Austria jails Irving for 3 years on Holocaust denial

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

Historian David Irving was sentenced to three years in prison for denying the Holocaust 17 years ago, an Austrian court ruled on Monday.

He was sentenced by a court of eight lay jurors and three judges in a case based on remarks he made in a 1989 interview and in speeches when he visited Austria, where denying the Nazi genocide on Jews is a crime.

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-02-20T173959Z_01_L19135626_RTRUKOC_0_UK-AUSTRIA-IRVING.xml

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. A bit tough, since he has now admitted he was wrong

"I made a mistake when I said there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz," he told the court, referring to comments he made in Austria in 1989.

But he insisted: "In no way did I deny the killings of millions of people by the Nazis."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4730832.stm

Yes, he's a piece of shit, who has always claimed the suffering of the Jews was far smaller than it was, but I'm not sure if jail is right for it. Maybe a stiff fine (since he seems to be recovering from being made bankrupt, according to this Observer article. He no doubt benefits from selling books, and giving talks, to racist nutters, so I'd like to see the fruits of his lies confiscated, rather than his freedom.

[alarcojon]

41. I agree

as far as a fine being a more appropriate punishment. But I also agree with the poster who pointed out that this law seems to be being appied selectively.

We should also advocate against such laws here in the U.S. - imagine Bush being able to imprison us for denying his competence.

[LynnTheDem]

66. You're "not sure if jail is right" because of someone's OPINION???!

Jeebus fucking Cripes.

[fedsron2us]

76. Well Irving did break Austrian law

He was convicted for speeches he had made within the country not for things he had said or written outside it. The Austrian authorities had indicated in advance that he might be charged if he crossed their border so his behaviour was at the very least reckless. Why the Austrians did not bar him from the country is not clear but may be due to EU policy guaranteeing free right of movement within member states. I personally think that the sentence was disproportionate and that the Holocaust Denial laws are not the best way to deal with neo Nazi apologists such as Irving. However, it needs to be remembered that what happened under the Third Reich is more than just a subject for academic discussion in much of Europe. It is a raw wound which when scratched still bleeds.

[muriel_volestrangler]

88. I'm sorry, which side of the fence am I meant to land on?

After all, we have people here on DU that say it's his absolute freedom of speech to say whatever he feels like, whatever its truth or his motives, and others who say he does it purposely to stir up anti-semitic hatred in a country that was never de-Nazified, and still has far right groups eager to reclaim their shameful past. So, yes, I'm "not sure". Maybe the rest of this thread will convince me. We'll see. I do feel he has profited considerably from his 'history' (if he can afford a central London flat a few years after being made bankrupt), and that confiscating his wealth might be quite appropriate. Jail time does help him play the martyr.

[iverglas]

89. an eminently reasonable contribution

I tend to agree with your position ... although I'm not entirely persuaded that, in the circumstances (and assuming the wisdom of the law or the charge/conviction for the sake of this particular argument), the denunciation / general deterrence functions of sentencing should not have played some role, and resulted in the imposition of some sort of custodial sentence, even if almost purely symbolic.

[Lucy - Claire]

212. I agree with you.

This is about Austria and those in that country that either deny the Holocaust or supported it. It is Austrian law, it is a harsh punishment and it think it is designed to regain respect. A large fine and a total shaming by the Austrian media would have done the job better.

[mondo joe]

91. How about jail for profiting from lies?

Kind of a good idea.

[CTLawGuy]

213. that was my first reaction as well

NT

[auagroach]

108. Period. Full Stop.

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.
-- Noam Chomsky

[BoneDaddy]

120. Absolutely

Can't get much simpler than that. I love it. Austria imposes similar jailing that the Nazi's did when someone disagreed with them, in this case Holocaust. Is it me or is this a little messed up.

[coalition_unwilling]

149. Bingo. The cure for speech we disagree with is ...

more speech. Do you really want to set Irving up as a martyr for the right of free speech?

[sendero]

203. I'll have to side...

... with Mr. Chomsky as well. The antidote to bad speech is more speech. Other than direct physical threats, I believe people ought to be able to say whatever they want to say.

Even idiots and assholes like this guy.

[Up2Late]

205. He "...admitted he was wrong...!?!?" And you believe him?

That was a bold face LIE!

If he believed he was wrong, as he said he saw new evidence in the 1990's, then why was he in court, sueing Deborah Lipstadt, professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, for libel in 2000? She wrote a book about it.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000BHA3QI.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000BHA3QI/sr=8-1/qid=1140579476/ref=sr_1_1/102-2408350-2516958?%5Fencoding=UTF8>

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In a much-publicized case, David Irving, the author of numerous books about WWII, sued Emory University historian Lipstadt and her British publisher, Penguin, for libel. Lipstadt had called Irving a Holocaust denier in a book about the Holocaust denial movement, and Britain's libel laws put the burden of proof on her to show that the charge was true. Did that mean proving the Holocaust had happened? Was Lipstadt, as Irving claimed, trying to restrict his freedom of speech, or was he restraining hers? Was the courtroom the proper place to examine historical truth? The press hotly debated these issues, but as Lipstadt relates in this powerful account, she and her adept lawyers felt they simply had to discredit a man who had said that "no documents whatsoever show that a Holocaust had ever happened." In 2000, Judge Charles Gray decided in Lipstadt's favor, finding it "incontrovertible" that Irving was a Holocaust denier. The drama of the book lies in the courtroom confrontations between an evasive and self-contradictory Irving (serving as his own lawyer) and Lipstadt's strategically brilliant barrister, Richard Rampton, and the scholars who testified in her defense. Lipstadt herself is a reluctant heroine, a feisty, outspoken woman forced to remain silent (she did not testify in court) and let her lawyers speak for her. No one who cares about historical truth, freedom of speech or the Holocaust will avoid a sense of triumph from Gray's decision—or a sense of dismay that British libel laws allowed such intimidation by Irving of a historian and a publisher in the first place.

And then in 2005 he had all the ususal crap on his personal website. The guys a Pathological Liar.

You should check out this intervew from today from NPR's Talk of the Nation if you want to hear about what a jerk this guy is:

Austrian Court Jails Historian Who Denied Holocaust

Listen to this story...(at link above)

Talk of the Nation, February 21, 2006 · An Austrian court sentences British historian David Irving to three years in prison Monday, for the crime of denying the holocaust. Guests examine whether or not anti-Nazi laws are needed more than 60 years after the end of World War II.

Guests:

Derek Scally, Berlin correspondent for the Irish Times

Deborah Lipstadt, professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University in Atlanta

Mark Weitzman, director, Task Force against Hate, the Simon Wiesenthal Center

<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5226811>

[muriel_volestrangler]

210. It's what he says that's important, not his personal thoughts

As I think everyone here has said, it's not thoughts that are against the Austrian law, its public pronouncements, because they have the ability to stir up neo-Nazi hatred. Yes, I know what a piece of shit he is - that's why I called him that earlier. What happened in the libel trial against Lipstadt was excellent - he was shown to be a liar, and he lost a lot of money in the process. But I'm not convinced that 3 years in jail (which the prosecution want increased) is an appropriate punishment.

[Vogon_Glory]

2. My Response

:nopity:

[iverglas]

3. just a note about the law

I've been trying to find a direct quotation of the actual law, in English, with no success. It appears, however, that it defines Holocause denial, and denial of Nazi crimes in general, as glorifying Nazism, which is the actual act that is illegal.

[PhilipShore]

4. CBS News: Holocaust Denier Gets Three Years

CBS News
Associated Press
Holocaust Denier Gets Three Years
Feb. 20, 2006

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/20/ap/world/mainD8FT07KO0.shtml

(AP) Right-wing British historian David Irving pleaded guilty Monday to denying the Holocaust and was sentenced to three years in prison, even after conceding he wrongly said there were no Nazi gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Irving, handcuffed and wearing a navy blue suit, arrived in court carrying a copy of one of his most controversial books _ "Hitler's War," which challenges the extent of the Holocaust.

"I made a mistake when I said there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz," Irving told the court before his sentencing, at which he faced up to 10 years in prison.

He also expressed sorrow "for all the innocent people who died during the Second World War

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

5. "I made a mistake when I said there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz,"

Gee, ya think?

[TheBaldyMan]

110. believe it or not a lot of people took him seriously

even a good friend of mine refused to be swayed when I tried to convince him otherwise. All I got was 'check out his web site for an alternative view'. I did, what Irving said was he couldn't find any evidence of ONE reported site that was on a plan of one of the gas chamber sites in Auschwitz.

Since then he has toured lecturing to neo-nazi groups on his findings. Anyone naif enough to think that neo-nazis are entertaining him because it's the only audience that allows him to speak are deluding themselves. The guy is nuttier than a bag full of squirrels and is preaching to the converted. He turned up at court plugging his book thinking he was going to get off scot free. It is a draconian sentence but I have very little sympathy for the man.

Boasting that you will be flying back 1st class to England after they dismiss the case is hardly the best approach when you turn up to be sentenced.

