You make the comment:
I am stunned at how easily guilt-by-association arguments can sway so many freepers.
I hesitate to comment, no, I won't comment upon it because I am unsure in which way you mean it.
Please bear with me and give me a little of where you're coming from or going to with your statement.
Thanks
Restrictions on smoking, however, are good public policy. Smoking is bad for public health. That's a fact, and the promotion of public health is one of the roles of government, unless you are a libertarian, which the founding fathers were not.
Using the fact that the Nazis restricted smoking is not a valid argument against such restrictions. Such an argument employs a fallacy that logicians call guilt by association. Are you going to tell me that it is evil to make trains run on time because the Nazis did it?