Fear of Godwin
Very many years ago, in a previous life, we wrote a short article about the widely misunderstood and endlessly-misapplied principle of “Godwin’s Law”. Regularly cited by idiots who claim that mentioning Hitler or the Nazis in an argument means you automatically lose, it actually says no such thing, and such usage is in fact a wildly irresponsible act consigning the most important lessons of history to the dustbin.
The dangers of arbitratily excluding the Third Reich from mankind’s collective memory in order to be a smartarse on the internet have been illustrated several times by the current UK government as it seeks for ideological reasons to portray whole swathes of British society as subhuman underclasses, but perhaps the most startlingly overt demonstration to date appeared in yesterday’s Independent.
And if any readers with even a little bit of in-depth historical knowledge of 1930s Germany are trying to think what those words put them in mind of, let us help you out.
Note the start of that second sentence.
Now, the trouble with pointing out Nazi analogies is that the sort of witless imbecile who cites Godwin’s Law instantly screams that you’re suggesting the government of the day is about to institute industrialised extermination camps and invade Russia, and sensible conversation becomes immediately impossible.
Of course, had you suggested such things to a typical German in 1934 or 1935 when the Reichstag first began passing exclusionary laws, they too would have found the idea ridiculous and hysterical, even though it went on to happen. But let’s keep things calm. Let’s not suggest that even seven or eight years from now, David Cameron and George Osborne will be inspecting state-commissioned gas chambers. They won’t, if only because that might involve some public-sector infrastructure.
But you’d have to be some manner of blind halfwit not to acknowledge that judging whether people should live or die, not on any medical grounds but on the basis of their economic “usefulness”, is the desperate philosophy of a country at war, not a civilised nation in peacetime. The difference between allowing someone to die and actively killing them is not trivial, but ultimately the result is identical, the “selection” process having the same end as that conducted on the ramp at Auschwitz.
(Ironically, of course, should a terminally-ill patient volunteer to be helped on their way in order to end their suffering, the state will still respond in a hostile and aggressive manner, claiming moral authority even as it denies palliative treatment. You can be too expensive and worthless to treat, but also not permitted to die with dignity.)
The proposals reported by the Independent are still only at the planning/water-testing stage. But the political right has already succeeded in demonising the unemployed, the working poor, the disabled and the sick, garnering widespread public support for its programme of “welfare reform”, so it seems optimistic to the point of naivety that the consultation process could be counted on to reject the move.
Perhaps the only thing that might save the elderly is that they still tend to vote Conservative. But Mike Godwin, despite doubtless-innocent intentions, has handed the Tories and their allies a vast screen behind which they can conduct a different kind of genocide – one on the hard-won and dearly-earned values of civilisation. Perhaps his name, not Hitler’s, is the one that should be unmentionable.
.
Surely Scotland’s drugs policy is decided in Scotland, so there is no danger of this being implemented here?
@Scots Renewables
unless we move to standardising the NHS in the UK post No
I think I made the same point some time back, when I suggested Godwin’s Law stifled debate. Or did I just imagine that?
So what shall we call it?
“Surely Scotland’s drugs policy is decided in Scotland, so there is no danger of this being implemented here?”
That’s exactly the sort of reckless complacency that underpins much of the No vote. I’ve said this many times before, but the advantage of living in England in the context of the Scottish independence debate is that I live roughly five years into Scotland’s future.
Ultimately, with Scotland’s budget determined in Westminster, all that Holyrood can really do is mount delaying actions. Eventually budget cuts filter through and there simply isn’t the money to keep paying for things, so Scotland has no alternative but to follow London’s lead, no matter how ideologically opposed it might be.
There’s also a point to be made about generally just caring about our neighbours. With a yes vote we can demonstrate that such barbarity is not the only solution. It may also give the rest of the UK a chance to reform Westminster, following the removal of ten percent of its MPs. The direction that Westminster is heading in is truly chilling and Rev Stu is absolutely right to make such a clear analogy.
Its nothing new that the better medication does not reach the working classes as things stand because its too expensive for the NHS while the more privileged have no such concerns. And yet it is these very people who have contributed all their lives to the system. Can you see the Victorian age reappearing on the horizon ? We still have slums, cant pay your bedroom tax? Then off to the workhouse for you .
Now this is strange, because I have been recently thinking about one of the Third Reich’s most important, yet least understood philosophies, namely the stripping of natural resources from other nations for the ‘Reich’s’ benefit.