[barb162]

208. One of the interesting things about this jerk was that he wasn't a

historian. He was self-"taught" and spewing his filth like he was an expert. Sort of like Dr. Laura Schlesinger and the gays. SHe knew crap about gays.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. So people in England get sent to prison for lying?

When can we get such a law enacted here? I'm sure Bush will continue lying, and will therefore fall under the statute.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. It happened in Austria

Several, but not all, European countries have holocaust denial laws - Germany, France and Italy too. Irving had done the denial in 1989 in Austria.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

13. Ok eom

[Charlie Brown]

7. This is wrong

People should not be sent to jail for beliefs, no matter how misguided.

[iverglas]

18. gee, you're right

People should not be sent to jail for beliefs -- and nobody has been.

Speech is not a belief. Speech is an act.

You may sit in a crowded theatre thinking "fire!" all you like. Engage in the ACT of SHOUTING "fire!" and you may have a problem.

As I noted in my earlier post, the crime in question in Austria is glorifying Nazism, and denying the crimes committed by the Nazis -- the mass murder of Jews and others being one of those crimes -- is defined as an act that comprises glorifying Nazism.

Think "Hitler was great!" all you like. Say it in public in Austria and some other countries, and you have a problem.

Given the problems that have tended to occur in those places when people say things like that in public, it's arguable that the Austrian law is justified. Kinda like -- in the submission of those who make that argument -- it's arguable that laws against shouting "fire!" in crowded theatres are justified, given the problems that tend to occur when people do that.

(Didya catch the thread here today about how children in a US jurisdiction may not refuse, on the ground of freedom of speech/religion, to attend classes in public schools designed to combat anti-gay harassment in the schools? Quelle surprise; the right of some people to free speech doesn't automatically trump the interest of other people in a "safe environment".)

Cripes. Argue against the law if you like. But not by misrepresenting what it is.

[Charlie Brown]

19. "first they came for the Holocaust deniers"

People don't go to jail for 3 years for shouting fire in a crowded theater, anyway. At most they get a fine and are barred from returning to the theater.

Taking three years away from someone for having stupid ideas is not very democratic on any level, and has a lot in common with Hitler and the Nazis.

This ruling is not respectful of free speech.

[iverglas]

26. yeah?

People don't go to jail for 3 years for shouting fire in a crowded theater, anyway. At most they get a fine and are barred from returning to the theater.

If you lived in a city in which, the last time someone shouted "fire!" in a crowded theatre, several million people were trampled to death in the ensuing stampede, you might find calls for the next person who did it to be sentenced to three years at a minimum, d'you think?

Taking three years away from someone for having stupid ideas is not very democratic on any level, and has a lot in common with Hitler and the Nazis.

If you'd bothered to acknowledge and respond to what I wrote -- the crime in question in Austria is glorifying Nazism -- you wouldn't be spouting nonsense about how Irving is being punished "for having stupid ideas". Your argument here is directed squarely at straw.

And actually, you're precisely wrong here. It is extremely democratic to suppress speech whose aim is to create the conditions in which it is reasonably foreseeable that grievous harm will come to individuals or the collectivity. What it isn't, is right-wing libertarian (or "classical liberal", if you prefer).

The law is designed to protect the rights of individuals to personal safety, and the right of the society as a whole to democracy. Nazis and their various totalitarian cousins tend to inhibit the exercise of both those rights rather notably.

This ruling is not respectful of free speech.

Is any law, or application of that law, that prohibits or punishes any speech "respectful of free speech"?

How about laws such as the US has that prohibit advertising snake oil as a cure for cancer? Not respectful of free speech? Perhaps not. But regarded as necessary to protect individuals and the public from the reasonably foreseeable results of marketing costly substances to vulnerable people whom they will not assist and who will only be harmed if they heed the marketing.

Pretty similar to what can reasonably be foreseen will happen if people are permitted to market Nazism willy-nilly, some might say.

It really, really, really is not an answer to any proposed restriction on speech to say that it is not respectful of freedom of speech. Not unless one's premise is that NO restrictions on speech are permissible, in which case one would have ruled one's self out of the discourse of liberal democracy already.

[Charlie Brown]

27. It sounds like you're making controversial comments on this board

and I'll defend your right to do it to the bitter end.

[iverglas]

29. look out! low flying straw! (edited)

It sounds like you're making controversial comments on this board

So, first Irving was being jailed for his "beliefs", now it's because his speech was "controversial". Hell, maybe that's progress.

It's still straw.

and I'll defend your right to do it to the bitter end.

My interest in having someone who engages in such disingenuous "argument" defend me would be pretty much nil, ta all the same.


(edited because I'd misstated your initial characterization of the event)

[Ben Ceremos]

48. Free speech and hate speech

have been defined in your country as being contradictory...

[Charlie Brown]

49. I can't think of a single case in "my country"

where someone has been jailed for simply having a very misguided historical opinion.

[iverglas]

52. funny

I can't think of a single case in "my country"
where someone has been jailed for simply having a very misguided historical opinion.

I can't think of one in Austria, either.

But hey, you can just go on pretending that you do -- or actually believing that you do, if you can't be bothered learning the facts.

[Karenina]

100. Gimme a fuckin' break

People in "your country" are being harassed for t-shirts, forbidden to fly due to their political leanings, run off the road for bumper stickers, visited by the FBI for overheard offhand comments, fired from their jobs for writing LTTEs, you CAN'T be serious.

[The Wielding Truth]

247. Isn't the point here that lying is the misuse of freedom of speech?

When you defame, slander, or commit libel and it is proven to be false and thus it does harm you are responsible. Harming others is a case for restitution or penalty.

[Realityhack]

68. Hmmm...

I think you may be ignoring some shades of grey.

In this country (US) it is illegal to call for the violent overthrow of the government, and there is a good chance that if you did so in a serious way that you could easily face 3+ years behind bars. In Austria denying the holicost (or Natzi crimes - whatever the text of the law is) might be viewed as equaly dangerous or tantamount to the same thing. Their history is quite diffrent then ours as is their current political situation etc. As they have never shown any sign of extending this to other topics... I am not convinced its such a horible thing.

Personaly that is not how I would chose to handle such speach as I think it is counter productive... but I do not necisarily think it is 'disrepectful' of free speach under the context.

[dsc]

73. It isn't illegal to call for the violent overthrow of the government

in the US.

[Realityhack]

75. ?

Perhapse I am mistaken. I thought it was.

My understanding was that the president was that as an abstract principle it could be promoted but not as a specific act etc.

Dennis v. United States (1951)

Eugene Dennis was a leader of the Communist Party in the United States between 1945 and 1948. He was arrested in New York for violation of Section 3 of the "Smith Act." The Act prohibited advocation of the overthrow of the United States Government by force and violence. The government felt that the speeches made by Dennis presented a threat to national security. Dennis appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court of the United States, claiming that the Smith Act violated his First Amendment right to Free Speech. At issue was whether the Smith Act violated the First Amendment provision for freedom of speech or the Fifth Amendment due process clause.

The Court found that the Smith Act did not violate Dennis' First Amendment right to free speech. Although free speech is a guaranteed right, itis not unlimited. The right to free speech may be lifted if the speech presents a clear and present danger to overthrow any government in the United States by force or violence. Since the speech made by Dennis advocated his position that the government should be overthrown, it represented a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States. (Source - PATCH - See link below)

- http://www.socialstudieshelp.com/CourtCases.htm


I could however be wrong.

[dsc]

78. It has to be a clear and present danger

directly below your case is Yates. One has to both advocate the overthrow and be causing action to happen not just belief.

[Realityhack]

80. ok.

That clears it up a bit. I did read the Yates thing.

Anyway my point is that we do limit speach that we consider dangerous or an 'imminent threat'. As a society we draw the line somewhere. Given the little I know/understand of the historical and political situation in austria I think some people here are ignoring some shades of grey in the equasion. Someone further down brought up some interesting historical and contextual information.

Also soeone noted that the law said something more like 'glorifing nazism' or something and related to the speakers platform for infuincing others... ie a dinertable conversation might not be treated the same as a national TV apperance.

Just to be entirely clear I would not want such a law here and think it is a stupid and counterproductive way to deal with the problem... I am just not ready to condem it in quite the same way a lot of others have without understanding a lot more about the situation in hand. We DO limit speach here. There IS a line that can be crossed. These are things many posters here seem to be ignoring.

[Realityhack]

81. oh yeah...

on further reading... the clear danger part does not seem to apply to teachers. Theaching such a policy in school would be illigal. Again it depends on the platform.

[dsc]

85. In a public school it would clearly be a problem

and any public school would likely fire the teacher. Jail the teacher, I am not sure. But, I am not sure a private school couldn't teach the belief in the rightness of overthrowing the government as long as they don't directly exhort them to do so. It admittedly would be quite a thin line.

[Realityhack]

117. Well my point is...

that the as I understand it the position he was stating this from DID matter in the case. And IMO based on a very diffrent society and a very diffrent history than ours they may well be drawing the line in a diffrent place for a good reason. It seems to me that they see this type of speach as being an eminent threat. Sure the same speach here is probobly no big deal and I would not want such a law here... but I will not condem their decision without knowing a lot more than I do. The line is always drawn somewhere, and they do not seem to be expanding this policy to other areas of free speach. Lots of years to do-so or otherwise abuse the law but they seem to be fairly responsible about it.

