For those of you not familiar with Godwin's law, it simply states that the longer a debate continues, the more likely it becomes that someone will make a comparison to Hitler, the Nazis, or both. Check out any video with more than one million views on YouTube, and the word Nazi will appear somewhere. Of course, this doesn't just apply to trivial online quarrels. Turn on any major news network and someone, be it a politician, host, commentator, or some other big talking head, and I guarantee one of them will bring up Nazis, Hitler, Goebbels, Goring, Himmler, the SS, swastikas, or something. So and so would do something, just like Hitler did. You get the point. But, like Inigo Montoya said to Vizzini in The Princess Bride, "You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means."
What is a Nazi? I mean, besides guys with brown shirts and red armbands with their hands in the air or the bald goofballs who still worship Adolf like he was their freaking Messiah. People wanna say it, people oughta learn what it means. First of all, it's fascist. Unite all the people under one cause and one ideal, then use fear and power to get your way. Simple, right? Worked for a little while, anyway. It's also anti-communist. I repeat, ANTI-communist. Germany was in shambles after the first World War, and was in desperate need of rebuilding. Much like the French Revolution had done in the 1790s, the Bolshevik Revolution put fear in the countries of Europe that they could be next, and a weakened Germany would be a prime target. The middle class were genuinely scared, since if communism came to Germany, they were going to be in deep trouble. So, when a mustached man comes on the scene with the promise that his ideas and his politics will stop the spread of communism and preserve as well as restore German power and honor, he gains popularity. Still don't believe it? While most people know that the Holocaust resulted in the death of nearly 6 million Jews, the most persecuted group after the Jews were the communists. Hitler knew the pact with the Soviets would never last, and why the unusually paranoid Stalin fell for it in the first place is bizarre, but the war on the eastern front came from the need to exterminate the Soviets for the German people and to eradicate communism. So, when someone makes a poster or posts a picture with the president with Hitler and Lenin/Stalin to prove a point of how they all had the same ideals, the only point they have proven is that they are an ignorant jackass.
Nazism was indeed far right, but it was in no means conservative, despite the fact that most Americans make the two words completely synonymous in their minds. It was, in essence, right-wing liberalism. See if you hear that term anytime soon. The Nazi Party was formed to create jobs for the (white Protestant heterosexual middle class) Germans and stimulate the economy (by starting a war that would kill millions.) Both of these would be excellent positions, were it not for the sinister undertones.
Nazi is not necessarily a bad word. Most people think if the Nazis as uncivilized, but what defines civilization? Organization, government, unity, common language, military power, technologically advanced. Certainly, the Nazis were all of these. At the core, however, was a terrifying machine, built solely for the advancement of one race and the extermination of others. In that spirit, until people learn exactly what the word means, Nazi should be excluded from political rhetoric from all sides and sources. No one is a Nazi. Not Obama or Bush or Plain or Biden or Giuliani or Clinton or Cheney or Beck or O'Reilley or Olbermann or any of them. Yeah, you may strongly disagree with them, but they haven't destroyed a race for being different, nor have they launched wars that kill millions. God forbid that ever happen again, but until it does, leave the word to the history books. Sadly, the chances of that happening any time soon are inconceivable.
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