Niemoller and the Face-Eating Leopards

 First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for the Catholics
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Catholic*
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.

Martin Niemoller

These quotes are, in their own way, saying the same thing.  They stand as warning that if you allow government to trample on the rights of others, your own rights may be the next target.  

The Niemoller quote is meant to be taken seriously and mostly literally.  I say mostly because, obviously, no country will ever truly reach the point when there is no one left to speak for the last person arrested.  When Niemoller was arrested, there were many people left to speak for him.  The just didn't.  A more accurate account might be, "And then they came for me.  And no one spoke out because they were not me."

The face-eating leopards, by contrast, are clearly hyperbolic and metaphoric.  No one literally comes out in favor of leopards eating people's faces.

Both Niemoller and the face-eating leopards get a lot of play in our political debate, sometimes as expressions of disagreement on quite mundane policy disputes.  My advice in most cases is that the face-eating leopards are the better choice. The face-eating leopards are such an obvious and outrageous exaggeration that no one can possibly see them otherwise than as a metaphor. It may very well be that people quoting Niemoller also mean it as a metaphor and not a serious comparison of whatever one is opposing to the Nazis.  But the point is not always clear.  The Niemoller quote leave open the possibility that one is literally comparing one's opponents to Nazis.  Godwin's law and all that.

Stick to the leopards.  Although there are a few exceptions.  More on that later.

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*The inclusion of Catholics is debated.  Certainly many Catholics continued to practice their faith openly in Nazi Germany, but the transnational nature of Catholicism made it the natural enemy of Nazi hypernationalism.