In Defense of Referencing Hitler

[wtmusic]

"The whole point of referencing Hitler is to force you to test your principles in the extreme cases, and for most people, Hitler is as extreme as it gets. If we disallow reference to Hitler, it can only be an acknowledgement of the extreme position he holds in our moral imagination. But by banishing the extremes from rational discourse, we make it too easy to settle our beliefs with the comfortable cases, never having to follow positions through to their logical conclusions."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/marcus3.html

Good essay on what has always bothered me about so-called Godwin's Law, which states, "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. Once such a comparison is made the discussion is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress."

By banishing references to Hitler we also make the tacit assumption that it could never happen again, that society has progressed to a point where such a regression is unthinkable. But it's not only learning the lessons of history, but reminding ourselves of them from time to time, and drawing parallels through self-examination that will give us any realistic chance of preventing history from repeating itself.

[Cha]

1. I see no reason not to "reference hitler"

since it's a true analogy. hitler as verboten is senseless.

[radwriter0555]

37. Well apparently since hitler killed million & bush only 150,000 so far,

there IS a 'difference'... Well, according to the people who scream at me and shriek "I WIN! YOU MENTIONED HITLER therefore YOU LOSE!" and then they run around in circles waving their arms in apparently victory at... having evaded the entire topic.

It's all confusing. But I stand by my assertion that bush and his evil cabal are indeed hitler and the nazi regime reincarnated and come to life.

Don't like my assertion? Not enough bodies for you? Not any human skins used for lampshades (that we know of) for another 'test'? Too bad, put me on iggie and put your head back in the sand.

Bush is the new hitler.

91101 was reichstag.

Iraq was Poland.

Iraqis are Jews.

Gitmo is Dachau.

(no ovens? oh well, there are still too many parables)

[DistressedAmerican]

2. Godwin Is A Nazi!

[wtmusic]

3. You lose!

according to him, anyway... :thumbsup:

:rofl:

[DistressedAmerican]

12. And The Reference Cam Up So Very Early In The Thread Too.

Aparently some online discussion are more ripe for those references than this Nazi's formulation takes into account.:evilgrin:

[mestup]

4. Interesting!

"The moment the words Hitler, Holocaust, or Nazi come up, the assumption is that the speaker has left the bounds of good taste and rationality and slipped into the realm of hyperbole and name-calling."

That's always bothered me. It's as if we weren't able to see the true atrocities in Rwanda, simply because "the worst" types of slaughter had "already happened" with Hitler, and surely wouldn't happen again.

[afdip]

14. read the link. for norquist to liken the morality of the estate tax

to the immorality of the Holocaust proves he is totally bankrupt morally. the argument that a speaker "leaves the bounds of good taste and rationality and slipped into the realm of hyperbole and name-calling," is just a smokescreen to block his offensive analogy.

[bryant69]

5. The problem with Referencing Hitler

Is that most people don't do it in the way this author suggests. If Hitler is used by the rigorous arguer, I generally have no problem with it.

Hitler, on the other hand, seems to be the friend of the lazy arguer, who wants to make their points on a grand scale but lacks the energy or time to actually expand their ideas till they fit on that scale. Rather they simply reference Hitler as a sort of rhetorical short hand that takes the place of really developing your argument.

I've seen both rigourous and lazy arguers reference Hitler on this site.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[McCamy Taylor]

41. Same can be said about guns. Except the word "Hitler" doesnt kill.

[K-W]

53. Then the problem isn't referencing Hitler,

its people who make bad arguments, or people who use references to Nazis to try and make an emotional appeal in place of a rational argument. And people can do both these things without ever mentioning Hitler and the Nazi's.

If someone makes a bad argument that references Nazi's they should be criticized for their bad argument, or their appeal to irrational emotion, not for referencing the Nazis.

It is a similar issue to conspiracy theories. The fact that some theories involving conspiracies are bad theories doesn't implicate all conspiracy theories as being bad, but often in a discussion or argument a person who suggests the existence of a conspiracy, justified by evidence or not, is simply written off as a conspiracy theorist.

Meanwhile those who actually attempt conspiracies and those who actually want policies that can legitimately be compared and contrasted with policies in Nazi Germany get to claim that all such criticisms of their actions are by definition invalid.

