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To: JasonC; cripplecreek; MrB; subterfuge; fr_freak; sefarkas; SpaceBar
Godwin's Avenger. You just lost this argument, the author is right.

No, JasonC, you just demonstrated that your comprehension of Godwin's Law is flawed and your attempted application of it in this thread is incorrect.

Godwin's Law states: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." It is a statistical observation of a Usenet(and now Internet) discussion phenomenon. It makes no judgment about the validity or truth of the analogy in a particular argument.

The fact that a fallacious "tradition" has arisen in online discussion fora that the mere mention of a Nazi comparison automatically loses the argument is merely a tactic adopted by dishonest or incompetent protagonists as a mechanism to forestall debate and evade having to actually demonstrate whether or not the analogy is valid for the particular topic under discussion.

Mike Godwin himself acknowledged that making the Nazi allusion did not automatically void or discredit the argument, and he clearly stated that he formulated Godwin's Law in order to discourage or minimize the trivializing effect its over usage would have on substantive debate.

Whether Horowitz' premise and argument has merit is certainly debatable, but even the creator of Godwin's Law himself would laugh at your speciously clumsy attempt to avoid making your case. You're no Godwin's Avenger - you're more like Godwin's Mangler... /grin

306 posted on 04/07/2009 7:17:00 PM PDT by tarheelswamprat
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To: tarheelswamprat
I didn't cite the law, I cited the avenger. Look it up. What any individual thinks about usenet is irrelevant, everyone who was actually there knows the avenger and what it means.
311 posted on 04/07/2009 7:25:34 PM PDT by JasonC
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To: tarheelswamprat

Billiant. It is sophistry. It’s a Straw Man argument. Classic fallacy. Liberals pull this all the time when they try to make it sound like they are running against the skinheads or the Klan. They did it with Palin.


331 posted on 04/07/2009 7:52:22 PM PDT by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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