Friday December 19, 2003

SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER. Pick a Cornerite, any Cornerite. OK, this one. Ramesh Ponnuru answers Richard Cohen on the popularity of the death penalty in America as opposed to its unpopularity in old Europa:

How about this: European countries are more disposed than America is to letting elites force through policies the populace doesn't like, and a sizable chunk of the populace is willing to revise its views after the fact. Maybe it has something to do with their experience of fascism, or their susceptibility to it.

Web oldtimers: remember Godwin's Law? That was the notion that if you bring up Hitler as a point of comparison to contemporary events and beliefs, you've lost the argument. It was invoked a lot in usenet days to inhibit liberal and libertarian complaints about encroachments by the State.

Boy, those were the days, huh?