Years ago, I was working at the frozen cheeseburger factory in the IT department. In order to enhance the login screen for the network, I added a "quote of the day" at the bottom. One day a particular quote came up and my boss threw a fit and made me get rid of the quotes. Later that day, one of the owners called me up and asked me where the quotes had gone. I told him. He called me up to his office.
The quote that had set things off was a quote on the futility of Democracy. I wish I could find it. It was a brilliant quote that very quickly exposed Democracy as a fool's errand. In a couple of sentences, it reduced Democratic ideals to ashes in a way that was easy to see and affirm. You could not help but be taken away by it-- until you saw who was being quoted, Adolf Hitler.
GOTCHA. I wish I could find the quote again. It's not out on the web, at least not that I could find. If I remember correctly Hitler said it in a speech celebrating the burning of the Reichstag. It was pure genius-- evil genius, but genius nonetheless.
I had to go up to the owner's office. We were on good terms. He'd actually been the guy to interview and hire me. I thought I was going to get the sack. I was already to apologize for the transgression. It was a service. I had no idea they were going to throw in a quote from Hitler. The owners were Jewish. My goose was cooked.
Mister D. welcomed me into the office, and had me sit down.
What had happened to the quote of the day? I told him.
Who made the decision? It was my boss, but I'd complied immediately.
Why? I gave as good an explanation as I could.
Put it back. (huh?)
Put it back. Yes sir!
Mister D. had loved the Hitler quote. Even he'd been taken in by it. He'd written it down in his diary. He said it reminded him of how easy it is to get sucked in. He was going to tell his friends at temple about it. I knew one of his friends was one of my old bosses from the mutual fund company. He'd helped me get the job. All these prominant Jewish businesmen were going to be talking about me and the dang Hitler quote. Mister D. and I remained friends and he gave me good references for the next 20 years. The quote of the day went back up for a while. I was told to find another less controversial login screen after the D. brothers retired.
So here I am with no quote and only a story about the quote. I looked for it before making this submission. This is a variation on the quote that I dug up:
.democracy will in practice lead to the destruction of a people's true values. And this also serves to explain how it is that people with a great past from the time when they surrender themselves to the unlimited, democratic rule of the masses slowly lose their former position; for the outstanding achievements of individuals...are now rendered practically ineffective through the oppression of mere numbers.
It's far too wordy and less to the point. It comes from earlier in Hitler's career. By the time he got it right in 1933, it had been distilled into one easily-digested pill of evil wisdom. Hitler was probably right. Democracy does kind of suck. Churchill, at least in a way, agreed with him when he said:
Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…
