Godwin's Law, rather than a criticism of childish comparisons to Hitler ("What do you mean I can't go to the dance with Timmy? You're literally Hitler!") has mutated into an entire philosophy about the irrelevance of history.
Under this philosophy no comparisons can be made to history because invariably one of the two situations is more extreme than the other (inviting cheap intellectually bankrupt "Do you REALLY think that Foo is as bad as Bar?!?" comments that exclude the possibility that a metaphor may not be implying exact equivalence, merely parallels. Think about it, if I call a friend "Benedict Arnold" for abandoning me at a bar, am I actually accusing him of treason? No, of course not.) or circumstances were different ("Yeah, but those were Bolivians. WE are Alabamans. These are not comparable.")
Godwin's Law, despite its good intentions, has become a monster.
This line of thinking predates Godwin's Law, as a misunderstanding of comparisons in general. If there is any difference between the things being compared, even if it is not relevant to the aspects in the comparison, people of this philosophy will declare the whole matter to be "apples and oranges." Of course, this makes the entire practice of comparing things pointless, because under that thinking, things can only be compared to themselves.
On the other hand, I think people have an anti-Godwin reaction where they assume this is happening even when the comparison really is bad. To me, the value of Godwin's Law is to remind us that comparisons to Nazi Germany usually carry more emotional weight than actual insight, and when we encounter them, we need to ask ourselves whether the aspect of Nazi Germany being called out was integral to its evil or just incidental. A lot of so-called comparisons are just thinly disguised slander of the form, "Our government officials are drinking a lot of water these days. Do you know who else drank water? Hitler!"
> To me, the value of Godwin's Law is to remind us that comparisons to Nazi Germany usually carry more emotional weight than actual insight, and when we encounter them, we need to ask ourselves whether the aspect of Nazi Germany being called out was integral to its evil or just incidental
While it is important to keep this in mind, one must also always keep in mind that many valid comparisons to emotionally charged events will be made. Nearly everything in recent memory that is worth making comparisons to will have emotional baggage. Forcing people to tread lightly around issues that could have an emotional impact has a chilling effect on discussion, particularly when there is no similar weighting against comparisons to events with positive emotions.
Compare someone to MLK or Churchhill and few eyebrows will be raised; compare someone to the relatively mild Khrushchev and you will have half a dozen objections within seconds.
It is almost as if the meme of anti-bullying made the jump from schoolchildren to world leaders.
Note that the original Law wasn't even a criticism of anything, simply an observation that comparisons with Hitler became inevitable if a discussion went on long enough.
Such comparisons are rhetorical devices to substitute emotional appeals for rational argument; its a good thing that people tend to dismiss them.
Make the case for what the problem is with what Bush or Obama is doing, fine; after you've made the case use an example of an act of Nazi Germany that is genuinely similar in the relevant respects to make the point that the problem isn't merely theoretical, sure. But directly compare Bush/Obama to Hitler ... well, unless your goal is to provide an emotional boost to people who have already bought into the substance of your complaint, you shouldn't do that, and its quite right that people start tuning you out when you do that, especially when you open with it.
I have a hard time accepting any such argument could be "dead accurate". To make such a comparison would most likely require exaggerating specific similarities while downplaying significant differences. In the end, it's either a bad comparison or blatantly dishonest manipulation, and people will respond as they see fit.
In the end, manipulation will just polarize, as the targets of manipulation accept the party line or reject it, which then adds distrust to all information coming from that source.
I don't think it's "dangerous" to dismiss facile comparisons thrown out instead of explaining why policy X and Y is actually bad. I think it's dangerous to make them
If your argument is that Obama's endgame is subjugating all political critics in preparation for the extermination of Muslims and invasion of Canada, then please actually articulate it (but yeah, you can probably expect people to stop listening and get mad). If that isn't your argument, why try and insinuate it?
If I say Bush/Obama is similar to Hitler in ways X and Y people stop listening and get mad, even if the comparison is dead accurate.
I think it is dangerous to dismiss those types of comparisons.