The Fearful & Naive
July 13, 2010Henry Baum No Comments »The Tea Party has no sense of irony.
Still, I thought this post by Glenn Greenwald about Godwin’s Law was interesting:
The very notion that a major 20th Century event like German aggression is off-limits in political discussions is both arbitrary and anti-intellectual in the extreme. There simply are instances where such comparisons uniquely illuminate important truths: recall, for example, Andrew Sullivan’s consequential discovery of the stark similarities between the Bush/Cheney and Gestapo “enhanced interrogation” documents, both in terms of approved tactics and “justifications.” To demand that German crimes be treated as sacred and unmentionable is to deprive our discourse of critical truths.
There were unique aspects to Nazi evil and many common ones as well. It was anticipated that many of those crimes would be committed again…Those most eager to violate these principles understandably want to render these discussions taboo, but that’s no reason for the rest of us to acquiesce. Actually, it’s a compelling reason to emphatically refuse.
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