[liberal N proud]

6. When someone complains about comparing bu$h to Hitler

I come back with maybe he should stop doing Hitler like things.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

7. I don't think anyone's forgetting Hitler or saying that it could never

happen again but, rather, that the comparison is entirely innapropriate.

[wtmusic]

8. A comparison to Hitler would never be appropriate?

:shrug:

Isn't that necessary to *prevent* that kind of situation from happening again?

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

9. When appropriate it would be. Now it is not.

[DistressedAmerican]

13. I Do Not Think Nazi Or Hitler Are Great Analogies (Too Specific).

However, the broader term Fascist fits the bill quite nicely!

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

36. Better, Closer, Warmer - as Jack Black would say!

:thumbsup:

[wtmusic]

16. The appropriate time is before it is too late

we should ignore fascist tendencies in our own administration, not connect the dots to their possible conclusions?

[radwriter0555]

38. Apparently we have to wait for more atrocities and a higher body count and

a LOWER moral reckoning.

Can you imagine?

Who did people compare hitler to in the 1920's? At least we have a barometer of sorts.

[tigereye]

77. please read some books about Weimar Germany,

the pre and post WWI economy, European history and political structures from that time and get back to me.

[wtmusic]

95. Yes people are completely different now

fascism will never happen again, and we can rest assured that the tendencies of unbridled power, conquest, exploitation, and fanatical ideologies of the 20's have no parallels in our current administration

[tigereye]

99. the historical context is not the same

it's not that fascism cannot happen again, but the strict parallels are not there. Hitler disbanded the Reichstag for example. *'s power here is not unbridled, there are checks and balances and we continue with built in safeguards, and we continue to have an elected government. The economic and social situation is not the same. The size and structure of the two governments are not the same. The debilitated populace is not the same. The relative uniformity of German culture is not the same.

Need I go on?

[RandomKoolzip]

25. Chavez, I love you man, but....

Why is now not the appropriate time? When will it be?

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

33. Come on - 6,000,000 Jews alone?

puhleaze!

[RandomKoolzip]

42. Hmmm.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x164189#164221

So the second the first roof beam is put in place in the first concentration camp, THEN it'll be safe to use the comparison, but not a second before?

[Susang]

70. See, that's the thing

They are not going to be concentration camps the next time. History may repeat itself, but it usually has the good taste to alter the story just enough to keep us jumping.

That's why analogies to Nazi Germany and Hitler just don't work (for me). There just won't be another situation like that. It's already happened, we're on guard for it. Whatever happens will happen in far more insidious, unexpected ways, while we're busy looking for Nazis and concentration camps. In my opinion, it's already been happening, right under our noses.

[wtmusic]

96. 'There just won't be another situation like that'

Curious where you get your confidence...have people's basic fears/prejudices evolved since then? Did Germans of the 1930's think the attempted destruction of an entire race by their country would be possible within ten years?

Don't bother looking for jackboots and german shepherds. Just because the strategies will be different doesn't mean that genocide can't happen again (actually, it is happening, as I write, in Sudan) or that oppression and conquest are things of the past, or that just "being on guard for it" is enough to stop it from happening.

[RaleighNCDUer]

26. Even Hitler did not start out being Hitler.

He was just another loudmouth RW nutcase. Like those that abound today.

We can't compare what we see the beginnings of with the final result, because they obviously don't match up. But we can compare beginnings, and the parallels are scary.

[wtmusic]

31. Once upon a time he was a cute, cuddly O'Reilly-type fascist

When Bill starts foaming at the mouth the similarity is almost unbearable

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

34. Once upon a time there was a time before Hitler - now we know about him

and his kind. It is NOT Germany 1938!

[RaleighNCDUer]

39. Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it.

