading countries, war, etc.) makes more sense. The protesters against Obama are making this Barack/Adolf comparison over health care. Either way, unless you are making a comparison to the twentieth century’s other great murderous despots, Stalin or Pol Pot, the name Hitler should simply remain out of the conversation.

The final straw came for me when I saw a video of one of the so-called town hall meetings on health reform, this one held in Las Vegas in mid-August, where a former Israeli citizen who emigrated to America was telling the crowd about the benefits of Israel’s nationalized health care. A woman listening off to the side of the camera shouted, “Heil Hitler!” The man was incensed, of course, that she would say such a thing, especially to a Jew, and said, “Shame on you.” Then when he told her he was neither for nor against Obama but simply wanted to explain his native nation’s system, and that he was upset because he had recently been forced to pay $8,000 for medical care, the most articulate thing she could come up with was to mock him with “boo-hoo” and feigned crying. Was that her idea of political discourse? As a friend of mine said upon seeing the “Heil Hitler” video: “How dare you speak to another person like that?” And that’s the point—this has gone far beyond a political discussion, and it needs to be reigned in.

While attending university in Scotland for the past four years, I have met people from countries all over Europe as well as from Israel. I wonder if Americans have any idea how amazingly offensive the mention of the Nazis are to many Europeans and Israelis, and how painful the memories still are to so many families affected by the horrors committed by Hitler’s regime. Even Sixty-four years after the fall of the Nazis, their venom is still in the veins of Europe—and for that matter, the world—and perhaps if Americans took this into account they might not so easily throw around comparisons between Hitler and any American politician or program because there is no comparison to be made.

In Nazi Germany the T-4 “euthanasia” program, and later the Final Solution, was government policy; in the United States, this sort of activity is not only illegal but would be immoral, reprehensible, and downright shocking. So how can any reasonable person really believe that something even close to that could happen in modern America? The suggestion is preposterous, and using it to debate health policy is scare-mongering, untruthful propaganda, much like the Nazis used to employ. In fact, those with closed ears who are screaming accusations of Nazism against Obama and his administration are the ones employing tactics similar to the Nazis when they shouted their unfounded accusations and slurs against Jews, Poles, gypsies, homosexuals, and anyone else who didn’t fit their notion of an ideal society. However, I would not go so far as to paint these conservatives with the Nazi brush because, regardless of far-reaching comparisons that people on both sides might conjure, the word needs to be deemed verboten in American politics because it instantly poisons the debate.

So why has everyone gone so vicious about this issue, or, for that matter, about politics in general? The protesters and talking heads on the right seem to be grasping for any comparison that will sound scary and make Obama look bad. At first it was cries of “Socialism! Socialism!” And when that did not do enough damage, they turned to a dark period of history by shouting, “Nazism! Hitler!” Either they are truly or wilfully ignorant about the historical fact that socialism and fascism are two different things, or they just flip a coin each morning to decide on the slander du jour.

Displaying his ability to always find the ridiculous humor in an otherwise serious situation, Jon Stewart jokingly said on The Daily Show, “Yeah, why don’t people talk more about the Nazis’ health plan reforms? Seems it was overshadowed by something.” While getting laughs, Stewart’s salient point is that this is an absurd, ugly, and historically unpalatable way to frame the argument. This sort of evocation of evil in the form of incendiary placards and name-calling at town hall meetings or in the media is just beyond the pale, and regular Americans need to speak out against it, even those on the right who are opposed to Obama’s health care reform. Comparing this proposed legislation to Nazism is not only ignorantly inaccurate, it lowers us to the level of the Nazis and their shouting down and casting blatant lies about their opponents. The extreme polarization that has occurred in the American political landscape does not excuse this sort of behavior; there still needs to be a standard of decency in our political discourse.

I side with Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank who, after hearing a young woman accuse both he and Obama of supporting a health care plan she dubbed a “Nazi policy,” told her that “having a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it.” Frankly, while I fully believe in engaging with one another to solve our common problems, I wouldn’t want to speak with her either, because what would be the point? If one party in a debate begins at such an extreme of disillusioned vitriol and callous fancy, then the conversation really has no chance of going anywhere positive.

After the Nazi policy quip, Frank asked the woman, “On what planet do you spend most of your time?” Jon Stewart, showing the clip to his audience, said, “Apparently a planet where a mixed-race president and a gay Jew qualify as Nazis.”

Exactly. It’s a stupid characterization, even as an insult, and it needs to be tossed out of the conversation by both the media and the public. If you’re going to make use of history, use it in a truthful way. Otherwise the Nazis win.

Brian Hannon is a Ph.D. candidate in Modern European History at the University of Edinburgh.