I guess we're never going to stop comparing Bush to Hitler, then. Ok.

I can honestly say that no, I do not remember Hitler. I've heard of him though I think.

This detainee bill is beyond troubling.

Do they have some one at Gitmo named Bill?

Northern Cawk: no, it doesn't get old and it's so obvious no body will say it.

We are in it for the money, and we are stupid and greedy and fucking up big time.

Well Stalin killed more people, so he's arguably worse. Let's start comparing him to Stalin now.

Bush is more like Hitler than Stalin, in almost every comparison.

Oh he's 'more like Hitler.' I didn't know there were degrees of Hitler-osity. Maybe he's like Jeffrey Dahmer. Or that chick who drowned her kids.

Ooh ooh, is now a good time to invoke Godwin's Law???

Nocal's idea of the chick who drowned her kids seems to fit perfectly for me. Anyone else feel like the American public (especially the 90% of US citizens that don't know shit about what's going on right now) are being drowned in a lake of lies, deception, and desire for power by our current right-winged conservative administration?

Godwin's Law does not dispute whether, in a particular instance, a reference or comparison to Hitler or the Nazis might be apt. It is precisely because such a reference or comparison may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin argues in his book, Cyber Rights: Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age, that hyperbolic overuse of the Hitler/Nazi comparison should be avoided, as it robs the valid comparisons of their impact.

Yes, Nocal, there are degrees of hitler-osity. I, for example, am only of average Hitler-osity in the sense that no part of my life or history can be said to approximate the life of Hitler's any more than the average man's. Bush, however, is the illegitimate ruler of a fascist, racist state. I would not argue Bush is exactly like hitler, but he is certainly not a bureacratic despot, like Stalin. Bush is a politician, not a bureaucrat, for starters, and does not have the totalitarian degree of authority Stalin does.

I believe you are not question if Bush is like Hitler, you are questioning if arguements that Bush is like Hitler are meaningful. From a bare bones perspective, these arguments are meaningful provided you put them in a meaningful context. Maybe you are desensitized to them because you have seem the Bush-Hitler comparison too many times in inappropriate context. However, your being desensitized does not make these arguments any less correct.

Thank you for clearly stating what obviously needed to be said.

Yeah fuck you nocal.

So... Bush is like a kosher Hitler?

Yeah, fuck you, that post from Dinozoa was the pits.

Yeah, I agree. Fuck you!

Bush, however, is the illegitimate ruler of a fascist, racist state.

Perhaps this is what I question. Fascist? Maybe compared to the Netherlands, but not compared to an ACTUAL fascist state. Racist? Maybe, but I would perhaps argue that those roots are socio-economic, and it happens that minorities are disproportionately poor. Illegitimate ruler? Perhaps an illegitimate president, but then perhaps not. Besides, we all know that the president is not the ruler, per se. You think you can get elected anymore as a single human being, without handlers and cabinet people and behind the scenes string pullers around?

I think that, at best, the comparisons to Hitler are not well thought out. At worst, they are hysterical and unmeasured, obscuring the message of reasonable people. It's like how we look at Ann Coulter and think, 'What a stupid cunt.' Basically all she's doing is hyperventilating about how left wingers would elect Hitler.

Fuck you guys too.

THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME STEEL.

Listen, you can hate Bush and I'm not going to disagree on a lot of legitimate points you can make. I don't think that GWB is ever going to be worthy of having his face on currency.

HOWEVER: Bush isn't a Nazi. Nazi politics were socialist -- Bush is not socialist. Nazi's commit genocide -- Bush picked a few fights, but if he wanted to commit genocide, there wouldn't be any Iraqis left.

The one way in which Bush is ALMOST Nazi? Bush's Presidency has been characterized by a lot of patriotism/flag-waving BS. Nazi's were hyper-nationalist, which is like Bush's flag-waving on steroids.

I don't think Bush 'doesn't care about Black people.' He does, he'd REALLY like them to vote republican. He was raised rich though, he doesn't really relate well to poor people, besides, it wasn't Bush running the Katrina Relief efforts -- he's going to get the blame for it, and frankly, the buck stops with him so he should.

I'm agreeing with Nocal for maybe the first time. You can call Bush hitler as long as you are jokingly exaggerating, if you are serious, then you need help -- or at least a history book.

^^^ What Uart said. Nocal, I've got your back on this as well.

So here's the thing, Uart (and Nocal too). Bush isn't exactly like Hitler. You can always find things that differentiate Bush from Hitler, for example, the socialist ideology of the Nazi political movement as compared to the imperialist capitalist ideology of the Republicans. However, this doesn't make all comparisons of Bush to Hitler useless.

To address your issue of racism: Bush doesn't care about blacks in the sense he wants nothing more than their increased welfare. He cares about them in the sense of wanting them to join his voting constituency, or at least cease to be a major part of the democrat's voting constituency. These are dissimilar, and the difference comes down to racism. Blacks aren't people to Bush, they are problems. I would say, however, I was thinking of racism against Muslims, not blacks, because it is difficult to separate Bush's racism against blacks from the endemic racism against blacks in american society.

Nocal: I would not consider the current American state to be the most fascist state I can think of. However, we did commit to exporting our ideology, aggresively, by invading Iraq. This is a fascist war. The patriot act has the purpose only of extending the powers of the presidency and limiting the powers of dissenters. This is fascist legislation. Even if you disagree with the degree of fascism present in US politics today, you can't cast broad characterizations of fascism as illegitimate or hysterical, because, to a large degree, the political climate is dominated by the war in Iraq and issues of national security, the Bush administration's response to which has a partial grounding in fascist ideology (and a partial grounding in incompetency.)

I think the root of our disagreement on this issue is in the connotation of the word fascism. Fascism predates Hitler, which is important to consider. It might prove true the best comparison is not Bush to Hitler, but Bush to the aristocratic rulers of the British Empire prior to and during WWI. Still, the comparison of Bush to Hitler has reasonable validity.

The USA isn't a facist state yet but we are definately headed in that direction. And Gw isn't a Hitler or dictator. At best the Decider is the puppet of other less prominent members of the administration.

The parallels between the US and Nazi Germany are pretty striking and if things progress in a linear manner I'd expect to see a real dictatorship here within about 20 years.

Even more striking are the parallels between the current situation in the US and Tojo's Japan of the late 1930's. It's all there from rule by hidden Corporations to energy shortages to expansionism to secure sources of raw materials.