Nice, a bunch of Hollywood stars encouraging people to vote (“don’t vote? that doesn’t make any sense.”).

(via Jean Pierre)

In last Friday’s edition of Oregon State University’s daily newspaper, The Barometer, I found an article criticizing Barack Obama’s tax policies. The writer, Peter Druckenmiller, a junior in new media communication, basically argues that Obama is opening a can of worms by raising taxes for the rich and will as a second step raise everybody’s taxes as well. Therefore, the author opposes any type of financial support for people who haven’t paid many taxes in their lives, for example students.

So far, so good. Druckenmiller finishes, however, with a curious Third Reich comparison:

Martin Niemöller once said, “When they came for me, there were none left to speak out.” He was referring to the Nazi’s ideology of selecting one group to persecute, and laid out the Nazi progression from Communists to Jews and finally to himself. The same logic should be employed when examining the class warfare of Obama and Biden: if we allow any to be exploited (wealthy or not), then we are allowing all to be exploited.

Unlike many of my fellow Germans, I am usually not sensitive to nazi comparisons (I must confess: I am a fan of Seinfeld’s soup nazi). However, this one struck me as so inappropriate that I decided to write a letter to the editor. Comparing the systematic extermination of political and ideological opponents with any type of tax policy is going too far.

Here is the short comment I wrote to the paper:

Congratulations, Peter. By making a grotesque nazi comparison in the last paragraph, you managed to lose every ounce of credibility you tried to build up in the entire article before. That, my friend, takes serious skills only few will ever master.

Quite ironically, your apparent, kafkaesque fear of “communism” was much more a property of national socialism than financial support for society’s most needy members, that you choose to compare so inappropriately with it.

It doesn’t even matter if people follow your–admittedly weak–arguments or not (you may have missed that “richer people pay more” is not an unknown concept even in the US, with a progressive income tax like most countries), if you want to convince, not deceive, people, you first need to get your research straight.

Maybe you shouldn’t have stopped reading that history book of yours after the first page after all.

Writers, please learn a lesson from Peter: Arguing with extremes is hardly ever convincing, in particular if you mess up the comparison. If you have a nazi reference readily available for your next submission to your school’s newspaper, I suggest you leave it in your pocket and consider arguing differently. Chances are people may read, maybe even agree with you, and above all, you avoid making a complete fool of yourself.

Update: Jean Pierre points me to Godwin’s Law, which, in turn, led me to the logical fallacy named “Reductio ad Hitlerum”. Druckenmiller abuses a Nazi comparison in an apparent attempt to avoid rational discussion of the issue at hand.

Update: Tara mentioned an article in today’s edition of the Barometer, entitled “Don’t fall to trappings of Godwin’s law”. Columnist Bill Bradford writes:

“I dislike criticizing fellow Barometer columnists, but Wozich and Druckenmiller deserve it. In fact, I’m not just calling them out, but demanding they have their GOP American flag lapel pins removed and placed in safekeeping until they can prove they are capable of avoiding Godwin’s Law.”

Thanks, Bill, for reminding me that student journalism isn’t completely out of its mind quite yet.

A common stereotype about the US is, if you can think it, no matter how odd it is, there’s somebody in the USA who does it.

I apologize therefore that this country still manages to weird me out. Like in the case of the Idahoan Politician who changed his only and legal name to “Pro-Life” (as a way to express his opinions about abortion):

A Senate candidate has legally changed his name to Pro-Life and will appear on the ballot that way this year, state election officials say.

As Marvin Pro-Life Richardson, the organic strawberry farmer from Letha, 30 miles northwest of Boise, was denied the use of his middle name when he ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2006 because the state’s policy bars the use of slogans on the ballot.

Now, though, officials in the Idaho secretary of state’s office say they have no choice because Pro-Life is his full and only name. He says he will run for the highest state office on the ballot every two years for the rest of his life, advocating murder charges for doctors who perform abortions and for women who obtain the procedure.

Incidentally, having seen an Idaho absentee ballot, I can confirm him showing up as “Pro-Life, a person formerly known as Marvin Richardson”.

Ignoring his political agenda for a second: Are you kidding me? Big Superman fan? Name your kid “Kal-el”. Into pork? Why not call the little fellow “I-love-bacon”? (Oops, now I gave Scott an idea for his next child). There’s really nothing crazy enough not to be done over here. Wow.

Vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin never grows tired of telling the public that she’s just an average person, that she’s part of the average American middle class, and other stories from a happy little box of hockey mom fairy tales.

That’s why her party allegedly spent 150,000 dollars on her wardrobe:

Sarah Palin’s wardrobe joined the ranks of symbolic political excess on Wednesday, alongside John McCain’s multiple houses and John Edwards’s $400 haircut, as Republicans expressed fear that weeks of tailoring Ms. Palin as an average “hockey mom” would fray amid revelations that the Republican Party outfitted her with expensive clothing from high-end stores.

“I don’t think Joe the Plumber wears Manolo Blahniks,” Ms. Behar [co-host on ABC’s “The View”] said.

Don’t get me wrong: I agree that a politician with such a high public exposure can’t walk around in sweatpants and t-shirts. But don’t pretend you are just an average person, worse even, try to make people believe you have the same financial situation as the average American middle class family. Unless, of course, the average American goes shopping on Fifth Avenue, in which case, never mind.