Being Conservative In Trump Era Like Being In 1930s? Tim Allen, PLEASE!

“You gotta be real careful around here," Tim Allen said the other night on Jimmy Kimmel Live. "You get beat up if you don’t believe what everybody [else] believes. This is like ’30s Germany.”

Um.

I get that Conservatives have been bashed of late, mostly because of Donald Trump and his desire to ban Muslims from six different countries, chop funding for non-profit organizations that support the arts, and to hack and slash funding for the Environmental Protection Agency. Conservatives don't want their leader dragged through the mud, and that's fair, because no one likes to be derided and degraded.

But perhaps Tim Allen needs a little history lesson.

What the Conservatives who support Trump are going through right now is nowhere near the tortures that Jews, Gypsies, the LGBTQ community and the disabled, among others, went through in the 1930s until the end of the Second World War. The Conservatives aren't having their movements restricted, their families taken away, and being forced to move into what amounts to a ghetto with very little food or clean water.

They aren't being made to feel "less than" for their ideologies. What's happening is that people are protesting, as is their right to do, and they are assembling to fight for what they believe is right: human rights for all, funding for the arts, and clean water, among other issues.

Are there bound to be arguments between Liberals and Conservatives? Damn right. That's why your parents used to tell you there were two things you never discussed with others: religion and politics. Arguments about either or both of those topics tend to get very fiery and feelings get very hurt.

But arguments and debate are part of what most people recognize as logical, healthy discourse. Sometimes things get heated, as things are wont to do when you're talking issues near and dear to one's heart, but at its core, political conversation and debate can be what brings two parties closer together for the common good.

Can they rip people further apart? Absolutely, but it's important to keep in mind what the common goal is; insults and abuse are never tools to help further one's cause.

If Conservatives are truly getting physically bashed for the beliefs that they are espousing, law enforcement needs to get involved, and soon.

However, it's more than likely that Allen was really trying to express just how ugly things have gotten between the Liberals and the Conservatives and he chose a poor means of comparison.

The news has not reported about Liberal politicians rounding up Conservatives en masse and dumping them in a specialized work camp, supposedly for the "common good." Conservatives are not having to ID themselves with specialized symbols or cards - though there was some early proposals for those who were Muslim to carry identification - and they are certainly not tattooed with prisoner numbers.

If you're going to make a comparison, at least make it a logical one; this was just too completely insensitive and blind.

I get it - when one political party is in power and that party is understandably thrilled about it, there is a certain elitist snobbery that occurs. In some respects, it's unavoidable - whenever there's a competition, the winner is jumping up and down going, "Look at me! I'm awesome!" and if they're a poor winner, they will also add, "And you suck!"

But is it really the Liberals demonstrating elitist attitudes, as Allen asserts, or the Conservatives?

Senator Elizabeth Warren, who unintentionally sparked the #ShePersisted hashtag, basically told to stop talking by her fellow senators, all of whom were white men - rightfully told to be quiet, or silenced by the "old boys' club" elite?

Muslims everywhere, many of whom do not ascribe to the extremist beliefs espoused by terrorists (Islam, after all, is a religion founded on peace), trying to find a better life and told they can't go into the States in two separate attempts at a travel ban - a demonstration of "we're better than you," or rightful security measures?

See, you can't claim that one party is being "elitist" to your belief when your own is demonstrating rampant elitism across the board, whether it comes to immigration, women's rights, or LGBTQ rights. You certainly can't make those assertions and compare what your political party is going through to what people who were truly and brutally oppressed did back in WWII.

Every voice has a right to be heard, and while I'm not a fan of the insults that are being shot back and forth between Conservatives and Liberals, I am a fan of making appropriate comparisons when they are due.

Brush up on your history, Mr. Allen.