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I don't think it trivializes Hitler's actions. They were heinous enough that you could call people Hitler, but if you really know what Hitler did instead of actually viewing the person as a new-age Hitler you would instead think the person making the accusation is a crackpot. Of course you can't discount some Hitler comparisons based on Godwin's law, such as the Khmer Rouge. In that case it serves as a comparison which helps people understand what happened there; a kind of ethical and moral benchmark to which you can look ta something and understand it in other contexts. Most Americans who come from Europe understand the atrocities of the Holocaust, but hearing about what happens in Asia with millions massacred, by linking it to something that has been studied you have a worthwhile comparison.
But then again, in a way it trivializes the comparison as the Right comparing Saddam Hussein to Hitler based on the gassing of the Kurds, and the Left comparing Bush to Hitler based on his rhetoric, it does make the meaning of Hitler trivialized. But in my opinion it only does that to the using of Hitler as a means to compare something that's actually comparable.
I personally believe the comparison of Hitler to any American president regardless of how much I dislike them is blatantly false. Be it Bush or Clinton.
And finally, the teacher definitely deserves a strict sentence for how he acted. I read the transcript yesterday and I know as a high schooler you should be able to know the truth from fiction, but having a teacher you disagree with politically can severely polarise the learning experience which is highly unfair to those in the classroom who disagree with the teacher. Plus, a teacher loses credibility to the students based on that. Last year I had a teacher who was very strongly anti-Bush, and I myself am a Republican so I found his Michael Moore-esque style of commentary very frustrating. If you're in a public school you should have the right reserved to not have wannabe political pundits mouthing off about these things.
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I got in a fight one time with a really big guy, and he said, "I'm going to mop the floor with your face." I said, "You'll be sorry." He said, "Oh, yeah? Why?" I said, "Well, you won't be able to get into the corners very well."
Emo Philips
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