Godwin's Law and Common Reference Points

[James A. Donald]

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At 10:06 AM 3/1/2001 -0800, Tim May wrote:
 > I believe there are many valid ways to refer to the Nazis and Hitler
 > without some knee jerk invocation of Godwin's Law. (I haven't talked
 > to Mike in several years, but I expect he would agree that Godwin's
 > Law is often, even usually, invoked in a knee-jerk way.)

The twentieth century taught us many enormously important lessons about 
human nature, social organization, and economics.

Some people are very unhappy with those lessons, so they spin them, or find 
reasons to ignore them.  "It was not socialism, it was state capitalism"

Most invocations of Godwin's law are excuses for not remembering.

When someone spins the lessons of nazism in a misleading way, other people 
usually do not invoke Godwin's law, instead they respond with the opposite 
spin.

Most of the time when Godwin's law is invoked, it is an inappropriate 
response to an appropriate invocation of the lessons of the twentieth century.

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          James A. Donald
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