Comment Rescue: Garrett’s Corollary to Godwin’s Law

Garrett’s Corollary to Godwin’s Law: A legitimately despotic, cruel, inhumane action or regime cannot be blithely dismissed, ignored, or discounted by the invocation of Godwin’s law.

I think the counterargument that “So and so violated Godwin’s law” is often used in misleading ways, primarily to avoid dealing with a perfectly valid point. The truth is that very often people do propose despotic and Hitleresque solutions to social problems and it is perfectly valid to point that out. To think that one can simply brush off that valid point by mouthing the Godwin’s law retort is naive and rhetorically cheap.

What needs to be developed is a set of criteria for when to validly employ the Godwin’s law counterargument and when not to. Surely, when someone who holds an overarching despotic point of view about political and social matters proposes a particular despotic solution to a problem, it cannot be invalid to point out the resemblance between the proposed solution and one proffered by a past despot like Hitler.

That the points of view of many people on the American right are subject to valid comparisons to despots like Hitler cannot be blithely dismissed by the Godwin’s law cliche. The use of the Godwin’s law cliche to give many members of the American right rhetorical and logical immunity is cheating, uninsightful, and intellectually lazy.