I can’t understand why Bosley would think it reasonable to say that Republicans or Tea Party members (the “we” of his group, who applaud what he says) are doing something positive by being “storm troopers.” Why would he identify himself as a storm trooper?

There is one recent source in history of the term “storm trooper.” The storm troopers were Nazis. The early Nazi party was backed by “brown shirts” who referred to themselves proudly as “Sturmabteilung ” (storm troopers). They were mostly soldiers with far-right sentiments, who had fought in WW I. They were “brown shirts” because they still wore the shirts they had been issued while under arms. They were united by hatred of liberal democracy, democracy they identified with the Weimar Republic. The Weimar Republic was established in Germany after WWI, and they viewed it as a condition of surrender.

These storm troopers became the Nazi SA, an organization that was central to bringing Hitler to power and keeping him in power. They were the core believers, those who had copies of Mein Kampf, Hitler’s memoir, written in prison after he was arrested for staging a coup in 1923 against the German government. They were those who knew and honored the plan Hitler laid out for abolishing liberal democracy, who idolized Hitler.

Now Bosley draws a celebratory analogy between what he is doing and what the Nazi storm troopers did. This is extremely sad. It seems that what he is doing is more than a show, however. What he says is all very much in line with what the storm troopers did. The contempt that he displays toward Boulder, where the people who teach and work at CU live, parallels what the storm troopers did. They flaunted their contempt for Weimar liberals, beginning with intellectuals, just as Bosley is flaunting his hatred and contempt for Colorado’s liberal intellectuals. Herman Goering, one of Hitler’s key insiders, a good storm trooper from the start, said that “When I hear the word ‘culture,’ I reach for my gun.” Liberals, of course, represented culture.

The goal of the storm troopers was to abolish liberal, democratic culture and freedom of expression and speech, and to establish a dictatorship, to enforce brown-shirt conformity, and to haul liberals and other undesirables to prison—or at least terrify them into silence. Their goals were more than fulfilled. They were the ones who burned books in the streets and on “Kristallnacht” (from the sound of smashed glass), in November, 1938, destroyed synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses all across Germany. Long before that, however, they had been at work. Their first targets were union members, people with disabilities, university intellectuals, homosexuals, free thinkers, journalists–anyone who identified with open, liberal, democratic societies. They got themselves onto the boards governing educational institutions. They asserted themselves in local governments. One of their first duties was to see to the firing of Jewish professors, but generally they sought out anyone who was liberal or in any way outside their right-wing vision of life.

Seething with hate and racism, they wanted to found a totalitarian state that had a right-wing racist, imperialistic agenda. They succeed brilliantly. Liberal educators were taken to death camps. Six million Jews were murdered. The atrocities went further. The Nazis caused the deaths, during a period of approximately 6 years, of nearly 30 million people. They established the largest slave-labor industry in the history of the world; people were rented out by the state to corporations, across all of conquered Europe, encompassing every conquered population, and involving roughly 27 million slaves.

And now Bosley celebrates the storm troopers, identifying with them. He says he is a grandfather of 11. He will disinherit any children who do not honor his idols. Someone who does this is either extremely cynical, utterly ignorant of history, or simply spiritually ugly to a disturbing degree.

I know that our state has been in the hands of some pretty miserable people over the past half century. I have lived through most of it. We have at last won out, to a degree, and in time, if we can hold on to what we have won, it can be hoped that people like Bosley—who are probably far more dangerous than anyone will realize until it is too late— will no longer be able to win public office.

I graduated from CU. I live in Boulder. I was born in El Paso County and grew up in rural Colorado. I am one of the liberals Bosley mocks. I grew up in a rural area and owned a gun by the time I was a teenager. Boslely seems to think that us Boulder liberal have a problem with guns. He’s obviously full of crap. I was a junior member of the NRA. Owning a gun did not make me either rational or irrational. It did not make me educated or ignorant. It did not make me conservative or liberal. People owned guns to hunt, and I ate deer, elk, bear, rabbit, and pheasant when I was young, all mean provided by hunters.

I have also read William L Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (which I have open here on the desk) and many other books on Nazi Germany. I have learned that Bosley’s words imply a story of cynicism, hatred, racism, ignorance, corporate arrogance, right-wing, anti-democratic fanaticism, and spiritual ugliness. My mother came from a rural family of 10. Six of her brothers served in the US military and fought in WW II, against the storm troopers Bosley idolizes. She is no longer alive, but I’m confident, conservative that she was, she would agree that to celebrate oneself as an imitator of the storm troopers is gross, idiotic, and obscene. Ask any veteran of WW II. Ask any German. Ask any survivor of the atrocities of the Hitler period. And yes, ask a liberal intellectual who has read a few history books.

Bosley’s words indicated that he hates me. So be it. As it is, however, I think I speak dispassionately when I say that a man who said what he said should not be elected to any public office.

My vote will go to Ms. Hart. She would never say such a stupid thing because she is well enough educated, as a liberal intellectual, to give some thought to what she says. And that is why I am voting for her.

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HB 09-1273 seems to be within one vote of passing the Colorado house.

In 2006 and in 2008, California passed similar legislation only to be vetoed by the California Governor.

To hear the arguments made for HB 09-1273, visit the following link and if you are using Internet explorer, you an scroll down under the video directly to the bill:
http://coloradohouse.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=254

I believe that it is time for real health care reform, not more band aids on a broken system.

Sincerely,
Dave Bean

Sincerely,
John Valvano