# Is there a version of "Godwin's Law" in Europe?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-version-of-godwins-law-in-europe/796425>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 15, 2017, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-version-of-godwins-law-in-europe/796425 "2017-09-15T19:13:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\
**Post date:** [September 15, 2017, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-version-of-godwins-law-in-europe/796425/6 "2017-09-15T20:01:31Z")

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> [@Velocity](#):
>
> What I mean is - there tends to be a backlash in America when someone brings up Hitler or Nazism as a rhetorical weapon in debates or discussions where Hitler or Nazism isn’t a valid comparison.
> 
> Is there a similar backlash in European discourse?

Godwin’s Law isn’t a law as much as an observation.

It’s the observation that when one or both sides are resorting to _literally the most inflammatory insults they can think of_, the discussion is over and it’s now just a shouting match. He just used “Nazis” as a convenient example of a group which was, in his mind, universally loathed in his social context. In other contexts, it could be “gays” or “Christians” or “Muslims” or “cishets” or any other identifiable category.

**The group doesn’t matter. The intense vitriol matters.**

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