Holocaust Denial Wrongly Punished
I agree with David Velleman at Left2Right. Having had my own recent brush with kooky holocaust deniers, I know that they see things through the crackpot worldview and looooove conspiracy theories, especially about Jews (of course).
David Irving has been shown to be a fraud in a court of law, and he has no one to blame but himself because he brought the lawsuit.
That said, I think it’s wrong to proscribe even crackpot speech, and provided there is no incitement to violence, certainly no one should ever go to jail. The Austrian courts have escalated Irving to martyrhood and he’ll be a rallying cry for the next generation of neo-Nazis.
Historians, humanities professors and scientists should all speak out against this. Irving must not be allowed to become the Galileo of the Holocaust denial industry.
February 23rd, 2006 at 1:27 am
No, they do not speak out.
Because you are wrong.
Irwing is no Galileo, never will be viewed as such.
I have not been shocked, I tell you, shocked by some random exposure with ultra-right wing hate talk, I actually have been chased and beaten with baseball bats, I have met actual old Nazis with fake Argentinean passports (the local French police was clearly sympathizing, so I could not do anything about that), whathaveyou.
They are wimps. All of them. That’s why they need to bundle up (il fascismo).
By not taking a stand, like Lieberman on Alito causing countless tragedies now with all the laws changing, I shall accuse you of being a Weimar Democrat.
Get off your ivory tower and smell the street.
You have no evidence to support your position!
February 23rd, 2006 at 7:42 am
WDT, I don’t think Irving is Galileo. I think he’s an idiot racist. But by denying him the right to say odious things, it plays into the Neo-Nazis conspiracy theories and he becomes a martyr. We see how this dynamic has worked in the Middle East - martyrs inspire new, bolder, often violent acts. I don’t live in Austria and don’t pretend to know the culture, but I live in the West, and as such believe that as long as speech doesn’t incite violence, it should be allowed, even if nor other reason than it acts as a safety valve against more extreme behavior.
I used to live in Evanston, which is right next door to Skokie - home of many Holocaust survivors. If it can survive Neo-Nazi marches, surely Austria can deal with a kook’s stupid book.
If right-wing (or for that matter, any-wing) nuts chase you with baseball bats, they should be thrown in jail. But non-violent speech should not result in jail time.
February 23rd, 2006 at 5:12 pm
For a little background on the Austrian political situation:
But what is it with Austria?
February 23rd, 2006 at 6:52 pm
Thanks for sharing this. It hasn’t changed my opinion, but it’s good to learn more about the situation in Austria.
February 28th, 2006 at 8:40 am
The most distinguishing point about the Galileo parallel is that Galileo was proven correct by scientific means and thus is now held in high regard.
this parallel has been bantered around recently, i don’t wish to take credit for it but i proposed the exact same argument in a letter sent to the prime minister of Canada. in reference to Ernst Zundel more than a year back.
Many Scientists wish to examine many aspects of the camps in Poland and other area’s , but can not, and now as we see, will be treated very harshly if they do so, as this could be seen as “playing down” the holocaust.
Only time will prove if this parallel is correct , it’s been such a small time since the Nuremberg trials, the people that tend to claim they know all the facts and then go onto make broad self confident statements about this part of history are indeed the one’s that continually are shown to be the least educated on the matter, and tend to revert to the old, “your a Conspiracy Theorist” line.
or the “i know because i saw it on the news” line.
only when the light of day hits these sites and truly independent scientist can asses the many ruins of these structures will there ever be a conclusion.
The old communist line that you don’t talk about it “or else” is just that , old, backward, inconsistent with the law, and above all weak.
as weak as the argument the Church had against Galileo.
One thing we can all agree on here is that this result has acheived the following:
many more people are now asking the “why not?” question in reference to further examination of this subject and then of course the next obvious one:
“what do you have to hide?”
.
digitalindustry
February 28th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
digitalindustry, if you read Butz & Irving’s defenders, it’s plain that they are conspiracy theorists - they think everything is a Jewish plot of one sort or another. the guy who wrote a letter to the Daily Northwestern believes the Pope is basically a puppet of Israel. And one of the allegedly “open minded” deniers said in an email that she doesn’t “believe in interracial marriage” and that Hitler was really not a bad person.
WTF does any of that have to do with Auschwitz? Racism, that’s what. Normally I don’t like to use the r word, because I think most people don’t have racial animus; rather, they are culturally prejudiced, which IMO is much more benign in its motives. (Also, the accusation of racism tends to stifle dialogue, not inspire it.) But these people are racist separatists who are too ashamed to admit that their favorite leader - Hitler - took their beliefs to their logical conclusion.
February 28th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
Derek (and I hope that the majority of this post does not get eaten again upon ’send’), you do miss the point - the Holocaust deniers very, very well do know that it indeed, factually did happen.
It is merely a political means to an end for them.
A tool of intimidation, violence in language, meant to point out that the much loathed democracy is perceived as weak and can easily be challenged in the realm of Code Word Language.
Therefore, as an affirmative action Austrian law does restrict what you deem a simple issue of free speech - because it is not.
It is Code - simple, cold, violent and threatening - and goldarn, the Austrian Democracy has the right to defend itself from the forces of evil that were never properly negated after WWII.