I believe that this is called "bringing the awesome sauce"

by von

Ta-Nehisi Coates:

Lane is trying to cover himself by noting that he's comparing attitude, not morals. This only works in the most absurdly narrow sense--both abolitionists and fire-eaters believed that aspects of the federal law should be resisted. But this is like saying that both Roosevelt and Hitler had resigned themselves to mass killings.

I haven't read Lane and don't know whether Coates is overreacting to what he wrote.  (I doubt that Coates is overreacting, but see the "haven't read Lane.")  I wouldn't even be reading this if SFO wasn't on a 2 hour fog delay.  But damn.  This takedown is the exception that proves Godwin's law; that is, Coates shows how a proper Nazi comparison should be done.  It's fine writing at its finest.

 

Remind me never to piss Coates off. 

 

UPDATE: Some of y'all are hung up on "This takedown is the exception that proves Godwin's law".  I'm a bit of a pedant myself, but aren't we allowed to play with the language a little bit?  Must we always be according to Hoyle?  Must we, when stuck in an airport on a fog delay?

Comments

[Eric Martin]

But wait Von, it gets worse. See here.

[Catsy]

Two things.

First, something on the page from "truthlaidbear.com" is taking a long time to load and preventing the comments field from appearing while it does.

Second:

This takedown is the exception that proves Godwin law

No, it's not.

Godwin's law states that "[a]s an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

It has nothing to do with whether or not the comparison is apt, nor with whether or not the comparison causes the discussion to "jump the shark".

It sounds like you're using Godwin's law in the incorrect way in which it is commonly misunderstood.

[cleek]

First, something on the page from "truthlaidbear.com" is taking a long time to load and preventing the comments field from appearing while it does.

which is why i added it to my Adbock Plus filter list, last week.

[Eric Martin]

Nerd!

[Hogan]

This takedown is the exception that proves Godwin law

No, it's not.

That's also not what "exception that proves the rule" means.

[Jacob Davies]

I emailed the kitty about that a while back actually, but then just adblocked it myself.

Er, I hope nobody was expecting to get rich off ads here...

There's "anti-slavery, pro-slavery, what's the difference", then there's Hannity's endorsement of Timothy McVeigh, to cheering applause. And yes, I have read the applicable context to understand that was it was on the face of it intended as sarcasm - "They call us Tim McVeigh wannabees" - but since I wasn't born yesterday I don't have to pretend that it wasn't a blatant dog-whistle.

Conservatives are weird.

[Carleton Wu]

I dunno- the putdown seems tangential to Lane's point. It's not unusual for those defending odious positions to ostensibly distance themselves while undermining opposition positions with bs moral equivalencies. And the bit that Coates quotes does sort of fit that pattern.

But viewed in the light of the whole article, this is something of a side point, a (extraordinarily clumsy) attempt to show that out-of-the-current-mainstream positions can either be praised or vilified by history, depending on future events. Lane explicitly disavows weighing the morality of the underlying positions, and I think that we should take him at his word lacking any clear evidence to the contrary.
(later, he writes Time and again, the parties have brokered peace at the expense of moral clarity. That is probably why the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850, each of which attempted to save the Union while sacrificing African American freedom, ultimately broke down...
Not exactly an apologia for racism.

That's not to say I agree with Lane's thesis: I think he ignores the fundamentally anti-(small d)democratic nature of the teabaggers. The tacit acceptance (and even encouragement) of violence. The eliminationism. The litmus tests for "real Americans".
That is, he lumps the teabaggers in with movements such as abolitionism that sought to correct specific perceived injustices. But the 'injustice' fought by the teabaggers is that they must participate in a democratic system, that the are not free to impose their views on others by virtue of being more "American".

[bobbyp]

I haven't read Lane..

Don't bother unless you like your High Broderism served ineptly.

[Curtis]

Here's the thing ... Coates doesn't overreact. If anything, he underreacts. So if he is calling someone out, they've earned it.

So the good news is ... it will take a lot to piss him off.

[wonkie]

Von, you are quoted on the front page of Kos. Fame of a sort.

Erick Erickson did that conservative hint, hint thing on CNN and suggested that people greet the evil big government freedom hating census workers with shotguns.

