http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_Law
"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum
"The reductio ad Hitlerum fallacy is of the form "Adolf Hitler or the Nazi party supported X; therefore X must be evil". This fallacy is often effective due to the near-instant condemnation of anything to do with Hitler or the Nazis."
Thoughts?
Melon
"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."
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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum
"The reductio ad Hitlerum fallacy is of the form "Adolf Hitler or the Nazi party supported X; therefore X must be evil". This fallacy is often effective due to the near-instant condemnation of anything to do with Hitler or the Nazis."
The phrase appears in Strauss's writings in the 1950 Natural Right and History, Chapter II:
"In following this movement towards its end we shall inevitably reach a point beyond which the scene is darkened by the shadow of Hitler. Unfortunately, it does not go without saying that in our examination we must avoid the fallacy that in the last decades has frequently been used as a substitute for the reductio ad absurdum: the reductio ad Hitlerum. A view is not refuted by the fact that it happens to have been shared by Hitler."
Thoughts?
Melon