Godwin's Law: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”
Godwins Gesetz: Mit zunehmender Länge einer Online-Diskussion nähert sich die
Wahrscheinlichkeit für einen Vergleich mit Hitler oder den Nazis dem
Wert Eins an.
Here is today's blog post from Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman: Hitler Heaven
"Sen. Jim DeMint says that America under Obama is like Germany before World War II. Republican women in Maryland say that Obama is like Hitler. Hitler comparisons are apparently rife at tea parties. What’s gotten into the GOP?
Nothing. This has been going on all along. Back in 2002 Sen. Charles
Grassley — reputedly a moderate — compared the think tank Citizens for
Tax Justice to Hitler,
because it claimed that 40 percent of the first Bush tax cut would go
to the richest 1 percent of the population. (The actual number,
according to the authoritative Tax Policy Center: 42 percent.)
The point is that extremist rhetoric on the right — even the
allegedly moderate right — has been the norm for many years. The only
difference now is that news organizations aren’t as diffident about
reporting it.
Senator DeMint's said the following:
where we are, we’re about where Germany was before World War II where
they became a social democracy."
This statement displays an appalling ignorance of history. The German social democrats were the most consistent opponents of National Socialism, and were outlawed in Germany after the Nazi seizure of power. Many leading social democrats perished in Hitler's concentration camps.
The right wing gained zero traction among American voters when they claimed that Barack Obama was a "socialist". So what do they think can be gained by comparing him to Hitler?
