Because why go for reasoned argument when you can throw around hyperbole?
Leftists are comparing Bush to Hitler. Bush and Bushites are comparing Bin Laden to Hitler. Apparently analogies are no longer rhetorical tools, but have become arguments themselves.
One of my favorite law professors used to note, humorously, that whichever side invokes Hitler first, loses. His point was clear: guilt by association always has been, and always will be, a logical fallacy. I don't know or care who started it here. So I'm going to call it: when people on both sides stop arguing and resort to yelling and name-calling, we've all lost.
Dammit. I hate losing.
posted by Law Fairy @ 2:44 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
Yes, but sadly, too many people take the easy way which doesn't involve original thinking. And in the instances you cite, if everyone is compared to Hitler, he becomes meaningless as a standard. And that is just plain wrong. We badly need to keep our archvillains intact (and our heroes) or else we have no one against whom to measure our own behavior.
I hate losing, too. I hate the way we're going, and I really hate the fact that I have only the mere power of my vote to change it.
Exactly. It's like someone yelled "you're Hitler!" and the response is "I know you are, but what am I?" So sad that the level of discourse in the country has sunk so low...
I'd trust more in the right to vote if we were more *actually* democratic. But elections nowadays are barely more than circuses. Thanks to an overabundance of polls, elections have become a yawn-worthy event, and thanks to soulless politicians and the equally soulless corporations that fund them, the winner rarely makes a huge difference. Either way, the country's going to shit.
The only consolation is that fifty years from now, people will be comparing terrorists and other despots to George W. Bush.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
Was your professor Godwin? Although Godwin's law simply states that as a discussion grows longer, the probablility that someone will make a comparison to Hitler approaches 100%, it is sometimes used for the idea that whoever first does so, loses.
I like that Hitler statement from your professor. Uber-clever.
Sixer, let's not forget Richard Simmons. I'm convinced that hell involves eternal bad dancing to crappy old music (I mean the bad oldies, not the good oldies) smushed in between fat people who should have gotten a heart attack within the first two steps.
Andy, as long as we're allowed to use the words "terrorists" and "despots" after we've switched over to Newspeak.
T, interesting -- cool idea, too. But no -- the professor I'm talking about is David Strauss at the University of Chicago. If anyone reading this ends up heading there for law school, I cannot recommend him highly enough.
Roonie, yeah, he was one of my very very tip-top favorites.
Special Sauce, possibly -- although I don't think any politicians are harmless. It's like they say, power corrupts...
Drew, don't forget, too, there's a little Slim Shady in all of us :)
hello,
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bob
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