Godwin's Law and 'White Supremecy'

I found this on the Huffington Post and found it of interest and thought that you, left and right leaning both, might find it of interest and use.

I'm not a fan of Huffington Post, co-founded by Andrew Brietbart of Brietbart and Arrianna Huffington former spouse of a 'right-wing (nut)' republican out here in Calfornia. I find the site inflamatory and over the years less and less trustworthy. However I do check in from time to time (as I do Brietbart) and find somethings usefull and this is one.

Godwin's Law:

www.huffingtonpost.com... 0009

Mike Godwin, an attorney and author, coined something called Godwin’s law in 1990, when internet discussion boards were first proliferating. Godwin’s law famously posits, “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Hitler approaches 1.” (In other words, if an online discussion persists long enough, someone will eventually compare a person or thing to Hitler or his ideology.)

In the years since he introduced the law, it has become a mainstay of internet discussion boards. And as it has proliferated, the general understanding of the law has grown less precise; though Godwin’s law is not intended to be used to penalize people for invoking Hitler, it’s often invoked now to claim that debaters who compare each other to Hitler have “violated” Godwin’s law. The penalty: The person who referenced Hitler or Nazis automatically loses the argument. A gentler version holds that once Hitler comes up in a debate, the conversation has outlived its usefulness.

Mike Godwin is quoted in a Washington Post interview (another less than sterling source):

“The best way to prevent future holocausts, I believe, is not to forbear from Holocaust comparisons,” he wrote in The Washington Post in 2015, amid the rise of Trump. “[I]nstead, it’s to make sure that those comparisons are meaningful and substantive.” Though some have used Godwin’s law to push back on comparisons between white nationalists and Nazis, the law was originally intended to preserve the strength of those Nazi comparisons for times when they are genuinely merited ― for example, when an “alt-right” gathering openly associates itself with Nazi ideology and insignia.

and tweeted on the 13th ...

Mike Godwin @sfmnemonic
By all means, compare these #heads to Nazis. Again and again. I'm with you.
5:03 PM - Aug 13, 2017
305 305 Replies 17,558 17,558 Retweets 41,024 41,024 likes

I hope you find this of some use or interest.

Happy Monday.

You know what's crazy? Almost every thread on ATS has something to do with racism or white nationalism the last few days. Seems like every time the media picks up a story and runs with it so does ATS. It used to not be that way but now this place ebbs and flows with the MSM narrative.

a reply to: FyreByrd


Hitler is an infamous and compelling personality. He's probably one of the most studied, in his life, his speeches, his politics, etc.

When people emulate Hitler they should not be surprised to be compared to Hitler. Alas, it has become politically incorrect to do so, so it has to be a pretty blatant comparison to be valid these days.

Hitler had a winning strategy, until he didn't. People will try to emulate that strategy. When other notice the pattern, they'll call it out, one way or another. That's my opinion of "Goodwin's Law".

I have read a lot of threads recently about race, even wrote one myself.

A observation I am slowly coming round to is that all of these posts claiming that the white race is being subjected to racism and that minorities are in the wrong all stink to me of covert racism.

There are loads of them just now, loads of claims that "it wasn't racist" or "it was racist but only because of the discrimination against white Americans".

I am starting to feel like we have somehow went back in time to the race riots of the 1980's.

I am fairly sure that there is a massive group of racists on ATS, they just don't have the balls to come out chanting "white power" on the boards because they don't like the label "racist".

The Nazis were not white supremacists. They considered whites, for instance Slav, Ukrainian, Croatians, and Poles, as inferior, and to be enslaved and exterminated. The Nazis believed in Nordicism, that the Aryan race was superior, even more so than other whites. They were all duped by pseudoscientific race theories.

a reply to: FyreByrd

You don't need to compare them....They are Nazis.

originally posted by: 3NL1GHT3N3D1
You know what's crazy? Almost every thread on ATS has something to do with racism or white nationalism the last few days. Seems like every time the media picks up a story and runs with it so does ATS. It used to not be that way but now this place ebbs and flows with the MSM narrative.

The MSM penetrates every medium sooner or later.
They're here, now. Hard to ban them, they come in many forms.

Thank you for all the comments.

I think this 'white-male supremacy' has been fermenting for a long time and has come to a head with the current conditions.

It may be a good thing in the long term, I hope exactly because it is now so overt that we can no longer pretend it isn't there.

I think our current administration is a clear projection of this trend.

Yes, the media does inflame issues, but that is what sells so you can't truly blame them in a Capitalist Society.

It frightens me that violence is breaking out because violence (verbal or physical) aways escalates and solves nothing.

It is a huge opportunity that may be missed by 'violence' as usual and I'd hate to see that.

To paraphrase John Lennon "Give peace and reconciliation a change" No-one can force anyone to change their mind, force only brings resentful compliance.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
The Nazis were not white supremacists. They considered whites, for instance Slav, Ukrainian, Croatians, and Poles, as inferior, and to be enslaved and exterminated. The Nazis believed in Nordicism, that the Aryan race was superior, even more so than other whites. They were all duped by pseudoscientific race theories.

Russians too !!

Don't forget the Russians !!

a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1

Sadly it's been that way a long time.

And they say rooms full of paid disinformation agents just don't exist......