I can see where others disagree but a lot of people here totaly ignored the shades of grey involved painting free speach as 100% black and white. I do not think it always is.

[alarcojon]

77. Nice point

Actually, if you called for the violent overthrow of the government, your ass would probably be off to Gitmo or some "undisclosed location" for a lot longer than three years. There are sound reasons for this - if you are making such assinine statements, there is no way for those defending the nation and the president to know if you are "joking" or not; hence they would have to spend lots of time, effort, and money to determine if you are an actual threat. Easier to just lock you away.

To me, it is plausible that an analogous situation exists in Austria (hey, let's ask Arnie what he thinks B-)). There, making public statements in support of Nazism may be viewed as the unacceptable first steps in the reawakening of the Nazi party, and therefore dangerous to the republic including, as iverglas points out, to its minority groups. See also the documentation in post # 47.

on edit: it may not technically be illegal to call for the violent overthrow of the government, but in practice it's pretty clear that anyone who does so is subject to severe penalties.

[Realityhack]

79. Another post...

further down brought up some nice information on the historical context.

Just so I am clear I personaly think its a stupid tactic and would not like to see anything similar here. But in austria they do not seem to have pushed it to other topics etc. given quite some time and as I do not live there... its up to them to determine what is that degree of threat. From what little I know it may very well be that real a threat.

[alarcojon]

83. Yes, I saw the info in post # 47

I believe that is what you're referring to.

I agree with you (see post # 41) that I disagree with such laws here, but our history and current sociopolitical circumstances are much different than those in these European countries.

[High Plains]

25. Not to put too fine a point on it, but is it your argument that

it's okay to think something, just not say it out loud?

So what we have is not free speech but "free thought"--as long as you keep your mouth shut?

[iverglas]

28. "not to put too fine a point on it" ...

Sorry, you did. Don't know why you'd say you didn't.

The point you put on what I said was what some might call "spin", eh? Or, not to put too fine a point on it, misrepresentation.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but is it your argument that it's okay to think something, just not say it out loud?

If we look at what I actually SAID --

People should not be sent to jail for beliefs -- and nobody has been.

Speech is not a belief. Speech is an act.

You may sit in a crowded theatre thinking "fire!" all you like. Engage in the ACT of SHOUTING "fire!" and you may have a problem.

-- we might find ourselves hard pressed to see anything that could by any stretch of anyone's imagination be interpreted as "its okay to think SOMETHING, just not SAY IT OUT LOUD".

What I said was that it's okay to think "fire!", just not to say it out loud in a crowded theatre.

Do you have some reason for imagining that I might also say that it's okay to think "BUSH IS A LIAR!", or "THE INVASION OF IRAQ WAS ILLEGAL!", maybe, just not to say it out loud?

None that I can think of, try as I might. Maybe you can tell me what reason you had. Other than a desire to portray me as having expressed the opinion that any and all speech may legitimately be suppressed, even though I have never said or implied -- or thought -- any such thing. I mean, I would hope you had some other reason.

Now, I'll just say what I've said several gazillion times before: if you'd like to address something I actually said, do feel free.

Anything else that resembles:

So what we have is not free speech but "free thought"--as long as you keep your mouth shut?

will go on the manure heap with all the other shit.

[High Plains]

59. You can split hairs all you wish.

You are still advocating the jailing of this person for what he said/wrote. If that's your position, fine. Just don't try to obfuscate it with mumbo-jumbo about how it's not thought or speech, it's an "act."

And no need to be rude, either.

[iverglas]

64. when are you going to quote me?

You are still advocating the jailing of this person for what he said/wrote.

And that is still an outright, blatantly false statement, and you still have not a shred of evidence to offer to back it up.

Is your copy and paste function broken? Or is it just that you don't read too well? or don't understand what you read? Or maybe you just don't give a damn what you read and say whatever the fuck you like anyway.

QUOTE ME. Money, mouth, concurrent in space and time, please.

And no need to be rude, either.

Rude? RUDE? Perhaps you can suggest an adjective for the behaviour of someone who falsely characterizes what someone else has said, and replies to a demonstration of the falseness of the characterization by calling it "splitting hairs" and reiterating the false statement? Just idly curious.

Just don't try to obfuscate it with mumbo-jumbo about how it's not thought or speech, it's an "act."

I am deeply sorry if you are truly unable to understand what I said. Why would you tell me not to do something I didn't do? Did I say that what Irving did was "not speech"?? What sort of idiot would say that? Why are you attempting to portray me as an idiot? Wouldn't you say that's a bit RUDE?

If you genuinely don't grasp the distinction between thought and speech, you have my condolences. If you want to keep pretending that they are the same and that I am an advocate of punishing people for their thoughts (surely you overestimate someone's power to read minds ...), you'll keep getting the same response from me: your statements are false.

If you ever want to inform yourself about the facts of this story and state an opinion about those facts, again: feel free.

What your interest in misrepresenting what I have said is, I have no clue. Unless it reflects an inability to defend your own position, and a preference for engaging in a little diversionary grooming instead. That's how it always looks to me when someone refuses to address what someone else has said, makes up shit to talk about instead of addressing what was said, ascribes that shit to the person s/he is speaking to, and just keeps saying on the same tired old discredited things of his/her own.

The position I have taken is that it is ARGUABLY JUSTIFIED to limit speech in Austria by prohibiting the glorification of Nazism. It also -- as you would know if you'd read the facts I offered lower in this thread -- is required under the terms demanded by the victors in WWI that Austria outlaw the National Socialist Party, that being the basis argued for outlawing pro-Nazi speech.

I AM NOT AUSTRIAN, I do not live in Austria, I am not intimately familiar with the politics and societies of Europe post WWII. I do not feel qualified to judge the laws Austrians make to protect Austrian democracy and Austrian minority populations.

But I'm confident that I'm a hell of a lot more qualified to do it, if I chose, than any of the self-appointed free-speech champions in this thread or most similar threads at DU.

[CTLawGuy]

214. until they come up with mind reading devices

you could "think" "fire!" all you wanted, even in Nazi Germany. Speaking is also not consitutionally an "act" but acts may have speech elements (burning a draft card; donating money to a candidate). But merely saying something or writing something is not an act.

"You may sit in a crowded theatre thinking "fire!" all you like. Engage in the ACT of SHOUTING "fire!" and you may have a problem."

[Seeking Serenity]

238. It is not illegal to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater

so long as there is actually a fire.

Also, if one falsely shouted "fire" in a crowded theater, and no one moved, he would not be charged. There was no harm.

The "crime" (if there is even one) or tort stemming from the falsely shouting of "fire" in a crowded place comes not from the act itself (unlike, say, a battery) but from the resulting damage. You are not prosecuted for your speech, but merely for your negligence or intent to cause harm.

That's different that what's happening in Austria, where there apparently doesn't have to even be a showing of harm. Merely stating Holocaust denial is enough.

That's prosecuting speech, and I say it sucks.

[PhilipShore]

240. Re: Intent to cause harm--Can you prove that Nazism does not intend harm?

You are not prosecuted for your speech, but merely for your negligence or intent to cause harm.

I am not a lawyer, but did Nazis then and/or now -- all the sudden -- knowingly not want to intend to cause harm because they lost the war, and are not in a Nazi uniform?

Language, can be used for destructive purposes, in which harm is the objective. Doublespeak language was then, and even after the war -- an actual military tool of the Nazis used for war purposes.

Double Speak and the Politics of Dissent
Henry Giroux
August 20, 2004

http://www.henryagiroux.com/online_articles/double_speak.htm

One of the more significant marks of an authoritarian society is its willingness to distort the truth while simultaneously suppressing dissent. For instance, Umberto Eco argues that one element of proto-fascism is the rise of an Orwellian version of Newspeak, or what he labels as the language of “eternal fascism,” whose purpose is to produce “an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”…

Official Newspeak also trades in the rhetoric of fear in order to manipulate the public into state of servile political dependency and unquestioning ideological support. Fear and its attendant use of moral panics create not only a rhetorical umbrella to promote other agendas, but also a sense of helplessness and cynicism throughout the body politic….

[Spinoza]

90. I am the son of concentration camp

survivors (Dachau and Treblinka). Every day of my parents lives I saw the numbers tattood on their wrists. And I don't agree that Holocaust denial of any form, SPEECH, should EVER be punishable by law. This is wrong.

[Susang]

197. I wonder why everyone has ignored this post?

It would seem to me to be the most important one in the thread. Just my "opinion", of course.

[iverglas]

199. I wonder ...

I wonder whether it could have something to do with how someone's reason for not wanting "X" just doesn't actually cancel out someone else's unrelated reason for wanting "X" ...

I've actually addressed any issue that might have been raised in the post in question quite thoroughly.

Laws against Holocaust denial are not enacted to protect the sensibilities of Holocaust survivors or other Jews.

