We are tlalking here about people taking comparisons to their ILLl-ogical extensions. People have to take responsibility for theri own errors is perceptions and LOGIC.
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“is it ok to compare the most socialist democrats to Communists?”

The way it’s put is usually not by way of comparison but by way of drawing an equal sign. Hove you forgotten the ‘progressie/socialist/anti-semite” excitement we had here?
If a comparison were made between Democrats
not resisting the excesses of theri leadership and the same being true in the SSR, then that would be legitimate, however.
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“Have you forgotten what other President’s have done”

That’s just it. This is not a repeat of past wars.
Wars of the the past had a beginning and and end.
The WOT has no foreseeable end., and many of the war powers are being extended as a normal part of governance.
Cheney argued, for example, that Bush ‘41 did not need Congressional approval for the Gulf War.
That shows where some have been heading ever since the slapdown to Nixon. This isn’t about Bush or the war in Iraq, it’s about the nature of the presidency.

In any case the combination of Bush/Cheney, 9/11 and accomodating lawyers like Gonzales, Libby, Addington and Yoo, has resulted in a consolidation of executive power, while the power of Congress weakened. Bush has used signing statements, recess appointments,clauses in the Patriot Act, claims of executive privilege and the tactics of Karl Rove to keep Congress at bay. None of those are unprecedented tactics but the extent that they have been used compared to previous administrations is significant.

As I said, I think a diplomatic approach is usually best, but on occasion, some things need saying the way one feels them.
The readers’s have a responsibiliy, too, and that is to react reasonably. That some don’t is rather telling.

Well, we’ll so how “diplomatic” people are when the shoe is on the other foot. If history is any guide, diplomacy will be nonexistent. For example, is it ok to compare the most socialist democrats to Communists? I don’t think so, and I doubt you would either.

Just because an analogy is made to some particulars of Hitlers’s regime does not mean that the analogy extends to Hitler or his rule in every particular.
No one claimed that there were extermination camps in the US, for Pete’s sakes.

No, there aren’t, but people naturally take comparisons to their logical extension. Like it or not, if you compare person X with person Y you’re inherently indicating they are more alike than different.

I don’t agree with Entropy’s mild mannered take on Bush’s power grab. Much of what he’s done is just not visible.

Like I said, there are checks and balances of executive power. Bush can add all the signing statements he wants, but if the courts come back and shoot is ass down, what can he do? And Congress can pass legislation and exercise oversight. A President claiming to have the power to do something and a President actually successfully exercising the power are two different things.

Have you forgotten what other President’s have done in our history? How much Habeas Corpus did the Japanese we rounded up get? ISTM that FDR is much more comparable to Hitler than Bush. You don’t see Bush rounding people up and putting them in camps based on their ethnic makeup.

Yet somehow our republic survived that, just as it survived the extraordinary power the executive had during the civil war. The courts and Congress eventually reined that power in. One must remember that these things don’t happen overnight.

The DOJ is being used like a group of his adjutants instead of an independent branch of the governement, and some have taken up that role eagerly.. Aside from Cheney, there are others who would like to have a monarhcial executive.

I could llist a number of other ways the balance of power has shifted, but the worry does not really stop with Bush.
Once a new president is installed, how likely is it that he/she iwill refrain from taking advantage of this new executive strength? Cheney and friends weren’t doing this just for Bush. This was planned to transform the presidency, no matter who lived in the WH.(Thinking, of course, that it would always be a Republican.)

That’s the real worry! And it should be a big worry for all of us. There will be long years of international tensions. The excuses for wartime powers are not likely to run out any time soon.
The worry is that subsequent presidents will not only follow in Bush’s footsteps, but will improve
expand on them.

A Congress with some backbone could do a correction, but we don’t have one now, nor are we likely to have one soon. There is such fear of looking soft on enemies abroad that they neglect their Constitutional duties at home.

Like the other crtiics, you make a basic mistake about analogies. Just because an analogy is made to some particulars of Hitlers’s regime does not mean that the analogy extends to Hitler or his rule in every particular.
No one claimed that there were extermination camps in the US, for Pete’s sakes.
It was the critcs who carried this way beyond the boundaries the post necessitatted.

If I were to say your wriitng is reminiscent of Fitzgerald, it would not indicate that you also have a drinking problem or have a mentally unstable wife.

As I said, I think a diplomatic approach is usually best, but on occasion, some things need saying the way one feels them.
The readers’s have a responsibiliy, too, and that is to react reasonably. That some don’t is rather telling.

I for one do not feel the Bush administration is doing as much with these self granted powers that they could. But what about the next administration or the one after that? The door is open now and IF someone were looking to undermine the freedoms and laws in order to create some less like America and more like Nazi Germany, I think there is a strong argument that this is how someone would go about just that.

Of course, if the Executive was the only authority in government, you’d have a point.

The simple fact is that the courts have already shot down much of what Bush wanted to do and there are still cases pending on the matter. If one examines the history, courts have been more deferential to the executive in wartime and then rein-in its power once the war was over.

Then there is Congress. Although it is largely filled with spineless twits, frequent elections occasionally clear out some chaff. And the simple fact is that with the Democrats in charge of the agenda, there is zero chance that Bush will be granted more power by legislative fiat.

