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Echoes of Fascism
For me, this video had echoes of the Kapos who operated in the concentration camps under the Nazis. The young lady’s sweet and gentle manner wasn’t reassuring to me, either.
If you’re not familiar with the roles of Kapos in the camps, they were prisoners who were used to provide oversight over their fellow prisoners:
In the Nazi concentration camps, the term Kapo was first used at Dachau from which it spread to the other camps.
Regardless of the origin, Kapos played a vital role in the Nazi camp system as a large number of prisoners within the system required constant oversight. Most Kapos were put in charge of a prisoner work gang, called Kommando. It was the Kapos job to brutally force prisoners to do forced labor, despite the prisoners being sick and starving.
Facing prisoner against prisoner served two goals for the SS: it allowed them to meet a labor need while simultaneously furthering tensions between various groups of prisoners.
In case you think I’m overreacting, let me tell you about a program that has been established at several college campuses all over the country. It is called the Student Health Ambassadors program, and a “toolkit” for creating these programs is now available from the American College Health Association.
In a recent article of the Federalist, the insidious nature of these programs is described:
How much would you have to be paid to commit social suicide? What if a paycheck wasn’t the only perk, but it also entitled you to a sickening sense of self-righteousness and an air of superiority?
This appears to be the tradeoff many college students have made this semester as universities’ ‘Student Health Ambassadors,’ paid adult hall monitors whose job is to patrol their campuses and enforce mask policies and distancing regulations. Several different institutions have opened this position, each one slightly different but all giving students authority over their peers in the name of public health.
One of the most egregious examples comes from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), where student Covid commissars have been given the authority to ‘break up social gatherings” and to check students’ ‘clearance certificates.’ Students who violate COVID policies can face suspension and expulsion. The enforcers, who are paid $15 an hour, even don vests and T-shirts emblazoned with the health ambassador logo.
Later in his article, he offers this insight:
It’s all theater, but refusing to believe in this cult of paranoia makes it all the more important that people are pressured into outward displays of obedience. The more absurd the rules get the more they require frequent social reaffirmation through unquestioning obedience.
Although there are students who support vaccine mandates, others are protesting what they experience as “overreach”:
Student complaints include objections to restrictions on their travel on and off campus, increased surveillance and what they consider erosion of civil liberties. Student-led petitions have prompted some schools to drop the use of location-tracking apps and requirements to wear sensors that monitor vital signs.
At the core of their concerns is a fear that universities are constructing a bureaucracy designed to control a generation just coming of age.
There is no doubt, however, that some schools are taking their mandates seriously, and students are pushing back:
Michigan has seen its share of reprisals: Students at Oakland University near Detroit successfully pushed back against a wearable ‘bio button’ designed to monitor heart rate, temperature and respiration, and warn the school if a student was showing signs of Covid-19. At Albion College in Albion, Mich., students petitioned the school to drop an app that monitored their location—on and off campus. Last week, Western Michigan University lost a federal appeal to require student athletes to be vaccinated to play.
Montana State University instituted a policy to place students on probation who have twice been reported by a professor for not wearing a mask. A third complaint results in a semester suspension. A fourth mask offense is grounds for expulsion.
Universities who have adopted the Student Health Ambassadors program tout their success and continue to expand their efforts. UNC Asheville celebrates its success:
‘From the beginning when we first got hired, it was solely focused on COVID, but as we learned more about COVID and our campus and what we needed, we learned that so much more goes into it…. There are so many things that tie into this work. Our themes each week helped students fill in those holes to prevent COVID,’ said senior Skyler Chillson.
UNC Asheville has also created special awards for their Student Health Ambassadors. I’m sure that there are many people motivated to create new ways to permeate the university system with these kinds of efforts.
So many questions are being asked about the virus, and just as many theories are being espoused: when will the pandemic be over? Are we ready to accept Covid-19 as endemic indefinitely? How far will organizations go to enforce their requirements, even in the face of new scientific information? When will students finally decide they’ve had enough of the universities’ demands and intrusions on their life, and what actions will they take in response? When will there be sufficient understanding of Covid-19 to roll back these programs?
I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Published in Education
I was thinking something like that. I think Hank knows it–saying it would be fun for us to do it. They certainly wouldn’t.
Right? But I think even if you spoke this out loud, these students wouldn’t recognize how foolish they are. To them, protecting oneself from thinking wrong thoughts is important.
Drew, no, I mean as a parody. I think it would be funny — and maybe help people understand how childish and wrong-minded the thought-police really are.
They won’t understand. They think such things are good and proper.
Only one comment, now two at youtube. Guess they are busy deleting them.
My response would have been:
I am going to see my girlfriend. I don’t need to wear a mask to go see her. Think about it.
If you mean the videos, you can find more at the UNC Asheville link in the post.
I wonder how much “civil disobedience” is left in our students
Depends on when Ben Shapiro or Charles Murray is coming to campus.
This is my current stance. Everywhere except air transport. Hasn’t landed me in trouble yet.
Or they win a big game.
That there are those who would want the job and those who would attend such a school is a great argument against student loans and forgiving their debt. Let them work for their education and go to night school.
I think it was drummed out of them before they even entered college.
Works for me!
….and then the RAs extracted the gold teeth before enforcing the no nudity in the hallways rule….
Babies.
Some of our stores are getting more in-your-face about enforcement. The Fred Meyer where I never wear a mask had an enforcer at the door, who tried to stop me on my way in. I just walked quickly by her. I think they have an unwritten policy of not chasing after the unmasked. They had better not chase me, because I might just make a fuss.