So ... why would the wishes of Holocaust survivors or other Jews be determinative of this issue?

If a critical mass of African-Americans in the US didn't object to slavery being practised, would the rest of you have to agree that laws permitting slavery were bad things?

Yes, friend, that's an analogy. Those who enjoy that sort of thing can say ANTI-HOLOCAUST DENIAL LAWS ARE NOT THE SAME AS LAWS PERMITTING SLAVERY.

And I will say: no, but erecting the victims of something as the authority on whether a society should tolerate something else is the same as erecting the victims of something as the authority on whether a society should tolerate something else.

I already know that Spinoza considers a particular dead person to be the authority on just about everything, and I don't agree, so I've not seen much point in pursuing our discussions.

[Susang]

206. And you thought my metaphors were wacky

Has really nothing to do with what I'm talking about here, but hey, knock yourself out. Feel free to introduce any bizarre combination of unlike subjects you like. It's entertaining as all get-out.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

143. A great read

"Denying The Holocaust" by Deborah Lipstadt. She worked within the system and really hammered Irving.

Of course, it was the UK legal system ...........

[LynnTheDem]

67. No kidding.

bloody hell.

[mondo joe]

92. Can they be jailed for libel? How about profiting from lies?

Are those bad ideas?

[pocket]

8. so much for free speech

he should have picked on Islam instead, he'd still be a free man

[chimpymustgo]

9. Wow. I was thinking that must be a parody or something. Unreal.

It's scary that he thinks that way, but terrifying that he can be sent to prison for it.

[alarimer]

15. It is sort of Nazi-like to send someone to jail for this

No matter how stupid or wrong they might be.

[Charlie Brown]

22. You said it

I don't know what's more disturbing, the ruling itself or the fact that DUers appear to be defending it.

It will probably only be a matter of time before "glorifying liberalism" is criminalized here in the states, and we all do time, or conservatives decide that pro-choicers are "glorifying murder" (I've heard the pro-life cult compare abortion to the Holocaust multiple times).

[iverglas]

23. what absolute appalling nonsense

It is sort of Nazi-like to send someone to jail for this

There is nothing "Nazi-like" about this at all. Is it "Nazi-like" to send people to jail for shouting "fire!" in a theatre full of people?

No matter how stupid or wrong they might be.

The law, and the enforcement of it, have pretty much nothing to do with how "stupid and wrong" the opinions expressed are. They have to do with the capacity of the people who express those opinions in public to generate support for fascistic public policies and with the risk that fascistic governments will be elected by publics in which such false ideas are promoted, in unfortunately still fertile ground, and become widely held.

The similarities between glorifying Nazism (or Hitler, which is how I understand the actual crime is described -- denying the crimes committed by Hitler and the Nazis is regarded as glorifying them) in modern Europe and shouting "fire!" in a crowded theatre are rather striking.

The similarities between ANYTHING the Nazis did and a law that is designed to combat Nazism, i.e. reduce the likelihood that groups that seek to violate all individual freedoms and democratic rights will come to power, are rather notable by their absence, on the other hand.

It is entirely possible to argue against the law in question, or the application of it to Irving, based on their inconsistency with the freedoms recognized and protected in liberal democracies, without engaging in spurious analogies and ridiculous hyperbole like this.

There is an infinite number of points on the continuum between allowing the absolute and unfettered exercise of freedom of speech and suppressing all dissenting opinion, and reasonable people speaking in good faith are capable of expressing disagreement on where the line is drawn without anyone calling anyone else a Nazi.

[CTLawGuy]

215. couldn't bush say something similar?

"The similarities between glorifying Nazism (or Hitler, which is how I understand the actual crime is described -- denying the crimes committed by Hitler and the Nazis is regarded as glorifying them) in modern Europe and shouting "fire!" in a crowded theatre are rather striking."


Couldn't bush then pass a law saying that "glorifying liberalism is dangerous to the country, like shouting fire in a crowded theater, because of all the danger liberals have subjected us to over the years."


glorifying naziism is not ANYTHING like shouting "fire" in a crowded theater. Shouting fire causes an immediate panic in theater as people trample each other for safety. Glorifying naziism is an opinion that most people find distasteful and does not result in the same imminent dangerous consequences that shouting "fire" does.

Iverglas, remind me not to vote for you for president. Hopefully someday you'll have a better appreciation for freedom.

[iverglas]

218. can't we use our noggins?

Couldn't bush then pass a law saying that "glorifying liberalism is dangerous to the country, like shouting fire in a crowded theater, because of all the danger liberals have subjected us to over the years."

I sure do guess Bush could say that. And I could say that the cow jumped over the moon, and you could say that the earth is flat. We could all say any manner of marvelous things, couldn't we?

Glorifying naziism is an opinion that most people find distasteful and does not result in the same imminent dangerous consequences that shouting "fire" does.

The cow jumped over the moon. The earth is flat. Those are my opinions, and they're as good as yours. And I certainly don't need to say anything that would back 'em up if I don't want people dismissing them out of hand.

I'll just dismiss yours out of hand, if you don't mind, since I see no evidence that you have bothered to consider any of the facts or arguments that tend to show that what you have said is not revealed truth.

Iverglas, remind me not to vote for you for president. Hopefully someday you'll have a better appreciation for freedom.

Have no fear at all; I'm not eligible and never will be. I thank my stars constantly that I don't even live where I would be ineligible, even if I became a citizen. That's one of the reasons why I do have some appreciation for other people's interests, concerns and ideas, no doubt.

Oh, and lordy be, how I would even begin to address something said by someone who says that "speech is not an act", I just don't know.

[CTLawGuy]

222. oh, I didn't know you weren't American

In America, our Supreme Court distinguishes between speech and acts that may have "speech value".

If I gave a press conference, that is speech, not an act. It is a mere recitation of an opinion. If I recite an opinion that is likely to cause, or in a way that is likely to cause "imminent lawless action" then I may be arrested for it.

Printing a letter to the editor is speech, not an act. Nothing of substance is happening other than me giving an opinion.

Burning a draft card is an act, which has speech value, but is still punishable, because of the Army's need to use draft cards in organizing its military.

Contributing money to a candidate is an act that has at least a little speech value. It may be reuglated under campaign finance laws.

It is hardest, in our system for government to regulate just speech.
-------------------


Since you are going to be an ass about my questions let me rephrase them:

Do you think Bush SHOULD be able to pass a law arresting people for promoting liberalism, because of some notion that liberals have harmed society?

Can you tell me a situation where one merely saying "the holocaust didn't happen" is going to cause the same imminent panic and chaos as shouting fire in a crowded theater?


What country are you from anyway?

[iverglas]

226. backwards thinking is always fun

If I gave a press conference, that is speech, not an act. It is a mere recitation of an opinion. If I recite an opinion that is likely to cause, or in a way that is likely to cause "imminent lawless action" then I may be arrested for it.

And none of that has the slightest relevance to the plain fact that speech is an act. Speaking is acting. The fact that an ACT may "have speech value" in no way means that SPEECH is not an ACT, for cripes' sake.

Printing a letter to the editor is speech, not an act. Nothing of substance is happening other than me giving an opinion.

"Giving an opinion" is an act. How hard is this to grasp? See the verb? And what are verbs?

The dictionary itself should be enough; Oxford Concise says:

speech
the faculty or act of speaking ...

I have never suggested that this fact is determinative of anything. Eating breakfast is an act; that doesn't mean that the government may legitimately prohibit you from eating pizza for breakfast.

The fact that speech is an act doesn't mean that the government may legitimately prohibit any particular speech. I haven't said it does mean that. And the fact that I believe that a government may legitimately prohibit some speech (as I am quite sure everyone else here also believes) does not mean that I believe that a government may legitimately prohibit any speech it chooses.

That is why your question about Bush prohibiting "liberal" speech is not deserving of an answer. If you stated that you agreed that the government could prohibit the sale of breakfast cereals laced with strychnine, I would not ask whether you believed that the government could prohibit the sale of pizza at breakfast time.

It is hardest, in our system for government to regulate just speech.

It is hardest because of basic rules that make it hard -- as, I hasten to add even though I should not have to -- it should be, in my opinion. Things like constitutions, and the values and choices they reflect, make it hard.

It's actually quite easy for legislation to be enacted prohibiting the whistling of Dixie, for instance. What makes it "hard" is the fact that such legislation would be constititutionally impermissible. What is constitutionally impermissible is actually a matter of opinion, and some body (like a supreme constitutional court) is ordinarily recognized as having the authoritative opinion for the purpose of deciding what speech may be prohibited and punished.

And my not being a USAmerican has nothing to do with this, or anything else under discussion here.

Since you are going to be an ass about my questions let me rephrase them:
Do you think Bush SHOULD be able to pass a law arresting people for promoting liberalism, because of some notion that liberals have harmed society?

There's someone being an ass here, and it sure ain't moi.

Can you tell me a situation where one merely saying "the holocaust didn't happen" is going to cause the same imminent panic and chaos as shouting fire in a crowded theater?

