this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2025
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Murdered by Words
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Responses that completely destroy the original argument in a way that leaves little to no room for reply - a targeted, well-placed response to another person, organization, or group of people.
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Some generalization is always required when drawing equivalences, but if you generalize too much your logic becomes circular. For example - let's overgeneralize to the max:
Of course, I'm not claiming that you took it that far. Instead of going all the way to "evil", you've only generalized up to "grabbing power":
Now, this version does require some non-circular arguing - showing that DOGE's project cuts are actually power-grabbing moves in disguise. But there are two problems with it:
Power-grabbing is not a Nazi-specific thing - many groups have seized political power during the course of history. And not all these groups were evil - at this level of generalization, one could argue that democratic revolutions took power from monarchs and had to convert the institutions to be democratic. And even among the evil movements that did this - the Nazi were uniquely evil, because of other things they did.
You were trying to masquerade this generalized argument as a more specific argument:
This is a very specific argument - "here is a specific tactic the Nazis used to grab power, and the Trump administration uses the same tactic!". The logic here is not circular. The only problem with it is that it isn't true.
Comparison to Nazism is the nuclear weapon of debates. Trumps administration did some things that warrant an exemption from Godwin's law. Concentration camps for immigrants is one of them. Purging minorities from federal jobs is another. But this? The very fact they are trying to grab power? This does not justify a comparison to the Nazis.