23rd September 2008, 11:10 AM
From Rotten.com's Library:
Quote:Hitler's most pernicious impact on everyday life (aside from providing an endless supply of source material for the History Channel) has been in the domain of rhetoric. His fiery brand of speechmaking has all but disappeared, but his name is invoked in arguments all the time as a form of litmus test. In any debate, Hitler's opinion on the subject is automatically the evil one, so it had better be contrary to the side you're arguing.
Conversely, you can attack an opponent simply by declaring his position to be consistent with Hitler's. This tactic has long been a fixture of the Usenet newsgroups, which eventually prompted Godwin to formulate his famous Law of Nazi Analogies:
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
In case you deem it necessary to play the Hitler card pre-emptively, here's a handy chart for quick reference:
for
- capital punishment
- censorship
- Christianity
- euthanasia
- genocide
- gun control
- Leni Riefenstahl films
- racial purity
against
- atheism
- capitalism
- communism
- "degenerate" art
- democracy
- feminism
- Freemasonry
- gypsies
- homosexuals
- Jehova's Witnesses
- Jews
- labour unions
- miscegenation
- nudism
- pacifism
- Poles
- pornography
- prostitution
- psychoanalysis
- Slavs
- smoking