It doesn't really matter if the nazi reference was appropriate or not, using nazism as a comparison point is taboo for any kind of serious discussion. Once you compare anything to nazism you pretty much forfeit the discussion, even if it's a valid comparison.
I guess I'll disagree with that, Nazis and Hitler are not some holy or taboo things that must never be compared to anything else, the problem is that comparison between things becomes difficult the more emotionally charged the things being compared are, so if you are going to compare Nazis and Hitler with something else you better be really clever at making comparisons and able to fight when folks come unglued.
Well, it wasn't my intention. My point was really more of a condemnation of nazism rather than a defense of communism, I wasn't expecting such strong reactions. I'm a german and all I was trying to say is that the comparison falls flat because nazism is an ideology with an explicit foundation of hate.
Also, let's save the National Socialism comparisons for examples involving antisemitism, genocide, and authoritarianism. It is better to have dynamic range in our conversations, otherwise it all gets watered down.
Blanket dismissal of a comparison because it uses include Nazis is not useful. The point of learning from history is to actually be able to compare current events to the past. Putting Nazi Germany on a pedestal as uniquely evil is harmful, in that it prevents us from learning from those mistakes. Using it where unwarranted is also harmful, but we should not got to such lengths to avoid that as to reduce this historical period to uselessness.
Comparisons to the current administration are likely overblown, but are not entirely without merit. Comparisons could also be made to past administrations. The important thing is to consider how well the comparison matches, how problematic the features being compared are in each item, and how that works within context.
If those that cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it, so too are those that refuse to consider the past.
But to be fair, most attempts to analogize Nazism and Hitler are intended to stop you from thinking and stifle debate. Once someone claims that, for example, the US government is the modern analogue to the Nazis and they'll come for you soon, dear hacker, the way they came for the Jews then they're saying that, as far as they're concerned, anyone who would suffer further debate about the issue is defending an absolute and irredeemable evil.
Or they're just engaging in paranoid, thoughtless hyperbole. Either way, it isn't helpful.
The nazi comparison is hyperbole of the worst kind and makes it hard to engage with this line of argument. It also tends to make Jewish people very angry and I can see why.
Yeah, that's my point. That there's a widespread convention that a thread is over once a comparison to Nazis is made because, well, where do you go from there? - and yet in this case, the comparison is factually very similar to where the Nazis were in the early 1930s, before guns and bombs became necessary. And yet we got the Holocaust and WW2 because nobody intervened back when it was "just" a surveillance state and a bunch of economically disenfranchised people looking for a scapegoat.
I wasn't even going to go the inevitable "nazi comparison" direction, one can make a sound argument based on sub-cultural oppression leading largely towards genocide going on in a handful of different countries even now and it avoids ratholing on the third rail that is "nazis".
Want an additional kicker? Watch how quickly we get downvoted for even mentioning this, and typically sans any reply or deeper discussion.
I'm not sure what social phenomena we're witnessing here, but it's very unsettling to me.
References or comparisons to Hitler are nearly always a lazy appeal to emotion made because the speaker is unable or unwilling to provide any better way of stating their position. And that kind of argument often gets made as a discussion over a contentious drags on and one side or the other is eager to just "win" the debate.
And, of course, you know who else thought people and things should be taken out back and shot...
That may be but the comparison is obviously a shock and awe type exaggeration. By virtue of Nazis being people that also did normal things you could bring it up in any discussion. But would you? Would you tell someone encouraging "the troops" that they're no different from Nazi supporters? It's the exaggeration that's the problem here. The same kind of exaggeration you hear when certain politicians scream "you are protecting terrorists and pedophiles!" to argue against encryption.
Hmm? No equating happening in my comment. The point was that just because statement is about a political group doesn't mean it's a only an opinion. Mentioning Nazi Germany is just using an extreme example to make clear that statements about political groups aren't inherently mere opinions.
You still need to make sure that your comparison is apt. More often than not, comparisons to Nazis and the like are hyperbole, or at least sound like it.
It's also not silly to bring up Hitler, Stalin and Mao when somebody claims that religion is the source of all oppression. They clearly demonstrate that atheistic worldviews can be radical and dangerous, too.
True, but be careful about how you use this. I've had people claim that Nazism, Communism, et al, were forms of religion themselves, which is true, depending on how you use the term.
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