The RW has to move a larger, less focused population so things are moving more slowly, but the parallels are not with 1938 - more with 1934. The fascists are entrenched, and are poised to take over the judiciary, the only remaining branch of government not completely dominated by them. There are even military parallels -- whereas Germany was restricted in its military buildup by international treaties, the US is restricted by its all-volunteer military. Remember the flags and 90% approval and rah-rah jingoism of three years ago? If * had demanded a return of the draft then, we'd have a 6 million man military today with plenty of troops available for Iran, not to mention that simply doubling the troops in Iraq from the git go would have very possibly prevented the chaos, the looting that engendered the Iraqi insurgency. Only *'s incompetence saved us there. Do you reckon if a small nuke went off in Seattle that they would not be able to get a draft running? They have all the mechanisms in place - all they need is a precipitating incident.

Sure, most schools teach about the Holocaust, but even in my day they didn't teach about the things that led up to it. Today, most kids don't know what year WW2 started in. They don't know how it started, and many don't know who we were even fighting. That leaves them wide open to RW propaganda.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

43. This is ridiculous. The American people would never let a Hitler come to

power. I still find the comparison to 1934 Germany to be inappropriate. Did Germany have 280,000,000 people in 1934. The very makeup of the people in America makes the comparison one of apples and oranges.

[RaleighNCDUer]

44. No, it was something like 80 million (compared to our 135 million

at the time). And, in '34, only something like 1.5 million were members of the Nazi party. They made a coalition with the vastly greater numbers of conservatives, then took over the conservative parties from the inside, much as the Neocons siezed control of the Republican party. At that same time, there were also millions of German socialists (a distinctly different critter for National Socialists) and communists and liberals and labor organizers and Jews and free thinkers who all opposed the Nazis, who, in fact, outnumbered the Nazis. Communists actually controlled the governments of some German states in the 20s. It's not the numbers, but the percentages that apply

The German people were NOT in lockstep with Hitler, even as late as '36 when the Nazis got control of the courts and outlawed dissent. But it only took killing a few, and imprisoning a few tens of thousands to make their point that they had the power.

You think there are no parallels?

There are distinct differences, but the main similarity is that no one, other than those who planned it, could have predicted the Nazi dictatorship in 1925. And even in '34 most denied what they saw happening.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

46. Thgere are definately parallels, no doubt.

But I disagree. I think there is too much collective memory to allow for that. I mean do you think we'll be building concentration camps for the Muslims?

[RaleighNCDUer]

47. What do you call Gitmo?

It's not a POW camp, because the prisoners are not POWs. They aren't citizens, either, but there is nothing in the constitution that says American laws apply only to American citizens. In fact, it seems pretty clear to me that American laws apply to anyone who comes under American control and jurisdiction. I see Gitmo as a test case to see how far they can push the limits of violating American law.

And yes, given half a chance there are millions in this country who would be foursquare behind putting muslims, or gays, or liberals or abortionists into camps. What would it take?

Take avian flu, for example. It jumps to easy transmissibility. Martial law is declared to quarantine affected populations. Someone claims that it is being deliberately spread by Muslim terrorists. The soldiers, who are already in place, go and pull all the Muslims out of the quarantined areas, and confine them under high-security quarantine camps in Utah.

With a thousand people a day dying from the flu, do you think the general populace is going to object? And if they happen to get a few gays or liberals in the mix, do you think they'd notice?

Is it far-fetched? Yes. But, in 1934, so was Treblinka.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

49. I knew you were going to say that.

If you feel that this will happen again there's no way to convince you otherwise, nor would I try to. I think the hate in many Americans' hearts is very dangerous but I can't believe that it could happen again. I see your points and they are valid but I'm just not feeling it.

You honestly believe that Gitmo is some sort of test run for a new holocaust?

[RaleighNCDUer]

52. Well, I can't claim to be able to see into the shrivled, black hearts

of the neocons, but I believe the potential is there. Just cuz I'm paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get me. In any case, I'd rather be prepared for it and it doesn't happen, than be not prepared and it does.

The German Jews didn't believe it could happen to them, because they'd lived in peace and security in Germany for hundreds of years -- during the 19th century, when Jews were persecuted in France and Russia, they found refuge in sane, civilized Germany. They knew about the concentration camps and massacres of Armenians by the Turks, 25 years earlier, over 1.5 million killed, but that wasn't in a civilized country. They knew about Stalin's forced relocation of Ukranian peasants that killed hundreds of thousands, but that was the Soviets.

