{"id":55422,"date":"2017-02-09T03:43:47","date_gmt":"2017-02-09T08:43:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=55422"},"modified":"2017-02-12T03:53:54","modified_gmt":"2017-02-12T08:53:54","slug":"commentary-can-dial-back-hitler-references","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/commentary-can-dial-back-hitler-references\/","title":{"rendered":"Commentary: Can We Dial Back the Hitler References?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">There is a form of argument in logic called <i>reductio ad absurdum<\/i> (reduction to absurdity), which attempts to disprove a statement by showing it inevitably leads to a ridiculous conclusion. A variation of this is called <i>reductio ad Hitlerum<\/i> (reduction to Hitler), which is the attempt to invalidate another\u2019s argument on the basis that the same view was held by Adolf Hitler. (This, by the way, is a logical fallacy.) One might think that this is a modern innovation given all the Hitler-invoking going on in recent years but the term was in fact coined in 1951.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Here is an extremely abbreviated list of Hitler comparisons:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Fidel Castro compared Reagan to Hitler for bombing Libya;<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Yugoslavian president Tito compared LBJ to Hitler for air raids in Vietnam;<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Rep. William Miller compared LBJ to Hitler because of some of his \u201cGreat Society\u201d reforms;<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Chicago Mayor Richard Daley called Richard Nixon asking for a recount in the 1960 elections \u201cHitler-type\u201d tactics; <\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cExcept for Adolf Hitler&#8217;s extermination of the Jewish people, the American bombardment of defenseless peasants in Indochina is the most barbaric act of modern times\u201d \u2013 Sen. George McGovern;<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cIf the British had not fought in 1940, Hitler would have been in London and if Democrats do not fight in 1968, Nixon will be in the White House\u201d &#8211; Vice President Hubert Humphrey;<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201c(Barry) Goldwater&#8217;s acceptance speech had the stench of fascism. All we needed to hear was Heil Hitler\u201d &#8211; California Governor Pat Brown (San Francisco Mayor Jack Shelley added that Goldwater strategists got their ideas out of <em>Mein Kampf<\/em>);<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">When President Obama did not join other world leaders at a unity rally in France in 2015, Rep. Randy Weber unfavorably <i>contrasted<\/i> him with Hitler (\u201cEven Adolph [sic] Hitler thought it more important than Obama to get to Paris\u201d);<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201c(President George W.) Bush wants to divert attention from his domestic problems. It\u2019s a classic tactic. It\u2019s one that Hitler also used\u201d &#8211; German justice minister Herta D\u00e4ubler-Gmelin;<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cNow if this sounds familiar, it\u2019s what Hitler did back in the 30s\u201d &#8211; Hillary Clinton on Vladimir Putin;<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cYou are the new Hitler\u201d &#8211; Muammar Gaddafi on the United States;<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThe only difference between Bush and Hitler is that Hitler was elected\u201d &#8211; Kurt Vonnegut;<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cMrs. Clinton backed the crime bill and then called our young people super predators. Of course she apologized, but just a minute. See, Hitler could\u2019ve said to the Jews after Auschwitz, \u2018I\u2019m so sorry.\u2019 Would that be enough to satisfy you?\u201d &#8211; Louis Farrakhan<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The practice even dates back to when Hitler was still around. FDR said that Wendell Willkie used \u201cHitler tactics\u201d by constantly repeating propaganda.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Republicans say it about Democrats, Democrats say it about Republicans. The US says it about other nations, other nations say it about the US. Everyone is compared to Hitler for everything. Searching online, I found that Hillary Clinton is like Hitler because her child care plan resembles his \u201cMother and Child\u201d plan, they both \u201clove abortions\u201d (whatever that means) and they both want to take your guns away. Barack Obama is like Hitler because they both held rallies in outdoor stadiums, both ghost-wrote autobiographies before running for office, followed by second books outlining their political plans, both used their political clout to conceal their birth certificates, and Obama\u2019s \u201cYouth Brigade\u201d is apparently just Hitler Youth repackaged. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Are you ready for this one? It appeared in the New York <i>Times<\/i> in 1962:<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\" style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201c\u2026President Kennedy surpassed Hitler and Tojo in the savagery and tyranny.