I agree that Godwin's Law, never intended to be more than an experiment in memetic engineering, was repealed long ago. However, most academics consider Nazism a specific subset of fascism. Calling Neocons Nazis is somewhat problematic since quite a few of them are Jewish. You can still recognize elements of fascism and fascistic tendencies in what it is they do. I prefer to call them colonialists and Jacobins.

It is just axiomatic that when high government officials can break the law with impunity, the country no longer lives under the rule of law. That has been the United States for the last six years.

Glenn,

Right there is your cover blurb for a new book you should write called, "US Government Lawbreaking 2001-2008".

The extreme rightwing goal of spreading Americanism across the world is ruined by their ongoing efforts to flush moral authority down the toilet.

They just don't get it. Moral authority was America's primary international political capital until Bush took over.

They just don't get it. Moral authority was America's primary international political capital until Bush took over.

-- Martin Gifford

It was more than that, Martin. It was the big stick and best defense. It's a keen observation considering the recent debate in the threads. OTOH, you can still retain the high ground of "moral authority" while pushing the envelope of any full contact sport.

They just don't get it. Moral authority was America's primary international political capital until Bush took over.-- Martin Gifford

Sorry but that isn't true, our influence revolved around money and military. Should you doubt that, look at how many nations are gravitating to the orbit around China.

Like you, I'm sick and tired of Nazi comparisons being declared off limits, when the parallels are so glaring that "...doth protest too much" is really the only explanation for their banishment from "serious" discussion....

....There is only one other example of this in the modern world. If the jackboot fits, let them wear it.-- Cocktailhag

So there we have it. We, the United States of America are the worst nation in the world, equivalent to Nazi Germany. But no, I can hear you say, it's just the Bush administration. Sorry but the failure of the German people to oust Nazis is part of the overall evil just as Democrat acquiescence here allows said evil to "flourish".

But let's go back to America as the worst and only example of Nazi behavior in the world. We are more evil than say....
* Russia, who kills off dissenting journalists and imprisons competing candidates to Putin (Kasparov),
* Venezuela, where police fire live bullets into demonstrations against Chavez,
* Saudi Arabia, a monarchy, where a victim of gang rape is convicted of sitting in a car with a non family member,
* Zimbabwe, were people are starved to death and dissent is literally killed,
* China, where dissent is jailed and information censored,
* Sudan, where genocide is reality,
* Myanmar, ruled by military, where monks are killed?

Gosh, we are worse than those countries? It must be so, we are hated more than they are. Which of those regimes should we emulate to escape our place at the bottom of the human rights list? Oh woe is us, oh woe is us.

Missing evidence? Yeah, right. Very convenient, and Bush has pulled it off before, when he forgot to finish his stint ast the "champagne unit".

Meanwhile, John Bolton is already calling the revised NIE about Iran a "quasi-putsch" against Bush (cf. DER SPIEGEL, German political weekly, 08.12.07 at 13h European Continental time. The article is in German, but you'll still get the gist of it).

So now, because Bush doesn't get to bomb Iran, will he declare a state of emergency à la Musharraf? And is Bolton preparing the way in slagging off his own country's combined secret services?

It's all about getting their own way, no matter what the cost to other people, by hook or by crook. And like torturing and calling it something else, Bolton's outbreak is about another power/oil grab and calling it something else. The Bush people have a way of accusing other people of what they are in the process of doing themselves (projective identification). Get them out ASAP, they're bad for you and the world.

of countries that engage in human rights abuses and then explains that we're different because.....well he doesn't actually explain why we're different, he simply takes it as a given.

He thus proves the point he's trying to refute. If there aren't mechanisms in place to PREVENT human rights abuses then they're going to happen. Yes - even here.

The magical thinking that America is different or is somehow doing God's will is, needless to say, the exact mechanism those other countries use to justify their own evil.

Goodwin can go jump. Evil is evil.

Sorry but the failure of the German people to oust Nazis is part of the overall evil just as Democrat acquiescence here allows said evil to "flourish".

Actually I agree with you here.

"The only thing necessary for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing." -Edmund Burke

The reason that America is such a force for evil in the world now is power. No other nation on our planet has the power, both for good and for evil, that America has.

The other regimes you mention are indeed more evil in some ways than is the US, but they lack the power to project their evil to the extent that the US does.

"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." -George Orwell

Sorry but that isn't true, our influence revolved around money and military. Should you doubt that, look at how many nations are gravitating to the orbit around China.

When was the last time China won a war against a major power?

China may have a powerful army but they entirely lack the ability to project their power.

As for money, a lot of that money came from the wasteful and profligate ways of America and Americans.

America is the land of conspicuous consumption and waste.. It will eventually lead in large measure to our downfall. In my basement shop I still have three nine foot mahogany veneered solid core office doors that I rescued from being thrown in the dumpster at a job I was working on. I have given away two more and two are now extremely solid workbenches, the legs of which are made from yet another mahogany veneer door.

There was nothing wrong at all with the doors, they were simply being thrown away as part of demolition of one office to make another.

Waste not, want not.. It's one of those truisms that we as a people have thrown by the wayside.