Godwin's Law

I mention all of this because I take offense at people using “socialist” and “Marxist” like a dirty word, and towards people who are proposing certain kinds of policy in the American political sphere. There is nothing remotely socialist or Marxist about healthcare reform, financial services reform, tax policy, or anything else we’ve seen while the Democrats and Obama have been in power. Their policies are no more socialist or Marxist than Bush’s policies were fascist or Nazi, although during his administration, Bush got plenty of that kind of commentary, too, and it was just as ignorant and as unfair then as it is now.

Really, what all of this comes down to is the rather overheated state of political discourse in our country today. It’s the kind of environment where fringe elements on both sides, empowered by a media looking for increasingly sensational stories to drive traffic, have cast the illusion that they are leading the debate on things. I suppose after a decade of this, I have grown weary of the hyperbole, and more than a little concerned that people in the middle are quietly letting such nonsense-talk leach into their bones. Probably not, however; our country has always been governed, ultimately, by the middle. Sometimes it leans left. Sometimes it leans right. But it almost always leans forward. We’re Americans. That’s what we do. I just hope we can collectively dial things down a notch as we do it.

There is something called Godwin’s Law, which states that on an infinite timeline, any heated discussion on the Internet will inevitably result in one side likening the other side or the other side’s point, to Hitler. The one that makes the comparison to Hitler automatically forfeits the argument. At the moment, Obama’s getting double-Godwinned recently because folks are comparing him to Hitler for healthcare, and to Marx or Lenin on financial reform. (I guess Bush got off easy being compared by his detractors only to Hitler, but still, that’s too much.)

Normally, I wouldn’t mind so much because when you step into politics, you open yourself up to this kind of thing. When a lot is at stake, then your opponents are bound to compare you to the worst possible iteration of what they don’t like about you. And for as much as I don’t care for the acidity of modern political name-calling, we’ve got nothing on our vaunted forefathers. Early American politics was unspeakably brutal, with opponents frequently bringing in each other’s wives and children into the debate, a move that would be seen as strictly off-limits today. After all, there is a reason why Alexander Hamilton died in a duel; he called out one of his detractors who spoke of him in such harsh tones, that the matter demanded what would then be considered “a gentleman’s satisfaction.”

The point I’m trying to make, ultimately, is that when we Godwin ourselves by turning our opponent into a monster, we undercut our own authority. We disqualify ourselves from being taken seriously. When Bush decided to invade Iraq, he caught a lot of hell from people who thought the war was wrong, and for years, they Godwinned themselves by paiting that stupid little toothbrush ‘stache on him and Photoshopping swastikas on the Presidential seal. We’ve seen just as much of that kind of nonsense from Obama’s worst detractors more recently, who seem to have not the foggiest clue as to what socialism or fascism really is. All one has to do is actually read the Communist Manifesto or Main Kampf to get the difference. But for a depressingly large number of people, that’s too much work. After all, they’ve got a Photoshop to finish.

Don’t be part of the problem, people. Be part of the solution. Be smart. Be passionate. Be true to what you feel. But don’t Godwin yourself. You’ll be thankful you didn’t.