About that “moderate” new Iranian president « Sister Toldjah Sister Toldjah
PS: Michael Ledeen has written a great book on the difficulty the West has calling evil for what it is and facing it directly until great damage has been done and it’s almost too late. By our willful blindness and failure to take meaningful steps early, we become “Accomplices to Evil.” Highly recommended.
Yes. Conversely, we – especially our ruling classes – have a propensity for labeling things as evil that are merely items of contention. The upshot of all this linguistic, moral, and conceptual dishonesty is that the very notion of evil eventually becomes so watered down as to become meaningless.
In other words, when cutting one percent off the rate of increase in the federal budget is “evil,” then what do we call the wholesale destruction of American liberty, our constitution, and the imposition of tyranny on the nation as a whole?
Baddy-bad?
Progressives call that Progress. The goal. A feature, not a bug. A few eggs in the omelette. The New World Order. Obamaoism.
Forward.
We call it an Obamanation, and a gross, stinking offense against us all; they call it Business As Usual (And As Intended).
Related linguistic overreaches: Comparing opponents to Hitler/Stalin; Comparing events to Shoah; Comparing opponents to Shoah-deniers.
What if all are valid comparisons?
Most aren’t; there are a few exceptions
That’s not correct, deanz. If Obama is a Marxist, and Stalin is a Marxist, is the comparison invalid? If progressives are trying to implement a gun control regimen that is almost a duplicate of the Nazi gun control laws, is comparing them invalid?
Would it be invalid to compare the commie slaughters to the Nazi slaughters?
I reject that entire modes of argument be rejected because they raise uncomfortable reminders of actual history.
You’re examples are not overreaches. I’m thinking rhetoric equating AGW opponents with Holocaust deniers or pro-abortion folks as holocaust perpetrators. Valid comparisons are fine but not the overreaches.
Okay. Your post sounded more like the infamous and stupid Godwin’s “Law” that treats any mention of Nazis as an automatically losing argument. He designed it to delegitimize any comparison between liberal fascists and the original variety, which is why I reacted as I did.
I’ve always thought Godwin was just trying to salvage losing arguments with the equivalent of: “Shut up, he explained.”