Reductio ad Hitlerum, Etc.

Recently during an exchange on an online forum, I got called out for something called “Reductio ad Hitlerum.” I hadn't heard of that one, but I had heard of Godwin's Law, which basically says that if an online discussion goes on long enough, somebody will compare somebody else to Hitler. The target might be the opponent in the discussion, or, more likely, a political figure the opponent admires. But even before I had heard of Godwin's Law, I had always been circumspect about avoiding the invocation of history's poster boy for evil in any discussion or debate.

I made an exception that time, though, because I did something I thought rather ground-breaking: the “Inverse Reductio ad Hitlerum,” by which I imagined a more insecure, less vehement Hitler with a lisp, a fear of crowds, and a crippling need to use visual aids to get his point across to the throngs at Nuremberg. Imagine how much less effective he would have been, I argued, had he been more like the local conservative columnist I was denigrating as an intellectually impotent bore.

Boring and inert as this particular columnist is, though, I must say his fan base makes him seem like an intellectual powerhouse. A glance at the comments forum attached to “his” column on the host newspaper's Web site goes something akin to this:

FEISTYGIRL: LOL. Doc nails it again.

Trigger Lock: I'm like him.

WhoopAssBoy: R U a fag?

Trigger Lock: No jughead. I said I'm like him not I like him…

FEISTYGIRL: No more illegal immigrants!

Trigger Lock: They should round ‘em up and deport ‘em back to Iraq.

WhoopAssBoy: They are Mexicans

Trigger Lock: I've got bullets for them 2

WhoopAssBoy: Not if moonbats takes yer guns

Trigger Lock: They can take my gun up their butt

WhoopAssBoy: LOL my butt hurts

Trigger Lock: That's because U R a butthole

WhoopAssBoy: No it's because UR a fag

FEISTYGIRL: the socialist DEMS want us to speak Spanish

Trigger Lock: Hillary = socialism = Hitler = the SSS!!!

FEISTYGIRL: you mean the SS, go back to school

WhoopAssBoy: the NEA is even more SS

“Reductio ad Hitlerum,” which Godwin's Law is all about, is basically a kind of non-sequitur, an illogic. “George Bush is like Hitler,” is about as dumb a premise as: “The Democrats are all socialists (or national socialists).” People whose grasp of history is limited to a high school textbook timeline on Major World Events might think like that, but lemme tell ya, folks, a lot has happened in the 60-odd years since the end of World War II, and our earth is a radically different landscape of domestic and international politics, foreign policy, and military interests.

The presidential primaries are barely under way, and I've already heard terms like “Gestapo,” “brown shirts,” “SS,” and “national socialism” bandied about by wonks on both sides. It's perfect talk radio fodder because talk radio is for people who don't even aspire to think, and whose children couldn't tell you in which decade World War II occurred, and where its major theaters were situated. But they know Hitler was a bad man, and anybody whose political sensibilities offend their own must be just like him.

Here are some facts. (Some local columnists may need to sit down before reading on):

Hitler did not invent autocracy.

The Nazis were a political party, not the German military.

National socialism is not the same thing as socialism.

Just because one political system uses the same word as another political system doesn't make it the very same thing.

And check this out: Just because one political system shares “some” of the same policies as national socialism doesn't make that system Nazi.

For example, some of the policies in both the Republican and Democratic platforms look suspiciously like policies once advanced in Nazi Germany. And ancient Rome. And Communist Bulgaria. And pre-revolutionary America. And post-revolutionary Mexico. And the Aztec empire. And the Holy Roman Empire. And certain tribes among the indigenous people of Borneo, Madagascar, and, well, every other locale where a system of government has existed, however democratic or autocratic.

See, kids? All political systems share certain policies in common. Those who really believe otherwise should revisit, in tandem, freshman political science and elementary arithmetic lessons on sets and subsets.

Autocracy was invented by the first human beings who ever competed for wealth, land or power. They had not yet invented an alphabet or language, in all probability. For the latter reason, George W. Bush may have more in common with the first autocrat who beat his chest over another hominid's mammoth carcass than he ever has had with Adolph Hitler.

But we latter-day hominids drag out the decades-dead carcass of Hitler and his cabal of bad guys with more enthusiasm than did postwar comic book caricaturists, for whom the mean old Nazis provided the perfect evil in their action heroes' fight for the good. For fair comparisons, those lurid comics are a better representation of what has become of American politics than any furtive meetings atop the Eagle's Nest in 1940s Austria: We're all schlock.

While our partisan leaders on both sides do nothing to lead, and everything to follow the corporate tits on which they feed for political sustenance; while ignorant dupes hold fast to their fantasies about ending terrorism while their government sends more and more of our sons and daughters to slaughter, burying their survivors alive under a mounting debt to the East; and while still more ignorant dupes cling to the Democratic party because, don'tcha know, it's the lesser of two evils; let's take a break from meaningless comparisons to old enemies.

Instead, let's take comfort in the hope that one day, a few generations down the road, when Americans have given up learning Spanish because it makes more sense to learn Mandarin Chinese, some boob is going to run for office, or write a commentary about a boob running for office, and the tired old “Reductio” cliché will be: “Jeez, just like one of those old Democrats or Republicans. What a bum!”