Python 1.6 The balanced language

[Alex Martelli]

"Manuel Gutierrez Algaba" <thor at localhost.localdomain> wrote in message
news:slrn8rd39c.eb0.thor at localhost.localdomain...
    [snip]
> A bit of primitiveness and wilderness is good, as Rosseau showed us.
> Nice words and reasonings may have a hidden part, uncatchable by
> intelligence but easily recognizable by stupid prejudices.
>
> Many people thought Hitler was a nice guy in 1933.

By Godwin's Law as commonly understood, this thread is now over,
and you've lost.  See e.g. the Jargon File, e.g. at
    http://www.ccil.org/jargon/

"""
:Godwin's Law: /prov./  [Usenet] "As a Usenet discussion grows
   longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler
   approaches one."  There is a tradition in many groups that, once
   this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis
   has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress.  Godwin's
   Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on
   thread length in those groups.
"""

For many more details on Godwin's Law, see for example:
    http://www.landfield.com/faqs/usenet/legends/godwin/


Incidentally, nobody who let reason (rather than "primitiveness
and wilderness" [?]) guide him could possibly "think Hitler
was a nice guy in 1933" -- "Mein Kampf" had been published in
1925, laying out his plans & ideas in detail.  No *nice* "words
and reasonings" in it, but all the "stupid prejudices" you
might possibly like.

And Rousseau... as Bertran Russell wrote in 1945, Rousseau was
*exactly* "the inventor of the political philosophy of the
pseudo-democratic dictatorships" -- "Hitler is the outcome of
Rousseau", as Russell continues.  The parallels between "la
volonté générale" and Hitler's "Volk" are crucially important.
"Freedom" as "total surrender to the service of the State"...


Alex