One thing that struck me is why now for all the Bush-Hitler comparisons? What’s different about what’s happened recently than in years past? ISTM, Bush’s power reached a peak a couple of years ago and is now at it’s nadir. I don’t see anything that’s happened that would warrant the comparison now but not in, say, 2005. The man is the lamest of lame duck Presidents and he will be out of office in 15 months.

In the name of a war on terror vs. a large grp of saboteurs who ultimately are no threat to our survival as a nation, we have suspended habeus corpus and engaged in the use of torture again. There exists now the legal means to imprison citizens without trial and without legal defense, to cut them off from the outside world for the duration of that imprisonment, and to make it last as long as the executive branch wants. There is HUGE with the possiblitiy of abuse.

I for one do not feel the Bush administration is doing as much with these self granted powers that they could. But what about the next administration or the one after that? The door is open now and IF someone were looking to undermine the freedoms and laws in order to create some less like America and more like Nazi Germany, I think there is a strong argument that this is how someone would go about just that.

Nazi Germany was the German Republic first, and how this change happened to them, the first steps on the road to damnation and war, should not be ignored because the current situation does not mirror exactly the ultimate horrors of WWII.

On the other hand, I don’t see a clear line between avoiding confrontation and enabling a worng by keeping silent.

Who said anything about keeping silent? No one is suggesting that Bush’s wrongdoing’s should not be discussed, only that this particular comparison is not a good one.

If a neighbor makes bigoted remarks, for example, is ti better to not remonstrate and keep the peace or to say something to oppose the bigotry? If no one speaks up, the bigot can nurse the illusion he is typical of everyone. If onw person speaks up, another may join in, and the silence about what is unacceptable is broken.

As noted above, I don’t think anyone is suggesting that all criticism is verboten, and that criticizing one line of reasoning as inapt or even offensive does not preclude other arguments.

However, you give a good example to bounce off of. If a neighbor makes bigoted remarks, is it ok compare him/her with Thomas Thistlewood? After all, there are similarities, correct? Would such a comparison be apt?

In my mind, this is a similar example to Bush-Hitler comparisons. One can be a bigot yet not be a brutal slave-owner, just as one can be authoritarian, implement some authoritarian policies and still not be Hitler, just as one can grow drugs and not be Pablo Escobar.

As a practical matter, you may be right.
Most of the time, I don’t believe in waving red flags at angry bulls.

On the other hand, I don’t see a clear line between avoiding confrontation and enabling a worng by keeping silent.

If a neighbor makes bigoted remarks, for example, is ti better to not remonstrate and keep the peace or to say something to oppose the bigotry? If no one speaks up, the bigot can nurse the illusion he is typical of everyone. If onw person speaks up, another may join in, and the silence about what is unacceptable is broken.

No so easy to decide.

To wit:
The degree of one’s Jewishness or the amount of personal suffering due to the Holocaust does not automatically elevate one’s judgment enough to rival that of Solomon.
Personal experiences do provide invaluable insider knowledge; there is no doubt about that. On the other hand, intense personal experiences can at times concentrate focus to such an extent that they can tip the balance in overall judgement too much..
One’s Jewishness , though often cited here, grants neither more nor less credence to the arguments as they relate to torture and other disturbing trends in the US.

A survivor of Stalin’s torture or slave labor camps, for example, would not necessarly possess supreme wisdom about current tactcs in the US if Stalin were used in an anlogy.

The simple fact is that by making such a comparison one inherently implies that Bush might just become exactly like Hitler given the chance. People naturally have the tendency to take such comparisons to their logical conclusion.

I also think there is a matter of degree others have addressed. It seems to me you’re comparing the guy who grows a bunch of pot in his backyard to Pablo Escobar. Personally, I think comparisons work best when they are closer in degree. Just because there are some similarities does not mean it’s prudent to draw a line between them.

Joe,

I don’t see that anyone has said that Shaun does not have a right to make such a comparison, nor do I see any attempts to shut Shaun up. Rather, the critical responses are more geared toward criticism of what he wrote and the comparison itself. Is that somehow off limits here?

GL: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

Schneider’s Corollary: The rise toward one, in Godwin’s Law, is almost always preceded by a concomitant rise toward one in the Fascistic behavior of those compared to Nazis.

By pointing to Nazi war criminal techniques that are the same as current U.S. techniques it becomes incontrovertible that the U.S. is engaging in torture. That’s really the point, and it makes the comparison valid and necessary.

It’s about everything and anything but the subject of the post: How SOME current tactics are similar to SOME tactics of Hitler’s Nazis.

Here’s another warning. Unlike the Germans who claimed not to know anything about what was being done in their name, we don’t have the luxury of that pretense. We not only know, we attack those who remind us what we know.

But we, OTOH, aren’t confined by those circumstances, and don’t say much anyway.

Do we really need statistical comparisons of body counts to understand what genocide means?
Similarly, do we really need precise comparisons of tactics used to intimidate to understand how a silent populace enables those in power to act wihout moral restraints?

And what is this about Darfur and the like?

There is always something worse to point to.
The implification that there being something worse excuses everything lesser, is not only luidicrous but it is outright dangerours. Everything short of hell is not okay!!!

I would say that this overreaction to noting the similarities actually reinforces the similarities: if you’re not with us, you’re against us and an enemy of the state.

A wise priest said to me recently, that he wisdom of some heretics is necessary to keep a faith true to its principles.
I would add that the periodic breaking of some taboos is necessary to break out of the cobwebs of conditioned thinking.

It’s time we break some taboos and break the silence of acquiesence.