Let’s have a history lesson.

Adolf Hitler began his career as a promising member of an otherwise fledgling National Socialist Party (NSDAP). Having served in World War I, Hitler heard of the Treaty of Versailles while laying in a hospital bed suffering temporary blindness due to mustard gas. He, in his delirious state, determined that Germany had been “stabbed in the back,” and it must’ve been “those Jews.”

What follows is the storied climax of a true mad-man: near successful genocide, the debilitation of his own citizens and the complete dismantling of Germany as-was and as-would-ever-be. Hitler’s legacy lives on in memories and nightmares, but to an American, he most importantly lives on our own tongues.

When you, my darling, educated, and hopefully thorough-minded reader, throw the term ‘Nazi’ around like you’re some sort of political idiot savant, you are invoking a powerful legacy of millions of innocent dead. To beat this into your head, because I really want to, because I feel I really must, a good deal of these millions had their ashes scattered through Germany after they were burned alive.

When journalists, pundits, critics and “thoughtful” anarchists invoke this man’s name in comparison with a politician, a political schema or a proposed health care bill, they are indeed invoking the painful memory of millions of people who writhed naked in a gas chamber.

I’d like to make this even more clear. Calling someone a ‘Nazi’ because of their political beliefs suggests that you think this person, in and of themselves, is capable of dismantling an entire history of scientific Nobel Prize winners, suspending every single civil liberty you have and literally stealing the bread from your mouth to feed soldiers who they will not allow to retreat.

When you start to say, “a soldier’s not allowed to retreat,” and want to compare it to the pull-out in Iraq, consider: Stalingrad had hundreds of thousands of German soldiers brutally murdered in the center of a massive battle because it would be shameful and un-German to retreat, according to Hitler.

Try and imagine George W. Bush ordering those deaths. Or Obama.

Or consider this ‘Socialist’ term, that’s been somehow equated to fascist delirium.

Yes, it’s true, socialism is, on more antiquated political scales, one of the steps leading toward fascism. Yes, you could argue that Hitler’s party name, “The National Socialist Party,” includes this terminology. Quickly, though, the rest of your argument will go up in flames, ignorant, petty flames of an insult-throwing, close-minded American infant.

The Socialists of Hitler’s time were a reactionary group, meant to oppose Communism, Marxism and similar agendas. When a Liberal calls a Conservative a Nazi, you are then luxurizing in what we literary types like to call ‘irony.’ Further, Hitler’s socialism was nothing short of a crack-job oligarchy.

The actual socialist party of the day, the SDP, or the Social Democratic Party of Germany, more closely resembled the political structure of say, Denmark. Their party principles called for freedom, justice and social operation, and more fairly distributed market.

These policies were in reaction to a massive depression that occurred in the wake of World War I, and were written in a brief bubble of prosperity — credit had extended their ideological freedom, such as an American might say the credit crunch had provided them a few years of idealsim.

By saying this party, which exists as a part of the Grand Coalition government in modern Germany, is somehow related to the Nazis, you are calling modern Germans Nazis.

You are also labeling Socialists their worst nightmare, as a good deal of people have grandparents who were killed by Hitler’s attempt to take over the Reichstag.

Now, before you say, “this doesn’t happen,” a cursory examination of headlines: “Anti-Obama Protestor Compares President to Nazi in Swastika Sign,” August 9, 2009. “Limbaugh Compares new Obama Health-Care Logo to Nazi Swastika,” Aug. 6.

Leonard Pitts did an excellent article for the Journal News in which he unearthed that for every 10 mentions of Obama, four of them included Nazi. For every 10 mentions of George W. Bush, six of them included Nazi. We are making fools of ourselves, particularly when editorialists in this very newspaper do it as well.

Regardless of political party or creed, I urge you to have common sense. Don’t let these pundits tell you that so-and-so is as evil as Hitler. Don’t let these radical liberals put Bush into the murderous box of history. Don’t let anyone, and don’t you tell anyone, that there is some sort of Nazi consortium in our government today.

You’re wrong, no matter who you’re talking about.

No, really.