I suppose the age of political civility died a week after it was birthed, sort of a partial birth civility abortion. Political civility was conceived and birthed in the wake of the Tucson shootings, but had its figurative spine severed when Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) took to a nearly empty House floor and let loose on the GOP for having the temerity to describe the Obamacare legislative monstrosity as a "government takeover" of the health care system,describing it as the "biggest lie of 2010." But Cohen was on a roll and just couldn't stop himself, so he went to the place that Democrat demagogues find themselves powerless to resist: Republicans are Nazis. Cohen expounded at length about the way Joseph Goebbels used "the big lie" theory to bring about the Holocaust by convincing the German people that the Jews were the taproot of all of Germany's problems. He went through the time tested routine of describing how the "big lie" works and rested seemingly on solid historical footing, because that is the history that is always taught. I mean, it is common knowledge that Goebbels pioneered the big lie theory for the sole purpose of inciting the German populace to countenance the mass murder of Jews as the vaunted Nazi "Final Solution". That much we know for sure, right?

As Lee Corso would say right about now, "Not so fast my friend!"

You see, like so much of the history that has become common knowledge through the years, the accepted definition of the Big Lie theory as believed by millions the world over is actually historically inaccurate. The fact of the matter is that Joseph Goebbels did not invent the Big Lie theory of political propaganda, was not the first to use the phrase, and never claimed it as a tool of the Nazis.

The first mention of the big lie is found in Adolph Hitler's unreadable book, Mein Kampf.  In it, Hitler accuses the Jews and other unpatriotic Germans (but mostly the Jews) of using that tactic to lay blame for the German loss of World War One at the feet of the German military machine, when the real culprits were the Jews at home undermining the war effort. according to Hitler, German Jews used the Big Lie to convince the German people and the rest of the world that German defeat was strictly military and had nothing to do with the Jewish plot to undermine the Fatherland.

When Goebbels used the Big Lie language, it was not in reference to his propaganda machine, but in relation to the British. Goebbels was saying that the British were telling huge lies to defame the German state, and that it was working in some quarters because people could not believe that a government would tell such lies to it's people. Again, the Germans were not embracing the Big Lie as something that they were doing, but were accusing an enemy of doing it to them!

Furthermore, Cohen totally mangled the way that the Big Lie works, as do most people when they attempt to explain it. Most of the definition/explanation is presented as such: The Big Lie is when a group or individual tells an outrageous lie so often that people come to believe that it is true. But the way that Hitler and Goebbels saw it, and defined it was totally different. Goebbels explained that the Big Lie only worked because people had a conscience. He explained that most people tend to only lie about small things because their conscience  constrains them from telling the Big Lie; because of that personality trait, people are more willing to believe the Big Lie when they hear it because they cannot imagine that people would actually tell the Big Lie. They have a tendency to assume that everyone has the same pangs of conscience restraining them that they do, so they are not psychologically prepared to deal with someone telling the Big Lie...therefore the Big Lie must be true!

That's a whole hell of a lot different than the way everyone usually tries to explain it, huh?

And one more thing that Cohen, and others, generally get wrong about the Final Solution.; the Nazi high command never tried to "sell" the Final Solution to the people of Germany. There was no need for the Big Lie to be used in that instance, because the German High Command was determined to slaughter all the "non-Aryans" in Germany from the moment Hitler rose to power. Goebbels did not spend his time solely promoting the destruction of the Jews to the public in an effort to make them pliant; public opinion simply did not matter on an issue of such high importance the Nazi leaders.

Now, this is not an attempt to absolve the Nazis of their crimes, as that would be a fool's errand; those people were as guilty as sin is wrong. But if someone is going to go to the floor of the House of Representatives and go on a rant accusing his political opponents of being Nazis, he should at the very least have a grasp of the historical facts!

And that ends today's history lesson. Class dismissed.