The Gravedigger of American Democracy: McConnell as Hindenburg

[Kid Berwyn]

5. "Ordinary Men"

“I fear that we live in a world in which war and racism are ubiquitous, in which the powers of government mobilization and legitimization are powerful and increasing, in which a sense of personal responsibility is increasingly attenuated by specialization and bureaucratization, and in which the peer group exerts tremendous pressures on behavior and sets moral norms. In such a world, I fear, modern governments that wish to commit mass murder will seldom fail in their efforts for being unable to induce “ordinary men” to become their “willing executioners.”

― Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men

PS: Thank you for seeing this, Wounded Bear. My great-uncle was a Marine officer in the South Pacific. My grandad, who served stateside, said he was never the same.