They did not invade other nation haphazardly, but carefully selected nations who had a lot of resources, like coal or ‘OIL’
Does this remind you of anyone?
@Patrick Roden
To be fair, it reminds me of pretty much every empire I’ve read about!
Rule Britannia…
The future is..
people deemed to be a benefit to society
NOT
people deemed to “have” been a benefit to society
Rev, ah don’t know aboot the rest o the punters, but your scaring the shit out of me!
I forgot to mention Boris and his speech to the ‘Thatcher Appreciation Society’. You know the one where he states some of us are not worth the effort to save because we are genetically inferior. The scourge of eugenics is still alive and well today.
@Scots Renewables @RevStu
NICE Guidelines ARE used in Scotland. We use SIGN (Scottish) and NICE (U.K.). NICE tend to have more info available but usually only mention Eng/Wales Law where relevant (i.e. consent/Mental Health Act etc). SIGN provide Scottish only guidance but quite clearly don’t have the same level of funding as NICE.
There can be a good argument for indie made from that fact alone.
Exactly Rev. I’ve been trying to get this point over to many folks. Yes NHS Scotland is different from NHS England – For Now. But following a NO vote, this will inexorably disappear into the mists of memory.
As with many other articles in newspepars / blogs / etc at present I wish you had made it clearer which NHS was considering this proposal.
I appreciate it could be the whole UK if we vote no but someone visiting this site for the first time could have read this as an attack on the Scottish government.
The terms NHS and Government are far from established in the minds of many people. I had a discussion just a few days ago with a Labour supporter who refused to believe that the NHS in Scotland is operated by people in Scotland.
His arguement – it’s the “National” health service.
The DWP-Atos disability denial regime already practises the unethical and unscientific withdrawal of life-saving social security benefits from long-term chronically sick and disabled people which has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of sick and disabled patients.
The government and the medical profession refuse point-blank to record the outcomes of sick and disabled people who have been found fit for work by the DWP-Atos who regard any patient being found fit for work as an actual medical treatment which will cure them of the ailments holding them back from getting a job. Not for nothing is the infamous Atos interrogation bloc just off Glasgow city centre nicknamed “Lourdes”, although I think it epitomises more the medical ethics practised in concentration camps and work camps where work made the sick inmates free.
Induced death by premeditated state neglect by withdrawal of life-saving treatment and welfare provision is, it seems, the new eugenics and system of state euthanasia for the parts of the population who are deemed to have become economically unproductive and a burden.
ps
For those on Facebook –
Atos National Demo 19th Feb
link to facebook.com
As an ex healthcare professional I used to work with NiCE Guidelines in England. The equivalent in Scotland is the Scottish Medicines Consortium, care of Scot Gov. NICE only issue alerts here to draw attention to their most recent publications.
I do not understand the mentality of No voters who think we are protected from Westminster. This has only occurred because of the threat of independence. Take that away, by voting No in September, and then see how protected we are. Scotland’s budget will get savagely reduced. We will have no choice but to privatise the NHS in Scotland. Tuition fees will be introduced again. If the well off in Scotland think that a No vote has no risk then they better do some serious thinking. Everyone will pay a heavy price if we vote No. Take away the threat of independence and we will be powerless in the face of the social Darwinism of the Tories.
Its a utilitarian point of view.
Human Rights often tend to be in deep conflict with utilitarian policies and points of view.
And, of course, we can all be guaranteed protection on the basis of the protection of Human rights. That is because part of the Tories problem with Europe is that they don’t protect fundamental Human rights enough. Em – wait a moment.
This dangerous and sinister policy shouldn’t be implemented anywhere and if it goes through in England and Wales and there is a No vote in September then it’ll be here sooner or later. Even if, pushing optimism to the point of wishful thinking, a future SNP government were able to prevent the policy being implemented here, they won’t be in power forever. Can you imagine the enthusiasm with which a future Scottish Labour government would set about bringing us into line with the rest of the UK?
People need to realise that the welfare state as we know it is over. The process started under Labour with their attacks on sickness and disability benefits and cuts to housing benefit for private sector tenants. The main difference between Labour and the Conservatives in this regard is that Labour prefer to boil the frog so few people realise what’s happening, whereas the tories just get right in there with the bludgeon.
