Playing the "Hitler card" in the debate over the Crimea

Everybody's doing it. Hellery Clinton did it. John McCain did it. Steve Harper did it. John "Nancy" Baird did it. Even Walt may have done it. [Ed., please check.] What's "it"? Comparing Putin's annexation of the Crimea -- to be confirmed by the illegal "referendum" in progress today -- with Hitler's invasion of the Sudetenland in 1938.

Little did I know, when I wrote what I wrote [Ed., please check.] that "playing the Hitler card" has been done so much in the last half-century that an American lawyer by the name of Mike Godwin has formulated a law which defines it. I learned this reading "The Hitler analogy", by CBC Radio's Michael Enright. The article, which I assume was the script for today's Sunday Edition, is so good that I'm going to copy the whole thing below. I hope CBC won't mind.

For the past couple of weeks, we have been subjected in our media to a perfect unfolding of Godwin's Law. We have seen it illustrated by Hillary Clinton, Stephen Harper, Senator John McCain and Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird.

Each of these worthies has compared Russian President Vladimir Putin's adventurism in Ukraine and Crimea to Adolph Hitler's invasion of the Sudetenland in 1938.

Godwin's Law or Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies states, roughly, that in any discussion of a controversial subject, sooner or later somebody will make the comparison to Hitler and Nazism. Right-wing commentators follow up the Hitler/Putin reference by describing the West's anemic response to appeasement. We are back in 1939.

In my conversation with Russian expert Charles King last week, Professor King said nowadays in any international crisis, "You don't have countries going to war, you have analogies going to war."

The American lawyer and writer Mike Godwin formulated his thesis in 1990 after listening to Hitler comparisons on internet newsgroups. It is also known by other names; playing the Hitler card, for instance, and "reductio ad Hitlerium".

Another name for the practice is association fallacy. Which means, if I understand it, to ascribe behaviour we don't like to Hitler. For example, Hitler was a vegetarian, therefore vegetarianism is a bad thing. He was in favour of euthanasia, therefore euthanasia is wrong.

One result of this so-called fallacious analogy is to effectively and immediately shut down debate. If you or your argument is compared to Hitler and Nazism, there is very little incentive to continue arguing your point. There is no place to go after dropping the Hitler bomb.

In addition, it demonizes your opponent in debate. Nobody likes any association with Hitler or being called a Nazi. That's the reason that not many baby boys are being christened Adolph these days.

Putin has no intention of trying to conquer Europe, as far as I know. Nor is it part of his geopolitics to contemplate wiping out millions of Ukrainians, as Hitler did with Jews.

The whole idea of reductio ad Hitlerium was coined by the conservative philosopher Leo Strauss in 1951. He called it a fallacy of irrelevance. Not only irrelevant, but in the arena of high diplomacy, downright useless.

Without question Putin's moves have heightened world tensions...and it seems to make some kind of sense for Western powers to respond; but playing the Hitler card gets us nowhere.