In Which I Defeat Lyndon LaRouche by Default

Perhaps this anecdote is amusing. Or maybe it's just lurid.

Yesterday afternoon found me not at work, but at the Virginia Motor Vehicles service center in Alexandria, replacing my drivers license after an unfortunate mishap permanently separated me from my wallet. Though I rushed in 40 minutes before closing time with visions of stony-faced, callous DMV staffers explaining in excruciating detail why my seven alternate forms of identification were insufficient to replace my license, I met with the pleasant surprise of actually receiving a new one with astonishing speed and efficiency. Government bureaucracies everywhere, take note: The Alexandria, VA DMV has shown you the way.

So, walking out, I can perhaps be forgiven for feeling light-hearted, a tad giddy, and even charitable. Charitable enough that when a middle-aged man in geeky aviator glasses who was handing out some sort of political pamphlet outside the DMV exit collared me and launched into his inevitable diatribe against somebody or other, I indulged him and listened.

Try as I might, I can't help feeling sorry for these people, whom you see all too often in the DC area; they're just so earnest and dedicated, they'll actually attempt to get perfect strangers to join their righteous cause. They just have a certain lonely, pathetic air about them that makes it difficult to not feel a slight twinge of pity. And this particular speciman had clearly been standing there all day in the cold wind with no success.

About 20 seconds into his canned speech, I gathered that the guy was raising money for Lyndon LaRouche. The same Lyndon LaRouche who's been running for president in every election since before I was born; the same Lyndon LaRouche who espouses an ambiguous blend of FDR-style big government but has incurred accusations of anti-semitism, Soviet-backed treason and all sorts of other weird charges. Prior to yesterday, I knew the following about LaRouche: He's a perennial feature of fringe American politics, he's sort of a crank with a cult following, and he's not to be taken seriously.

So I listened politely for five minutes, nodded sympatheticly, and even accepted a profferred sheaf of LaRouche screeds. But when the punchline came -- "How much would you like to donate?" -- I had to demur. Sorry, I said, but I just don't think LaRouche's political positions mesh with mine very well (though apparently we both think western civilization is in mortal danger at the moment).

And that's when my interlocutor lost the argument I didn't know I was having. In a classic case of Godwin's law, he called me a Nazi, thus, according to one popular formulation of the law, forfeiting any claim to a reasonable position by virtue of rhetorical name-calling. And all because I disagreed with his, and Lyndon LaRouche's, ardent demand for a new New Deal, which apparently anyone who's not a Nazi knows is exactly what our country needs right now. Had he accused me of KKK membership, I would have been no less astounded.

Perhaps he was just a coherent lunatic whom I made the mistake of listening to. Or perhaps there is a running tide of political polarization sweeping this country, one that teaches people to reflexively hate any opponent without regard for rational thought, and this was merely the first wave lapping at my feet. Optimist that I am, I'm going to assume the former. At least until my socks feel wet.