Tuesday's Day By Day puts the MoveOn.org Bushitler ads into context. For those who don't know what Godwin's Law is, it comes from the old Usenet newsgroup days:
Godwin's Law: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."This is essentially an early, empirical, anti-idiotatrian rule. You will note that this bodes ill for the Democrat's chances in November, as they've resorted to the Bush=Hitler thing long since. By Usenet rules, they've already lost. Having seen the MoveOn ad transcripts, I would have to agree. Posted by Kevin Murphy at January 7, 2004 11:47 AM | TrackBack
There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups.
Godwin's law is a new term to me, but the phonomena isn't unfamiliar. I have to say, I agree with your conclussion. We posted an apology of sorts we thought was more thorough than the explanation moveon.org offered for the whole Bush = Hitler fiasco. Check it out.
Posted by: Zachariah at January 7, 2004 02:24 PM