Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"The seeds of future horrors are sometimes visible in the first steps a government takes toward institutionalizing cruelty. In his 1957 book 'Language of the Third Reich,' Victor Klemperer recounted how, at the beginning of the Nazi regime, he 'was still so used to living in a state governed by the rule of law' that he couldn't imagine the horrors yet to come. 'Regardless of how much worse it was going to get,' he added, 'everything which was later to emerge in terms of National Socialist attitudes, actions and language was already apparent in embryonic form in these first months.'

"So I don't think [Godwin's Law] needs to be updated or amended. It still serves us as a tool to recognize specious comparisons to Nazism -- but also, by contrast, to recognize comparisons that aren't. And sometimes the comparisons can spot the earliest symptoms of horrific 'attitudes, actions and language' well before our society falls prey to the full-blown disease."

-- Mike Godwin (yes, that Mike Godwin), 2018-06-24

(Much earlier in this piece, he acknowledges, "Godwin's Law doesn't belong to me, and nobody elected me to be in charge of it. Although I'm sometimes thought to be referee for its use, I'm not. That said, I do have thoughts about how it is being invoked nowadays.")