Reductio ad Klanum

Attorney Mike Godwin recognized a phenomenon on public message boards which states:

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Hitler approaches 1, that is, if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Adolf Hitler or his deeds."

This phenomenon has come to be known as "Reductio Ad Hitlerium", which is "The attempt to make an argument analogous with Hitler or the Nazi party. Hitler is probably the most universally despised figure in history, so any connection to Hitler, or his beliefs, can (erroneously) cause others to view the argument in a similar light. However, this fallacy is becoming more well known as is the fact that it is most often a desperate attempt to render the truth claim of the argument invalid out of lack of a good counter argument."

According to Wikipedia, "there is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that, when a Hitler comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever made the comparison loses whatever debate is in progress."

I propose a new informal fallacy: Reductio Ad Klanium. when a comparison is made between a poster or a poster's ideas are compared to the Ku Klux Klan, the thread is finished and whoever made the comparison has lost the debate. For example, when someone calls the Republican party Klansmen (which is amusing considering the Klan has historically been of the Democrat party) the argument is over and whoever made the comparison has lost.

 

Good to see you portray the Klan being as bad as Hitler....all the more reason to stop it in it's tracks...

 

The KKK has never been endorsed, funded or recognized by the DNC, that is a lie. The reorganized KKK in the early 1900's had both Democrat and Republican members.

 

The Klan and the Alt Right have much in common: ethno statism, ethnocentrism, nativism, anti democracy, etc.

 

You can't miss the point by a whole lot more than that.

 

Three posts in and the discussion is over already. Well done.

 

The post was over on Post 1, the coffin of which I nailed down on Post 4.

 

I guess you missed the point, too, which was to point out fallacious arguments like "the Republican party is like the Nazi party" and "the alt-right is like the Klan".

 

You don't have a valid point so you might as well convict everyone else as doing the same.

 

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but this isn't 1939, there are no Nazis in existence and the last time I looked there were fewer than 10,000 Klansmen in a country of 325 million people. You guys need to come up with arguments that are more descriptive than "Klan" and "Hitler".

 

I have a great point, what do you think is wrong with it?

 

Right about now they are going to say that I am supporting the Klan with the OP, that I am a white supremacist AND a Nazi, and they will try to get this thread deleted.

Intellectual laziness at it's finest. (That should prompt the "I know you are but what am I?" defense).

 

Fallacies..

 

Too weak.

 

I see, you have nothing to say, and you are using up bandwidth not saying it. Welcome to ignoreville.

 

Who is more ignorant, the poster who posts nothing or the poster that replies to nothing?

 

The point was clear, as Moonglow pointed out: the OP created a Herr Hitler and Klan fallacy on Post 1.

 

What are you talking about? Really?

 

Who said the Republican Party is like the Nazi party? The alt-right (characterized by ethno staters, ethnocentric, uber nationalism, nativism, and anti-democracy elements) is anti-American civil liberties, and has found a home in the right wing of the GOP.

 

FoxHastings said: ↑
Good to see you portray the Klan being as bad as Hitler....all the more reason to stop it in it's tracks...

That's an odd response to my post.

I was presenting no argument...so "you guys" don't need to come up with any argument.

I am glad you know it's not 1939 anymore.

There are Nazis...but I will not argue the point.

10, 000 KKK is 10,000 too many.


I did not come up with " "Klan" and "Hitler"...


Gee, your post was wrong on so many points....

 

It's an example, work with me here.

The "alt-right" is a figment of someone's imagination. The Nazis are long gone. Hitler is dead. The Klan is almost extinct. But the OP is not about them anyway. It's about the silly arguments that people use designed to stop the conversation instead of actually defending their views.

 

The Alt-Right is no figment of anyone's imagination.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/polit...t-right-a-refresher-1479169663-htmlstory.html

http://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...nti-globalist-anti-establishment-nationalist/

 

Just the media's latest boogeyman, AND a very good example of the point the OP is trying to illustrate. Stick a label on it and you don't have to explain anything. Call somebody a racist/sexist/bigot/homophobe/Klansman/Nazi/Hitler/alt-right/Trump supporter and claim the high ground. Beats thinking.

 

The only problem here is that neither Nazi's nor the KKK are a substantial influence over... anything, really. Might as well worry about Genghis Khan sieging Cincinnati...

 

The two links immediately above blow the OP apart. Now we can ignore that kind of argument.

Yes, the Alt Right exists.

Yes, it is composed of anti-American people and values.

Yes, it has found a home in the right wing of the GOP.

Yes, I will continue to fight it.

Yes, I can now ignore this OP.