If you weren’t already ready to emigrate or join a militia, consider this: The same U.S. government that was willing to take to time to lean on conservative activist groups as to the content of their prayers has paid millions of dollars in Social Security benefits to Nazis. Not, “Oh, I hate George W. Bush, he’s such a Nazi”–type Nazis, but real-life war criminals from the National Socialist German Workers Party. As Joe Biden wouldn’t say — Nazis, literally.
Do read the full AP report for how this came to pass. It is shocking, and it is shameful.
But it is utterly predictable. When it comes to government, income is sacred: Short them five bucks on your 1040EZ and they will seize your assets and, if they can find an excuse, put you in prison. Inflows matter, outflows not so much, because writing checks with other people’s money is easy and cheap, which is why we taxpayers have been funding comfortable European retirements for Auschwitz guards and SS troopers.
From the Associated Press: “In response to AP’s findings, a White House spokesman said Monday that Nazi suspects should not be getting the benefits. But the spokesman, Eric Schultz, did not say whether or how the White House might end the payments.”
Terrific: “Nazis should not be receiving Social Security benefits,” White House says. “But we’re a little vague on whether we plan to do anything about it.”
More from the AP:
Among those who benefited:
– Armed SS troops who guarded the Nazi network of camps where millions of Jews perished.
– An SS guard who took part in the brutal liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland that killed as many as 13,000 Jews.
– A Nazi collaborator who engineered the arrest and execution of thousands of Jews in Poland.
– A German rocket scientist accused of using slave labor to build the V-2 rocket that pummeled London. He later won NASA’s highest honor for helping to put a man on the moon.
The worst part of the AP’s report is this: The Justice Department used Social Security benefits as an inducement to get Nazis to leave the country, because the same government that specifies the required font size for OSHA posters in the break rooms at insurance offices in Omaha cannot be bothered to prosecute Nazis residing in the United States.
If 13,000 dead in Poland isn’t enough, then I wonder how many Jews somebody has to murder before the U.S. government will refuse to write him a check.
Days like this, I think that if I could figure out the words to “Waltzing Matilda,” I’d move to Australia. I don’t want to be represented by these people.