My friend Bernie Farber, who works at the Canadian Jewish Congress, wrote this in today's Toronto Sun:


This 'N' word ends any rational debate

By BERNIE FARBER

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

The above statement is known as Godwin's Law. It's based on the principle developed by American lawyer Mike Godwin that if an online conversation goes on long enough, it eventually turns into a mudslinging contest.

Both sides become frustrated and less rational, and invariably the argument will include a Nazi or Adolf Hitler comparison. At that point, the discussion is over and the one using the analogy has lost the debate, for his argument has become irrational.

Godwin's law is based on online discussions, but the Hitler/Nazi comparison goes well beyond the Internet. Sadly, it happens with such regularity it has almost become part of our vernacular.

In accepting his Nobel Peace Prize last month, former U.S. vice-president Al Gore used the Hitler analogy to compare world leaders ignoring climate change to those who ignored the threat emanating from Nazi Germany's early days.

Here at home, the leader of our Green Party, Elizabeth May, used similar hyperbole, comparing our government's environmental plan to former British prime minister Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of the Nazis in 1938. While she later offered a full retraction, her dredging up of the same association a few months later put that apology into question.

Shortly after being elected, the Toronto Sun published an editorial cartoon portraying Toronto Mayor David Miller as a Nazi for not acting "democratically" during a council debate. To his credit, then editorial page editor Lorrie Goldstein apologized for his decision to run it.

A few years before, Irene Atkinson, then newly-elected chair of the Toronto District School Board, compared the manner in which then premier Mike Harris governed to 1930s Nazi Germany. Atkinson also understood the danger of such unwarranted comparisons and offered a full retraction and apology.

Kitchener-Waterloo MP Andrew Telegdi once compared Canada's immigration laws to Nazi Germany. "Canada is acting like a Nazi-style regime ... That's what Hitler used to do,'' he said. After pressure from then prime minister Jean Chretien, Telegdi announced his regret in the Commons.

Former transport minister Jean Lapierre accused Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe of employing "a little bit of a Nazi tone'' after Duceppe boasted about making the Liberals "disappear'' in Quebec. Lapierre later apologized and promised not to use the analogy again.

On it goes. It seems as though every time a public figure draws a comparison to Hitler and Nazis, they are justifiably criticized and apologize -- yet the comparisons continue. Perhaps that's because public figures don't appreciate the ramifications of what they're saying.

So allow me to be blunt to avoid further confusion. There can be no comparison. It matters little if the association is direct or indirect. The attempt to annihilate an entire people is beyond such facile analogies. Any attempt to do so trivializes genocide. It is the trivialization that makes people angry.

CANNOT BE COMPARED

A government's policy on climate change or immigration, or how it governs, cannot be compared to the perpetrators of one of history's worst crimes. Godwin is correct: Rational debate stops once Nazi parallels are invoked.

I'm not sure why people insist on making them. Clearly, they have a certain perverse public relations value. Comparing a person or issue to one of history's most demonic regimes and its leader is provocative. It will probably make "the news".

Attempting to raise one's profile by invoking the name of Hitler may even work in the short term, but eventually it will be seen for what it is: A dismal attempt at self-promotion. The issue being advocated gets lost in the condemnation that ensues.

It has to stop. Trivializing Hitler and the Nazi regime is not only dangerous and foolish but insensitive and a slap in the face to all who suffered under that regime.

According to U.S. author Paul J.J. Payack, president of Global Language Monitor, there are more than 900,000 words in the English language. Surely, we are creative enough to use all that richness properly and paint images that are worthy of the issue they espouse.

Falling back on Hitler and the Nazis only tells us of those who lack imagination and sensitivity.