Ben Stein's Corollary to Godwin's Law: Hitler is Everywhere

I'm not sure whether Ben Stein is mentally deranged, has had some kind of stroke, or has just come to the decision that the "anything I don't like is Hitler" gambit used in Expelled should be spread about as much as possible, but there's something very wrong with him. Whatever the reason, he seems to have come up with something that I think should be named Ben Stein's Corollary to Godwin's Law, or Stein's Corollary for short. That is, anything that Hitler did, no matter how much it may have been done by other people, can be used in an attempt to silence any possibility intelligible discourse.

Stein recently employed this corollary while appearing on CNN's Glenn Beck Show in reference to the plans underway for Barack Obama's acceptance of the Democratic nomination at an outdoor arena apart from the main convention in order to accommodate the large number of people who want to attend the event:

...that is not the way we do things in political parties in the United States of America... Seventy-five-thousand people at an outdoor sports palace, well, that's something the Fuehrer would have done. And I think whoever is advising Senator Obama to do this is bringing up all kinds of very unfortunate images from the past.

Seriously, what neurological circuit has shorted in Stein's brain to make this kind of analogy and expect it to sound even remotely reasonable? He seems to be seeing the zombie Hitler everywhere.

Even if no other American politician had ever given a speech at an arena before, so what? Does the mere fact that both Obama and Hitler have appeared in an outdoor arena mean that there is some meaningful similarity between the two?

Hitler wore shoes. I wear shoes. Therefore, I want to exterminate Jews, gypsies and homosexuals. It makes every bit as much sense. But wait... I've never seen Ben Stein barefoot! He could be a Nazi.

But wait again... Barry Goldwater held a rally at Colt .45 Stadium in Houston in 1964!

Besides baseball, we also played for a Barry Goldwater rally in the stadium just before the 1964 presidential election. That may not have been the last event at Colt Stadium, but we were there.

— Source

Barry Golwater held a rally at a sports stadium, and Hitler held rallies at stadiums... so Barry Goldwater was like Hitler. So much for Stein's "we don't do things like that in America" delusion.

That a politician speaking at a large sporting venue automatically conjures up images of brown shirts in Stein's mind tells us nothing about the speaker and everything about the ongoing degeneration of Stein's relationship with reality. What's next... Obama wears shoes and Hitler wore shoes (anyone ever seen a photo of Hitler's bare feet)? They both prefer to breathe the same mixture of gases when appearing in public? Hitler is everywhere! Head for the hills!

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