The Aspen Times reports. That's linked in the NYT, by Juliet Lapidos, who says "Justice Scalia brought Godwin’s Law to Snowmass, suggesting in an address to the Utah State Bar Association that activist judges helped bring about the Holocaust."
Was Scalia within Godwin's Law? At The Atlantic, Abby Ohlheiser says he "approaches Godwin's Law," and takes the trouble to explain the law: "Eventually, as Godwin's law scholars are well aware, any online discussion will produce a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis."
Here's the Wikipedia article on Godwin's law. Excerpt:
Godwin's law applies especially to inappropriate, inordinate, or hyperbolic comparisons of other situations (or one's opponent) with Nazis – often referred to as "playing the Hitler card."...
While falling afoul of Godwin's law tends to cause the individual making the comparison to lose his argument or credibility, Godwin's law itself can be abused as a distraction, diversion or even as censorship, fallaciously miscasting an opponent's argument as hyperbole when the comparisons made by the argument are actually appropriate.So: Was Scalia's reference an exaggerated playing of the Hitler card or are his critics guilty of abusively invoking Godwin? I wouldn't answer without the full transcript of the speech. It would also be interesting to know whether these Godwin-invoking critics, who also don't have the transcript, just don't like Scalia anyway.
ADDED: An emailer who attended the Scalia event puts the remarks into context and makes the NYT and others look quite foolish for handling this matter the way they did:
पोस्ट्स
