Some of those people probably overlap with the pro-life groups who make abortion/Holocaust comparisons. There’s overlap, sure.

But people who are just saying “abortion is like the Holocaust”? They aren’t Holocaust deniers. No one is a Holocaust denier unless they are saying that the Holocaust never happened or was exaggerated. Continue this analogy: if we start diluting the meaning of “Holocaust denier”…

The thing is that most people who are out there denying that the Holocaust happened don’t seem to actually believe it didn’t happen. It’s really weird. They’ll get on this big roll about how Jews are liars and they’ve suckered the whole planet into giving them a pass on all the evil shit they do because of something that never occurred and then turn around and say something like “If only Hitler had finished the job, we wouldn’t have to worry about them.” Trying to extrapolate based on expected internal consistency in these sorts of arguments is pretty useless.

Actually, as mentioned by Amanda in her follow-up comment, the argument is that abortion is worse than the Holocaust.” As in, You think the Holocaust was bad? Well, murdering embryos is even worse! Which kinda works to diminish what happened during the actual Holocaust, don’t you think?

Mnemosyne, as Kyle said, for those intellectual lightweights who believe in souls, the argument does make sense. It’s a sign of gullibility, but not of Holocaust denial.

Also, Huckabee said “more than a million people”, which is not at all like the “7.5 times as bad as Nazis” claim. Huckabee’s claim relies completely upon the historicity of the holocaust and upon taking it seriously. A million dead people is significantly like the Holocaust. You still have to be stupid to think that embryos are people, but it’s just stupidity, not Holocaust denial.

I have to say it strains credulity to say that the “7.5 times as bad as Nazis” people are taking the Holocaust seriously. Considering the actual suffering in concentration camps, it’s bullshit to think that even simple murder is anything like that. But here, where they are denigrating the experiences of those who lived through and died in the Holocaust, they are still not questioning historicity at all. This is not Holocaust denial.

Well, Huckabee IS a Republican. And Republicans are KNOWN for truth, honesty, morality, etc. Plus they protect us from terrorists, and hippies, and gay people, and single mothers, and abortions. And since there’s some weird connect to The Clenis, that’s all any “right” thinking person needs to see the truth.

‘Cause the alternative, that Huckabee is yet another in a very long line of sick, twisted Reichwing political hacks who have all the moral grounding of a great white shark, without the cuddly exterior - well that would just be unbearable…(to Dana…)

A bit? That’s like saying a merry-go-round spins “a bit.”

Though it’s interesting to see you once again fall for “he said/she said” journalism: if that’s what Huckabee says happened, well, then that must be what happened! Never mind what the members of the parole board say happened — if Huckabee says differently, he must be telling the truth. After all, it’s not like he has any incentive to lie, now does it?

And, yes, Amanda did get it wrong: Dumond was paroled, not pardoned. Slap on the hand for that one.

You think the Holocaust was bad? Well, murdering embryos is even worse! Which kinda works to diminish what happened during the actual Holocaust, don’t you think?

If you buy dualism and the existence of souls, then equating the two isn’t bad. Fortunately this doesn’t appeal to very many people anymore.

I think we’re really close to that final nail in the coffin, where it becomes supremely embarrassing to equate embryos and people. All you need are words like “nervous system” and “neurons” and “experience” and “desires” and critics shut up really fast.

According to polls, 70% are already on the right side, and Bush’s first veto is going to go down in history as one of the stupidest (in the social-pandering realm) political moves ever.

Huckabee was engaging in a subtle form of rape denial when he pardoned this guy,

Emphasis mine.

Except that Governor Huckabee didn’t pardon Mr DuMond. Mr DuMond was paroled by the state parole board — a board which was, at the time, dominated by the appointees of the two previous governors, Bill Clinton and Jim Guy Tucker. Governor Huckabee did speak to the board in favor of Mr DuMond’s release, but he did not have the authority to instruct the board to grant parole.

Governor Huckabee explained the situation:

Huckabee Distances Self From Parole Case
As Arkansas Governor, GOP Hopeful Favored Release Of Man Who Went On To Kill

AP) Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee distanced himself Tuesday from the case of an Arkansas man who killed a woman after being paroled for rape when Huckabee was the state’s governor.

Huckabee had once spoken in favor of releasing the man but told reporters the decision to do so was made by parole board members appointed by his Democratic predecessors, Jim Guy Tucker and Bill Clinton.

Huckabee said he could not remember all the details of a meeting he had with parole board members during which the case of Wayne DuMond came up. But he asserted, “I didn’t try to, you know, push anybody’s buttons on it.”

Two months after taking office in Little Rock, Huckabee announced he favored DuMond’s early release because he doubted the inmate’s guilt and because DuMond had been castrated while awaiting his rape trial. DuMond said masked men attacked him at his home, but no one was ever charged.

DuMond initially was sentenced to life plus 20 years for his conviction in the 1984 rape of a teenager, but Tucker reduced the sentence to 39½ years, making DuMond eligible for parole.

Huckabee later denied clemency on the same day the state parole board, reversing its earlier decision, granted DuMond parole.

DuMond was released to Missouri in 1999 where he was charged in the murder of a Kansas City-area woman. He died of cancer in prison in 2005.

“The truth is that my only action in this case was that I denied a commutation,” Huckabee said.

Huckabee acknowledged Tuesday that he initially favored DuMond’s release but said he changed his mind when he realized commuting the sentence would mean the man would be under no parole supervision.

Huckabee dismissed any suggestion that he was able to twist the arms of the parole board.

“If I’m that persuasive that I can walk in, a new Republican governor, and persuade Clinton and Tucker appointees to do something that they didn’t want to do — folks, I deserve to be president,” he said.

He might be spinning a bit, but unless he was outright lying about Mr DuMond being paroled vis a vis being pardoned (and the linked source is CBS News; if he lied, it’ll be discovered very quickly), Amanda’s entire article falls apart, because he was paroled by the appointees of Governors Clinton and Tucker. (It was Governor Tucker who reduced Mr DuMond’s original sentence to 39½ years, which made him eligible for parole in the first place.)

It was an exercise in mind-reading on the part of Amanda and the sources she linked to claim that either Mr Huckabee or anyone else wanted to release Wayne DuMond because his victim was a relative of President Clinton. And it was wild-eyed speculation to suggest that Mr DuMond castrated himself. Finally, it seems that she got the very basic fact of who released Mr DuMond in the first place wrong.

Actually, as mentioned by Amanda in her follow-up comment, the argument is that abortion is worse than the Holocaust.” As in, You think the Holocaust was bad? Well, murdering embryos is even worse! Which kinda works to diminish what happened during the actual Holocaust, don’t you think?