Problem is, their rhetoric, imagery, and tactics (is there anything else?) come right out of the National Socialist playbook.
Tell that to the victums of Pol Pot, or "enclosing", or The Great Leap Forward. The whole history of the late 20th Century was filled with such examples.
Many who study these events think silence the only appropriate response. “There is nothing,” says scholar Lawrence Langer, “to be learned from a baby torn in two or a woman buried live.”
Apparently not by Socialists and Communists.
NFP
To compare what Hitler did with what Obama has in mind, Hitler was a choir boy!
Let’s hope he fails dismally.
Godwin’s Law (also known as Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies)[1] is a humorous observation coined by Mike Godwin in 1990, and which has become an Internet adage. It states: “As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”[2][3]
Godwin’s Law is often cited in online discussions as a deterrent against the use of arguments in the widespread reductio ad Hitlerum form. The rule does not make any statement about whether any particular reference or comparison to Adolf Hitler or the Nazis might be appropriate, but only asserts that the likelihood of such a reference or comparison arising increases as the discussion progresses. It is precisely because such a comparison or reference may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued,[4] that overuse of Nazi and Hitler comparisons should be avoided, because it robs the valid comparisons of their impact.
Although in one of its early forms Godwin’s Law referred specifically to Usenet newsgroup discussions,[5] the law is now applied to any threaded online discussion: electronic mailing lists, message boards, chat rooms, and more recently blog comment threads and wiki talk pages.
Godwin’s Law (also known as Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies)[1] is a humorous observation coined by Mike Godwin in 1990, and which has become an Internet adage. It states: “As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”[2][3]
Godwin’s Law is often cited in online discussions as a deterrent against the use of arguments in the widespread reductio ad Hitlerum form. The rule does not make any statement about whether any particular reference or comparison to Adolf Hitler or the Nazis might be appropriate, but only asserts that the likelihood of such a reference or comparison arising increases as the discussion progresses. It is precisely because such a comparison or reference may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued,[4] that overuse of Nazi and Hitler comparisons should be avoided, because it robs the valid comparisons of their impact.
Although in one of its early forms Godwin’s Law referred specifically to Usenet newsgroup discussions,[5] the law is now applied to any threaded online discussion: electronic mailing lists, message boards, chat rooms, and more recently blog comment threads and wiki talk pages.
Godwin’s Law (also known as Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies)[1] is a humorous observation coined by Mike Godwin in 1990, and which has become an Internet adage. It states: “As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”[2][3]
Godwin’s Law is often cited in online discussions as a deterrent against the use of arguments in the widespread reductio ad Hitlerum form. The rule does not make any statement about whether any particular reference or comparison to Adolf Hitler or the Nazis might be appropriate, but only asserts that the likelihood of such a reference or comparison arising increases as the discussion progresses. It is precisely because such a comparison or reference may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued,[4] that overuse of Nazi and Hitler comparisons should be avoided, because it robs the valid comparisons of their impact.
Although in one of its early forms Godwin’s Law referred specifically to Usenet newsgroup discussions,[5] the law is now applied to any threaded online discussion: electronic mailing lists, message boards, chat rooms, and more recently blog comment threads and wiki talk pages.
It is a historical movement, but absolutely NOT unique in the ambitions of its cruelty. Stalin and Mao made Hitler look like an Eagle Scout, but we live in a historically illiterate world where no one knows the true history of socialism. In a historically literate world, calling someone a Socialist would be the same thing as calling them a Nazi, because they're just branches of the same destructive cult of Marxism.
I'm going to use that, someday. Gore Vidal always was a jerk and his nephew isn't any better.
Problem is, their rhetoric, imagery, and tactics (is there anything else?) come right out of the National Socialist playbook.
The Nazis came to power promising to fix the economy, fix transportation, create jobs, improve education, save the environment, and restore the world’s respect for the nation. They didn’t say; “vote for us, we are going to kill Jews, Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, Gypsies, and mentally retarded.”
History is repeating itself. Only the scapegoats are different.
“For the survivors of Nazism, memory is a kind of sacred duty.”
Okay, but is it not sacred to remember Nazism in its nascent stages, full of Germanic pride and lying promises? Pride and promises that led, when fully inflamed, to the horrorshow?
Mr Gerson,
Please explain to me why the president’s and Congress’ solutions to our problems are always fascist? eg.- why do they always take control of corporations or corporate output, or are socialist/collectivist in nature?
I believe it is fair to characterize the current political powers as behaving in a fascist manner.
AFPhys
The Holacaust is a product of the ideology of the NSDAF, but it was not the only one. Another was the o completion of the state control of the German people that began with the Prussianization of Germany. Once that was achieved, any thing could be done. The Nazi” New Deal” made the German people into the compliant slaves of Adolph Hitler.
“undermines the “special reverence we need to feel for that which is hateful.” Nazism is not a useful symbol for everything that makes us angry. It is a historical movement, unique in the ambitions of its cruelty.”
I commented elsewhere that it is a form of Holocaust denial.
Let me clarify. The result of its misuse and overuse is a collective minimization, a societal immunization to its horrors. It numbs us. We lose the “special reverence.”
Actually, Nazism was also a slickly packaged politician with a, for-the-most-part benign-sounding name (national socialism) and program, lead by a charismatic spokesman. Its following didn’t grow by making old men dance around burning Torah scrolls, but by colorful rallies and stirring speeches, by peaceful boycotts of Jewish stores and by the passage of laws. To claim that Nazism hit the ground running as a blatantly brutal and mendacious campaign of mass murder and all out war is a distortion of the historical record. It is entirely legitimate for Rush Limbaugh to compare Obama’s administration to that of the Nazis, so long as that comparison is factual and uses logic instead of sensationalism. Nazism, after all, started within the framework of a democracy, so it must be identified early while it can still be dealt with by democratic means. Thus, it may be imperative to call the Obamaniacs Nazis, if the facts and reasoning supports the charge.
The cheap Gore Vidal tactic, however, used neither logic nor facts. He was smearing an important intellectual and his ideas, while simultaneously exempting himself from any need to substantiate his charges solely by virtue of having committed that smear. Goebbels would have been proud.