But if they really are acting like Nazis, does Godwin's Law still apply?
A predictably anonymous reader criticizes me at one of posts below for violating Godwin's law:
The wikipedia link to Godwin's law, and the inevitable sink of political conversation to comparisons to Nazi Germany or Hitler, should point to this site, as the lead example. You know of course, but don't care, that such mention, is taken as proof that your arguments are too weak to otherwise carry the day (but of course you have the alternate high ground of threatening your adversaries with a shot to the head or treason trials once your ilk has magically transformed our great land and people). What an abscessed hole ...
My reaction? If they really are acting like Nazis, does Godwin's Law still apply? The latest example:
U.S. Repeals Propaganda Ban, Spreads Government-Made News To Americans.
For decades, a so-called anti-propaganda law prevented the U.S. government's mammoth broadcasting arm from delivering programming to American audiences. But on July 2, that came silently to an end with the implementation of a new reform passed in January. The result: an unleashing of thousands of hours per week of government-funded radio and TV programs for domestic U.S. consumption in a reform initially criticized as a green light for U.S. domestic propaganda efforts.
"This is not an assault! We are not Nazis! Okay, so maybe we're ACTING like Nazis, but Godwin's Law still applies and you can't say so . . . Not that your dead gassed children will care."
3 comments:
Does it still apply? That's debatable, but probably no.
"The law and its corollaries would not apply to discussions covering known mainstays of Nazi Germany such as genocide, eugenics, or racial superiority, nor, more debatably, to a discussion of other totalitarian regimes or ideologies, if that was the explicit topic of conversation, since a Nazi comparison in those circumstances may be appropriate, in effect committing the fallacist's fallacy. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
Godwin's Law is nothing but a tool to suppress debate. Any mention of the NAZIs - even as an example of a government doing something is taken as a "Godwin violation" and the other side promptly does a "talk to the hand" and terminates the debate. It matters not in what context NAZI Germany is mentioned - even in a discussion of weapons or tactics of war - the mere referencing of Germany in the time between WWI and WWII will be used as an excuse to discount everything the one bringing it up has presented. I believe that the party which INVOKES Godwin's Law does so because they recognize the weakness of their position and are looking to discredit their opponent(s) by any means fair or foul.
Might explain why the dips at FCC are trying to pack the TV spectrum down tighter. Not just to free up spectrum for the iphoneys.
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