A lot of our state employees will be quitting their jobs rather than get vaccinated. There have already been protests in Olympia by some employees, but that just makes the Dictator more set in his policy of no-vax, no job. Seattle police have already quit rather than be vaccinated. The city already has a severe law-enforcement deficit, and it will only get worse.
Susan, I appreciate your frustration. This is going to be a weird response, as you are so much nicer than me.
I wonder whether it’s helpful to call people “fascists” when we don’t agree with them. Or “authoritarians,” or whatever. It’s not as if this is new, and you’re certainly not the only one doing it. For a long time, we conservatives, and especially our political leaders, have been on the receiving end of this type of treatment. I understand the desire to turn the tables on the other side.
My question is whether this approach is likely to be effective.
You don’t have to persuade me on most issues. I’m against the vaccine mandates, and the mask mandates, and so on, though I feel less strongly about these issues than most people at Ricochet appear to.
I think that there are persuadable people out there. There are probably a lot of people who are undecided about vaccine or mask policies. There are probably a lot of other people who favor such policies, but might be willing to reconsider. I’m not well situated to figure out how to reach such people, as I disagree with them about these issues, and probably many others.
Here’s what I do know. I can’t recall ever being persuaded by a Leftist calling any conservative person an authoritarian, or calling any conservative position fascist. When done by the other side, this has been the opposite of persuasive to me.
Might there be an approach that would be more likely to reach people? I’m not sure exactly what it would look like.
Unlike some people, I don’t throw those terms around lightly. Here’s a definition of Fascism:
a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.
Although we are not formally a fascist state, we are showing the characteristics of one. Clearly Biden could care less about the people, although I’m not sure he “exalts the nation”: he does, however, elevate minorities above whites. He is acting like an autocrat and dictator in many respects, is trying to take control of our economic system and certainly is trying to impose social regimentation. Forcing suppression of opposition is obviously practiced. The Left is trying to destroy our children, never mind our Republic.
I have reached a point that unless someone genuinely seeks me out, I’m not interested in convincing anyone on the Left of anything. If they identify or affiliate with the Left, I want no part of them. So I’m calling their behavior as I see it, to point out how vicious, suffocating, authoritarian and arbitrary their actions are. They have not earned my efforts to try to persuade them any longer.
Edit: If I’m trying to persuade anyone, I’m trying to point out to those on the Right who are still reticent that the situation is dire and extremely serious. That’s my audience.
Thanks for the response, Susan. Good luck.
I meant comments on this one video
It’s probably too late to make this point, but as I said in my title, there are “echoes of fascism” in the actions of the universities. Jerry stated that I called the people fascists, but I did not; their actions and behaviors resembled fascist behavior.
Now some people would say I’m splitting hairs, but I don’t think so. I can’t imagine actually calling an individual a fascist or Nazi, in writing or to his or her face. But I can describe their actions with certain terms. If anyone think this distinction is meaningless, I’m open to input.
They are tyrants. They are like the Stasi. They are for sucking up to big power in order to wield it over others.
These people are always with us and always will be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQQd3Tq5iDE
That is a frightening video! Wow.
Well, Captain America shows up in the next scene and beats on Loki, then is joined by Iron Man.
But it is a great scene.
Isn’t there some Bible quote about evil displays itself in pleasant ways?
That woman is evil.
Susan, I stand corrected. You did not call anyone a fascist or a Nazi.
I do think that it is inadvisable to juxtapose a video of a rather silly college girl explaining some annoying mask requirements, with the use of the word “fascist” in a post title and a long explanation of the role of the Kapos in the Nazi death camps. It does seem to me that might lead someone to erroneously think that you were implying, or insinuating, that this college girl was similar, in some meaningful way, to what might be the lowest of the low — Jewish prisoners who collaborated with the Nazi monsters who were slaughtering their own people.
My recommendation is that if we don’t think that someone is actually a Nazi or a fascist, we should avoid such comparisons. But it’s up to you.
I really appreciate your willingness to carefully consider my concern. I don’t know if another approach might work better. The unintended success of the whole “Let’s Go, Brandon” thing suggests that we might do better with some good-natured ridicule, but that probably requires a comic sense beyond my ability.
I wonder how many of these mask enforcers are female. I wonder because I believe that young women, during adolescence, often go through a phase during which fairness, compliance, justice is a near-obsession. If one believes, as I do, that adolescence is being prolonged into adulthood with the help of our infantilizing institutions, it’s entirely plausible that there’s a population of young women out there eager to make sure everyone is just complying with the rules… because it’s right.
I could be completely wrong. And maybe young men are just as involved in this as are the young women. (Then again, young men have become awfully sissified of late.)
The young lady in the video seems like a sweet enough kid. I called her a Karen, but she’s really not that unpleasant. Of course, it’s a PSA, not a real encounter, but she certainly comes off as someone who thinks she’s doing the right thing, rather than someone trying to curry favor with authority and bring others to heel.
I think I’m going to go with arrested adolescence.
(Of course, that won’t make it any easier when and if the perpetual adolescents line us up against the wall and enforce the cultural revolution / climate change policy.)
She isn’t nasty or terrifying–and I think that is their plan. They want to show that their intentions are so sincere, so caring. The last thing they would do is portray someone who is frightening or angry. I’m even more alarmed that they are using this approach–that makes it all the more insidious. “We just want to help you out.” I’m not saying the young woman is insidious; I’m saying her trainers are.
I think women are not more concerned with justice, I think it’s more likely that more women live in fear of most things. They demand to be protected.
Nope