Editor, The Beacon:
The Beacon published a letter under the provocative title “DeSantis’ policies similar to Hitler’s rise to power,” (July 27-Aug. 2). Lest we miss the point, The Beacon repeated in large type the sentence “The Nazi gas chambers that killed Jews, atheists, homosexuals, and people with left-wing political ideologies did not happen overnight.”
But in this age of outrageous hyperbole, I ask why stop with Hitler? Why not compare him to Attila the Hun or Vlad the Impaler?
We’ve now reached a point where mere policy differences have been hysterically morphed into existential struggles between good and evil. None of the allegations or innuendoes in the letter are remotely factual.
Gov. DeSantis has banned no books or deprived any citizen, whether gay, straight or transgender, of any rights protected under the Constitution. He hasn’t stigmatized or attacked anyone on the basis of their race, religion or sexuality, nor has the teaching of history been altered. In fact, DeSantis has strengthened Florida’s long-standing requirement that Black history be taught in our public schools.
The writer has turned the Hitler analogy backward. It is DeSantis and the Florida Republicans who are fighting “wokeness,” which is a modern version of fascism: the neo-Marxist, authoritarian belief system that encompasses the overtly racist critical race theory (all whites are “oppressors” and all Blacks are “oppressed,” among other obnoxious doctrines), and that people should be judged by their skin color, ethnicity and sexual orientation rather than as unique individuals.
Gov. DeSantis has fought this insidious movement and against big-tech censorship of speech, for the rights of parents to have a say in what their kids are taught in school and to make big corporations like Disney abide by the same rules as the rest of us.
While adults can do what they please, he has also signed laws protecting children from permanent sex-change procedures and women’s sports from unfair competition from biological males.
Let’s hope he can continue fighting the good fight in the White House.
John DiChiara
DeLand
