Sigh.

This is a picture from the future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro (circa 2010). In case you have any trouble reading the near-flawless manuscript, it appears to say "Not Welcome." Or "NoOt Welcome," if we count the logo. On a completely unrelated side note, it was burned to the ground by (what I assume to be) a piss-drunk arsonist named Clem. (Story Found Here)

This is a photograph taken on the outskirts of a German village, circa 1935. Three years before the horrific "Night of Broken Glass". My German is a little shaky, but (according to Freetranslation), the sign says, "Jews Find Here Unwished". Or, "Jews Not Welcome Here," according to not-Freetranslation. 

Over the next several months, the civil and human rights of German Jews would be systematically annihilated by the radical nationalists of the Third Reich. By the end of the year, Jews would be forbidden from enlisting in the armed services, all "mixed" marriages would be outlawed, Jewish citizenship would be revoked, and shops and restaurants across the 'fatherland' would proudly trumpet segregationist propaganda. By the end of the following year, German Jews would be forbidden from professional occupations. The rest, as we know, is history at its lowest ebb.

Am I saying that the contemporary rhetoric is at all reminiscent of the atrocities of the holocaust? Certainly not. We have at least managed to maintain some semblance of civility. Slicing faces and burning down construction sites may not be as horrifying as the haunting acts of European genocide committed by the psychotic German nationalists. But it's a first step. A first step on the road to unfathomable degradation and hostility. A first step on the unnecessarily endless march towards divisional violence and wanton destruction. My only advice to my fellow Americans is this: Turn around. While you can still find your way back.