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   Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Nov-2023 03:54:15 JST Evan Prodromou

   Comparing every single policy, action and political stance against Hitler and the Nazis is setting our bar for ethical behaviour incredibly low. There are many, many actions and positions that are arguably not as bad as what the Nazis said and did that are still absolutely unconscionable and inexcusable.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Nov-2023 03:56:53 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     If you really can't think of any other historical event, figure, party or movement to compare a topic to than Hitler and the Nazis, may I gently suggest that you might not know enough history to be making defensible historical comparisons in public.

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     Eaton (eaton@phire.place)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Nov-2023 04:22:07 JST Eaton

     in reply to

     @evan One of the challenges, Evan, is that we currently have actual Nazis both crypto and open, and they’re making a pretty concerted effort to drag the rest of civilization back down the path that everyone thought had been safely averted.

     Facile comparisons to Nazism have been a thought-terminating cliche for many groups for many years (growing up, for example, I often read that legalized abortion and gun control were Exactly What The Nazis Did). But what *are* the legitimate comparisons?

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     Tim Lavoie (tim_lavoie@cosocial.ca)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Nov-2023 05:16:03 JST Tim Lavoie

     in reply to

     @evan To be fair, it would help if some people would abstain from taking direct inspiration from the Nazis of old.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Nov-2023 05:22:46 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • John Conway

     @john if that's literally the only thing we agree on, we have a very very low lowest common denominator.

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     John Conway (john@sauropods.win)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Nov-2023 05:22:47 JST John Conway

     in reply to

     @evan Referencing Nazis is an attempt to find common ground, surely? We can all agree the Nazis were bad, starting there gives at least some frame of moral structure to an argument.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Nov-2023 05:23:53 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • John Conway
     • a shady most false and rotund

     @john @apophis it was not.

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     John Conway (john@sauropods.win)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Nov-2023 05:23:55 JST John Conway

     in reply to

     • a shady most false and rotund

     @apophis @evan It's often used in bad faith, for sure. Strangely, it didn't occur to me that Evan's original toot was a reference to anything in particular. I was talking more generally.

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     a shady most false and rotund (apophis@mycrowd.ca)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Nov-2023 05:23:58 JST a shady most false and rotund

     in reply to

     • John Conway
     @john @evan the most recent comparison of people to Nazis i've seen in the past 24 hours was a news item about an Israeli prison cracking down on "expressions of joy" at the release of some Palestinian prisoners in the recent hostage exchange, where Itamar Ben-Gvir was being quoted as saying something roughly like ~we must not allow these monsters any happiness, nothing, these animals, these Nazis~
     
     so yes it's an attempt to find common ground, but sometimes only in the sense of throwing dirt and hoping it sticks and hoping the person you're talking to doesn't care who threw it
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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Nov-2023 05:37:10 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • Eaton

     @eaton It's often acceptable, but it rarely provides much insight.

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     Eaton (eaton@phire.place)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Nov-2023 07:02:52 JST Eaton

     in reply to

     @evan Is that because even an accurate comparison doesn’t provide useful informstion, or because the claim has been abused so frequently that people are essentially dulled to its meaning?

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Nov-2023 07:46:02 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • Eaton

     @eaton Nazi Germany is not the floor. That's not where we set our limits. Our limits should be a whole lot higher than that.