{"id":4441,"date":"2013-09-25T08:15:26","date_gmt":"2013-09-25T13:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=4441"},"modified":"2013-09-25T08:15:26","modified_gmt":"2013-09-25T13:15:26","slug":"my-godwin-sense-was-tingling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=4441","title":{"rendered":"My Godwin-Sense was tingling"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CRUZ<\/a><\/p>\n

In Godwin’s Law news (and another instantiation of the Ad Tyrranem<\/a> –Ad Hitlerem<\/a>), Ted Cruz’s recent Senate speech<\/a> has a classic:<\/p>\n

I suspect those same pundits who say [defunding Obamacare] can’t be done, if it had been in the 1940s we would have been listening to them. . . .They would have been saying, ‘You cannot defeat the Germans<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In this case, it’s not an argument that what’s being opposed is wrong, but that not actively opposing the thing is wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 I think, then we have two different forms of the ad Hitlerem.<\/p>\n

Direct Ad Hitlerem<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

You do X or propose X<\/p>\n

Hitler did X or proposed X<\/p>\n

Therefore, you’re like Hitler and X is wrong.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here, I\u00c2\u00a0 think Cruz is making an indirect form of Ad Hitlerem<\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 It runs roughly:<\/p>\n

He does X (and X is wrong)<\/p>\n

We can stop him from doing X<\/p>\n

His doing X is like Hitler’s doing Y<\/p>\n

Therefore, he’s not only wrong to do X, but we’re wrong (read: appeasers<\/strong>) to not actively oppose and stop his doing X.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My view about Ad Hitlerem is that it’s a weak analogy, and that’s the case for both direct and indirect.\u00c2\u00a0 A further thing about the indirect form is that it depends on the direct form.\u00c2\u00a0 Essentially: This guy is like Hitler , so this guy is bad (Direct form); If you can stop a guy who’s bad like Hitler, you should as to fail to do so is appeasement (Indirect form).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Godwin’s Law news (and another instantiation of the Ad Tyrranem –Ad Hitlerem), Ted Cruz’s recent Senate speech has a classic: I suspect those same pundits who say [defunding Obamacare] can’t be done, if it had been in the 1940s we would have been listening to them. . . .They would have been saying, ‘You … Continue reading My Godwin-Sense was tingling<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,23],"tags":[740,743,1749,913,1969],"class_list":["post-4441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-weak-analogy","tag-ad-hitlerium","tag-ad-hitlerum","tag-ad-tyrranem","tag-argumentum-ad-hitlerum","tag-weak-analogy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4441"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4448,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4441\/revisions\/4448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}