Williamsville’s Holocaust Hucksters

This is being written directly to the Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Williamsville – Deb Rogers and Dave Sherman.

Shame on you both. You two are nothing more than hucksters who, like many hucksters before you, are using the Holocaust cheaply and disproportionately to advance some sort of contemporary political agenda – in this case, quarantining of people with infectious diseases. Even if a legitimate objection exists, there are literally a million better ways to go about raising them than jumping right to a blatant and stupid violation of Godwin’s Law.

Honestly, the substance of the proposed rule is beside the point. Whether Deb Rogers and Dave Sherman are happy to encounter at Wegmans, say, an “individual health choice” advocate with Ebola who won’t self-isolate is not important here. This is about dumb people using dumb rhetoric to make a dumb point. Literally no one asked the Village of Williamsville what it thought about anything, and all of this was designed specifically to get Deb Rogers in the paper or on Bauerle’s show to whine about the culture war thing du jour.

It goes without saying that in the year of our Lord 2022, two grown adults in a position of governmental authority should not have to be lectured about the facts and nature of the Holocaust from a centenarian survivor of it.

Literally, add that to your resumes – “said something so stupid once that a local Jewish group had to send a 100 year-old Holocaust survivor to explain why what I said was stupid.”

When you compare the quarantining of an Ebola patient with Nazi Germany’s systematic genocide of 11 million innocent European civilians, including 6 million Jews, you are, Deb and Dave, an idiot. A cretin. I’m shocked that you didn’t equate mask mandates with Kristallnacht. I’m even more shocked you have the mental wherewithal to pull your socks up in the morning.

And then after all of this sturm und drang, they did not really apologize.

“So again, for any pain, or embarrassment, I caused anyone – and this gentleman, God bless you, I could never have done what you did – I apologize for creating the wrong impression, or stirring up the wrong emotions,” Sherman said, nodding toward Leibovic.

No, it’s not about the “pain” or “embarrassment” you caused anyone else, Dave Sherman. It’s about the embarrassment you foisted upon yourself with your pathetic rhetoric. It’s about how fundamentally crass and ignorant it is for some corduroyed schmuck to equate a health rule with the slaughter of 11 million people.

As for Mayor Deb,

Mayor Deb Rogers, who at one point left the board room to collect herself, insisted that her own comments from the earlier meeting had been misrepresented, and that she’s received threats as a result.

Rogers said following the discussion that she hoped to work with members of the Jewish organizations on a joint statement, or news conference, to make a show of unity.

“We can all acknowledge that maybe we said some things that we shouldn’t have said. We have learned from those experiences, learned from those mistakes, and we can step forward and be a beacon in the community of getting together,” she said.

Who’s “we”? Why is this being bothsidesed? Why are these people so fundamentally unable or mentally unwilling to simply say that their words were completely inappropriate, that it was the height of stupidity and ignorance to equate any state health regulation with the slaughter of 6 million Jews by the Nazis, and that they are profoundly sorry for their stupidity, ignorance, and inappropriateness, and that they will take time to re-assess their entire lives in the wake of this colossal self-own?

Rogers said it was like Communist China, which is stupid in a whole other way.

Of course, Sherman and Rogers instead see this as a key moment to do the right thing for the community and for healing at this time – cast themselves as victims of “threats.” No one condones threats, obviously, but you’re not the victims here.

They got their phony bloviation, and Williamsville continues its descent into laughingstock territory.

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