I don’t pretend to be some sort of ‘politics genius’. I’m not in any way qualified to tell someone how they should go about the business of doing whatever it is that people who are involved in politics do. That’s just not my area of expertise (as far as I know, I don’t even have an area of expertise). I will offer one teeny-tiny piece of advice, though: don’t publicly broadcast that you believe you would have been a Nazi in the 1930s.
While I’m sure it must be tempting to tell people that, were you in Germany at the right place and time, you would have been complicit in a fascist regime that killed millions, I urge you to consider not doing this. Unfortunately, president of the UQ LNP Club Kurt Tucker did not read this advice of mine in time.
Tucker raised a fair few pairs of eyebrows (and maybe even some individual ones) with a Facebook comment saying he had made peace with his probable membership with the Nazi Party:
“I openly accept I would be a Nazi Party member if this was 30’s Germany, despite obviously opposing a lot of their core ideology.“I’m political, and to succeed in politics, public service, military, or even industry you had to be a NSDAP member.“I also believe 90 per cent of ALP and LNP members would be the same.”
There are a few things to unpack here. Firstly: this is an absurd hypothetical.
For this to make sense, one would have to assume that not only are you in 1930s Germany, but you’re someone who was born and raised in that era, with no complete knowledge of the atrocities of Nazi Germany and without the benefit we have now of being able to view it in its full historical context. The question is essentially asking: “Would you be a member of the Nazi Party if you were in 1930s Germany and also not you?“
Secondly: it seems kind of insane to ascribe your own pathological drive for success at the expense of your ideals to “90 per cent of ALP and LNP members“. While I highly, highly recommend not saying this about yourself, I would recommend even more not saying the same about the overwhelming majority of your political colleagues. They might not like it if you do.
Tucker issued an apology to ‘The Herald Sun‘ that seems to imply he only very recently (like in the last 24 hours) realised that the Nazis were quite bad actually:
“On reflection of my comments, I realise I was totally wrong. I find the Nazi party to be totally morally abhorrent and I would never willingly engage with them.“The comment made was in response to a statement by another person that all young political party members would have joined the Nazi Party in the 1930s due to the fact that it was the only way to get ahead in the public sphere at the time. While I initially agreed … I now realise how incorrect I was.”
An LNP spokesperson said that Tucker had resigned from all positions within the LNP, but remains as a member.
Source: Brisbane Times.
Photo: Facebook.