It would be great if there were a movement UK wide to pose a serious challenge to the destruction of the welfare state and we could all show solidarity and be better together but there isn’t and there’s not a cat in hells chance of one forming any time soon. The only hope we have in Scotland of avoiding this is a yes vote.
The devolved parliament has been a 2 edged sword for the SNP. Yes, it has shown that they are a competent government, but it seems that some folk think the SNP will always be able to protect them from the worst of Westminster.
I hope greater minds than mine are working on that problem.
Betsy, I haven’t seen the thought “The main difference between Labour and the Conservatives in this regard is that Labour prefer to boil the frog so few people realise what’s happening, whereas the tories just get right in there with the bludgeon” expressed like that before – but it sums up the way those two parties operate perfectly.
Jakes Law:
“As the number of articles on online blog increases, the probability of one citing Godwins Law approaches 1”
Sorry just to add to previous post, at least half of ALL MP’s, even some of ours, quite amazingly also think there is only one NHS in the British Isles.
k
@joe kane
Joe, the “Work Programme” that is linked to ATOS is an absolute disgrace. They force people with serious MS conditions and cancer among other disabling illnesses, to attend these “back to work programmes” or they get their benefit payments stopped.
I emailed Atos and told them they should be charged with crimes against humanity and be brought before the European Court of Human Rights.
This is the story of one such person.
link to newstatesman.com
It wasn’t just the nazi’s who were naughty, the allies had their moments too.
link to youtube.com
As for the UK government, first it was undermining our European Human Rights, then it was enforcing, if you wish to take your employer to a tribunal, you’d need to pay £1200.00 quid to do so.
Now it looks like if you’re not contributing to society in the near future, you may be deemed surplus to requirement, and not receive the treatment you need.
Incidently I noticed that from 50 years of age to 75 years of age, you receive an envelope to submit a sample 3 times to detect bowel cancer etc, what happens if you’re over 75 are you deemed not worth the treatment.?
@Juteman
The devolved parliament has been a 2 edged sword for the SNP. Yes, it has shown that they are a competent government, but it seems that some folk think the SNP will always be able to protect them from the worst of Westminster.
I hope greater minds than mine are working on that problem.
I am afraid to say it strikes me that a fairly high number of people in Scotland appear to have set themselves against change, and therefore independence. I would say this is really about denial. I agree this issue really needs to be tackled, even if it means being brutally honest and blunt over the consequences of a No vote. By September people need to know about the limitations of the block grant from Westminster.
Thanks caz-m.
I gather there at least 120 disabled persons who have been sanctioned by the DWP and left without any social security benefits for at least 3 years. I can’t begin to imagine what their lives must be like, if they’re still alive that is. Then there are the tens of thousands more sanctioned for shorter periods.
What kind of minds dream up such detailed systems of punishment for sick and disabled patients, and think nothing of considering proposals to stop the medical treatment of elderly people?
Needless to say, it was the previous Labour Government who extended the sanctions regime to disabled people along with single parents.
ps
According to government figures, about 8,000 disabled ESA claimants, between 03 Dec 2012 and 03 June 2013 alone, have been sanctioned as part of the DWP’s Works Programme or for failing to attend DWP mandatory interviews. The latest government document on sanctions has to be read to be believed –
Jobseeker’s Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance Sanctions – decisions made to June 2013, GB
link to gov.uk
@joe kane
Atos link for above.
@http://www.newstatesman.com/business/2013/10/disabled-and-work-programme-cold-calling-companies-8-16-hours-week
Everyboody thinks we won the 2nd WW, the bankers won and they keep on winning, no matter how many laws they break they never face jail time and they keep bankrolling wars and laundering drug monies, it must be good to be untouchable NOT scum.
What a former Whitehall welfare mandarin and now a Westminster Lord thinks of the elderly –
Elderly should do community work or lose pension, peer says
Older people should lose their pensions if they refuse to do community work to stop them being a “negative burden on society”, a former senior Whitehall official has suggested
24 Oct 2012
link to telegraph.co.uk
O/T
Don’t ask…but I came across this today and Scottish Labour came straight into my mind for some reason
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the ("Tractor" - Ed) moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the ("Tractor" - Ed) appears not a ("Tractor" - Ed); he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The ("Tractor" - Ed) is the plague.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero (Ancient Roman Lawyer, Writer, Scholar, Orator and Statesman, 106 BC-43 BC)
To me a measure of an enlightened society is how it looks after its old and infirm. So to my mind the UK is regressing back to a Victorian age of leaving the poor to workhouses (ie sponsored slavery) and the old and sick at the mercy of charity medicine or a sharp winter. Scotland is better than this and can’t be dragged down to a level where the only people who can afford food, shelter and heating are stakeholders in corporate profiteering. We are fast becoming slaves to corporate cartels where Westminster is complicit in helping to create them. If Scotland votes NO then between 2014 and 2020 would a time of wrecking anything that Scots hold dear in society including indentity.
