Every time somebody makes a Hitler or Nazi comparison,

[Are_grits_groceries]

it should be mandatory that news anchors, correspondents, sane people at meetings, and whoever else will have to stand

up and holler, "Godwin's Law' just as loud as they can. If it shows up in print, the article must have "Godwin's Law"

in red beside the title. It should be on billboards and the sides of buses.

In fact, the teevee channels should be wired so that anytime somebody starts talking about Hitler, one of those

noxious noises comes on like the emergency channel instructions. It should explain the law, and then tell people they

should get off their fat asses and go pick up a free pamphlet located everywhere.

Hell! Drop the damn things from planes.

Comparing anything to Hitler and the Nazis ends any honest discussion. It also minimizes the actual evil that was

done. People have truly forgotten what happened, and they think giving money to banks or reforming health care

is somehow equal to starting the Holocaust. They need to have another think coming!

MEH! :rant:

[Buzz Clik]

1. If they simply recognized that such claims were incredibly stupid, it would be a good start.

Because, stupid arguments deserve nothing more than to be ignored.

[Are_grits_groceries]

2. Unfortunately, I think we are past

the ignoring stage. At one point that might have worked. The debate has been considerably lowered.

[Buzz Clik]

3. Agreed.

[Octafish]

37. So, we should ignore the links between modern conservatives and NAZIs?

Know your BFEE: Nazis couldn’t win WWII, so they backed Bushes.

[GreenEyedLefty]

4. Overheard at health care rally: "Hitler was a communist!"

No lie.

I about fell over.

[question everything]

7. Right after: get the government out of my Medicare?"

Unfortunately, there is no intelligence meter at these meetings.

[lysosome]

18. That's because of idiots like this

http://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-Politics/dp/0385511841

You see, Hitler, Mussolini and all things evil come from liberals. It must be true. Someone wrote a book. :eyes:

This is instantly the way it is and how it has always been. The way the right can get the dumb side of the curve to believe lies would make Orwell proud.

[tuckessee]

28. Well, he was more communist in theory than not.

Have you read the 25 Points of the NSDAP drawn up by Hitler & Drexler in 1920?

Until you do you are certifiably clueless. :)

[GreenEyedLefty]

34. I've read them, thanks.

Hitler was a rabid anti-communist.

[arcadian]

5. Godwin is a Nazi sympathizer. Look it up.

[question everything]

13. I did, but perhaps you have other sources

Godwin's Law is often cited in online discussions as a deterrent against the use of arguments in the widespread reductio ad Hitlerum form. The rule does not make any statement about whether any particular reference or comparison to Adolf Hitler or the Nazis might be appropriate, but only asserts that the likelihood of such a reference or comparison arising increases as the discussion progresses. It is precisely because such a comparison or reference may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued,<4> that overuse of Nazi and Hitler comparisons should be avoided, because it robs the valid comparisons of their impact.

Although in one of its early forms Godwin's Law referred specifically to Usenet newsgroup discussions,<5> the law is now applied to any threaded online discussion: electronic mailing lists, message boards, chat rooms, and more recently blog comment threads and wiki talk pages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

[arcadian]

25. Did you read the part about Godwin's father?

That his dad was the inspiration behind the main character in the 'Turner Diaries'?

[Posteritatis]

39. Sins of the father, huh? (nt)

[question everything]

45. If we were to judge people by the sins of their fathers, then none of the Kennedies

would have earned our admiration. Joe Kennedy Sr. supported Hitler, was anti-Semite, and was strongly against us helping Great Britain during WWII.

[Common Sense Party]

6. Agreed.

But, food for thought:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4750077

It goes both ways.

[Are_grits_groceries]

8. I'm talking about everybody.

I should remind myself before I start any of that nonsense.

[question everything]

9. Right. I have heard once that the first to invoke the terms Hitler on Nazi

loses the debate.

Will be good for us to remember.

[GreenEyedLefty]

11. Some of *'s policies were just a tad fascist...

But I see your point.

[The Straight Story]

10. The last 8 years we (and move on, others) compared bush to hitler a lot

http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&source=hp&q=bush+hitler+site%3Ademocraticunderground.com&btnG=Google+Search

Seems like those out of power do that to those in power a lot.

[Cleita]

16. There was a big difference, BushCo's actions from the stolen elections,

the ginning up of fear after 9-11 to go to war and stay in power, the unprecedented invasion of Iraq for no good reason hadn't been done since Hitler invaded Poland, the shredding of the Constitution without staging a coup to change the government, and the xenophobia were similar actions and philosophies that all had been done before by Nazi Germany led by Hitler. Those people who call Obama a Nazi don't know their history or their facts.

[The Straight Story]

17. Glad all that has been reversed. (nt)

[DCKit]

35. Sure, Nazi got thrown around a lot, but Fascist was used far more often.

And you have to admit, nearly everything BushCo* engineered came right out of Goebbels playbook.

