Medary.com

More musings . . .

The word "Nazi" has ceased to have any real meaning in public discourse, due to its constant misuse by the Dick Durbans, Rick Santorums, and countless others both on-line and elsewhere. It can now be safely used in any context where the more fitting word would be something like "meanie."

Snookums and I were at a Kansas City Royals game the other night, and we observed an overzealous usher checking the tickets of everyone in the section beside the one in which we were seated. Naturally, we and all of the fans around us took to calling this young usher (who looked to be just out of high school, if that) the "Ticket Nazi."

This was all very funny, but got me to thinking about how the word "Nazi" has lost all of the horrific connotations that it had in, say, 1945 after our troops discovered the obscenities of Auschwitz, et al. It also illustrates how degraded our political speech has become. Both left and right substitute name-calling for reasoned and rational argument. From where I sit, those on the "left" are more guilty than those on the "right," most of whom are content to use the epithet "liberal" versus their opponent's verbal escalation to the nuclear "Nazi,", "fascist," "idiot," etc.

It's time for name-calling to stop. On both sides.

Godwin's law, formulated in the early days of the Internet on the Usenet discussion board system, stated:

“As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”

It's easier to call somebody a name than it is to engage in an intellectual exchange--whether the name is "liberal" or "Nazi."

A well-known correlary to Godwin's Law states that the first party in an exchange to use the word "Nazi" automatically loses the argument. Do you suppose there's any way to enforce this most reasonable restriction on gratuitous name-calling?