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> We are in 2016. We should be past this by now.

I have read arguments of the form “It is [the current year]. We should be past this by now.” a lot lately, but I do not understand how referring to time provides a useful starting point for an argument about morality. Can anyone tell me?

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In 1933 anti-semitism was a respectable political position. Hitler didn't have to hide the fact that he was anti-semitic. He explicitly ran on anti-semitism, and the German people voted for him because of his anti-semitism, not in spite of it. It was only when faced with the reality of what it actually means to carry this moral position to its logical conclusion that the world finally recoiled in horror and said, "Never again." That is what it means to say, "It's 2016." It means that we live in a world where someone actually did this experiment in the not-so-distant past. It didn't end well. And so we should be able to see that doing the same experiment again with Muslims standing in for Jews might not be such a hot idea.

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