No one seems safe from these creatures.
Whoo Hoo
We are back YAY!
Just in time to join in the fun fest that is the Herald front page too
Welcome back comrade Campbellski
???, ??? ??? ????. Stu
And were back
That was scary not having my WOS ‘fix’ lol
Off topic, Welcome back! My godess that was scary.
Meant to say in Russian _ Glad to have you back Rev Stu – but wouldn’t let me plus there was no time to re-edit !
You won’t believe the relief I felt when I was able to log onto WoS this morning!
I’d feared the FSB had emp-ed the servers and the Rev was now ministering to heathens in a gulag.
Nice one.
Back up and running !!! Felt so ill informed without it WoS.
Listening to a live debate between Blair Jenkins and Blair McDougal on Westsound link to radioplayer.westsound.co.uk
On the Herald story McDougal has just rubbished the story as a work of fiction, claiming that he has read the original Russian text
Hurray!
Good to have you back Wings
Jeezo…been having palpitations since yesterday!
Good to have you back!
“New drugs will only be made available on the NHS if they help people deemed to be a benefit to society under proposals that prompted fears elderly people could be denied treatment.”
Handicapped, criminals, long-term unemployed, alcoholics, obese and the infirm lose out to the OBE’s, MP’s, Whitehall Mandarins (of course most will have private medical insurance anyway the rest rely on the NHS)
So in a sense, the untermenschen and their treatment is nothing new.
Westsound programme is interesting, so far not one NO person on and on every point McDougall has come second best either to jenkins or the person phoning in.
Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
11 January, 2014 at 12:49 pm
That’s exactly the sort of reckless complacency that underpins much of the No vote.
I am, of course, neither complacent nor a NO voter.
Delighted to see the site is back up. Did you get my email re. WordPress back-up solutions?
“I am, of course, neither complacent nor a NO voter.
Delighted to see the site is back up. Did you get my email re. WordPress back-up solutions?”
I didn’t say you were a No voter, nor intend to imply it. I simply meant that it’s an attitude shared with many who are – “Och, we do okay now, and the NHS is devolved, so we’ll be fine after a No because nothing will change.”
And yes, got the email, ta.
@Clootie
Excellent quote – shared on fb & getting comments & reshared already.
Sums up the situation here sublimely.
Spoke to soon we have a NO numpty on now
i think someone has put something in my roll up. cameron, putin, russia against scotland. wtf?
Hey, didn’t the Nazis have a pact with the Soviets for the first couple of years of the war…?
Help me Ronaski!
Cameron tries ‘Putin’ Scotland off Independence with Russian help, but won’t debate cause ‘he’s not really involved and doesn’t have a vote…
Ahhhhhh; So this is the ‘Best of Both worlds’ message !!!!
(More like best of British & all that)
I had a look at the Herald comments I see someone has said that the story can’t be true because the Scotsman has spoken to the Downing Street office and they deny it but say the story shows that independence would have ramifications across Europe. So Downing Street say “no we never, nasty rough boys did and ran away” and someone (Cameron’s mum perhaps) takes that at face value?
This story is froth but by feck it is funny froth
Restricted healthcare based on ‘economic worth of the individual’.
This must be the “new Dark Age, made more sinister by the lights of perverted science” that Churchill warned of.
Had us worried there, Rev. Welcome back.
Yay, Wings is back despite all that spamski the Rev had to deal with.
@muttley79: I do not understand the mentality of No voters who think we are protected from Westminster.
My Unionist Friend(tm) opened with this when I discussed the welfare cuts, arguing that the UK government’s policies haven’t “reached” Scotland (though quite how he could say that when people I know personally had started paying the Bedroom Tax – sorry, “not receiving money they previously got from the Spare Room Subsidy”). To which I can only say: how on earth can you say we’re “better together” if we needed protected from our own government!?! If we’re going to change the UK government, then we’re not going to do it by hoping for the best by assuming Labour will suddenly go back to the age of Clement Atlee.