IF a census worker does get shot, Erickson--and CNN-will share the responisblity with the shooter.

So my question is: can we start referring to some Republicans as fascists yet as an accurate label, not a Godwin's Law rhetorical phenomenon?

[russell]

What strikes me about Lane's analogy is that both the abolitionists and the "fire-eaters" were motivated by something real -- there was a real practice and culture of slavery, real people were kept as property.

The government is not taking over the health care industry. There are not going to be government panels that decide who lives and who dies. Obama is not a Communist.

One set of examples is based in historical reality. One is based in paranoia.

Regarding Erickson, if somebody shoots a census or ACS worker, he will run away from his comments as fast and far as he can.

Conservative pundit is a fat, easy gig for Erickson. He'll say whatever will get him on the air, and he will not do anything to put his precious sinecure at risk.

[russell]

McClatchey on tea bagger fever dreams.

[Brett Bellmore]

"I believe that this is called "bringing the awesome sauce""

And I believe that nobody calls it that. Hell, I don't know anybody who calls anything that; Is it some kind of local slang where you live?

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, I suppose you didn't invent the phrase out of whole cloth, I did a google search on it, and after excluding all results that mentioned this post, got at least 22 unique results, some of which went back to all of last year.

Well, unless it's just you using the phrase each time...

[Phil]

Results 1 - 10 of about 119,000 for "awesome sauce". (0.31 seconds)

[Mike Schilling]

As a Monty Python fan, I'd call it "a fair cop".

[liberal japonicus]

The Urban dictionary has Awesome Sauce as coming from Strong Bad see (last bit)

[Brett Bellmore]

"Results 1 - 10 of about 119,000 for "awesome sauce". (0.31 seconds)"

Yup, then try it with "bringing the awesome sauce" -obsidian -obsidianwings. 23 results, one is a Burger King advertisement. Most are redundant references to a couple uses of the phrase.

That's why I figure it's NOT called "bringing the awesome sauce".

These goofy phrases are starting to become something of a trope here. Or maybe I'm just missing an inside joke?

[Brett Bellmore]

Anyway, I might as well stop amusing myself with playing the clueless pendant, and say something more relevant.

"But this is like saying that both Roosevelt and Hitler had resigned themselves to mass killings."

And concentration camps. Must not forget the concentration camps.

"In fact, whereas Minkins and his ilk's attitude insisted on on the rudimentary benefits of citizenship (you know like not being horse-whipped), fire-eaters like Robert Rhett attitude insisted on the dissolution of the entire country."

I'm pretty sure the Confederacy did not actually insist that the northern states dissolve the federal government upon their departure.

These are about the only substantive points on which I actually disagree with Coates. But I thought it worth bringing them up, just to point out that even a valid position can be overstated.

[Brett Bellmore]

"But this is like saying that both Roosevelt and Hitler had resigned themselves to mass killings."

Oh, it occurs to me: Does somebody have a link to Coates' takedown of the Lancet Iraqi death estimates? Seems the same reasoning applies there...

[liberal japonicus]

I guess that a conservative is only allowed to use phrases they have used before. I knew there was a good reason to be liberal...

[Phil]

I think, Brett, you're running into confusion because von has worked in two different linguistic things here: Using the construction, "bringing the [X]" and then replacing [X] with "awesome sauce." The former is a pretty common phrase (especially in sports writing and broadcasting), and the latter is a newer but increasingly common phrase. That von has combined the two in a novel way is, well, how language works.

In short, is it wasn't called "bringing the awesome sauce" before, it is now.

[Brett Bellmore]

That's why he should have said, will be called bringing the awesome sauce.

[von]

Von, you are quoted on the front page of Kos. Fame of a sort.

Normally, I wouldn't view that as a good thing. I'm not much for DK's politics, as most readers know. But I'm happy to be quoted for this: we'll call it bridging the partisan divide. And Meteor Blades, the author of that particular post, is a good egg.

Happy Easter, all.

[Mike Schilling]

Anyway, I might as well stop amusing myself with playing the clueless pendant

You're always welcome to hang around here.