Why would I? Can YOU tell ME a situation where someone has been prosecuted for "merely saying 'the holocaust didn't happen'"? Has someone suggested that "merely saying 'the holocaust didn't happen'" should be outlawed? Have YOU bothered to find out what the law under which Irving was convicted actually says?

What country are you from anyway?

Idle curiosity?

[CTLawGuy]

233. ...

Since you are going to be an ass about my questions let me rephrase them:
Do you think Bush SHOULD be able to pass a law arresting people for promoting liberalism, because of some notion that liberals have harmed society?

There's someone being an ass here, and it sure ain't moi.

its a simple question, I don't see why you won't answer it. Oh I know, because it will destroy your argument. :think:


Why would I? Can YOU tell ME a situation where someone has been prosecuted for "merely saying 'the holocaust didn't happen'"? Has someone suggested that "merely saying 'the holocaust didn't happen'" should be outlawed? Have YOU bothered to find out what the law under which Irving was convicted actually says?

See the original post.

[iverglas]

235. ah, growing up is such fun

Do you think Bush SHOULD be able to pass a law arresting people for promoting liberalism, because of some notion that liberals have harmed society?
its a simple question, I don't see why you won't answer it. Oh I know, because it will destroy your argument.

If my argument happened to be that your president is entitled to make whatever laws he likes, then yes indeed, your example would demonstrate the unpleasant consequences my argument would produce when taken to its logical conclusion.

Since my argument doesn't remotely resemble that one, your question not only doesn't destroy my argument, it is entirely unrelated to my argument.

If I ever make an argument that a law that is based on "some notion" of your president (or of anyone else for that matter), and that violates fundamental rights for no reason other than "some notion", is legitimate and permissible, perhaps you'll point it out for me.

Of course, I would probably do that around about when you and a number of others here decide to engage in civil discourse rather than misrepresentation and tilting at straw.

See the original post.

Amazingly, I have seen it.

Somehow, it failed to answer the questions I asked YOU. I shall confidently assume that you didn't answer them because the answers would have made it obvious that you don't know what you're talking about.

[PhilipShore]

229. Nazis did manipulate language by the use of double talk

Glorifying naziism is an opinion that most people find distasteful and does not result in the same imminent dangerous consequences that shouting "fire" does.

Nazis, and others have used language to manipulate and distort the truth, by the use of -- double talk -- for military strategy purposes to seek destruction (WAR).

_____________________________________

Dissident Voice
Nazis use the language of double talk
Dissident Voice
Double Speak and the Politics of Dissent
by Henry Giroux

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Aug04/Giroux0820.htm

One of the more significant marks of an authoritarian society is its willingness to distort the truth while simultaneously suppressing dissent. For instance, Umberto Eco argues that one element of proto-fascism is the rise of an Orwellian version of Newspeak, or what he labels as the language of “eternal fascism,” whose purpose is to produce “an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning...

Official Newspeak also trades in the rhetoric of fear in order to manipulate the public into state of servile political dependency and unquestioning ideological support. Fear and its attendant use of moral panics create not only a rhetorical umbrella to promote other agendas, but also a sense of helplessness and cynicism throughout the body politic...

[iverglas]

230. thank you for the article

One of the more significant marks of an authoritarian society is its willingness to distort the truth while simultaneously suppressing dissent.

And this would be kinda what enables reasonable, honest people to distinguish between a society that enacts laws against glorifying Nazism and Bush enacting laws against promoting "liberalism".

The first is not distorting the truth.

And it would be kinda why calling someone who defends laws against glorifying Nazism Nazi-like is, let us be gentle, disingenuous.

What is the truth?

Well, sometimes it's not easy to determine, and sometimes it really is just obvious.

When neo-Nazis deny the Holocaust, they are distorting the truth.

[PhilipShore]

231. Other articles exist about doubletalk and the Nazis...

I don't agree with all of Giroux's views -- in his other writings about neo-liberalism, and his anti Israel philosophy, but I agree the article about double talk has excellent points.

I did some research about the language of Double talk -- and dissent in the Nazi era -- when I was in college, and as I recall, it was a well published philosophy among anti Vietnam war scholars.

I was in the Reagan era, not the Vietnam era concerning-- dissent and protesting.

[Dutch]

14. self-delete

[entanglement]

57. And legions of people would have rushed to defend his

right to free speech

[Dutch]

114. Well in this thread a lot of people ARE defending his free speech

It's odd that some DUers seem to be working on the assumption that others hold double standards without even reading what they say- almost like a persecution complex, but on other people's behalf...

[Generator]

10. On the upside

When he gets out of prison, he can say there was no prison. Win win!

[kenny blankenship]

12. Isn't it funny that a country which elected a former Nazi officer

to be its President--a Wehrmact officer who participated in the transfer of civilians to SS custody-- would jail a foreign born person, for simply being an asshead Holocaust denier?
Slightly hypocritical?

[MrPrax]

33. Yeah ridiculous...

The incident was 20 years old, the author has recanted, Irving isn't an Austrian citizen (that's a subject no one wants to touch)--obviously this is some political stunt...

Nazi-like rightist parties are a dime a dozen in EU countries at the moment--one nearly got elected in France for instance.

The only lesson learned here is that 'hate' trials are problematic and if you just don't use the term 'Nazi' in your party platform, your safe.

The hypocrisy in Austria, as well as, Germany is that they have a wonderful tradition of memorial and Holocuast redemption, BUT for every rightwing politician who blubbered away for the cameras at a Holocaust rememberance, the very next day, they are at home, giving speeches as to how the Africans and Muslims are screwing up the gene pool.

Good point on your part--Waldheim, the former UN head as well...hmmm

[Robb]

55. To be fair, Irving recanted after he was charged. n/t

[MrPrax]

72. That makes sense...

cause he probably doesn't want to go to jail for 3 years...

Personally I don't care what passes for thought in Irving mind.

I don't buy into the 'fragile society brought down by pickforks and torches' line anyhow due to some insidious spread of 'fill in the blank' 'hate' group and so I am not a big proponent of Authority judging what is legitmate and what isn't legitmate speech.

Denying the Holocaust is irrelevent, when I feel that the lesson of the Holocaust seems to have been lost by the vast majority of people, who DO believe it as a strong moral lesson.

The fact is that the hate group (Arab, Muslim) these days is the 'pile on guy' internationally at the moment and our bloodlust could end up in genocidal proportions. The Admin are fucking screwballs for rattling this sabre...

ANYWAY--

Irving has behaved badly recently and with good reason.

He got a total shitkicking in the London lawsuit against him by Deborah Lipstadt.

BTW she wrote: DENYING THE HOLOCAUST...which I highly recommend.
Amazon Link

It's probably good he's off the streets--he run a website called Action Report. Some people, even here, have posted stuff from it. It's a portal to dress up his constant appeal for legal defense funding. He's drained financially.

Even if he recants everything--he's still a rightwing creep of the highest magnatude and I am all for locking more of them up anyway.

[High Plains]

16. Hey, where's the free speech chorus that was so loud last week

when it came to the right of newspapers to publish inflammatory cartoons?

Is there a consistent position here, or is it one standard for Muslim-bashers, another one for Holocaust deniers?

[Psephos]

21. I'm part of the free speech chorus, and I'm still here :-)

As has been said so many times before: it's only the speech we find offensive that needs protection.

To answer your question, I think there *are* a couple of standards in play, dependent on whose speech is being suppressed. But I also sense that the majority of DU thinks freedom to say whatever you want is a foundation stone of a liberal society. These European laws suppressing the right to assert opinions about the Nazis seem drawn from the Nazi playbook...do they not sense the irony?

Listening to wingnuts spew their opinions, I admit, is like eating Brussels sprouts. You know in some way it's "good" for you but that doesn't mean you have to particularly like it.

Peace.

[High Plains]

24. It is good to see principled defenders of free speech.

Not just free speech for those whose ideas we like.

[Dutch]

30. checking in

Whilst I don't think Irving's views (which I find appalling) are particularly closely comparable to the cartoons, there is a clear issue of free speech in both cases and I think this sentence and the law it results from are ridiculous. To be honest we're pretty early in this thread and several posters have already condemned the decision on free speech grounds (whether they posted on the cartoon issue i don't know), so I think it's a bit early to be accusing people of double standards.

[rinsd]

35. We're still here.....

This is a disgusting excuse of a human being. That said, he should not be imprisoned for what he said. as deplorable as it is.

[OrwellwasRight]

70. Good question.

I hope everyone in this thread seriously considers your question.

On edit: Spell check helps.

[HuffleClaw]

17. good. flouting the law deserves punishment.

this clown doesn't really deserve the free publicity though, this is getting far more press than it needs.

[Gregorian]

20. I think we should have truth laws.

Think of the mess we're in because of the lies. Not just mistakes, but outright and prolonged lies.

I can't say that jailing him for lying 17 years ago makes much sense. That sounds wrong.

Our media would tighten their belts and speak the truth, if there were consequences to lying. Parroting lies from the White House might be hard to prove as an offense. But they'd sure do their homework and research before spouting the way they do. Fox news wouldn't exist.

