It is a fallacies to claim that EU is fourth rich or something like it. Because it certainly is not.
Reductio ad HitlerumReductio ad Hitlerum, also argumentum ad Hitlerum, or reductio (or argumentum) ad Nazium – dog Latin for "reduction (or argument) to Adolf Hitler (or the Nazis)" – is a modern informal fallacy in logic. The name is a pun on reductio ad absurdum. It is a variety of both questionable cause and association fallacy. The phrase reductio ad Hitlerum was coined by an academic ethicist, Leo Strauss, in 1953. Engaging in this fallacy is sometimes known as playing the Nazi card.[1][2]
The fallacy most often assumes the form of "Hitler (or the Nazis) supported X, therefore X must be evil/undesirable/bad."[2] The argument carries emotional weight as rhetoric, since in most cultures anything relating to Hitler or Nazis is automatically condemned. The tactic is often used to derail arguments, as such a comparison tends to distract and to result in angry and less reasoned responses.[2] A subtype of the fallacy is the comparison of an opponent's propositions to the Holocaust.[2] Other variants include comparisons to the Gestapo (the Nazi secret police), to fascism and totalitarianism more generally,[1] and even more vaguely to terrorism.[3] An inverted variant can take the form "Hitler was against X, therefore X must be good."
Fallacious nature of the argumentReductio ad Hitlerum is rationally unsound for two different reasons: As a wrong direction fallacy (a type of questionable cause), it inverts the cause–effect relationship between why a villain and an idea might be criticized; conversely, as guilt by association[2][4] (a form of association fallacy), it illogically attempts to shift culpability from a villain to an idea regardless of who is espousing it and why. Specific instances of reductio ad Hitlerum are also frequently likely to suffer from the fallacy of begging the question or take the form of slippery slope arguments, which are frequently (though not always) false as well.[2]
Those policies advocated by Hitler and his party which are generally considered evil are all condemned in and of themselves, not because Hitler supported them. In other words, genocide and race supremacism, as two examples, are considered evil on their own merits, while Hitler is considered evil for numerous reasons largely because he advocated them. A common example of the fallacy in action is, "The Nazis favored eugenics, therefore eugenics is wrong."[2][4] But the ethical debate over eugenics has nothing to do with Hitler or the Nazis in particular; both eugenics and criticism of it considerably predate Nazism, and have gone well beyond it, into concerns about modern genetic engineering, unknown to Hitler. Used broadly enough, ad Hitlerum can encompass more than one questionable cause fallacy type, as it does in the eugenics example, by both inverting cause and effect and by linking an alleged cause to wholly unrelated consequences. The fallacy of guilt by association can readily be seen by noting that Hitler claimed to be a vegetarian and was fond of dogs and children; arguments that because of this, vegetarianism or affection for dogs and children are evil do not convince.
Ad Hitlerum can also be combined with ad hominem or personally-attacking arguments. Reasoning such as "you are wrong because Hitler said something similar, and Hitler was evil, so you must be evil too" is doubly false, and as such is also related to the fallacy of appeal to emotion.
The argument being false, however, does not prove that X or its supporters are not evil (assuming so would be another fallacy, namely affirming the consequent). Moreover, recall that the argument is false in itself, no matter whether X is actually good or evil.[2] So, "Hitler killed human beings, therefore killing is wrong", is nonetheless a fallacy, however truthful the premise and conclusion may be, because there is no logical connection between the two. It would be akin to "I wear trousers, therefore tomorrow it will rain". This sentence is logically faulty, even if the speaker does wear trousers, and the next day does turn out rainy.
Various criminals, controversial religious and political figures, regimes, and atrocities other than Hitler, the Nazis and the Holocaust can be used for the same purposes. For example, a reductio ad Stalinum could assert that corporal punishment of wayward children is necessary because Joseph Stalin enacted its abolition, or that atheism is a dangerous philosophy because Stalin was an atheist.[5] Similarly, one example of a reductio ad Cromwellium would be to equate enjoying chamber music with hating the Irish, while a reductio ad Ladenium might equate making propaganda or non-mainstream media in general with terrorism. Such constructions, as a class, make no more sense than saying moustaches are evil because Hitler and Stalin had moustaches.
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Countering the fallacyThe fallacious nature of reductio ad Hitlerum is, however, most easily illustrated by identifying X as something that Adolf Hitler or his supporters did promote but which is not considered unethical, such as watercolor painting, owning dogs, or vegetarianism. It may be refuted through counterexamples using figures with reputations generally opposite that of Hitler:
* Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, Hitler's British opponent, also painted.
* President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his successor Harry Truman, Hitler's American opponents, also owned dogs.
* India's celebrated pacifist reformer Mahatma Gandhi was also a vegetarian.
The fallacy is common enough that the counter-example can be used without a proper explanation; for example, dismissively saying, "yeah, and the Fascists made the trains run on time", and expecting the listener to understand the reference to reductio ad Hitlerum.[citation needed]
Many of Hitler's qualities and talents were admirable if seen in isolation. He is generally considered an excellent orator and a political organizer of first rank, regardless of the condemnable fact that he used those talents to further a program of genocide and other atrocities.
In addition to this, it must be remembered that not all arguments involving Hitler or Nazism are reductio ad Hitlerum, although they may be otherwise fallacious.
History of the termThe phrase reductio ad Hitlerum is first known to have appeared in University of Chicago professor Leo Strauss's 1953[6] book, Natural Right and History, Chapter II:
In following this movement towards its end we shall inevitably reach a point beyond which the scene is darkened by the shadow of Hitler. Unfortunately, it does not go without saying that in our examination we must avoid the fallacy that in the last decades has frequently been used as a substitute for the reductio ad absurdum: the reductio ad Hitlerum. A view is not refuted by the fact that it happens to have been shared by Hitler.
The phrase was derived from the better known (and sometimes valid) logical argument called reductio ad absurdum. The argumentum variant takes its form from the names of many classic fallacies, such as argumentum ad hominem. The ad Nazium variant may be further derived, humorously, from argumentum ad nauseam.
EU is democratic and fair. It will only do Iceland good to join the EU, since we already are in the
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