I was watching the Sunday Politics: Jim Murphy was peddling his usual “the Tories are a temporary problem, Indy is forever” nonsense. “The way forward is to vote Labour in 2015, not independence” – even though your own leaders have said they will not reverse ANY of the coalition’s cuts? Even though your own leaders are chasing the xenophobic anti-immigration crowd and adopting the Something-for-Nothing mantle? Even though that Scotland has ALREADY BEEN VOTING LABOUR for the past 50 years?
God almighty.
Also, the host (cannae remember his name) accused Salmond of denigrating Scottish Tory voters, RIGHT AFTER Jim Murphy talked about the Tories as A POISON. DUDE.
Sunday politics: BT advertising from the BBC. Presented by the Numpties.
Alan “RODENT”: daily mail, BT mouthpiece, Waste of space. Mr nae personality.
Jim Murphy: All things to all men, a lost soul and spent force, think he’s out of the slab BUNCH! What did Jim do. He’s a career politician for gods sake. Looks very pensive lately.
ALEX SALMOND SUPREME LEADER!
Thank the good rev that you have returned wos.
Glad to see you back. This thread remind me of the film Soylent Green, a film for obsessive recyclers.
Reading this I truly felt a shiver down my spine…brrrr. Who the heck do the sham down in westminster think they are? Clearly they see themselves as being immune to the state sanctioned destruction of their own vulnerable and disabled, poor and elderly people. Certainly if the uk comes out of the EU the human rights act will go, which would really leave the door open to mistrea and deny every human being in the uk the right to the basics, although this process has already started big style.
It will be hard for the perpetrators to wipe the blood off their hands, eventually.
Read the Ama Sumani article in wikipedia and you will realize that this “selection” process is NOT a new policy. Read the civil servant whine and realize that this is England’s future but it doesn’t have to be Scotland’s – it mustn’t be Scotland’s.
It was this event that finally convinced me that the UK was not worth saving in any shape or form. The fact that people did not rise up and throw the monsters responsible into oblivion made me realize that this was a nation under judgement. As a Chrisitan I firmly believe that “God is not mocked” and how a nation capable of this can even vaguely consider itself civilized is beyond me.
The loot the British Empire – slaves and gold foremost- extracted from what is now Ghana – then the Gold Coast – so vastly exceeds the benefits that land has ever received from the UK that one would think that shame alone would have demanded this unfortunate woman receive the care that she needed. There is no shame in the UK nor hope nor future for it and either Scotland separates from this maggoty ex-empire or she will be consigned to the same fate. Remember- to have been a “mitlaeufer” – a fellow-traveller was also considered a crime post 1945.
It is no wonder so many “southerners” who have settled in Scotland support independence – they know what’s happening and have gotten out – more power to them and I expect there will be even more after the referendum. They need to be welcomed because what is happening in the UK is not tolerable by anyone with even a modicum of conscience.
But £70Billion to get a train to travel 10mins faster to London. If it can get through the waves.
Dumb Tories, can’t last much longer. Exterminate, exterminate.
Not really, they will be using their business Pals private gas chambers.
Expensive, I know, but only for the underclasses paying tax.
The attitudes being applied to health provision in England are not new. They hark back to the language of the time of the poorhouse (workhouse for our English readers), where there were 2 groups: the “deserving poor”; and the “undeserving poor”. The underserving poor got nothing but contempt, although the deserving poor weren’t treated much better.
These institutions existed right up till the late 1940’s, looks like they will be on their way back. If that doesn’t put worry you much you need to go do some research about them.
So Cameron wants to increace crime and civil unrest…
Does he want a revolt? Of course he does, that would give him an excuse to up the police state even further.
The organization who is planning this is N.I.C.E – the devils have their own sense of humour. In 1945, when the horror of Nazism and the death camps was being revealed to the world C.S Lewis published his novel “That Hideous Strength” in which the epitome of an utterly corrupt society is represented by an organisation called the N.I.C.E. In that world people are only valued for what they produce, spend and contribute to the felicity of the the people who run the country. NICE, along with the media, is owned and run by the power elite and people are crudely manipulated like pavlov dogs.
I can’t see any way out of this now other than the whole house being brought down – the corruption is so endemic that the people who are doing it no longer know right from wrong “All your insitutions are rotten to the core…” Who will argue?
How long before an independent Scottish parliament went the same way? The solution isn’t politics but values and what underpins them.
link to lifesitenews.com