[Realityhack]

69. That is a truely dangerous idea...

at best. I truely hope we never see such a thing and that IF you truely beleve that it would be good you are kept away from any position of power.

[mondo joe]

93. How do you feel about laws regarding Libel or Slander?

Just curious.

[Realityhack]

118. Libel, slander, false advertising...

yes I suport that. But its very dangerous to generalize 'truth' laws. Making the only speakable truth what the government (courts) define it as is definately dangerous.

False advertising is a speacial form of speach (I know you didn't mention it but others have)
Libel, and slander are also fairly specialized. They imply a very targeted form of speach aimed at a specific group or person. They are also generaly torts that have quite a bit of grey area to them.

So yes. I guess I overstated the case. But the kind of 'truth' laws I have heard a lot of people support are a horibly dangerous idea.

[Gregorian]

109. I don't seek power. I seek truth.

I'm sick of lies. I honestly think we should have laws against lying. Not against free speech. Not against controversial oppinions. Against LIES. Lies are what got us in the mess we are in today. Lies are the enemy of freedom.
I should say I haven't thought this through, like a true philosopher. For all I know, it's a terrible idea. I realize that the truth is usually not universally accepted as so. I guess that's why I'm an engineer. There is no disputing the truth of engineering, usually.
I would just like to see people being honest. Maybe there is no way to legally enforce that.

[Realityhack]

119. I think the danger is...

in alowing the courts to decice what 'truth' is. Yes you are talking about 'demonstratably' false things... but do you realy want the court to be deciding which thing is 'true'?

I would rather counter the lies with speach exposing them. In a few cases where very serious damage is done to an individual or group by outright lies.. sure slander and libel are fine. But in general I think it is a bad idea.

[Hosnon]

134. Lies are necessary for society to function...imagine the chaos and

breakdown if everyone had to tell the truth.

How many people in relationships cheat yet it works out in the end because the other person did not know?
What about mothers telling their kids they are smart, attractive, nice, etc.?
Imagine if a government official had to tell the truth about motives, etc. for treaties.

Not to mention the other poster's point that we would be delegating the determination of Reality itself to the courts.

(Edit)

[iverglas]

135. and now, back to the point

Not to mention the other poster's point that we would be delegating the determination of Reality itself to the courts.

When a court rules that snake oil is not a cure for cancer, and convicts a corporation under a statute prohibiting the marketing of snake as a cure for cancer, what is the court doing?

For that matter, when a court "finds" that Jane wrote a cheque for which she had insufficient funds, or Joe took a chocolate bar that was not his without paying for it, what is the court doing?

The issue simply isn't whether courts are assigned to "determine reality"; courts do that every day, when they make findings of fact. (Of course, what they do is determine whether what they consider to be the relevant bits of reality have been proved to them to a sufficient standard; none of us knows what reality actually is.)

The question is whether the facts that a court might find constitute, or should constitute, things that people may be punished for.

I wonder why it isn't obvious to everyone that the poster you were replying to was indulging in a little hyperbole, arising out of the exasperation and disgust and fear about the effect that lies told to the public about hugely important things can have, and have recently had, on the public welfare.

If I'm not mistaken, if lies were told by your President to your Congress regarding the supposed justification for the invasion of Iraq are argued, many argue that they constitute a "crime" for which the President could/should be impeached.

People who lie in court under oath/affirmation are punished. There's nothing magical about that formula. It is simply regarded as intolerable for people to tell lies that are too potentially harmful to important public interests: the integrity of the justice system, the public's ability to protect itself against people who commit crimes, the life and liberty of people from whom they might be taken away if the lies are believed.

It is quite possible to argue that similar interests are jeopardized if lying about Nazi crimes is not outlawed and people who lie about Nazi crimes are not punished: the integrity of the democratic system, the public's ability to protect itself against followers of Nazism, the life and liberty of people from whom followers of Nazism might take them away.

Some lies really are prohibited, and people who tell them really are punished. The question, of course, is where the cut-off line is drawn, not whether people should be punished for lying.

[Hosnon]

168. Nothing from the "original" post makes me believe that it was hyperbole.

Yes the courts do determine what is and isn't going to be considered fact for legal purposes. And your subsequent point seems to support mine. In our court system, a judge or jury determines whether X is true or not if X is relevant to the case in which it is brought. If lying were to be made itself illegal, a court would not have to decide whether or not a fact is relevant or whether or not it constitutes a crime because the act of not telling the truth would itself be illegal.

The courts today determine what is reality but in a limited sense. Making the truth or falsity of every proposition a legal question expands that power to its greatest extent. Hence I used the big "R" in Reality.

There is nothing wrong with a court finding that John hit someone else intentionally - the problem arises when we give carte blanche to the courts to find that John lied about wanting to go to dinner with his mom. It's a matter of solving a small "problem" with an extreme solution.

Now, of course there are situations where we can hold individuals liable for not telling the truth. But every situation should not be such a situation.

So yes there are many instances where lying is and should be illegal...however, the original post we're dealing with here implied making all lying illegal.

As you say, there is a line somewhere and that line is obviously not at the "make it all illegal" end of the spectrum.

(Edit)

Regarding the idea that Bush lied to get us into war: Congress has the power of impeachment and the power of the purse. If it is obvious that he lied, shut down his funding and render him impotent. Also, this may be an unfortunate consequence of two term limits. Had he lied, the electorate could punish him by not re-electing him.

[iverglas]

172. Violins on television? ... Oh ... never mind.

Nothing from the "original" post makes me believe that it was hyperbole.

No, of course not. No reasonable person acting in good faith would ever imagine that someone who stated how sick and tired s/he was of the harm that has come to the world recently from lies and said that "there should be laws against lying" ... and then said that s/he wasn't a philosopher, and hadn't thought it through, and would just like to see people being honest ... was really just cursing the gods.

So really, I do think that that's just about enough about that.

If lying were to be made itself illegal, a court would not have to decide whether or not a fact is relevant or whether or not it constitutes a crime because the act of not telling the truth would itself be illegal.

Yes, and then we could get back to the point, as I did try to do.

In the case of Holocaust denial, that being the subject of this discussion, the court is not asked to determine reality. The court is asked only to determine whether the accused denied the occurrence of the Holocaust (and any other elements of the crime that might be needed, which I've been unable to determine).

The society that made the law has determined that the Holocaust occurred. The court has nothing to say about it.

So, we see, this isn't actually a law just about lying. It is a law about saying a particular thing, which happens to be false.

Saying things that are false IS illegal, when it is done under oath/affirmation in a court. It IS illegal when it is done in public for the purpose of selling a product. It IS illegal when it is done in public for the purpose of increasing stock values. It IS illegal when it is done to the police for the purpose of obstructing their investigations.

Speech IS illegal when a society believes that the speech seriously jeopardize very important public, and perhaps private, interests. The question would appear to be whether speech consisting of denials of Nazi crimes falls into that category in a particular place and time.

So much meta-discussion ...

Regarding the idea that Bush lied to get us into war: Congress has the power of impeachment and the power of the purse. If it is obvious that he lied, shut down his funding and render him impotent. Also, this may be an unfortunate consequence of two term limits. Had he lied, the electorate could punish him by not re-electing him.

Yes, and what mighty fine deterrents all of them would be to future heads of state behaving that way, and how well all of them would protect the thousands of innocent people who might die if the deterrent didn't work.

Oddly, I'm the one usually rejecting finger-pointing and bloodlusting. But I just do tend to think that people who abuse their soapboxes or offices to say things that result in thousands or millions of deaths kinda oughta be held accountable in more ways than being shunned by polite society or being denied re-election.

Irving's speech hasn't led to such things on such a massive scale yet, but I sure do find it arguably reasonable not to wait for it to happen. Unless I were in Austria and more familiar with Austrian political and social dynamics than I am, I still wouldn't be stating an opinion of the period, full stop variety.

[Hosnon]

176. Saxon Violins...

Well one more thing. Necessity is the mother of invention...hence emoticons. Perhaps you have a divine power to accurately perceive emotions/nuances/intentions through naked text alone but, as evidenced by the large amount of emoticons, most people cannot. Unless it is evident from the text that a certain interpretation is to be used, the presumption is that the plain interpretation is to be used. Minus some funky emoticon or descriptive nouns, I assume that the text is what it is.

Now,

There isn't much point in discussing the Holocaust because that was not the subject of the "original" poster nor was it the subject of my post. Our subject (as I understood it) broadened into whether lying should be illegal. Your point that "this isn't actually a law about lying" is moot because that is not at issue here. What is at issue is when the law IS about lying.

And my post responded to that idea.

If you have a problem with the deterrents built into the Constitution then discuss changing it. But as is, the President can't be held liable in the courts for lying when not under oath. The checks built in are that the Congress, believing he lied, can cut off the flow of money. A bit more than than being shunned by polite society.

[Gregorian]

182. Wow you guys. These are really goods posts.

And I thank you for not really coming down on me. I've been getting murdered around here lately.

