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To: fr_freak
You can talk about a socialist presidency (that's a fact) and can put on tinfoil and worry about socialist dictatorship (which is flat nuts but you are free to be a vigilant nutter if you like). Neither requires stepping in the pile of steaming that evokes Godwin. If any parallel in it were remotely close you could try to soberly make that case, but you aren't and neither is anyone else. Instead you are engaged in the classic rhetorical overreach of the reductio ad Hitler, "like Hitler, a lover of dogs..." In case nobody noticed, the whole point of Godwin is that this *always* happens when one side loses an argument.
154 posted on 04/06/2009 9:51:36 AM PDT by JasonC
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To: JasonC
Instead you are engaged in the classic rhetorical overreach of the reductio ad Hitler, "like Hitler, a lover of dogs..." In case nobody noticed, the whole point of Godwin is that this *always* happens when one side loses an argument.

The point of Godwin's Law was that people would get into arguments over anything and invoke Hitler and the Nazis, and that was silly. For example, two people might be arguing about whether there should be a leash law for pets, or whether movie theaters should offer both Coke AND Pepsi, and one of the idiots would say, "Well, if you like corporations to have that much control over people, then you're no different from the Nazis. If you think dogs, who were born to be free in the wild, should have to wear chokers, you are no different than Hitler with the Jews."

When you are discussing a situation where there actually are parallels to pre-Nazi Germany, such as Obama wanting a national security force as powerful as the military at his disposal, and Obama firing corporate CEOs, assuming complete control of the company, it would be asinine NOT to note the similarity.

Your attitude reminds me of the "zero-tolerance" policies that so many small-minded bureaucrats engage in, where 10 year old children are suspended from school for drawing a picture of a gun or bringing Tylenol. Such people lack the ability to discern when certain reactions are appropriate, and when they are not, so they engage in the same reaction every time. You have decided that it is ALWAYS tinfoil conspiracy theory to notice any ominous parallels with Nazis, so you'll use that same reaction even when there really ARE parallels.
187 posted on 04/06/2009 10:39:01 AM PDT by fr_freak
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To: JasonC
In case nobody noticed, the whole point of Godwin is that...

I'm still trying to figure out what the hell this Godwin dude has ever done that usenet geeks are still talking about his silly "law" 20 years after the fact.

190 posted on 04/06/2009 10:44:53 AM PDT by WhistlingPastTheGraveyard
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