As a Jew, I’m always amused by the way Hitler is thrown around in conversations to score rhetorical points.  It’s as if people have never heard Godwin’s Law, or Godwin’s Rule of Hitler Analogies. This fallacy, also known as reductio ad Hitlerum, was created by American attorney and author Mike Godwin.  He said that the longer an argument goes on, the more likely someone is to bring up Hitler.  The corollary to the law is that the first person to bring up Hitler loses the argument.

Apparently, famed liberal activist Chelsea Handler is not familiar with this fallacy.

This week, Nikki Haley spoke at the United Nations Security Council about the embassy move in Israel and the violence in Gaza.  She earned praise for her even handed, unemotional responses:

When asked about Israel’s ability to protect itself, she responded, “I ask my colleagues here in the Security Council, who among us would accept this type of activity on your border? No one would. No country in this chamber would act with more restraint than Israel has. In fact, the records of several countries here today suggest they would be much less restrained.”

Chelsea Handler was not impressed.  She tweeted, “Nikki Haley is on tv talking about Hamas being responsible for the Palestinians protesting yesterday. These people had no weapons. They had tires to burn. There was a dead baby. While Netanyahu celebrates.”  When that didn’t get much attention, she turned the vitriol up to 11.  “It would be like Hitler saying Auschwitz is all about HELPING the Jews stay warm,” she tweeted, tagging Haley.

 

Wow.  PJ Media says it best:

Comparing Haley to Hitler for defending Jews. Yep, that’s mainstream leftism alright.

Handler needs to get a handle (see what I did there?) on her hyperbole.  But for now, using Godwin’s law alone, we can chalk this one up for Haley.

Image Credit: U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Nikki Haley meets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his office in Jerusalem, June 7, 2017. U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Nikki Haley meets Israeli President Reuven Rivlin at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, June 7, 2017. Wikipedia

About The Author

Mark was a co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, and served as the national coordinator. He left the organization to work more broadly on expanding the self-governance movement beyond the partisan divide. Mark appears regularly on television in outlets as diverse as MSNBC, ABC, NBC, Fox News, CNN, Bloomberg, Fox Business and the BBC. He’s highly sought after for the tea party perspective from print and electronic media outlets, from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, L.A. Times, Washington Examiner, Politico and the The Hill. Mark blogs at MarkMeckler.com, and his opinion editorials regularly run in many of the leading political newspapers both on and offline. Mark has a BA in English from San Diego State University and graduated with honors from University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in 1988. He practiced real estate and business law for almost a decade. For the last eleven years of his legal career he specialized in Internet advertising law. When not fighting for the future of our nation, Mark is an avid horseman, and lives in rural northern California with his wife Patty and two children.

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