Why do we call someone who is intolerant of other people’s views and practices a Nazi?
For instance, what do we call someone who criticizes people for throwing away a plastic bottle?
Yup, a Recycling Nazi.
Someone who’s anti-fast food?
Health Food Nazi.
But it really shows a lack of sensitivity about how completely horrible the Nazis actually were, and the impact they had on the world.
So, I’ll use a different terminology that came out of George Orwell’s 1984.
You’ll recall from reading that book in High School, even if you just read the Cliff’s Notes—though none of us did that, amiright—you’ll remember that he coined the term, “Thought Police.”
So now people use “Police” in place of the word “Nazi”, which is good.
So, someone who nags you to put your seat belt on as soon as the car starts rolling?
Seat Belt Police.
Okay, now, let’s talk about the Hand Washing Police.
Do you remember these people at the beginning of the pandemic? I bet some of you were even “that guy.”
“You should wash your hands for 27 minutes and 12 seconds if you even thought about touching that doorknob.”
Remember this scene: You’re in the bathroom peeing.
If no one else is in there, you just do the old rinse-your-hands routine, so you can be drying them if someone comes in—See, I washed.
But, someone else is in there with you, so you actually wash your hands with soap and water.
However, instead of acknowledging the purity of your essence, they’re like, “You should really wash your hands a LOT longer; you’re not getting horrible pandemic germs off them.”
And they continue, because they are fundamentally evil beings: “I have a little song I sing in my head while I wash my hands so that I wash them long enough.”
And now you remember that the Germans have a word for people like this: Backpfeifengesicht—a face badly in need of a fist.
But you cave like a house of cards and rewash your hands for 45 minutes, because we’re all spineless.
So you wash your hands while singing Stairway to Heaven in your head and you pretend to be enlightened.
“I’m helping the world prevent the spread of a pandemic.”
Except you’re not.
You didn’t do a damn thing except help create a generation of obsessive-compulsive hand washers who still get COVID every year.
There’s no idiot like a clean idiot, my friend, and we are all just clean idiots.