Godwin's Law, the purported inevitability that, during a debate someone will eventually bring up Hitler or the Nazis in order to make the point that something isn't good, is always smugly declared when said reference is made, as if to say "Ha, you've just committed a Godwin, your argument is invalid." But why is it invalid? Just because a man named Godwin turned these prolific comparisons into a law with his name on it? I gave up eating meat a couple of weeks ago. I've stopped ignoring the unethical, mass slaughter of animals purely to satiate my own personal desires. It's been common knowledge for a while now that a diet including meat is not essential to the body's well-being, so we eat meat purely for pleasure. Just as we smoke, drink, listen to music etc. My way of thinking is 'if it's bad, or if I can do without it, it goes.' Meat, as far as I'm concerned, fits both of those criteria, so it's gone. If there isn't much incentive to give up things that are bad for us, we tend not to give them up. That's why people that smoke and snort cocaine give up chocolate for lent. As meat isn't just damaging to me, it's easier to give up. Anyway, I'm going off topic. Do you know who else committed mass slaughter purely for their own personal desires? The Nazis. Is my decision to not eat meat now invalid because I've "Committed a Godwin?" No, of course it isn't. Therefore it isn't enough to just say something is invalid, the invalidity has to be proven. Sometimes there are huge gaps in logic when Committing a Godwin, for example a staunch carnivore could tell me that 'Hitler was a vegetarian' or, as I'm an atheist, 'Hitler was an atheist' (although interestingly neither of these were true) and that would be an invalid usage of the trait, because me not eating meat doesn't suddenly turn me into a Roman-worshipping Jew-hater. But by and large, this is not the case. In the majority of arguments I've heard, Godwin's law is applied justly. Once again I find myself returning to that age-old topic that continues to fire me up on this blog and on that addictive blue and white mini blog thing everyone uses; people not thinking. This has been the theme of my rant about Thatcher's-dead-parties (Would I lambast people for celebrating Hitler's demise, were I alive at the time?), Soldier hero worship (Does that mean the Nazis were heroes?) etc. This instance is a bit more trivial, but it's obviously grating enough for me to pen a blog about it. Short answer; next time I bring up Hitler in an argument and somebody calls me out for Committing a Godwin, I shall reply:
"So?"
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