The brouhaha between the Prime Minister of the Netherlands and Italy’s Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Carlo Giovanardi, continues to boil. Giovanardi, readers of Secondhand Smoke will recall, recently compared Dutch infant euthanasia to German infant euthanasia during WWII. That got Jan Peter Balkenende, the Dutch PM boiling, and the dispute has not cooled down yet. But Balkenende should instead reflect on the moral cliff off of which the Netherlands has jumped. While I believe Giovarnardi was not wise to use the Nazi analogy, and it certainly isn’t exact (the Dutch aren’t Nazis nor do their human rights violations compare with crimes of the Third Reich), there is a certain level of legitimate comparison that can be made.
Barring the unforeseen, I will have a detailed analysis about this matter published early next week. Stay tuned.
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