Comments on: In case you missed it

By: bi

bi — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 04:54:19 +0000

The comparisons of everything non-libertarian and non-conservative to Nazism.

By: Martin Bento

Martin Bento — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 15:35:12 +0000

I’m not sure what you mean by that. You mean the comparisons of Stalinism to Nazism?

By: bi

bi — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 12:14:54 +0000

Martin Bento:

Weren’t the original Nazi comparisons part of why the American public is so far to the right in the first place?

By: Martin Bento

Martin Bento — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 09:50:02 +0000

I didn’t, that was badtux. And, yes, his point was crudely stated. But the important matter is that we are dealing with a conservative movement that is fascistic in many respects, and the liberal response has been crippled by a refusal to see it in these terms for fear of sensationalism. If we cannot yell “Nazi” unless there are actually railroad cars being filled, we will be forced into silence until the very day they start filling, by which time it will likely be too late for the accusation to have any effect. Given that Nazi comparisons are frequently made unfairly, it is important to define clearly the nature of the comparison, but the knee-jerk prohibition represented by Godwin has served us very poorly when it mattered. And although Godwin is much more often right than wrong, the cost when it is wrong is much higher than the benefit when it is right.

By: ejh

ejh — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 08:17:38 +0000

So why did you invoke 1934?

By: Martin Bento

Martin Bento — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 18:01:18 +0000

ejh, but we’re talking about the mentality of the people involved, not the state of the world. Were the Nazis not Nazis until they actually took power?

By: Katherine

Katherine — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 08:26:11 +0000

Mrs Tilton – gibber. My brain literally cannot process that level of idiocy. If there are more than 5 other idiots listening to him then I’m worried. But I guess I shall just have to cing on to the naive hope that he is so wingnut he can’t possibly become mainstream. Fingers crossed, la la la I can’t hear you.

By: ejh

ejh — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 08:14:16 +0000

Er no. There’s a sizeable difference between people talking about dictatorships and people actually living under one.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:17:43 +0000

Yet more dragging of the goalposts rightward. Ten years ago, if anybody had said that America would torture people, everybody would have looked at you as if you were a bugeyed Martian gibbering nonsense. Everybody knew that Americans don’t torture. That’s those icky third world dictators and such. They’re’ the ones who torture.

Now folks who advocate torture are in positions of power in our government, and nobody ever seems to notice that the goalposts have moved—that what was unacceptable ten years ago now is not only horribly acceptable, but almost unremarked-upon.

If the tighty righties can do for dictatorship what they did for torture, i.e., make it socially acceptable to talk about it (albeit a bit icky but, y’know, the Constitution isn’t a suicide pact blah blah), then we’re Germany 1934. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

– Badtux the Goalposts Penguin

By: Mrs Tilton

Mrs Tilton — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:06:26 +0000

Katherine @76,

what makes this even loopier is that the guy who wrote it is English, too (though he did move to Australia to take up a post as Resident Whingeing Pom).

By: Katherine

Katherine — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:40:54 +0000

“to enforce American language ”

As someone who is actually English, I always roll around laughing when I see this.

By: Mrs Tilton

Mrs Tilton — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 08:42:16 +0000

ejh @71,

it is 1922 and all Ireland is united….except one small province which still holds out against the Romish invaders

That is really rather good.

By: emmanuel goldstein

emmanuel goldstein — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 22:23:33 +0000

Bythinia? in Anatolia? This would suggest that what Bush needs to do at this stage is to screw the King of Nepal. That’d pacify Iraq all right – everyone would be too gobsmacked to carry on fighting.

Awesome; I daren’t shut my eyes now.

By: Martin Bento

Martin Bento — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 21:14:32 +0000

So a leading conservative think tank publishes a piece calling for the President to become a permanent dictator, justified by the intrinsic weakness of democracy. In this role, he is supposed to commit a vast genocide against the Semites and others of the Middle East so as to generate Lebensraum for Americans. Now is it OK to call these guys Nazis, or are we still playing by those silly Godwin rules?

By: Sock Puppet of the Great Satan

Sock Puppet of the Great Satan — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 17:59:05 +0000

“Bythinia? in Anatolia? ”

Ah. My Bad.