There is nothing the Nazis did that had not occurred previously elsewhere, but the Germans were too civilized to let something like that happen there. How could anyone believe the land of Bach, Mozart and Goethe could ever permit such a thing?

But of course, that was Germany. It could never happen here.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

89. Sorry Chavez, I disagree... I think all of it is possible again. Slavery,

genocide.. everything. Including in this country. We'll just have to disagree.

[K-W]

55. It can't happen here, eh?

The very makeup of the people in America makes the comparison one of apples and oranges.

American exceptionalism... always refreshing.

You know who else thought they were exceptions to history...

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

62. I never said it couldn't happen here. I said that comparing Bush to Hitler

innapropriate.

[K-W]

93. That actually isnt what you said.

You said:

This is ridiculous. The American people would never let a Hitler come to power.

You said that the American people would never let a Hitler come to power, which taken to its logical conclusion means that it couldnt happen here.

As far as what you have now said,

I said that comparing Bush to Hitler (is) innapropriate.

No, it actually isnt. In some cases it may be, but not all cases. Hitler wasnt a magical demon, he is a historical figure that can indeed be appropriately compared to other people.

[LSK]

57. "God bless America"

"God bless the motherland"

Nationalism is a disease here just like it was a disease in Germany in the 1930s.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

63. Are you saying that I'm a Nationalist by saying that the make up of the US

is different than Germany in the 30s?

[LSK]

65. no...

Im saying that you are ignoring the uses of Nationalism for evil people to get power. It was one of Hitlers greatest tools and many Americans are brainwashed into the "America is #1" and "God bless America" hype.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

68. Agreed. Do you think that it's happening the same way?

[LSK]

71. Patriot Act

In some ways yes. I dont know if will happen the same way or if it will happen or will not happen. But there are similar conditions and a comparison to Hitlers rise is certainly appropriate. History's purpose is to study it and make sure it doesnt repeat itself.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

73. It certainly is.

I agree with this "similar conditions and a comparison to Hitlers rise is certainly appropriate." I'm disagreeing with direct, current comparisons.

[LSK]

75. what is the difference? n/t

[HEyHEY]

85. You and your family aren't put in front of a firing squad

If they so much as suspect you of not being a patriot

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

91. You see no difference?

[tigereye]

80. the level of American support for what the population feels

are just wars does not seem to me to be comparable to the rabid, highly structured propagandic manipulations of that period. This is not the depression era, and Americans are not desperate and hungry; they are pragmatists- look at the lack of support for this war as it becomes more and more unwieldy and expensive. You also have to remember that our country was "attacked" on some level and most people born after the 40s had never encountered anything like that here.

No one has disbanded any major political institution and installed a puppet, we still have elections and functioning institutions. Maybe * et al have fascistic qualities, but America is not a fascist country and this is not a dictatorhip. That kind of hyperbole is absurd.

[HEyHEY]

87. Ha! Drink some more kool-aid, lady!

[tigereye]

90. well

until I saw it was you, HH, I was gonna say that where I come from, that ain't an argument. ;)

[tigereye]

79. my husband has been listening to a lot or recorded history books

lately, and apparently Hitler was a master at aligning with, and manipulating whomever, Communists, labor, etc., moving to the next level of power and then jettisoning their support, to achieve his ends. He was very smart and extremely Machiavellian. Oddly that sounds more like Santorum! ;)

[winter999]

92. The Nazi Party was not Right Wing,

but, in fact, the Labor movement, brother. They took power from the conservative government and were considered the Progressives of the time. During the first years of power, they actually reduced the unemployment, raised national pride and self-esteem (coming out of a lost war). A chicken in every pot, a Volkswagon in every family.

[K-W]

94. Yes it was right wing, it just LIED.

It used propaganda to appeal to working class sensibilities, but it was propaganda. They werent actually pro-labor, which became fairly obvious once they got into power rendering this discussion farcical.

[RaleighNCDUer]

97. The Nazis were pro-labor the way * is pro-education.

Labor leaders, the communist and socialist organizers who were in the front lines of the unions, were the first to see the insides of the concentration camps. They were agitators who were interfering with the patriotic rebuilding of German industry, and were arrested at the behest of German industrialists.

