Of course government should have that authority. As I write this the debate rages about what kind of firearms a business can sell. It’s a good debate. Like everything government does, its action flows from a balancing exercise from hearing and considering competing ideas. The real danger is that we are losing the ability to do that as “compromise” has become a dirty word. More and more legislation is rammed through on strictly partisan votes. Now, the left has the upper hand in not only government, but in culture as the forces the left uses to silence opposing ideas are at unprecedented levels. It’s efforts in elementary school are particularly egregious. That is very dangerous and ought to worry all of us.
While comparisons to Nazi Germany are often overstated, I think a comparison here is useful. In the years leading up to WWII the Nazis whipped up Jew hatred by a persuasive propaganda effort that painted Jews as destructive vermin. That propaganda was addressed to children and adults in an unrelenting fashion. That worked. Here and now, the left is painting large segments of society (Trumpists) as evil racists, purveyors of false information, or insurrectionists. Those factors mostly rest on falsehoods and myths. We can’t allow that to work.