Bin Laden is a right wing extremist. So was Hitler.

OK, that's an oversimplification, and could be rightly considered hyperbole. But it's more accurate than claiming them as leftists, for the most part. Let's examine the evidence.

NRA. The Republicans really seem to like guns, and national defense seems to be their largest spending priority for the federal government. We know that Bin Laden and Hitler also really like(d) guns and a strong military. (We have to consider Al Qaeda's terrorist cells as the closest that Bin Laden can get to his own army for this analogy.) It's not really a priority for the left wing in modern America. We don't want to disarm the country, but some registration and regulation seems reasonable. Not a hot button for us though.

Religion. We all know that Bin Laden claims the mantle of religious leader for the dominant religion in his area. Hitler was fond of comparing himself to Jesus. Glenn Beck claims to talk to God, and every Republican candidate for years not only makes a point of mentioning their faith, but they imply (not very subtly) that anyone who doesn't vote for them isn't a good Christian. (I actually got to rebuff such an argument a while back with Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan, which I had heard in church 3 days prior to being told that liberals hate Jesus.) Now, Republicans aren't the only good Christians any more than Bin Laden is a good Muslim, but they all advertise themselves as such. Republicans work to hide, with varying degrees of success, an anti-Muslim bias, whereas the others hate(d) Jews. (I got some truly appalling e-mails during the Presidential campaign. Clear racism, even before you get the "Obama's a muslim" lie in there.) Liberals? Pluralism is a good thing, believe what you want and worship your way. Here's what I believe, learn from it if you are interested.

Civil liberties. Religion gets introduced into textbooks despite hard scientific evidence to the contrary. Laws get passed in the name of public safety or national defense that allow the government to take an increasingly intrusive role into peoples' privacy. This is true whether Texas teaches Creationism or Afghanistan teaches only the Quran. Whether Bush puts warrantless wire tapping in the Patriot Act or Hitler has the Gestapo watch the populace. The degree is completely dissimilar, as is the level of evil. But there are similarities. (There are also similarities between a bicycle and a Harley, please don't think I'm calling Republicans vessels of pure evil.)

It's too easy to mention at this point that Hitler had all the liberals, socialists, and communists killed. For that matter, intellectuals. They were also killed in Afghanistan.

Economic policy. Here's where it gets sticky. Bin Laden's economic policy is up for question, but the Taliban had a pretty hands off policy. They even let business people make heroine! That's laissez-faire at its finest. Hitler? Actually, Hitler's economic policy was largely left leaning. Also, it worked. Now, he went way too far in the end. But he took over a country that was almost bankrupt after WWII, that had printed so much money that people literally wallpapered with it, and 10 years later he was taking over Europe. So although he was a bad guy, he was initially very popular with Germans because his left wing economic policies brought back prosperity and almost eliminated unemployment.

My apologies for having called him a right wing extremist. Only his bad parts were right wing.

Also, before I'm accused of horrible things, I don't think all conservatives are evil. Most of them I just disagree with, politely, and occasionally enjoy a spirited debate with. Some are evil, but so are some on the left.

Thanks for reading. Now go get into a political debate!