Does it violate Goodwin's Law

[edhopper]

when it's true?

I am sorry, but the Republican Party today are Nazis.

[BlueCaliDem]

1. No. Not when it's true. But I don't believe that the Republican Party are Nazis, though.

I believe the majority of Republican voters, are. Especially a large segment of our police force, considering the brutality and deadly force they wield so quickly on anyone who dares to defy them in any which way - even a cross look!

[guillaumeb]

2. how can you say that?

The NAZIs had a state religion, were obsessed with the military, demonized anyone who disagreed with them, had no problem killing those with whom they disagreed, picked out specific groups of people to blame for everything, were obsessed with crazy "race science" and genetics, and hated gays.

and yes, the GOP does share those tendencies, but there must be SOMETHING that is different about them.

Right?

[Lancero]

4. Well... Hitler did put quite a bit of funding towards building new roads.

Republicans could give less then a shit about building and maintaining our road networks.

[guillaumeb]

7. But Eisenhower started the interstate highway system

another GOP/ NAZI coincidence?

Plus, the autobahn and the interstate highway system had as their intent the facilitation of military movement in the country.

ANOTHER GOP/NAZI coincidence?

[Lancero]

9. True, though I was thinking the comparison was with the modern GOP not the old one.

[rogerashton]

6. State religion?

Not really.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity

[guillaumeb]

11. I meant the NAZI philosophy itself

not organized religion. Although Hitler was obsessed with certain Christian relics but as a source of power.

[NuclearDem]

3. Nothing violates Godwin's law.

Godwin's Law is simply an observation about internet discussions: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." It's not meant to assert a fallacy.

What you're thinking of is the reductio ad Hitlerum, which is an association fallacy.

[edhopper]

5. I thought Goodwin's Law

was that when you compare something to the Nazis, you lose the argument.

at least that is what I was going on.

[NuclearDem]

10. That's a popular misconception.

It did start as a tool to discourage hyperbolic uses of Nazi comparisons, but nothing about it says invoking Hitler or Nazis causes someone to lose an argument.

There are completely valid comparisons to Hitler and the Nazis; for all other uses, there's the reductio ad Hitlerum.

[guillaumeb]

8. is reductio ad hitlerum

the equivalent of reduction ad absurdum?

like your wording.

[NuclearDem]

13. I can't take credit for the wording.

In a lot of ways, yeah, I'd say it's similar to reductio ad absurdum.

[TheKentuckian]

12. There is no such "law" it is an axiom largely used to frame anything short of Hitler as acceptable

I don't think that was the original idea at all but it has devolved into such over the years.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

14. They're not, and so it does.

Like pretty much everyone on the internet who uses Nazi analogies, a) you think it's true, and b) you're wrong.

This is precisely the situation Goodwin's law was invented for.

[Zorra]

15. Whoever appointed Godwin God did not have the authority to do so. nt