Calling WW2/Nazism unique is IMO a good way to remove their value as lessons of history. I’m not a fan of overzealous application of Godwin’s-law-derived shoutdowns. This is a general comment, not specific to whatever Spicer said.
Well I suspect he will be removed from his current position sooner rather than later. But with Trump at the helm who the hell knows anymore
Goddamn. They really are just stupid.
The first clarification attempt was during the press conference. That didn’t go well.
The second clarification attempt issued through the White House:
[quote]
“In no way was I trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust, however, I was trying to draw a contrast of the tactic of using airplanes to drop chemical weapons on innocent people.”[/quote]
Third attempt issued a bit ago:
[quote]
“In no way was I trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust. I was trying to draw a contrast of the tactic of using airplanes to drop chemical weapons on population centers. Any attack on innocent people is reprehensible and inexcusable.”[/quote]
I mean, I sort of see what he’s saying - Hitler didn’t use them as a battlefield weapon (to my knowledge). He used them for mass executions.
Stretching that to ‘even Hitler didn’t use chemical weapons on the battlefield’ is a weird statement to make in an attempt to justify something, but okay, fine, I guess.
But what the hell is is all this? “Holocaust centres”? Sean, come on man! Get a grip!
I guess we will have to agree to disagree. It is unique in its scale and the sole intention was genocide (i.e. Stalin and Mao killed similar numbers but it wasa by product of stupid and cruel policies not their primary objectives.)
CNN’s editor agrees with me.Sean Spicer just forgot the 1st rule of politics: Never compare anything to Hitler
This is a blatant violation of Godwin’s Law – the idea that by invoking Hitler comparisons in any way, shape or form you are immediately putting an end to any discussion. “Oh yeah, well this is like when Hitler did. …” is a sentence that you should never, ever say. If you, like Spicer, are trying to say something is “worse” than what Hitler did, you really, really just need to stop talking.
They can argue semantics all day, but at the end of it, they were trying to draw some kind of moral line to Assad by saying he’s “literally worse than Hitler” because blah blah blah. Nobody is accepting that crap.
That was almost even worse than the original statement but I ascribe it to momentary cranial flatulence
I think it’s fair to split the outrage:
-
“Assad is worse than Hitler because…” is a bizarre line to take. It’s stupid to even try to make this comparison, and we all know why. It’s insulting as all hell. This was clearly intentionally said, but understandable as a poor choice of rhetoric attempting at making Assad seem really bad, rather than Hitler seem less bad.
-
“…because of [some factually incorrect reason]” is now starting to border on revisionism. This is maybe worse because there’s absolutely no call to do this beyond pure antisemitism. It’s not like there’s any historical controversy here. So I hope this was just stupidity and phrasing. It’s seriously worrying if it’s more than that.
Every specific historical situation is unique. The Third Reich’s twelve year history of mass murder, aggressive war, authoritarian rule, and general wretchedness has many characteristics that were necessarily unique to that time and place. But I do think Gordon_Cameron has a great point–it’s dangerous to perpetuate the idea that such horrors can only be the province of the Nazis. The same sort of impulses, and similar sorts of consequences can occur, and have occurred, elsewhere, and elsewhen. The specific manifestations are of course different.
Where the Nazis pretty much staked out their perpetual uniqueness seems to be in the combination of an actual, published ideology, an advanced industrial state, a conscious and sustained drive towards genocide, and the opportunity to actually implement it.
The longer gif is even better:
“Wait. What? Uh… Oh! Oh, no. Noooo! WTF!? Ohmigod. Wait 'til my producer sees this.”
April Ryan looking around over Ahsley’s shoulder is pretty good too.
“Holocaust Centers” sounds much friendlier than Death Camps.
Yup. April Ryan had a straight up “Did you hear this fucker? Am I the only one?” moment.
This is her during one of Spicer’s first Q&A sessions:
I completely agree with your last sentence. I’ll have to think about the first point.
Here is the thing Assad isn’t even worse than Saddam, who killed more of his own people with gas attacks and also Iranians. Saddam killed 500-800,000 of his own people more than the 400-500K in the Syrian war (and ISIS, Al Qaeda and various other rebels killed a bunch). Saddam also killed nearly a million Iranians. The Nazi comparisons are absurd, as many people were killed in the the 4th worse concentration camp, Sobibor, as Assad killed. Assad is somewhere in the top 5 of worse Middle East dictators in the last 100 years.
Chemical weapons were used in WWII battlefields by both the Italians against the Ethopians and the Japanese against the Chinese. They were also used by the Americans Agent Orange in the Vietnam war and 1/2 dozen other post WWII uses, mostly notably the Iraq-Iranian war. I can forgive Spicers ignorance of chemical weapon history, but not the stupidity of trying to make Assad sound worse than Hitler.
So you mean like people here have compared Trump to Hitler? That kind of thing.
Comparisons to Hitler should be withheld for only the worst, and then after they have actually done something. Maybe screaming Nazi atthe beginning kind of dulls the senses for when the Hitlerian behavior actually begins.
Brilliant! I lol’d.
I’ve taken plenty of QT3 folks to task for the Hitler comparisons. I’ve also given up on a few.
When I compare Trump and his administration to Hitler (including - justifiably - calling many of his administration literal Nazis), I’m not complimenting Hitler or the Nazis while doing so.
Also, I’m not the press secretary for the fucking president.
Which Trump/Hitler comparisons exactly? It’s disingenuous to treat them all the same and dismiss some valid and specific parallels between the rise of Trump and Hitler.
The comparisons of Trump to Hitler here on Qt3 are for the most part reasonable. Saying Trump ran on a populist, xenophobic campaign, then pointing out that much of his rhetoric was analogous to Hitler’s demagoguery isn’t wrong. What gets people into trouble is when they try to draw a direct moral comparison to Hitler or the Reich, or when they’re being glib and hyperbolic about it. Like here. Spicer was clearly trying to make the argument that Assad is worse than Hitler because Hitler didn’t drop chemical weapons from planes onto people.
Mike Godwin himself said it best.
[quote]
If you’re thoughtful about it and show some real awareness of history, go ahead and refer to Hitler or Nazis when you talk about Trump. Or any other politician.[/quote]