[Mike Schilling]

And concentration camps. Must not forget the concentration camps.

"Concentration camp" was originally a quite literal term. It was a place where enemies of the state were concentrated: that is, large numbers of them forced into a small area. That's precisely the evil that the United States visited on Japanese-Americans.

That Nazis, of course, went well beyond other peoples' attempts at evil, so that concentration camp became a euphemism for "death camp" or "extermination camp". There is no comparison between Manzanar and Auschwitz, and it's pure happenstance that the same word can be used for both.

[someotherdude]

Similar camps existed earlier, such as in the United States (concentration camps for Cherokee and other Native Americans in the 1830s); in Cuba (1868–78) and in the Philippines (1898–1901) by Spain and the U.S., respectively.[5] The term originated in the "reconcentration camps" set up in Cuba by General Valeriano Weyler in 1897, during Spain's campaign to suppress rebellion in Cuba. During the Second Boer War (1899-1902), the term "concentration camp" was used to describe camps operated by the British in South Africa.[6] Ostensibly conceived as a form of humanitarian aid to the families whose farms had been destroyed in the fighting, the camps were used to confine and control large numbers of civilians as part of a scorched earth tactic.

Polish historian Władysław Konopczyński has suggested the first concentration camps were created in Poland in the 18th century, during the Bar Confederation rebellion, when the Russian Empire established three concentration camps for Polish rebel captives awaiting deportation to Siberia. [7]

A history of the term:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment#Concentration_camps

[CristinaBarber31]

It is cool that we are able to receive the home loans moreover, it opens up new opportunities.

[cleek]

that is cool, Cristina!

[Brett Bellmore]

"That Nazis, of course, went well beyond other peoples' attempts at evil, so that concentration camp became a euphemism for "death camp" or "extermination camp". There is no comparison between Manzanar and Auschwitz, and it's pure happenstance that the same word can be used for both."

Granted, they weren't death camps. None the less, we should not forget them. To forget the past is to risk repeating it.

[Mike Schilling]

To forget the past is to risk repeating it.

Very true. If we ever forgot Manzanar, it's not difficult to picture a future traumatic attack leading our government to lock up members of another unpopular group in some godforsaken hell-hole, with no concern for their guilt or innocence.

[Slartibartfast]

Von, you are quoted on the front page of Kos. Fame of a sort.

In general, not a good sort. But as von has said, Meteor Blades goes back a good long ways, with emphasis on good.

[CharlesWT]

"..., it's not difficult to picture a future traumatic attack leading our government to lock up members of another unpopular group in some godforsaken hell-hole, with no concern for their guilt or innocence."

[Slartibartfast]

I had no idea that Irony was measured in Volume Units. The Internet is truly a treasure trove of knowledge.

[Carleton Wu]

I'm a bit of a pedant myself, but aren't we allowed to play with the language a little bit?

There's this chap, goes by Gary Farber. May want to run this by him. But don't forget to duck...

Yup, then try it with "bringing the awesome sauce" -obsidian -obsidianwings. 23 results, one is a Burger King advertisement. Most are redundant references to a couple uses of the phrase.

I get 20,800 hits for "bring the awesome sauce", and would suggest that using the gerund form of the verb is not such a novelty as to require criticism.

[Carleton Wu]

Oh, it occurs to me: Does somebody have a link to Coates' takedown of the Lancet Iraqi death estimates? Seems the same reasoning applies there...

Not to be constantly critical of your positions, but I don't follow you here. On the one hand, a comparison of two positions that differ greatly in morality. On the other hand, an attempt to estimate the excess mortality generated by an event. I don't see how the two suffer from "the same reasoning".
Of course, I also don't get the original criticism. Other than being terminally awkward and tone-deaf, I don't find anything objectionable in principle to noting that both abolitionists and slaveowners were highly motivated and prone to stretch or break the law.

[Atlantys]

Just to be super specific: Auschwitz was originally a concentration camp (they used old army barracks). When they open Auschwitz-Birkenau (Auschwitz II), it was designed as a death camp from Day 1.

So, using the term "Auschwitz is a concentration camp" is technically correct, as long as you're referring to Auschwitz I and not Auschwitz-Birkenau