I Love You, Barney Frank

barney frank, health care, nazi, townhall, obama, hitler


Do I need to say more?

The Post 911 Godwin

homophobia, homosexual, gay, marriage, godwin, terrorist, hitler, nazi,

In case you're not familiar with Godwin's Law (which would make this discussion rather confusing for you):

Godwin's Law (also known as Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies)[1] is an adage formulated by Mike Godwin in 1990. The law states: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."[2][3]

Godwin's Law is often cited in online discussions as a deterrent against the use of arguments in the reductio ad Hitlerum form.

The rule does not make any statement about whether any particular reference or comparison to Adolf Hitler or the Nazis might be appropriate, but only asserts that one arising is increasingly probable. It is precisely because such a comparison or reference may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued,[4] that overuse of Nazi and Hitler comparisons should be avoided, because it robs the valid comparisons of their impact.

There are many corollaries to Godwin's law, some considered more canonical (by being adopted by Godwin himself)[2] than others invented later.[1] For example, there is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically "lost" whatever debate was in progress.

I posit the Post 911 Godwin: we can now accept "terrorist" as being the equivalent of "Hitler" or "Nazi", and calling someone a terrorist is indeed a Godwin.

I mention this because I was totally Post 911 Godwin'd today (see screenshot above). Apparently, if you call someone a "homophobe", the terrorists have won! And I really need to work on my beard.

Godwin's Law and PF's Corollary

facism, socialism, gingrich, newt, obama, drug, testing, mandatory, fail, hitler, nazi,

In case you've never heard of it, Godwin's Law states that "if you mention Hitler or Nazis in a post, you've automatically ended whatever discussion you were taking part in". After reading an interesting idea from Newt Gingrich (more on that later), I have come up with a corollary to Godwin's Law: invoking facism/Hitler/Nazi often enough is an effective strategy if you have something to do or say that actually is facist, and you don't want your opponent to be able to call you on it.



For example*: by David Niewert, Crooks & Liars




O'Reilly: I don't know whether you know this, but I did one of my papers at Harvard on this -- on how to reduce demand for drugs. But the United States has never figured it out. You can't lock up drug users, I mean, that doesn't work. And you can't force them into rehab, you have to want rehab, and even if you want it, it's very hard to get off hard drugs and alcohol. Very hard.
What you can do, though, is sanction people along the way. And this is what they do in Singapore. If you're caught possessing drugs -- and that means drugs in your bloodstream, they have a little hair thing, and they put it in there -- then you have to go to mandatory rehab. And they have centers where you go.


Now, they have no drug problem in Singapore at all, number one, because they hang drug dealers -- they execute them. And number two, the market is very thin, because when they catch you using, you go away with a mandatory rehab. You go to some rehab center, which they have, which the government has built.


The United States does not have the stomach for that. We don't have the stomach for that, Mr. Speaker.


Gingrich: Well, I think it's time we get the stomach for that, Bill. And I think we need a program -- I would dramatically expand testing. I think we have -- and I agree with you. I would try to use rehabilitation, I'd make it mandatory. And I think we have every right as a country to demand of our citizens that they quit doing illegal things which are funding, both in Afghanistan and in Mexico and in Colombia, people who are destroying civilization.



Conservatives have been throwing "socialist" and "fascist" at Obama nonstop since he was inaugurated (and before, really). At first, I found this to be a gross misunderstanding of both history and politics. To put Obama in the same league as Hitler represents a fundamental misunderstanding of that entire episode in our world's history. Complete, utter, fundamental history fail. To call someone both a socialist and a facist is like calling someone tall and short, fat and thin, pale and tanned at the same time. Socialism and facism are polar opposites on the political spectrum.



Now I understand why conservatives have been doing this. What Gingrich is suggesting is facism. Plain and simple. Drug test everyone and then forceably rehabilitate anyone who tests positive. The whole country is a suspect, and civil rights no longer apply. However, we cannot call Gingrich on his facism, because it looks like we're just joining in the "invoke Hitler as often as possible game", and that just makes everyone look stupid.



I suggest we replace "facism" with "Gingrichism".



Unfortunately, no matter what you call it, Gingrich's plan is foolish and dangerous, and we all might want to pay close attention from here on out to what I previously assumed were a bunch of Godwin's Law losers.

