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Originally Posted by The Avon Lady
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Originally Posted by CCIP
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I suggest you read carefully and in full what you linked to.
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Indeed:
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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 has argued,[2] that overuse of the Hitler/Nazi comparison should be avoided, as it robs the valid comparisons of their impact.
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Otherwise this would be an arbitrary rule, a law in the juridical sense.
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There is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically "lost" whatever debate was in progress. This principle is itself frequently referred to as Godwin's Law. Thus Godwin's Law serves also to impose an upper bound on thread length in general.
It is considered poor form to arbitrarily raise such a comparison with the motive of ending the thread. There is a widely recognized codicil that any such ulterior-motive invocation of Godwin's Law (in the above sense) will be unsuccessful. This is sometimes referred to as "Quirk's Exception".
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As demonstrated by this thread.
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Godwin's Law does not apply to discussions directly addressing genocide, propaganda or other mainstays of the Nazi regime. Instead, it applies to inappropriate, inordinate, or hyperbolic comparisons of other situations to Hitler or Nazis
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Were the comparisons of Germany and Iran mentioned earlier inappropriate, inordinate or hyperbolic?
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Originally Posted by Chaotic42
(...) compare the situation with Iran to the situation with Germany in the 30s. Everyone knew they had to be stopped, but no one did anything until it was almost too late.
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"Everyone" obviously means everyone else or everyone that knows "they had to be stopped". Same with "no one", "no one" who didn't "do anything untill it was almost too late". But the situations aren't detailed. It could be the situation of the color of Apples in Germany and Iran, the weather, anything. Valid and invalid.
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Originally Posted by baggygreen
(...) thats just the thing mate, you've said it well - iran is just like germany
(...) people are the same throughout time. we are nasty, vile, destructive things. because basic human nature doesnt change throughout the ages, history repeats. It happens because we allow ourselves to forget the past lessons learnt, and so have to learn it again.
Hands up who wants to be the new neville chamberlain???
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What is exaggerated here is the language and not the similitude drawn. Iran is "just like" Germany, but right after, "people are the same throughout time", "basic human nature doesn't change". What is being considered "just like" is "basic human nature", that's what "people...throughout time" have in common, what's "the same". To reject this as inappropriate or inordinate we need to know what he means with "basic human nature". If he means that people both in 1930's Germany and today's Iran are humans, a valid comparison can be made. If he means "nasty, vile, destructive things" these elements in both 1930's Germany and today's Iran can be compared. Since he mentioned the passage of time (throughout time) it seems obvious to me that when he says "history repeats" he doesn't mean that the same situation repeats itself literally. "Who wants to be the new neville chamberlain" is clearly not a literal statement. If Chamberlain was to repeat himself or to be exactly the same nobody could become the "new" Chamberlain. To put it in a little less informal form: who wants to repeat Chamberlain's role in this similar situation?
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Originally Posted by Schatten
I agree with pretty much everything said about the parallels between Germany in the '30s and Iran right now.
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This one speaks of "parallels". If more than one parallel can be drawn, it's valid. I'm not going over the validity of the parallel he mentioned. Suffice to say he's actually agreeing with the quotes above which contain more than one parallel, at least two of which being valid.
So, the comparisons in the first quote are unknown, I'll not draw any conclusions based on my ignorance of them, they could be any and all previous comparisons of Iran and Germany which include the appropriate and the inappropriate ones, though I suppose, even though it isn't stated, that Chaotic doesn't intend to include the inappropriate ones. The comparisons possible in the second quote are perfectly fine, it is not the similitudes that are exaggerated but baggygreen who uses an exaggerated language to express himself. Unless we want to discuss texts, sentences, words and letters that do not relate to any idea, thought, intuition, experience or reality we must strive to understand what people meant to say, what they attempted to say and not their imperfect form of expression. There is one parallel exposed in the third quote which is also a post of agreement with the other two. In all three quotes valid comparisons (or parallels) are presupposed. Analyze Iran and find the parallels in 1930's Germany. And I don't see where it is suggested that history would literally repeat itself exactly as it happened before, with Blitzkrieg exactly like it happened (including the defects and errors), D-day, Mauser rifles, SS divisions, B-17 bombing formations, Convoys and Wolfpacks, etc.
Proof for some of this is baggygreen's 2nd post from mine:
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Originally Posted by baggygreen
No, they arent one and the same. mercifully. Problem is, there are enough similarities in the situation for comparisons to be drawn! Whats worse is that the vocal minority want to follow exactly the same path of pacifism. Got us a long way last time didnt...
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Again, this "exactly" is exaggerated. It will not be actually exact. But similar or approximate. The language is exaggerated and informal but baggygreen is a real person, not a text sentence, with a real message to convey that we can understand if we don't detract into pure nominalism.