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">Even I \u2013 who am not a politician \u2013 have been <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/torah\/counterproductive-poultry\/\"><span class=\"s2\"><b>compared to Hitler<\/b><\/span><\/a><span class=\"s1\">. (<\/span><span class=\"s1\">The subject is using chickens for <em>kapporos<\/em>, which is somehow my fault even though I don\u2019t use chickens for <em>kapporos<\/em> myself.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">Through overuse, the Hitler thing has lost all meaning. Not every comparison to Hitler is a scathing criticism. You know who else was a decorated war hero? A successful military strategist? A mediocre painter? An animal lover? Hitler banned smoking on public transportation \u2013 don\u2019t think that wasn\u2019t trotted out when various states instituted their own smoking bans. Similarly, sharing some political ideology (such as anti-immigration on the right or gun control on the left) or personal characteristic (like persuasive public speaking) with Hitler is not proof that the person in question is evil. Remember, <i>reductio ad Hitlerum<\/i> is a logical <i>fallacy<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">Hitler had millions of people killed because of their race, religion, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability status and political affiliation. That\u2019s what he did that was evil and that\u2019s what we should focus on. When we invoke Hitler comparisons as our slur of choice, we minimize the enormity of his crimes. Pol Pot can legitimately be compared to Hitler, John McCain and John Kerry can not. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Senator John Glenn said, \u201cIt\u2019s the old Hitler business\u2026 if you hear something repeated, repeated, you start to believe it.\u201d That may be true in other areas but it\u2019s no longer so in the realm of Hitler comparisons. That old canard has been tossed around so much, it has ceased to be meaningful. It says nothing about the object of the slur. By all means, vote for who you like, protest who you don\u2019t \u2013 that\u2019s the American way. But let\u2019s try to dial back the Hitler thing. It\u2019s white noise. All it does is reduce Hitler to another politician that we don\u2019t like for some petty reason. Hitler deserves the full extent of our abhorrence for being history\u2019s worst monster, not being reduced to a mild irritant for sharing some common ground with an opponent in our partisan political squabbles.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is a form of argument in logic called reductio ad absurdum (reduction to absurdity), which attempts to disprove a statement by showing it inevitably leads to a ridiculous conclusion. A variation of this is called reductio ad Hitlerum (reduction to Hitler), which is the attempt to invalidate another\u2019s argument on the basis that the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":384,"featured_media":55483,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiration"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Commentary: Can We Dial Back the Hitler References? - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Invoking Hitler comparisons as our slur of choice minimizes the enormity of his crimes. Pol Pot can be compared to Hitler, John McCain &amp; John Kerry can not.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/commentary-can-dial-back-hitler-references\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Commentary: Can We Dial Back the Hitler References? - OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Invoking Hitler comparisons as our slur of choice minimizes the enormity of his crimes. Pol Pot can be compared to Hitler, John McCain &amp; John Kerry can not.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/commentary-can-dial-back-hitler-references\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-02-09T08:43:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-02-12T08:53:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/Hitler-Y.S..jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"940\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"627\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rabbi Jack Abramowitz\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rabbi Jack Abramowitz\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/commentary-can-dial-back-hitler-references\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/commentary-can-dial-back-hitler-references\/\",\"name\":\"Commentary: Can We Dial Back the Hitler References? - OU Life\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/commentary-can-dial-back-hitler-references\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/commentary-can-dial-back-hitler-references\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/Hitler-Y.S..jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-02-09T08:43:47+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-02-12T08:53:54+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/50551cbad585e4b2a31b4b0227e06c1c\"},\"description\":\"Invoking Hitler comparisons as our slur of choice minimizes the enormity of his crimes. 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