Argumentative Penguin
2 min readDec 26, 2021

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Godwin's Law is an excellent law - but I picked Heydrich for a reason - he was the least Nazi Nazi out of all of them. He wasn't committed to any real Nazi idealism in the slightest, he was an aspirational upper-middle class opportunist. While others around him may have been committed to the cause (Goebells anyone?) Heydrich really wasn't. What Heydrich really excelled at was self-promotion within a system, it doesn't matter what that system is, he will find ways to make it more efficient and climb the greasy pole.

That, for me at least, is the most terrifying thing about him. There are people for whom group membership and their promotion within it represent the full scope of their moral compass. So, absolutely... rad-libs do not want to exterminate millions of people, nor do they want to torture/kill others.... but one could make the argument that Communists like Stalin and Mao were well meaning. The argument is one of keeping an eye on where your movement leads, not necessarily on what good intentions it has right now.

This is omething I wrote about in one of my earlier pieces on this site. https://medium.com/lucid-nightmare/nazis-in-our-classes-the-50-year-old-lesson-about-fascism-still-terrifying-us-today-839c3222dc23

And wherever a movement goes.... there will be ambitious people like Heydrich who will make it better and more extreme. They don't have principles, they adapt their principles to suit their ambitions as the acqusition of power is all they really care about. Those people are truly the ones we have to watch out for.

Godwin's Law, with a twist. :o)

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Argumentative Penguin
Argumentative Penguin

Written by Argumentative Penguin

Playwright. Screenwriter. Penguin. Fan of rationalism and polite discourse. Find me causing chaos in the comments. Contact: argumentativepenguin@outlook.com

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