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Libertarians and Godwin’s Law

Libertarian writers need to learn Godwin’s Law. It states that as a discussion on an internet forum grows longer, the probability of someone comparing another group or ideology to Hitler or the Nazis approaches 1. It might be more appropriately called Godwin’s Rule nowadays, because the rule is that you shouldn’t make the prediction come true by making such a comparison, no matter how warranted.

Well, I suppose it is warranted once in a while, but it doesn’t change the fact that many libertarians of the Mises/LRC crowd have compared various American policies, politicians, and thinkers to Nazis, apparently unaware of this rule and the stigma it carries.

The latest offender is Emily Mullin at LewRockwell.com. Bad enough is that she broke Godwin’s rule in the sixth paragraph of her first column at LRC, but she tries to cover up the fact that she just did it! Referring to the college republicans at her school, The Ohio State University, whose devotion and loyalty to the neocon wing of the Republocrats are stronger than any ideological or moral purpose, she wrote:

This blind nationalism and “party unity” are the same kind of tactics used by authoritarian and dictatorial regimes, such as those employed by Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany. Now, I am by no means comparing the Republican Party with the Nazis. But there is a lesson to be learned here.

Um, YOU JUST DID! You just compared neocons to Nazis. That’s exactly what the first sentence of that paragraph was, no more, no less. Like I said, the comparison is probably apt sometimes…I might even compare the neocons to Nazis sometime in the future…but the words “same kind of” and “such as” sound an awful lot like comparison words to me! Read what your own words say, woman!

Maybe I shouldn’t expect anything more from a Buckeye, but at least she’s pretty libertarian.

That’s why I was prompted to write this post, not the Godwin’s rule thing but the stupidity of making direct comparisons between two groups and their tactics, and then turning around in the very next sentence and claiming you haven’t compared them.