*link has video of the quoted conversation

Facism, Nazism, Socialism and Henry Ford

republican, socialism, nazi, henry, ford, facism, obama, new deal, fdr
Apparently, the Republican Party can't tell the difference between Facism and Socialism. Oh, and Henry Ford was a closet Nazi.

I suggest forcing all Republiscum to repeat the sixth grade.

Nazis Were NOT Socialists

socialism, nazi, conservative, nazis, communism, stupid
This is an excellent explanation of why the Nazis, though their name contained the word "Socialist", were not- NOT- socialists.

Side note: we could rename the US the Union of Tiny Pink Unicorns, but we would not all turn into tiny pink unicorns.

Jesurgislac is Full of Win

Jesurgislac , whose blog is full of win*, has promised me that if I post this on my blog, I will stop this country from being evil. Worth a try.

You know, I’ve studied history, I’ve read about America and you know something, if it weren’t for liberals, we’d be living in a dark, evil country, far worse than anything Bush could conjure up. A world where children were told to piss on the side of the road because they weren’t fit to pee in a white outhouse, where women had to get back alley abortions and where rape was a joke, unless the alleged criminal was black, whereupon he was hung from a tree and castrated.
What has conservatism given America? A stable social order? A peaceful homelife? Respect for law and order? No. Hell, no. It hasn’t given us anything we didn’t have and it wants to take away our freedoms.The Founding Fathers, as flawed as they were, slaveowners and pornographers, smugglers and terrorists, understood one thing, a man’s path to God needed no help from the state. Is the religion of these conservatives so fragile that they need the state to prop it up, to tell us how to pray and think? Is that what they stand for? Is that their America?

Conservatism plays on fear and thrives on lies and dishonesty. I grew up with honest, decent conservatives and those people have been replaced by the party of greed. It is one thing to want less government interference and smaller, fiscally responsible government. It is another thing entirely to be a corporate whore, selling out to the highest bidder because the CEO fattens your campaign chest. They are building an America which cannot be sustained. One based on the benefit of the few at the cost of the many. The indifferent boss who hires too few people and works them to death or until they break down sick. Cheap labor capitalism has replaced common sense. “Globalism” which is really guise for exploitation, replaced fair trade, which is nothing like fair for the trapped semi-slaves of the maquliadoras. In the Texas border towns, hundreds of these women have been used as sex slaves and then apparently killed,the FBI powerless to do anything as the criminals sit in Mexico untouched by law.

For the better part of a decade, the conservatives made liberal a dirty word. Well, it isn’t. It represents the best and most noble nature of what America stands for: equitable government services, old age pensions, health care, education, fair trials and humane imprisonment. It is the heart and soul of what made American different and better than other countries. Not only an escape from oppression, but the opportunity to thrive in land free of tradition and the repression that can bring. We offered a democracy which didn’t enshrine the rich and made them feel they had an obligation to their workers.

Bush and the people around him disdain that. They think, by accident of birth and circumstance, they were meant to rule the world and those who did not agree would suffer.
Liberal does not and has not meant weak until the conservatives said it did. Was Martin Luther King weak? Bobby Kennedy? Gene McCarthy? It was the liberals who remade this country and ended legal segregation and legal sexism. Not the conservatives, who wanted to hold on to the old ways.

It’s time to regain the sprit of FDR and Truman and the people around them. People who believed in the public good over private gain. It is time to stop apologizing for being a liberal and be proud to fight for your beliefs. No more shying away or being defined by other people. Liberals believe in a strong defense and punishment for crime. But not preemption and pointless jail sentences. We believe no American should be turned away from a hospital because they are too poor or lack a proper legal defense. We believe that people should make enough from one job to live on, to spend time on raising their family. We believe that individuals and not the state should dictate who gets married and why. The best way to defend marriage is to expand, not restrict it.

It was the liberals who opposed the Nazis while the conservatives were plotting to get their brown shirts or fund Hitler. It was the liberals who warned about Spain and fought there, who joined the RAF to fight the Germans, who brought democracy to Germany and Japan. Let us not forget it was the conservatives who opposed defending America until the Germans sank our ships. They would have done nothing as Britain came under Nazi control. It was they who supported Joe McCarthy and his baseless, drink fueled claims.

Without liberals, there would be no modern America, just a Nazi satellite state. Liberals weak on defense? Liberals created America’s defense. The conservatives only need vets at election time.
It is time to stop looking for an accomodation with the right. They want none for us. They want to win, at any price. So, you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?

I'm a fighting liberal, Steve Gilliard, 2003

*wins teh internets!