Says GOP Senate candidate Curtis Coleman:
“Embryonic stem cell research is taking the concept of taking a life and using it to conduct experiments so we can temporarily extend somebody else’s life. Let me tell you what I just described. I just described what the Nazis did to the Jews in the death camps of WWII.”
And yet again, we find that a government program is being compared to Nazi Germany. As Godwin’s law implies, every person and thing in politics gets compared to Nazis in general and/or Hitler in particular eventually. Here is an interesting examination of this phenomenon. As the author of that piece notes: “Everyone calls everyone a Nazi when they want to win a debate.”
I suppose it’s good that everyone is still so horrified by the atrocities of the Nazis that they keep worrying about it. Still, I can’t help but wonder if, as Godwin warned, this trivializes the magnitude of their crimes.
I will close with a quote that is often attributed to Senator Huey Long:
“When Fascism comes to America, it will be under the name of anti-Fascism.”
