Blair Cottrell (@RealBlairCottrell)

When I was a kid I can remember feeling that despite all the horrible history the subject of “Nazis” carried a certain mystique with it, like it was a puzzle with missing pieces. If you think about it, growing up we had Nazis everywhere. They were the bad-guys in the movies and even when they weren’t, they were usually referenced in some way. TV shows from comedy to documentaries regularly featured Nazis and your Dad or Uncle probably had at least one book lying around about Hitler and the war. We would hear about the Nazis almost daily and regardless of how they were framed, the intrigue remained consistent and widespread. I once read that amongst Hollywood’s top film directors, there’s a general disdain for Nazi themed movies not necessarily for ideological reasons, but because they’re considered a “lazy shortcut” since anything Nazi-based is always bound to sell. Despite the German Hitlerites being a dark feature of popular culture, nobody ever knew or understood much about them except this: Their leader was Hitler, a maniac who tried to take over the world. He gassed 6 million Jews. He hated black people and actually intended to wipe out anyone who wasn’t blonde-haired and blue-eyed. That’s the story people heard and kept telling each other. It’s the story that’s been at the core of society for more than 80 years. The first memory I have of hearing this story was when my Mum told it to me. I would have been 7 or 8 years old. “He (Hitler) thought blondes were the superior race, so he wanted to wipe all the others out.” She explained. This is what almost everyone believed and told their children, and it was normal because it was the general consensus. No one seemed to be saying anything else and no alternative sources of information were available. In a library you could get more details about the war and other Nazi officials but only after the genocide story was reinforced in the preface, like some sort of added disclaimer required for getting a book published. Think of how different the world was back then compared to now. Imagine how much easier it was for governments and lobby-groups to control what people could see (and think). Total information-control was just a few TV channels and a school curriculum, public and private to appeal to all classes and provide an air of choice. Now consider that making National Socialism illegal suddenly became necessary only after they lost that control. Up until now, when it comes to politics only legitimately listed violent terrorist groups were banned in Australia. Literally any other non-violent ideology or set of beliefs is still legal, no matter how extreme or controversial. But a special and unprecedented exception is being made for Nazis, or for whoever is categorised that way in the future. You can fly overseas to fight for ISIS, raising the next generation of actual terrorists then come back to Australia and chill, but you can’t say Hitler had a point. These are profound moments for our country because what they’re now telling us is the freedom of liberal Democracy was only allowed so long as they controlled what we could see, meaning there was never any real freedom. The deal was: Give us control of your thoughts, then we’ll let you vote. Even if you’re not yet in-the-know, this should imply that our seemingly nuanced and complex system of government is fundamentally very simple and based on a very simple set of lies.