Harrisonville Alderman David Dickerson should quickly and immediately apologize to the citizens of the city for thoughtless and insensitive remarks he made at the July 1 meeting.
While discussing a resolution which would call for increased building code enforcements, Dickerson said, “We went through this several years ago and it was like living in a Nazi concentration camp waiting for the codes people to come around and turn you in for paint peeling or whatever else was hanging on your house.”
The reference to Nazi Germany is offensive in every sense of the word. What you are saying is the actions of some city employees is comparable to European camps where six million Jews, 5.7 million citizens of the Soviet Union, 3.3 million Soviet Prisoners of War, three million Poles, 270,000 disabled, 500,000 gypsies, 200,000 freemasons, 25,000 Slovenes, 7,000 Spanish Republicans, 15,000 homosexuals and 5,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses were exterminated.
Dickerson is not alone in these repugnant comparisons. Even history-deprived politicians in Washington profess similar comparisons, which makes it no less wrong. It simply demonstrates the lack of civility, humanity or even common knowledge which we should not only expect, but demand.
Dickerson was raising concerns about codes enforcement, which many share, and we likewise think should be monitored. Unfortunately, his choice of words overshadows any redeeming value of his arguments. People often seek cliché references to reinforce points, but there is nothing which compares to the murder of more than 17 million people and that includes codes enforcement.
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