Alright, so, this is something we all do from time to time, but it needs to fucking stop. Guilt by association. Its a fallacy, its a dick move and its holding everyone back. Common use-case is the "ad Nazium" argument; this is when someone essentially demonizes a person or thing by using tangential associations to the Nazi party. This has been done in regards to public healthcare, environmental protection, social welfare programs and basically anything anyone disagrees with.
Now, to be fair, it is highly effective... for all the wrong reasons. This kind of thing is emotional manipulation via over-saturated buzzword. Nazi's are the worst people available for the social discourse, they did, or could be imagined to approve of, a thing and so that thing takes on the stink of the worst the discourse has to offer. Take public healthcare. Nazi's had a form of it. Any ideas who else stumbles down that sinister and mustachioed road? Canada, a nation of people Americans tend to laugh at for being so goddamn genuinely nice. Half of South America has universal healthcare. Almost every country in Europe makes sure this is a thing. Why do all of these places so willingly adopt a policy that the Nazis also adopted? Because anyone with even an ounce of humanity in them understands that charging people for the right to not live in agony is disgusting. They realize that if people as a whole are taken care of everyone is better off.
That isn't even the only way this particular bullshit is spread either. Americans have dogged on socialism and communism endlessly for the last century. Not because the ideologies are flawed or there's some kind of logical inconsistency in the philosophies. Two reasons only. Nazi Germany (again) and the U.S.S.R. Well and a little bit of China, but mostly leading from shit with the Soviets. First, Germany wasn't the first nation to have an abusive relationship with socialism, other countries have done it with significant positive results. Second, there has never been an actual communist state in history. The Soviet Union was an Imperial Oligarchy that utilized bits of Marxist rhetoric to justify themselves to the working class. China wasn't much different. However, we still use these terms to demonize policies or groups we don't want to discuss honestly, largely for fear that it might actually accomplish something.
Belief systems are another frequent target of this insidious little fallacy. Let me make this perfectly fucking clear. ANYTIME ANYONE makes a derisive statement about another person's beliefs (or lack thereof) without having discussed those beliefs with that person, they are utilizing guilt by association. Plenty of faithful folk are pretty reasonable to talk to, plenty of those sans faith are wonderful. A vile, bile-spewing minority on both sides seeks to make everyone who even remotely sympathizes with them into a crusader for their side. Folk are folk; burning someone for what equates to a passing similarity is inexcusable. Really, it just makes everyone look bad and prevents meaningful, enlightening, dialogue.
And really that's the worst bit about this problem; it keeps us from really growing together as people. When you hear that someone supports a thing or believes a thing it is an opportunity for both of you to develop. Guilt by association kills that in its crib, why would you extend the empathy to try and learn from or inform someone on the wrong side? Why encourage people with different beliefs to respect each other and try to understand the world better when you can just yell at them for being idiots/heathens. Why have an honest discourse about critical issues when you can hide behind knee-jerk reactivity. This whole thing is cowardice, and we know how I feel about that one.
I hit the Nazi/healthcare thing pretty hard, but it deserves it. Hell, I'll probably come back and expand on that one in its own right at some point, assuming Brian doesn't beat me to it.
~Eshi
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