[LSK]

56. when in Hitlers reign would it have been appropriate to point out his ways

Before or after he revoked civil rights?

Before or after he burned the Reichstag?

Before or after he reformed the education system?

Before or after he started "relocating" jews?

Before or after he lied about invading Austria?

Before or after he lied about invading Poland?

Hitler took power in 1933 and WWII didnt start until 1939. The final solution wasnt even in full swing until the 40s.

Why should we wait until a total disaster of humanity before we can start comparing people to Hitler?

[StopTheMorans]

10. way to try and stifle dissent, Hitler

:eyes: wtf do you think this is, the Weimar Republic circa 1933?

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

11. Ja, das ist korre...HEY WAIT A MINUTE!!!

[RandomKoolzip]

22. I don't think the left referencing Hitler is too over the top....

...especially when rightists reference Stalin and communism when referring to American liberals every single chance they get.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

35. Come on!

Who takes the higher ground?

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

50. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[gulliver]

17. Referencing Hitler is fighting words now. "Fascist" is the word ...

... I wish we could still use ... but really can't. Fascism and communism no longer mean what they mean.

[TahitiNut]

18. That's a misstatement of Godwin's Law

Godwin's Law is predictive (phenomenological), not prescriptive! Thus, the first sentence ("As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.) is an accurate statement of the Law.

The second sentence is NOT part of the law. While it may be adopted as a rule or prescription, it's a mistake to call it part of the law.

[wtmusic]

19. Good pt

and thanks for the correction :thumbsup:

What's interesting, though, is from a mathematical standpoint it's meaningless...as any discussion goes on, the probability of mentioning *anything* approaches 1

[TahitiNut]

24. Exactly. It's been clear to me for years that many wish to inhibit ...

... any comprehension of the factors that lead to fascism and it's essentially unbounded predations. I'm one of those who was around "back in the day" Godwin's Law was first articulated. There has always been some degree of anti-intellectualism on both sides, most often on the part of those who'd quash any reference to or discussion of fascism whatsoever.

As a math major, the "probability approaching 1" of chimps in a room of typewriters has always been clear -- indeed, anything that's even remotely possible shares this 'law.'

[FVZA_Colonel]

54. Very true.

The second sentence was never part of the original formulation, and when that is taken out you are left with a perfectly sensible predictive law.

[Bonhomme Richard]

20. I always say that "They may not be Nazi's but they are just.......

as dangerous to this nation as the Nazi's were to Germany."

[ComerPerro]

21. Maybe if this administraiton would stop drawing such obvious parallels

[wtmusic]

28. It's a deal...* stops acting like Hitler, we'll stop calling him that

:thumbsup:

[opihimoimoi]

23. Shit, I frequently re to Hitler....

[Sweet Freedom]

27. When faced with the dilemma

of whether or not to invoke a reference to Hitler, I wonder to myself, what would Hitlery and the femi-nazis say?

[Hubert Flottz]

29. If there is no lesson to be learned from WWII, school is out!

Once the Jews in Europe didn't believe it could happen to them, but it did happen. They still couldn't believe something so monstrous was in progress, even after it started to take place all around them.

Few CAN imagine the things an insane man like Hitler might do, until it's too late to stop him, in most cases. Even though some say "Never Again" deep down we all know, that it can happen again and again and again. To believe otherwise is total, foolish, denial. The massive price in blood that the world was once forced to pay, to learn the sad lessons, about what the brutal, inhuman, Nazis really were capable of, was all simply a waste of time and lives, if we turn away from that reality now, because reality is so distasteful and uncomfortable to witness.

It's like a child hiding under the blanket from the wolf. The child is fine under that blanket, until a REAL WOLF comes along one night and rips the blanket away and eats the goofy kid. The wolf always counts on the sheep's stupidity, just like Hitler did and just like Bush is counting on it NOW.

I see too many similarities between the Nazis and Bushco to dismiss the obvious, simply because it's too awful to imagine! Bush has far more power than Hitler had, weapon wise, so something even worse than Hitler COULD HAPPEN! Don't forget that Prescott Bush never disapproved of Hitler, until the US government forced him to quit doing business as usual with the Nazis in 1943.

