Camfield’s Absurd Analogy and the Missing Link

Tennessee State Senator Stacey Camfield took the GOP rhetoric on Obamacare to heretofore unrealized levels of absurdity by comparing the requirement of being insured to the Nazi forced transportation of Jews to concentration camps. No, seriously, he did. In his “Thought of the Day” on Monday he wrote, “"Democrats bragging about the number of mandatory sign ups for Obamacare is like Germans bragging about the number of manditory sign ups for 'train rides' for Jews in the 40s.”

Rather than apologizing afterward, Camfield explained that he “"regret[s] that some people miss the point of my post. It was not to offend. It was to warn." He continued, "In no way was my post meant to diminish or detract from the pain, suffering and loss of human life that occurred during this dark time in human history," he said. "Instead the post was meant to draw attention to the loss of freedom that we are currently experiencing." Reasserting Godwin’s Law yet again, we find another ongoing debate that has reached that point where Nazis or Hitler become a point of contention (he constructed the law regarding usenet group discussions in 1990, arguing that the longer a discussion continues, the closer to 1 the probability becomes that the comparison will occur).

Of course, Republicans have been comparing Obama policies to Hitler and fascism since before he was elected … so not a big surprise here.