The problem is, the wingers aren't smart enough to grasp the concept of fascism, so everyone defaults to "Nazi" - a generic term of hatred for anything deemed Unamerican.

Had we been able to hammer through the willful ignorance to some level of understanding, the lights would have come on and the realization that a fascist takeover of our country was well underway may have turned the tide on BushCo* far earlier.

Though that's all behind us now, we can still use it to influence the next election:

"When Corporations Own the Government, it's FASCISM. How much campaign money does your Congresscritter receive from corporations, and does their voting record reflect an interest in their constituents, or the corporations that fund their campaigns?"

Even a FReeper should be able to wrap their tiny head around that.

[Cleita]

12. I've got to admit that I used to call

Bush a Nazi, and now I wish I hadn't. But I actually had facts behind me that BushCo's politics and actions were very much like the Nazis and just as heinous. He didn't torture and kill Jews but had a good start on Arabs and Muslims. He couldn't be open about his Xenophobia like Hitler was but it was there in his and his administration's actions. His invasion of Iraq was almost a repeat of Hitler's invasion of Poland. No historian, other than a lying one like Pat Buchanan, would deny it. Naomi Klein framed it very well but she preferred to call it fascism, not Nazism. These people are just shouting out words and they don't know what they are talking about. Nazi, Socialist, Communist, Hippie, etc., etc., etc. are all being thrown out there by these 'morans' and they don't have a clue about what they mean.

[Are_grits_groceries]

15. I'm guilty too.

There can be similarities to ideas in places, but a flat out equivalence is wrong. Fascism is a political ideology that can grow anywhere and take different paths. Being called a Nazi puts someone in a specific place and time and makes them seem the same as the acts committed then.

[Echo In Light]

14. The catch is, it's impossible to speak of very real FASCISM w/o the obvious references...

... eventually being used, even if that level of politically heated name-calling is not the intention of the one raising the spectre of fascism in America.

[Are_grits_groceries]

22. The arguments roll to extremes.

Right now, they start off with Hitler.

By invoking Hitler or Mao or any particular bugaboo, you lose sight of what is really happening. With Bush I think we

had "fascism creep." Hitler didn't start out by marching into every country and rounding up Jewish people. He built on

the fear created by the conditions under the Weimar Republic, and people were ripe to hear him. If you don't catch

the first signs, it may roll right on in. However, it won't be Hitler. It would be Cheney. He deserves his own

definition.

[Echo In Light]

30. I suspect, too, that RW propagandists are strategically using the criticisms of Bush/Cheney...

... as a means of 'defanging' the substance of the critiques. The top-down script writers understand that if the dim bulbs are out there shouting "pinko-commie-fascist!" nonsense that it serves to relegate the substantive views down to that same illogical name-calling.

[Are_grits_groceries]

31. That's the truth.

They want it on an extreme level. It helps them scare people. "Pulling the plug on Granny."

[Echo In Light]

32. "You gotch yer fascism in my communism!" - "You gotch yer communism in my fascism!"

Auh well, either way granny bites it.

[Ozymanithrax]

19. Every time somebody makes a Hitler or Nazi comparison,

... A Devil gets its horns - or an angel gets its wings.

Evil doesn't start out big.
Often it begins, petty, small.
Sometimes Evil begins with the best of intentions.

Germany faced horrendous problems in those days after WWI.
People chose solutions that worked but were bad.
(Leading through baby steps to final solutions)

We were no different.
Henry Ford was a Hitler Fan and received medals.
Prescott Bush and other bankers of his ilk enriched themselves,
and were fans of Hitler's methods.

So if our comparisons are fashioned carefully,
it does not belittle that monstrous evil.
That is just how this stuff starts out.

There but for the grace of God go I.

Becomes

Gott Mitt Uns

or

In God We Trust.

[tuckessee]

20. So you think there are never any legitimate comparisons to the Third Reich era?

The time spans a twelve year period (twenty six if we go back to the founding of the NSDAP) of which only the last three contained the Holocaust (see the Wansee Conference 1942).

Seems to me you're asking people to forget history. You want them to condense a complex historical era with many events, trends, policies, etc into the final culminating event, not only completely ignoring what led to it but forgetting everything else as well.

[Are_grits_groceries]

26. No I don't want to forget it.

However, by flinging a term such as Hitler or Nazi around every time somebody doesn't like something, those terms

become meaningless. They are no longer attached to the true history. The complexities are lost unless it is a true

discussion about trends and ideas. A Nazi is a fascist, but a fascist doesn't have to be a Nazi.

What happens may resemble the conditions that created Nazis, but Hitler and certain terms are specific to a certain

time.

A holocaust is "an act of mass destruction and loss of life (especially in war or by fire)." The Holocaust is specific

to the acts in WWII.

[ashling]

21. Every time someone mentions Hitler or Nazis

Jame Buchanan gets a hard on.

