Missing Mussolini

I work in a public place where people often feel the urge to chat with me about various topics--their lives, their thoughts, their nostalgia for former dictators.

Hmm, maybe I should back up a little.

To be perfectly honest, I was NOT working when one of the regular patrons at my workplace stopped by to chat with my co-workers. I stopped by to check on a few things, and overheard the conversation involving the phrase "missing Mussolini."

Of course, I was intrigued.

Missing Mussolini? Was that the name of some new movie? Someone could actually be talking about longing for an Italian despot, right?

I figured since I was off the clock, it was safe to inquire about what this gentleman was talking about. Normally, I would avoid any conversation dealing with politics--even World War politics. It usually leads to arguments, and you don't want to argue with people at work, especially in a public environment.

But as long as it was my day off, I thought, why not?

"Sir, did you actually just say you miss Mussolini?"
"Yup."
"Why?"
"Because he hated Socialists."

Okay, I knew where this was going, or I thought I did. At first I thought this was just another anti-Obama tirade, but then I said--

"Wait, what was Mussolini?"
"He was a fascist, but he wasn't a socialist."
"Is it better to be a fascist?"
"Of course not!"

Now he was offended. But why?

"I'm confused."
"Are you a socialist too?"
"I don't think so..."
"Are you a fascist?"
"No, I'm definitely not a fascist."
"Good."
"But why do you miss Mussolini if he was a fascist?"
"He knew what to do."
"You mean oppress his people?"
"At least he didn't go around screwing up Healthcare."
"Well, that's true, but that might be because he was a little busy murdering everyone..."

It seems like whenever anyone's unhappy with their current leader, they start to let the scale of history fall by the wayside.

I was never a fan of Bush, but I would always get a little uncomfortable when liberals would say he was worse than Hitler.

That's a little bit like eating an undercooked hamburger and declaring that it's worse than tin foil.

It can't be worse than tin foil--tin foil, in and of itself, isn't even food to begin with.

One of the nice things about having a democracy and a President is that our Presidents have limitations on what they can do even if they are on the crazy side.

Some have still gotten drunk with power, but at least there are checks and balances put into place to take away the keys to the car before they hop in for a ride.

Obama is not worse than Mussolini, and Bush was not worse than Hitler. Anyone who uses comparisons like that is insulting those people who actually died at the hands of those men. They're also making themselves sound pretty damn stupid.

When I tried explaining this to the gentleman, he got frustrated and walked away from me, but I did manage to keep the conversation civil, if admittedly a little on the sarcastic side at times.

I wasn't trying to tell him that his opinions about the President are invalid, I was simply pointing out that they were a little too extreme.

I'm not trying to be a political policeman, but if there's one thing I take issue with--it's historical inaccuracies.