“Godwin’s Law of Nazi Analogies” hold that “as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.” Attorney Mike Godwin, who coined the self-named law, explained “the comparisons trivialize the horror of the Holocaust and the social pathology of the Nazis.”
But what if the Nazi analogy is apt, such as when white supremacists march under the flag of the Third Reich? Some posed that question to Godwin after the violence at this month’s march in Charlottesville left scores injured and three dead—including two law enforcement officers killed in a helicopter crash while responding to the escalating violence.
Godwin responded with a simple, unequivocal message: “By all means, compare these sh-theads to the Nazis. Again and again. I’m with you.” Yes, they are Nazis, through and through, as Cathy Young demonstrated a little over a year ago when she dissected the alt-right’s views in her Federalist article, “You Can’t Whitewash The Alt-Right’s Bigotry.” Young invited readers to swipe through “the movement’s online hubs,” such as RadixJournal which reincarnates the shuttered Richard Spencer outlet AlternativeRight.com.
The violence in Charlottesville has brought a renewed focus on the writings of the alt-right at RadixJournal. Professor Robert P. George, whose Twitter feed has led the charge against the white supremacists since they took up their Tiki torches in North Carolina, reminded everyone that the very essence of the alt-right movement is Nazism: They are Nazis even in their embrace of eugenics and abortion.
Neo-Nazis Like Abortion Because It Kills Babies
Writing under the penname “Aylmer Fisher,” the alt-right author of “The Pro-Life Temptation,” published at RadixJournal, detailed the “proper” view of abortion for white supremacists. Fisher began by setting up abortion as a eugenic practice which is about the only thing “keeping our societies from falling into complete idiocracy.”
From there, the author attacks the pro-life movement as “clearly dysgenic,” noting “it is quite easy to avoid an unwanted pregnancy; the only ones who can’t are the least intelligent and responsible members of society: women who are disproportionately Black, Hispanic, and poor.” These are not the babies the alt-right wants saved. Fisher continues: “Not only is the pro-life movement dysgenic, but its justifications rely on principles we generally reject. The alt Right is skeptical, to say the least, of concepts like ‘equality’ and ‘human rights,’ especially as bases for policy.”
At every level, the beliefs and goals of the white supremacist, alt-right, Nazi movement—concisely capsulized in Fisher’s article—directly oppose conservatism. Yet the Left ignores this reality, literally equating conservatives with Nazis. Earlier this week, Markos Moulitsas, founder and publisher of the Daily Kos, tweeted that “NRA and American conservatives/Nazis are one and the same.”
The Nazi charge is nothing new. Nearly 50 years ago, Gore Vidal called William F. Buckley a “crypto-Nazi” on TV, to which Buckley responded with a slur and a threat: “Stop calling me a crypto-Nazi, or I’ll sock you in the goddamn face, and you’ll stay plastered.”
Excuse Me, We Like Limited Government, Not Genocide
Jonah Goldberg reminded readers of the Vidal-Buckley feud more than a decade ago when sharing feedback for his article “Springtime for Slanders,” writing: “Turns out that a lot, and I mean a lot — like a crowd scene from Ben Hur — of conservatives are sick and tired of being called Nazis by know-nothing nasty liberals. ‘Springtime for Slanders’ got a huge, huge response from good-hearted conservatives who take great offense to the notion that favoring a limited government is the same thing as favoring genocide.”
Conservatives don’t like it any better these days. It is a horrible insult—and an undeserved one, especially when you remember what Hitler and the Nazis believed. Here’s Goldberg again:
“Hitler and the Nazis were resolutely pro-gun-control, pro-speech-code and anti-religious. They regulated everything and dumped billions into public-works projects. Further, the intellectual cross-pollination between German eugenicists and the founding mothers of modern feminism is remarkable. Recall that Margaret Sanger, the still-revered founder of Planned Parenthood, was an undiluted eugenicist committed to, in her words, the elimination of ‘weeds . . . overrunning the human garden’ and the segregation of ’morons, misfits, and the maladjusted.’ Her journal, The Birth Control Review, was a convenient transmission belt for racist bile. Lothrop Stoddard, who also was on Sanger’s Board of Directors, wrote in ‘The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy’ that ’we must resolutely oppose both Asiatic permeation of white race-areas and Asiatic inundation of those non-white, but equally non-Asiatic regions inhabited by the really inferior races.’”
Progressives Are Still Into Eugenics, Too
Goldberg’s words still ring true today, as Daniel Payne detailed recently. In fact, in reading Payne’s piece one might wonder if he were quoting Sanger, Hitler, or RadixJournal, given the striking similarity in premise and position.
As Payne also highlights, while the racist eugenics founding of Planned Parenthood may now remain a silent legacy, it is an unending one, with the abortion provider killing on average about 120,000 black babies per year. “If you were a white supremacist who wanted to sharply reduce the black population to make way for more whites, what would you be doing differently than Planned Parenthood?” Payne queries.
So true, and also sadly ironic when juxtaposed against Planned Parenthood’s Charlottesville tweet “against racism and violence in all its forms.”
But it is not just Planned Parenthood and the alt-right adopting the social pathology of the Nazis. Last week saw reports from Iceland and Australia celebrating those countries “successfully” eliminating Down Syndrome. As I pointed out at the time, however, the countries haven’t eradicated Down Syndrome—but babies with Down Syndrome.
You know who else wants to emulate these “successes?” That’s right: the alt-right. Here’s Fisher again in RadixJournal: “A study in Europe found that over 90 percent of mothers who were told that their babies were going to have Down’s syndrome did not continue the pregnancy. In 2011, it was estimated that there are now 30 percent fewer people with the disorder in the United States due to prenatal diagnosis. In the future, as such technologies improve, what the Left calls ‘reproductive freedom’ will continue to be the justification for private-sector eugenics.” 
So by all means, call the alt-right Nazis. But don’t forget Nazis come in all shapes and sizes—and some even wear stethoscopes and pink p-ssy hats.