:rofl:

[Swamp Rat]

23. Heil Godwin!

[Octafish]

36. Super Duper Super Monkey.

Know your BFEE: Like a NAZI



¡Compay! ¿Como handa?

[Jennicut]

24. I think these people that throw fascism around are confused as to where it lies on the political

spectrum. Fascism incorporated ideas from both the right and left. Fascists liked dividing people to keep power over them, they also took over all industry. Its confusing at times to people with small brains. Most fascists saw themselves as being a "third way" and not either right or left.

[arcadian]

27. Ich schwöre bei Gott diesen heiligen Eid, daß ichdem Führer des Deutschen Reiches und Volkes, Godwin

Mike Godwin, dem Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht, unbedingten Gehorsam leisten und als tapferer Soldat bereit sein will, jederzeit für diesen Eid mein Leben einzusetzen!

[Are_grits_groceries]

29. Well, I'm not going to swear an oath with my life

for anything that I can think of. I may decide something is worth fighting for to the death at some point, but I would have to think on it.

[arcadian]

33. People that invoke Godwin's Law are nothing but a bunch of Brown shirts.

[ThomWV]

38. The Hitler comparisons are always wrong, but the Nazi comparisons may be useful

We always associate the word Nazi with the german atrocities that ended with World War II but its instructive to see how that Party rose to power, how it moved policy into practice, what its driving motivations were, what its appeal to the masses was, and always a good idea to look at economic and international policy as well. These are things that we should be aware of and constantly vigilant to see that what happened then doesn't happen now. That means that you really can't ignore the most formative influence on our modern culture that exists and fortunately one that has received a great deal of study and for which there is rich documentation. You can not learn a lesson from history ignored.

[Are_grits_groceries]

43. I am not saying ignore history.

Looking at how countries and governments evolved is always useful. My argument is that equating Hitler and Nazis to what is happening now can be misleading. There are trends that can be the same, but that doesn't mean there will be an exact correlation.

The other reason to avoid the Hitler/Nazi idea is because once you take that route it focuses people on one man and one group. It stops legitimate discussion. Fascism to me is the better term with appropriate analogies to Nazis.

As far as BFEE's ties to Nazi's, that is a matter of record.

Good Lord, we better not ignore history. However, we can draw the wrong conclusions from it.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

40. Blacks were put into concentration camps by the Nazis during WWII

Calling the black President of the United States a Nazi or another Hitler is about as far out and loony as it gets.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?ModuleId=10005479

Black people were considered untermenschen by the Nazis along with the Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals, and mentally handicapped. German black people (who came into Germany as a result of their African colonies) were horribly mistreated by German society. And black people living in Europe, even American blacks, were sent to camps or murdered by the Gestapo.

".....Some African Americans, caught in German-occupied Europe during World War II, also became victims of the Nazi regime. Many, like female jazz artist Valaida Snow, were imprisoned in Axis internment camps for alien nationals. The artist Josef Nassy, living in Belgium, was arrested as an enemy alien and held for seven months in the Beverloo transit camp in German-occupied Belgium. He was later transferred to Germany, where he spent the rest of the war in the Laufen internment camp and its subcamp, Tittmoning, both in Upper Bavaria.

European and American blacks were also interned in the Nazi concentration camp system. Lionel Romney, a sailor in the U.S. Merchant Marine, was imprisoned in the Mauthausen concentration camp. Jean Marcel Nicolas, a Haitian national, was incarcerated in the Buchenwald and Dora-Mittelbau concentration camps in Germany. Jean Voste, an African Belgian, was incarcerated in the Dachau concentration camp. Bayume Mohamed Hussein from Tanganyika (today Tanzania) died in the Sachsenhausen camp, near Berlin.

Black prisoners of war faced illegal incarceration and mistreatment at the hands of the Nazis, who did not uphold the regulations imposed by the Geneva Convention (international agreement on the conduct of war and the treatment of wounded and captured soldiers). Lieutenant Darwin Nichols, an African American pilot, was incarcerated in a Gestapo prison in Butzbach. Black soldiers of the American, French, and British armies were worked to death on construction projects or died as a result of mistreatment in concentration or prisoner-of-war camps. Others were never even incarcerated, but were instead immediately killed by the SS or Gestapo. ....."

[AntiFascist]

41. It's not just Godwin's Law...

associating Nazis with Communists shows how illiterate these people are. Also, most of these knuckledraggers would like to see gay people put to death, so in this instance, are they really so different from that which they project?

[Ignis]

42. Careful, some at DU take ENORMOUS offense to G's Law.

Why? Hell if I know, but I've had people become apoplectic when I dared to reference Godwin's Law after some idiot said that all vegans are Nazis.

:shrug:

[damntexdem]

44. The problem with Godwin's Law is that some politics really is comparable to Nazis/Fascism.

Godwin's law should only apply if the speaker cannot demonstrate the elements that constitute a fascist politics or approach.