No-Nazi Zone

 Posted on March 27, 2008 in Uncategorized

I'm declaring Defending People a no-Nazi zone. If you want to call someone a Nazi, go elsewhere.

Why?

Because I don't like ad hominem attacks in comments. They are, as Michael pointed out in a recent comment, absolutely unpersuasive.

The "Nazi" attack is particularly offensive because it minimizes Nazism. You want to prosecute nullifiers? "You're a Nazi!" No, you're not. Let's face it: nothing that anyone could possibly say on the web could possibly compare with the systematic murder of six million Jews. And anyone who's proposing anything that holds a candle to the systematic murder of six million Jews probably wants to be called a Nazi.

We might recognize tendencies toward totalitarianism in some of our fellow denizens of the blogosphere, and we might believe that there is a short slippery slope between (a) depriving the jury of the right to tell the government to go pound sand and (b) genocide. But calling people Nazis is not going to win any arguments.

If you engage in personal attacks in a comment, be prepared to have me edit your comment. Don't go crying about your First Amendment Rights. First, the First Amendment does not apply here. I'm not a state actor.

Second, I do it for your own benefit, since your personal attacks probably make you look like a total asshat. By editing your posts, I can't help but make you look better.

Does that not comport with the spirit of blogging? Too bad. I am really jazzed about the discussions that we've seen here. It's like my little garden of ideas; if I have to prune some branches or even pull some weeds to maintain it, I will.