I must say, I'm a purist. A perfectionist. And I had really never thought about anything other than "the truth", about everything. In fact, I have a father who has never lied. And it really hurt me, and hurts me to this day. He has never protected us from the truth. If we sucked, he told us. I'm one of the few people who has lived in a household of total truth.

But I see your point. Here I am, a fifty year old man, realizing something so basic. This is a revelation for me. Not like I'm going to go out and lie right now. But thanks for the time it took to respond in such a complete fashion.

[tigereye]

216. ah

but who gets to decide what "TRUTH" actually is. There would be the complication....

[WVRevy]

31. Personally...

...I find any supression of free speech to be a helluva lot more threatening than any attempt to "glorify naziism". No doubt, the guy is a loon to believe as he does. But so is anyone that thinks he should go to jail for merely speaking his mind.

And sorry, but it is NOT the same as "shouting fire in a crowded theater", as that act can be the direct cause of imminent injury. Political speech can not. I empathize with your wish that this kind of "hate" speech be outlawed, but my principles would never allow me to agree that it should be banned.

[lightbulb]

32. agreed

When someone deceptively yells "fire" in a crowded theater, it triggers an instant, uniformed response by the crowd. They have no information to go on at that moment other than the false word of one individual. Laws are necessary to protect people from such a blatant abuse of public trust.

Whereas when someone expresses a wayward ideology in the light of day, it is sufficiently diluted by the volumes of verifiable contrary information already in the public realm. Nobody is required to trust the raving idiot on his word, and only a lunatic fringe who are willfully blind to reason are going to do so. To punish someone for expressing dumb ideas about history is absolutely contrary to the very concept of freedom of speech.


on edit: changed "in writing" to "in the light of day" to apply more to the case in point, since his illegal words were in fact publicly vocalized.

[iverglas]

39. since you seem to be talking to me ...

And sorry, but it is NOT the same as "shouting fire in a crowded theater", as that act can be the direct cause of imminent injury. Political speech can not.

... me being the one who offered the analogy ... I'll respond.

It is a nonsense to say that ANY speech is the "direct cause" of ANYTHING, other than a disturbance of the air. How anything can be the "direct cause" of "imminent" anything escapes me, of course.

The shouting of "fire!" in a crowded theatre would have no more direct effect than a sneeze. IF someone ACTED on the information received -- by rushing for the exit -- harm could follow.

If someone acted on the information received from a Holocaust denier -- that information in fact amounting to the assertion that Hitler and Nazis never did what they have been accused of doing, and conclusively proved to have done -- harm could follow.

Much depends on context. Your shouting "fire!" in your living room is unlikely to be followed by any harm. Your neighbour denying the Holocaust in the US, maybe ditto. A schoolteacher denying the Holocaust in a Canadian classroom? It has been PROVED to have been directly followed by extreme anti-semitism among his students:

http://www.umanitoba.ca/cm//cmarchive/vol14no1/keegstratrial.html

The book includes excerpts of essays written by Keegstra's students, excerpts that usually include mention of the major theme in Keegstra's classes, that a Jewish conspiracy had manipulated history for hundreds of years. It was the task of the crown counsel, Fraser, to show that Keegstra had deliberately distorted the usual versions of history to instill a hatred of Jewish people in his students.

THAT is what "Holocaust denial" is, and that is what the Austrian law prohibits. It isn't really some ivory-tower disagreement over mortality rates among European Jews.

I empathize with your wish that this kind of "hate" speech be outlawed, but my principles would never allow me to agree that it should be banned.

You might sympathize with my wish, if that were my wish. I have not stated that it is my wish, or said anything from which it could be inferred that it is my wish.

What is my actual wish? That, just once, I could read a discussion engaged in by people who acknowledge what the actual issues are, bother to acquire some information relevant to them, listen to and acknowledge what other people say about them, and speak only when they have done the foregoing and in fact have something to contribute that is worthy of someone else's consideration. That way, I, or someone observing a discussion in which I participate, might occasionally LEARN SOMETHING, that being what I value way above the spewing of opinion that is based on nothing and more often than not misrepresents whomever or whatever it purports to be about. That's what I wish.

Meanwhile, I think that there is very good argument for the position that the restrictions on speech imposed by Austrian law are justified. That doesn't mean that I think all speech should pass a government-approval test before being uttered, or that I think that Holocaust denial should be illegal everywhere in the world, or, actually, anything that I didn't in fact say.

YOU may find "any attempt" to suppress speech to be more threatening than attempts to glorify Nazism. Fortunately for you, your opinion remains based on the entirely hypothetical possibility of Nazi ideology being made into public policy where you are. You appear to be uninterested in how people who live with the somewhat less hypothetical possibility of that happening -- and the very real memory of it actually happening -- might feel about the question. That's what I don't get, myself.

[WVRevy]

43. Wow...

It is a nonsense to say that ANY speech is the "direct cause" of ANYTHING, other than a disturbance of the air. How anything can be the "direct cause" of "imminent" anything escapes me, of course.

Obviously, you're being deliberately obstinate here. That being the case, I feel no compulsion to bother trying to explain it to you. Suffice it to say, you'll have a hard time finding anyone that agrees that a shout intended to cause panic cannot be the cause of any injury that may result. The law in this country certainly doesn't agree.

What is my actual wish? That, just once, I could read a discussion engaged in by people who acknowledge what the actual issues are, bother to acquire some information relevant to them, listen to and acknowledge what other people say about them, and speak only when they have done the foregoing and in fact have something to contribute that is worthy of someone else's consideration. That way, I, or someone observing a discussion in which I participate, might occasionally LEARN SOMETHING, that being what I value way above the spewing of opinion that is based on nothing and more often than not misrepresents whomever or whatever it purports to be about. That's what I wish.

The actual issue here is freedom of speech. You are the only one trying to say that this particular subject - the glorification of naziism - should not fall under that umbrella. Perhaps if you lost the snotty attitude and simply stated your case, you wouldn't have so many problems with other people on this thread. But hey...just a suggestion.

Meanwhile, I think that there is very good argument for the position that the restrictions on speech imposed by Austrian law are justified. That doesn't mean that I think all speech should pass a government-approval test before being uttered, or that I think that Holocaust denial should be illegal everywhere in the world, or, actually, anything that I didn't in fact say.

And I stated that I do not believe in any restrictions on free speech, save in the case of an individual attempting to incite a riot or cause some other immediate harm. Not sure why you seem to have such a hard time with that, but there it is. I do not like "restrictions" of freedom, save those that are necessary for the public welfare...and before you get to that, no, I do not agree that this one fits that description.

That said, I believe I'm done with this debate. By all means, please continue if you feel the need. I'm sure there are plenty here who will take up my side of the argument.

[iverglas]

50. your point?

Suffice it to say, you'll have a hard time finding anyone that agrees that a shout intended to cause panic cannot be the cause of any injury that may result.

Well fuckin' duh, eh?

And if shouting "fire" can CAUSE a stampede, if it is done in a crowded theatre, how is it that shouting "international Jewish conspiracy" CANNOT cause acts of violence, or any other kinds of acts, against Jews, if it is done in a society where neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism is rife?

Cheeses.

The law in this country certainly doesn't agree.

Laws don't agree or disagree, with anything. Laws reflect consensuses about what acts should and should not be permitted. My own analysis is that there is a consensus that certain acts increase the risk of certain harms happening, and that when the risk is perceived as sufficiently high, and the harms as sufficiently serious, the acts will often be outlawed.

The actual issue here is freedom of speech.

Sez you. And so is the issue in laws against shouting "fire!" in crowded theatres -- or lying in court, or marketing snake oil as a cure for cancer, or counselling the commission of murder. Nothing to say about them, then?

The ACTUAL issue is when it is justified to limit speech.

You are the only one trying to say that this particular subject - the glorification of naziism - should not fall under that umbrella.

Really? Too bad you don't seem to be able to quote me SAYing that, eh?

Perhaps if you lost the snotty attitude and simply stated your case, you wouldn't have so many problems with other people on this thread.

Perhaps I don't give a shit about having "problems with other people on this thread"; considered that possibility?

Perhaps I recognize that there is nothing I can do about people choosing to be ignorant and people choosing to misrepresent what other people say. Perhaps I just enjoy pointing it out. Perhaps I harbour a faint hope that some of them will mend their ways, since I would actually have more fun if I encountered someone occasionally who wanted to discuss an issue in good faith, and was willing to listen to what someone else said and consider things s/he had not considered before, before issuing pronouncements and condemnations.

Perhaps these stupid discussions of things that were never said, and useless advice about how to avoid them, bore me. Yeah, I think that's it.

And I stated that I do not believe in any restrictions on free speech, save in the case of an individual attempting to incite a riot or cause some other immediate harm.

Actually, you didn't, but now that you have: how's about them perjury laws, eh? No comment about the marketing of snake oil as a cure for cancer -- or any other fraudulent commercial speech? Conspiring to commit a crime? Conveying secrets essential to a country's security by speaking them to an enemy during wartime?

Once you've accepted ANY limitation on speech, the line you've chosen to draw is no more correct-by-definition than the line anyone else chooses to draw, friend.

