Godwin's law states, 'As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches.'

It’s an adage that began as a sarcastically humorous observation made by American lawyer Mike Godwin, and it's now mainly observed by contributors to online debates as a cut-off point.

That is, as soon as a web user mentions Nazis in any way, he or she immediately loses the argument and the matter is closed.

It's an excellent way of encouraging people to be more articulate and original in their thinking – and it should apply to the real world as well as the digital, especially when parties have a difference of opinion about truly important matters.

Like, say, taxation – which so sparked businessman Stephen A. Schwarzman’s ire that he likened President Obama’s proposal to tax the USA’s private equity sector to the 1939 invasion of Poland.

It's an analogy that is at once pathetic, distasteful and shocking.

Pathetic because it exposes a flaw in the intelligence by a man who was bright enough to become a billionaire in a zillion-dollar industry, which could afford to give something back to the country in which it operates.

The distasteful aspect of Schwarzman’s remark goes without saying.

And it is shocking because the man who uttered it is a practising Jew.

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