Godwin’s Law With a Vengeance

Godwin’s Law, or as it was originally stated, Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies, states that as any threaded internet discussion proceeds, the longer the discussion, the more likely someone is to compare a point of view to beliefs held by Adolf Hitler, the world’s most recently most-reviled human. A corollary to the rule states that once someone makes that analogy, the arguer has immediately lost the debate.

Well Hank Williams, Jr. son of the revered country western icon, Hank Williams, recently demonstrated Godwin’s Law in action when he compared President Obama’s recent round of golf with Speaker Boehner to a round of golf between Adolf Hitler and Benjamin Netanyahu.

And then he defended the analogy.

Losing the debate.

Losing his job.

Godwin’s Law with a vengeance.

ESPN announced that it was pulling Junior’s Monday Night Football performance of All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight, a Monday Night Football tradition since 1989. ESPN obviously did not want to look like it endorsed Junior’s point of view, and I can see their point. I am sure it would have been back next week as Americans are notorious for their lack of any long-term memory at all.

But Williams, Jr. responded in kind, cutting off his nose to spite his face, and took home his toys. It’s his song and he won’t be singing it on ESPN ever again. He cited that his 1^st Amendment rights had been violated.

Now I am a fair-minded person, something that I try to keep secret, and can see the sides of both ESPN and Williams, Jr. ESPN made a business decision, though, not a constitutional decision. Williams, Jr. would most certainly have been back. But like the pouting child that he is, he pulled his act, something he was not doing for free.

That’s fine. If Junior can afford not to do this weekly gig at ESPN, fine. He just needs to know what force of nature was operating here. It wasn’t the constitution and it wasn’t the business world.

It was Godwin’s Law, acting with a vengeance.

Rush Limbaugh and Godwin’s Law

Speaking of gas bags, now we have that radio entertainer – I could hardly call him a commentator – Rush Limbaugh, comparing the Democratic Party to Hitler’s Nazi Party.

Now anyone who has been on the internets for any period of time knows what happens next.

Rush Limbaugh automatically loses the argument.

This is a result of Godwin’s Law. Proposed by Mike Godwin in 1990, it was initially a discussion on threaded conversations on a Usenet, that as the length of the thread gets longer, the probability of someone being compared to Hitler approaches 1.

Corollaries have been offered, and the law itself has evolved to its present incarnation:

The first person who brings up Hitler or the Nazi Party in a debate automatically loses the argument.

Now Limbaugh might argue that Nancy Pelosi actually used the N-word first, and in that he would be completely wrong – as usual. Pelosi was making the observation that a few of the teabaggers who were invading recent town halls conducted by congressmen were carrying signs bearing swastikas. She wasn’t calling them Nazis, she was indicating that these people are from the radical fringe.

Here’s the discussion of Limbaush’s Nazi-Calling on today’s Hardball on MSNBC.

I like Shrum’s comment about being back on oxycodone and hydrocodone.

85 Days to Godwin’s Law

I have to hand it to the neoconservatives who are (thankfully) now out of power. It didn’t take them long.

It only took them 85 days for Godwin’s Law to preside over public discourse on the internet.

Or anywhere else, for that matter.

Godwin’s Law, for those who don’t know, is a law of modern human discourse. There are lots of versions, but the one I like is the one that attempts to quantify the phenomenon.

Godwin’s Law: “As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”

Now this law was constructed in 1990 when the internet was in its infancy, and the mode of exchange of the day was a “Usenet.” But now internet discussion has mushroomed to include just about every form of human information exchange there is in existence. Godwin’s Law, by all rights, should be applied accordingly

There is a corollary to Godwin’s Law that is sometimes mistaken for the actual law. Here is Corollary 1 to Godwin’s Law:

“Once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically "lost" whatever debate was in progress.”

Neoconservatives were falling all over themselves last year calling Barack Obama a socialist. The trouble is, the term “socialist” doesn’t have the bite it once had. Not since education became publicly funded. Not since Social Security was enacted.

And Medicare.

Socialist programs all.

And it certainly didn’t help warn off the voters, did it?

So if it doesn’t work trying to associate Barack Obama with far leftwing politics, why not change tactics and associate him with far rightwing politics?

Why not compare Barack Obama to Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini? Why not?

So that’s exactly with former Michigan GOP chairman Saul Anuzis decided to do, and used this as his rationale.

“‘We’ve so overused the word ‘socialism’ that it no longer has the negative connotation it had 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago,’ Mr. Anuzis said. ‘Fascism — everybody still thinks that’s a bad thing.’”

Well heck, at least he’s honest.

He’s even a little analytical about it, about how the term needs to be dressed up the correct way in order not to sound like a psychotic person:

“‘It’s politically very incorrect only because we’re not used to it,’ concluded Mr. Anuzis, who recently joined American Solutions for Winning the Future, a group led by Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker. But he acknowledged, ‘You’ve got to be careful using the term ‘economic fascism’ in the right way, so it doesn’t come off as extreme.’”

Trouble is, some were not listening when he threw out those caveats.

From the Montgomery Advertiser:

“If you think I am overreacting, you merely have to look at what leaders of his ilk have done throughout history to gain and maintain power. Yes, he is charismatic and convincing to many. Although I do not intend to link his motives directly, so was Hitler.”

Or as caught on camera at a TEA party:

I found a few more websites, some “waaaay out there” blogs but am going to opt out of linking to them because some of these people look like they are seriously unbalanced. Which is the problem with throwing wild things like this out there in the first place.

Some people see it for what it is: political rhetoric.

Some people believe every single word.