Here is something that those who have not read, SHOULD go to the trouble to print out and READ, for their own good!

http://www.tarpley.net/bushb.htm

Bush is a wolf in sheep's clothing, just like Hitler was at first.

[wtmusic]

30. Agree, and erring on the side of caution when the stakes are so high

would seem to be prudent.

[radar]

32. Billmon wrote about the method of getting generals compliant...

...To the leader's will.

Has Rummy been using drummed up charges of sexual misconduct to silence his military critics?...
...Utter ruthlessness against all enemies -- real or imagined -- is of course a primal neocon trait, and an essential element in their Straussian adaptation of the "beyond good and evil" shtick. But what gives this particular tactic a special odiousness is the fact that it has been used in the past by some rather odious regimes, including (and I can't help violating Godwin's law here) the Nazis. Hitler's efforts to break the German general staff to his will were greatly aided by the sexual disgrace of first the commander of the armed forces, Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg, and then the commander of the Army, General Werner von Fritsch....

Rummy's Blackmail Ring October 11, 2005
http://billmon.org/archives/002247.html

[McCamy Taylor]

40. Godwin sounds like a Hitler wanna-be dick. Or a school marm.

If I want to call some one a "three headed spegma breathing slime toad" in a political debate, I'll do it. It's all about context.

The only reason to make a rule is so that others can have fun breaking it.

:headbang:

[hughee99]

45. To reference Hitler as the extreme is fair

because it gives an example that most people can understand. To argue that someone is the same is just self-defeating, because they are not, and when challenged by any skeptic to prove your comparison, you will inevitably come up short. You can always see some similarities between any world leader and Hitler, some more than others, but it's not a good comparison. As a result of the comparisons, now when I read a post about how * is worse than (or just like) Hitler, I usually move on to the next post because I have yet to see anything reasonably resembling logic or a compelling argument after that.

[Solomon]

48. People who cry foul at the mention of Hitler never cease to amaze me.

Utterly ignorant of history. How come it was alright to compare Saddam to Hitler? Oh yeah, I forgot, he's one of "them".

We supposed to wait until Bush kills 8 million before we can talk about Hitler.

Just ignore all the similarities in the rise to power and maintenance of it. Wait until its too late - unless you want to attack some non-US dictator. They are always comparable to Hitler.

You guys disgust me and are clearly ignorant of history. Classic american arrogance. You think we're better than that don't you? Just like you think racism doesn't exist here anymore.

Fuck y'all. America is the new Nazi Germany. You wonder how German citizens went along with it? They probably objected to people comparing Hitler to Genghis Khan.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

51. "America is the new Nazi Germany"

Are you Jewish?

Also the people who compare Bush to Hitler are not the type of people who compare Saddam to Hitler. I am a Liberal with my eyes open, and there are many of us. Why bother comparing Bush to anybody? What purpose does it serve? Bush is evil in his own special way as was Stalin and Hitler etc.

[LSK]

58. educate yourself

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0671728687/104-1435573-2554351?v=glance&n=283155&s=books&v=glance

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

59. Ok I'll "educate" myself

Thanks :thumbsup:

I'm clearly uneducated when I disagree with something.

[HEyHEY]

72. Educate YOURSELF

Talk to a holocaust survivor... taking any little similarity and saying "oooo loook just like the Nazis!" Is stupid.
Lot's of stuff they did is still being done today by many governments with no such purposes as evil as the nazis.

..fuck

[LSK]

76. and what would a holocost survivor say?

Would he tell us to ignore the rise of Hitler? Would he blindly say dont worry, it will never happen again. Or would he want people to at least consider that it might happen again? I would think he would want people to be aware that it could happen again and to look for signs of it in the present.

I dont understand how a discussion of similarities is an insult to holocost survivors. I would think they would want open discussion as a way to educate people on how it happened in the 1st place so it does not happen again.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

81. "Holograms are horribly expensive. Don't buy them." (nt)

[HEyHEY]

82. I imagine they would say "until you've seen 100 people

thrown into a pit, then a few pounds of explosive thrown in after them - don't talk to me about Hitler."

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

88. It's in times like these that I love my sig.

And I don't mean the animated GIF.

