Think of it: do you really think that rabid Anti-Abortion leaders would stop with Abortion being outlawed?
Or would fundamentalists push for more and more “correct” positions: Religion in schools, Christianity as the national religion, Creationism, Women in traditional roles and so on.
Now think what it takes for that mindset.
It only takes an authoritarian psychopath, one you agree with, and some power, and people fall into line.
People will do as they are told, want to get along, left alone.
Someone quoted Mao the other day: Kill one to scare a thousand.

Obama was talking about the “banality of evil”, and how in a given circumstance, even decent people can do unthinkable things.
That’s kind of an important thing to say and it recognizes our weakness as humans to be able to compartmentalize evil, and that we need to be aware of that weakness and meet it in the light as the only way to beat it.

I think you’re way over stepping it. If everyone here believes that our biggest threat to national security, our freedoms, and our educational system are the creationists, the anti-abortionists, and the Christians, then I’m on the wrong blog. How is that any different than a poster saying islam is going to overthrow our government; that Obama is a closet muslim, and his aim is to impose sharia on the U.S., and women will have to wear burkas. It’s hysterical and paranoid.

It would have been different had Obama quoted the famous, “Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.” That’s a given. But to warn each of us of the cruelty within our own hearts as somehow being equivalent to sadistic Nazi horrors, well, that was just over-the-top for me. Even reminding us they were “human” was also offensive. And coming to any other conclusion (i.e. the Zimbardo experiment) is mere conjecture.