Mein Kampf
has joined the class of persons whose only real conviction is absence of conviction, coupled with insolent obtrusiveness and an often shamelessly developed virtuosity at lying.
If, unluckily for decent people, such a fellow goes so far as to get into parliament, we should realize from the beginning that for him the essence of politics consists only in a heroic battle for permanent possession of this nursing-bottle for his life and his family. The more wife and child cling to him, the more stubbornly he will fight for his seat. If only for this reason he is the personal enemy of every other man with political instincts; in every new movement he scents the possible beginning of his end, and in every greater man a danger which may probably threaten him. I shall have much to say later about this sort of parliamentary vermin.
Even the man of thirty will yet have much to learn in the course of his life, but what he learns will merely fill out and complete the picture which his fundamental world-concept presents to him. His learning will not be merely re-learning of principles, but learning more, and his followers will not have to choke down the uneasy feeling that hitherto he has instructed them falsely. On the contrary the visible organic growth of the leader will give them satisfaction, since his learning seems only the deepening of their own doctrine. In their eyes this is an argument for the rightness of their previous views.
A leader who has to abandon the platform of his general world-concept because he sees it is false acts honorably only if, realizing his previously faulty understanding, he is ready to draw the final conclusions. He must then give up any further public political activity. For since he has already once fallen victim to error in fundamentals, the possibility of a second lapse is always present. In no case has he any further right to assume, let alone to demand, the confidence of his fellow-citizens.
How little such ideas of honor are put in practice today we can judge from the general depravity of the mob who feel called upon in these days to “do” politics.
Many feel called, but scarcely one is truly chosen.
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