[rinsd]

83. Even better is Klemperer's I Will Bear Witness.....

...if you think today resembles even the beginnings of Nazism, you're in for a rude awakening how bad it really was.

[HEyHEY]

86. Why, what are you planning?

;-)

[HEyHEY]

74. I don't think there were too many peace protests in Berlin back in 37

That's a major difference.

Everytime you say Bush is Hitler, you insult a holocaust victim

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

60. Okay...

int hitler;
int *p = &hitler;

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

61. Educate yourself

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00000K3CQ/qid=1129237845/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-9279240-2402568?v=glance&s=dvd&n=507846

[Richardo]

64. .

:rofl:

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

66. It's just gettin' too serious in here!

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

67. Indeed!

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

69. Sorry - I meant Sirius

[rinsd]

84. Hitler on Ice! (nt)

[IntravenousDemilo]

78. I agree completely with everything you just said. n/m

[next93]

98. A civil word from the "other side".

First, let me say that I’m a conservative (worse - I'm a neocon). I'm venturing across no-man’s land, olive branch in hand, out of what I hope is a shared desire to see a return to civilized disagreement, rather than the childish name-calling that fills so much of both sides of the bologosphere. So, at least for the duration of this thread, I'll refrain from calling anyone here a moonbat if you'll all refrain from calling me a wingnut.

The first thing that I’d like to point out is that both sides of the aisle are guilty of the Gratuitous Hitler Reference (GHR – I just might copyright that). I’ve seen it come up from both right-to-life and pro-choice advocates, to name just one topic. For every reference made here equating Iraq to Poland, I can cite you one in the right-side that equates current European attitudes to appeasement.

The second thing I’d like to point out is that there’s no need to “ban” references to Hitler, any more than there’s a need to ban traveling faster than the speed of light. As soon as he’s brought into the conversation, most people just stop listening. You can keep talking as long as you want, but all I'm hearing is “You've backed me into an intellectual corner from which I can't intelligently escape, so I'm going to poison the conversation by comparing you to the font of all that is EVIL". It's pretty much the adult version of “Oh, yeah – well… you’re a poopoohead!”.

These comparisons almost always come from someone with no real knowledge of the how and why of the Nazis, and are (thankfully) universally hyperbolic when applied all things American. Anyone who understands what the Nazis were, how they operated, and what they stood for will not even consider making these comparisons. When I hear someone on the right refer to the tactics of political correctness as Gestapo-like, I can either assume that he doesn't know what he's talking about, or that his sense of proportion is so faulty that he can't see any difference between (a) getting a little bad press and (b) having a bunch of goons break into your house in the dark of night, drag you off to the police station, beat you until you sign a "confession", and threaten to kill your family if you don't read it aloud at your "trial". Likewise, comparing GITMO to Dachau is such an astounding insult to the victims of Dachau that it's not worth a response.

A few years ago, there was an ethical uproar because a researcher developing cold-weather gear for rescue workers wanted to use research data that the Nazis had collected in the camps by slowly freezing unwilling victims to death. Even though this new research would save lives, it seemed wrong to a lot of people to use data that had been acquired in such a barbaric manner. In the end, it was decided that the data just shouldn't be used because doing so would come too close to legitimizing the way it was collected.

Similarly, it’s tempting to reach for the Hitler analogy when we run out of valid arguments because Hitler has become an icon of evil to the modern world. But millions of people willingly sacrificed their lives to rid the world of the Nazis, and millions more died as innocent victims of Nazi beliefs, and it's wrong to cheapen their memories just to save ourselves the embarrassment of not getting the last word. Before we exhume Hitler to make a point for us, we really have a responsibility to all of his victims to be certain that the analogy is truly valid, and not just thrown into the discussion out of intellectual laziness or a desire to make a dramatic exit.

If you're concerned with preventing history from repeating itself, you'd do better to avoid devaluing the lesson. If we get into the habit of summoning the ghost of Hitler over every pet peeve, if we can't resist the lure of comparing some of the biggest attrocities in human history to minor inconveniences or even to legal (albeit distasteful) political tactics, we run the very real risk of loosing sight of what true evil looks like.