Reply #10: To be honest, I think Godwin's Law is overrated.

[Berry Cool]

While I am all in favor of not making a comparison to Hitler or Nazis without a great deal of aforethought and unless it is truly warranted--comparisons to them should not be used as a cheap, easy weapon with which to bash one's enemies--I do not think they are always utterly out of line.

For example: Keith Olbermann puts a picture of Bill O'Reilly's face over his and gives a Nazi salute. Apropos, or no?

I say after what Bill-O did, trying to equate anything that happened at Haditha with "what American soldiers did to Nazis at Malmedy," it's apropos.

Bill-O was trying to say all's fair in love and war, whether it's American soldiers killing Iraqi civilians or American soldiers killing Nazi soldiers in WWII. But, uh, wait. First of all, his WWII example doesn't involve a civilian massacre. Second of all, it's false anyway, because at Malmedy it was NAZIS killing AMERICAN soldiers, not the other way around.

When this was pointed out to him--after he yelled over Gen. Wesley Clark for saying otherwise--he simply said he was referring to vengeance killings some Americans had done of Nazis afterward. Yeah, same difference, eh, Bill?

In other words, Bill tried to say American soldiers killing Iraqi civilians was no worse than American soldiers killing Nazi soldiers. Sounds to me like either he was saying it was OK for American soldiers to kill anyone they want, or that it's bad for American soldiers to kill Iraqi civilians but it's no worse than when they killed Nazi soldiers. Both were equally bad.

Which sounds to me like he's sticking up for the Nazi soldiers.

Which sounds to me like Olbermann was trying to make a point by wearing a mask of Bill and giving a Nazi salute.

But if you believe the freepers, well, they invoked Godwin's Law and declared him the loser of the argument, just because he alluded to Nazis.

And some other people did too--claiming that what Hitler did was so bad and utterly unique and should never ever be compared to anything else and certainly never used to get a laugh. Which might be news to Mel Brooks, for one.

As for me, I wonder if we don't kid ourselves by putting Hitler in a unique category apart from all other genocidal despots. I wonder if we don't, to some extent, treasure him too much that way. In a way, it's like acting as if he is sacred somehow.

I don't believe Hitler should BE sacred. I think he should be down in the same hole with every other despot who ever lived.

Let's not make reference to ANY of them easily and lightly. But when we do--maybe the first thing people should say is not "You lose the argument," but "Is this person making an easy comparison--or do they actually have a point?"