GOP Lawmaker: Hitler Should Serve as an Inspiration to Homeless People

A state lawmaker in Tennessee cited Adolf Hitler as someone people struggling with homelessness should aspire to during debate on a bill on unauthorized camping Wednesday.

Tennessee state Sen. Frank Niceley, throwing his support behind a bill that critics say would criminalize homelessness by allowing punishments for unauthorized camping, offered an unsolicited “little history lesson on homelessness.” He said the Nazi leader had used his time living on the streets in 1910 to “practice his oratory and body language and how to connect with the masses and then went on to lead a life that got him in the history books.” He suggested this should serve as a shining example to people living on the streets, saying, “So a lot of these people, it’s not a dead-end. They can come out of this … these homeless camps and have a productive life.” Only at the very end of his speech did he appear to acknowledge Hitler’s atrocities, admitting he had an “unproductive life.”