I'm right because...you're a Nazi

Spiked (UK) ^ | 24 January 2002 | Josie Appleton

[Diamond]

Anti-abortion ('pro-life') activists claim that 'abortion is akin to the holocaust, family planning officials are officers of the Gestapo' (5). One elaborates on this comparison: 'The abortion fanatic, like the Nazi, speaks of "removing" the victim to avoid admitting that the victim is being killed. And, like Nazis, those who participate in abortions frequently suffer excessive drinking, sleep disturbances, and disrupted relationships'

The author does here what he condemns in the article. He does use the the perjorative sounding "anti-abortion", and put "pro-life" in quotes, but he never really says why the analogy of abortionism to Naziism is improper. Sometimes such analogies are entirely valid, and comparison of mass abortionist killings of babies with certain aspects of the mass murders that the Nazis perpetrated is one of those instances.

Cordially,

[Ahban]

That's just what I thought. Sometimes analogies are FLAWED analogies because the two things being compared are not really alike in the sense that the comparison is made in. For example :To call people who harbour such doubts 'holocaust deniers' is a flawed analogy because overwhelming evidene indicates that the holocaust DID occur. It is MUCH less certain that man-made global warming is a threat to our well-being.

OTOH, there is no doubt that Abortion is like the holocaust in the sense that the comparison is made in. One group, the unborn, has been targeted for destruction mostly for out of a selfish desire of a more powerful group to have "living space" in a lifestyle sense. Even the numbers are roughly the same. I think about 1/3 the Jews in Europe were slaughtered. About 1/3 preganancies in the USA ended in abortion at its height. It is not much off of that now.

Conclusion: Some people really DO act like Nazis in one sense or another. The abortion crowd is among them.

[Ahban]

Errr, brain ahead of fingers. I menat to put after the "For Example" ..."Those who have doubts about global warming.

[CommiesOut]

It feels as if society has completely lost its (...) sense of direction
Not for nothing do [they] still call us les grands enfants

[GROUCHOTWO]

Les grands enfants, infesting academia, should be credited with destroying Western values. This is aptly illustrated in your first link. Tel Aviv and New York have much in common.

[BluesDuke]

Hitler was an evil man. He had millions murdered. the jews suffered terribly in those camps until they were gassed or shot or got sick or starved to death. It was inhuman. But no less inhuman than other, more recent attrocities. The jews have their own homeland back as a result. Those who committed these acts of genocide were tried and convicted. Why can't the world move on? There are others still alive who need prosecution for genocide who have never even met a jew or heard of Hitler.

You kind of answered your own question. The most compelling reason not to forget or move on, ever, from the Holocaust, is precisely because such an atrocity could, and did, happen a) again, and b) even contemporarily to the Holocaust (think Stalin). If the world were to "move on" from such murder, the world would become even more subhuman than many believe it now to be. And there are those of us who might pray devoutly that because Hitler's henchmen were indeed prosecuted and convicted, that should serve as an example that those who did or so do in the future ought not to escape exemplary justice, however one might find flaws (there were some) in the Nuremberg processes. Indeed the world must never forget such atrocity, even if and when others so responsible are brought somehow to justice. (Though there is much to be said, if you think on it, for the manner in which the like of Mussolini and Ceaucescu were brought to justice...)

[CommiesOut]

The Holocaust And Hate Crimes — Part Of The Socialist Agenda

[CommiesOut]

Sorry for bad link.
The Holocaust And Hate Crimes — Part Of The Socialist Agenda

[LaBelleDameSansMerci]

Thank you for posting the two links in #24. It's a pity you tuck your light so deep inside threads. I hope you start busting out...(all over).....

[57 Corvette]

Your-link Nice read Very interesting

[x]

Great article. I'd have to say though that the "pro-choice" lobby makes the same kind of comparisons as the "pro-life" movement, and with much less justification.

It does seem strange that our contemporaries attack the Nazis for eugenic policies, and then apply very similar ideas and expect not to be compared to Nazis. There is a contradiction here that it's hard not to notice.

Anyway, the article makes a good and provocative point. Also a good zing at Jonah Goldberg -- and by implication many others. The point of argument shouldn't be to reduce one's opponent's position to Nazism.

Unfortunately, I think you'll find that people, even educated people, don't like to think, because that involves the possibility that they may be wrong. The preferred alternative is to remove any opposing views from consideration entirely.

The other problem is that once you recognize that you disagree it's hard to stop or contain the disagreement. It's almost natural in politics to suspect that your opponents are evil or so ignorant and misguided as to be as bad as they would be if they were actually evil. Fortunately, those who aren't politically passionate can judge these disputes and bring a more dispassionate judgement to the discussion.

[Salman]

Why won't anyone explain to me where the 1 1/2 million new jews came from? Am I just remembering wrong?

Russian Jewish dead were included with the Russian dead, but not with the Jews. Now they are included with both.
Sometimes there is a footnote about the overlap.

[virgil]

I have to agree. Not just because of the number of abortions, but because of the way it is being rationalized and how the language of it is corrupted. We say, "abortion is murder". They say, "abortion is mercy". How do you arrive at that? That just seems totally irrational to me. To me its a no-brainer. What rationale did the nazis use to commit abortions? "Euthanizing" the retarded and deformed? What kind of junk science and pseudo-statistics did they use? Rounding up people in the night?