NOW WE KNOW-HITLER DIDN'T DIE IN THE BUNKER

Nothing is impossible for the person who doesn't have to do it himself...!

This is most true in the case of the person who condemns prejudice. It's the universally approved theme in conversations from barbershops to literati in which we proudly damn this practice in the case of races, religions, classes and genders. And yet, few of us can offer many examples of where we're personally engaged in the cause.

There is perhaps no cause more convenient than echoing the post-World War II call "Never again." In so doing, everyone continues to condemn Adolf Hitler as the most hated man of the 20th century. The Nazi Fuhrer has become the worldwide tuning fork by which to test the sound of evil in our midst. By which to measure leaders like Saddam Hussein, Omar Qaddafi and Osama Ben Ladin.

Time out for a reality check.

Hitler is dead and Nazism is a forbidden label in most nations. Still, both live on in the hearts and homelands of many. By other names and other flags, to be sure, but live they do. Because both are congenital to a human nature which has throbbed ever since Eden with a pride in self and a disdain for anyone not part of this self. Pick a name, any name! Racism...nationalism...messiahism...elitism. They will all do, for they are all itching just beneath our surface when scratched in just the right way.

You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to see this. The evidence screams out from every hate crime, every terrorist act, every blogged call for racial purity, and even every secret basement handshake. Our human nature -- so fragile a thing -- falls easy prey to the seduction of sudden superiority. What easier way to compensate for one's failures in life?

Right now in the heartland of the fatherland there is another variation of the disease spreading quickly. In Hitler's birth country of Austria, Nazism has persisted in coffee shops, university campuses, even the parliament itself where the same old venom has seeped out but with new names and flavors. Prejudice of course always needs a target, so now in place of the Jew there is the Muslim. Demographic reports about the Islamization of Europe are breeding as fast as is the Muslim populations in Austria and throughout Europe. Each soiled by a familiar fear: They are polluting the race!

And so the slogan "Never again" remains in constant danger of being re-written: "Over and over again."