If you wanted to reject ANY limitation on speech, I might reject anything else you said as the ravings of a right-wing loonytarian, but I could not challenge your position as inconsistent, anyway.

You don't reject all limitations on speech, so if you want to defend the ones you do accept, and your condemnation of those you reject, you're at complete liberty to do so. Stating what limitations you accept, as if you'd found them on a stone tablet somewhere, does not an argument make.

I do not like "restrictions" of freedom, save those that are necessary for the public welfare...and before you get to that, no, I do not agree that this one fits that description.

Bully for you. I imagine that a lot of Austrians, especially those Austrian Jews, really care, and are really impressed with your concern for their welfare.

That said, I believe I'm done with this debate.

Ah yes, that's what freedom of speech is for, of course. For making wah wah noises after spouting an opinion.


Oh, P.S. If you think this was a debate, you're sadly mistaken. You have done nothing but state a position, insist that it is the correct position, and make wild allegations about my position. That doesn't qualify as "debate" in any book I know of.

[Karenina]

102. It's sad that you have no empathy

desire to understand or enquiries and seem impervious to the experiences of others. Austria is NOT America. You're American, you're (obviously) WHITE, and YOU'RE RIGHT. AND you're sure there are plenty here who will take up your side of the argument. Well, BULLY for YOU.

[tigereye]

217. I''m guessing the poster is either from Canada or Britain

based on the spellings I see. Poster does raise some interesting questions, although I can see why the tone would offend.

[iverglas]

219. noo ...

*This* poster, the one with the funny spellings, is in Canada. The poster whose ethnocentricity Karenina was actually addressing ... well, 26 posts and a disabled profile ... can't know for sure. But based on the reference to "the law in this country", I'll go with Karenina's conclusion: USAmerican.

[tigereye]

223. sorry

this thread was so voluminous that it was hard to keep track. What I meant is that many of your arguments were quite interesting, but your "tone" seemed to stop people from actually thinking about them! ;)

[PhilipShore]

34. I think we need similar anti hate babble laws in the United States.

I think we need similar laws in the USA.

Language (and speech is language) is the tool; and expression of common sense, reason, and truth.

To call babbling hate mongers, as just being ordinary citizens with free speech rights is absurd.

We need tough new laws in the USA to prevent language that provokes anti-Semitic or racial hate, etc.

[Charlie Brown]

36. Does that apply to liberals and progressives, too

or are only "your" definition of hate-mongers viable to be prosecuted and sent to jail. Giving a conservative government a precedent to send those who disagree to jail has to be the most insane thing I've yet encountered at DU.

[iverglas]

40. know any?

Does that apply to liberals and progressives, too

Know any liberals or progressives who call for the mass murder or expulsion of, or denials of any other rights to, groups of people based on their race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation or whatever?

Wouldn't they, if they existed, be kinda the poster children for oxymoron or, if you prefer, contradiction in terms?

Giving a conservative government a precedent to send those who disagree to jail has to be the most insane thing I've yet encountered at DU.

Constructing a parallel between "those who disagree" and THOSE WHO DENY THE ATTEMPTED GENOCIDE OF AN ENTIRE SEGMENT OF HUMANITY IN ORDER TO PROMOTE THE IDEOLOGY OF THE PEOPLE WHO DID IT has got to be one of those most offensive things I've encountered here, myself.

[Charlie Brown]

42. ask a pro-lifer

They will immediately draw a parrallel between the Holocaust and abortion. They control our govenment at the moment, and would love to label pro-choice advocates as criminals if given the opportunity.

If you find free speech offensive, you'll just have to remain offended. Sorry.

[iverglas]

51. Actually, I asked you.

Too bad you didn't see fit to answer. Any reason for hitting that "reply" button at all?

ask a pro-lifer
They will immediately draw a parrallel between the Holocaust and abortion.

Uh huh.

And this has to do with your question about whether hate speech laws should apply to "liberals" and "progressives" ... HOW?


If you find free speech offensive, you'll just have to remain offended. Sorry.

If you want to insinuate nasty false things about me, I'll just have to get used to it. Oh wait. I already am.

[Charlie Brown]

54. Well, go in peace, friend

I make a habit not to bear hostility to those I happen to disagree with. I wish you well.

[rinsd]

37. Your attitude is exactly why we have free speech

"To call babbling hate mongers, as just being ordinary citizens with free speech rights is absurd."

Free speech is for all not just those whose ideas we find slightly disargeeable or agree with. As long as it is not direct advocation of violence, people are and should free to be stupid ass bigots without free of incarceration by government. Shunned by society is a whole other magilla.

[NorthernSpy]

44. man, I wish you'd been here to say this during Katrina!

In the aftermath of the hurricane, hysterical nonsense about "roving rape gangs", and murderers at the Superdome, and snipers trying to take out helicopters and rescue crews -- et barf cetera -- was reported by the news media as fact. And overwhelmingly, it wasn't.

But even some here promoted these rumors that slandered an entire population of seriously endangered people. And they kept repeating this garbage, even when asked to stop. For some reason, the demonstrable effect of these unevidenced rumors -- that of promoting hatred against the victims of the storm -- just wasn't accepted as a sufficient reason to shut the fuck up.

That was when I began to wonder whether perhaps there ought to be legal consequences for spreading false news under such conditions.

[Charlie Brown]

45. There are legal consequences

They're called libel, slander, and defamation. If Katrina victims want to file a suit against the media, they have an excellent case.

[NorthernSpy]

46. they might have a case in some countries...

But has any population ever succeeded in bringing a defamation suit in an American court? I believe our defamation laws protect only individuals.

And we don't have false news laws at all. A newspaper here can print the most outrageous lies, inspire an actual pogrom, and then shrug the whole incident off as a "mistake". Just so long as they refrain from libelling individuals or explicitly advocating illegal acts, of course...

:think:

[iverglas]

62. yeah ...

And don't forget people like that self-aggrandizing, lying McQueen guy; no one was administering lethal doses of morphine to terminally ill patients to spare them agonizing pain if the morphine ran out.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5219917
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5220802

'Cause no one was looting pharmacies. 'Cause there were no drug addicts or criminals in New Orleans, ever.

And of course there were never any members of that vulnerable population who had ever done anything bad in their lives, or might have taken advantage of the crisis to do something bad to other members of that population.

http://www.ibiblio.org/rcip/cek.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/12/21/184724/10

One victim was a Ms. Lewis, a health care worker, who took refuge with others in an apartment complex for elderly residents. It was Indian summer hot in the city, and she slept in a darkened corridor, hoping to catch a cooling draft of air.

It was there, she says, that an unknown man with a handgun sexually assaulted her. She insists other women were raped in the same apartment building over the next four nights, but her claim could not be checked out.

"Some bad things happened, you know. There was nobody there to protect you," Lewis says.

Recalling her attack, she sobs, "They just left us to die. Nobody cared."

After her rape, Lewis says, there were no clinics open, so she washed herself with bleach. "All I could do was pray, pray for rescue, pray that I didn't have any type of transmitted disease," she says.

She said that she tried to report the rape when and after National Guardsmen arrived and cleared out the complex at gunpoint. Throughout her journey to safety, no authorities stepped up to hear her story, to offer support, or to take her name down.

Quick now, blame those damned victims for reporting what happened to them, and especially for not reporting it to the authorities right after it happened ... even if they did.

Jews don't seem to regard Holocaust denial as helpful in terms of their future safety. One has to wonder how anyone could think that denying that there were acts of violence being committed against members of an abandoned and vulnerable population was helpful to them.

Of course, one also has to wonder what might have prompted someone to drag this herring into this thread, but one in particular here has her suspicions.

[Realityhack]

71. Umm... I think...

perhapse the poster was more blaming the media for amplifing and repeating rumors many MANY of which turned out not to be true... without checking their facts first. I do not think he was trying to claim there were NO victims... but many of the horror stories we saw on the airwaves durring the aftermath are demonstratably false.

[iverglas]

84. actually, I know

Sorry to be less than limpidly clear here, but I do know exactly why the post was written and exactly whom it was directed at.

Do an advanced search for my name and the text "neville", and you'll probably catch my drift.

[NorthernSpy]

112. right you are!

No one has ever claimed that New Orleans was magically crime-free in the aftermath of the hurricane. Even at the time, the anti-rumor faction explicitly and repeatedly rejected this caricature of our views.

The problem is that these false rumors (of the "convention center freezer filled with murdered children!" variety) came to dominate the news at the very moment that so many people were endangered by the flood and needed all the help and solidarity they could get. The deluge of false news clearly had the effect of vilifying this mostly black, mostly poor population -- reducing sympathy for the victims of the disaster, and recasting them as the villains.

While all this was happening, the rumor-promoters were asked by some black DUers to please cool it -- to no effect, I'm sorry to say.

I just think that it's not unreasonable to expect that blacks receive the same protection from slanderous rumor-spreading and false news that many of us readily extend to Jews.



As for those unproved allegations that still linger -- such as the rumors of euthanasia at New Orleans hospitals -- well... We've spent how many months now waiting for the authorities to scrape together enough evidence to charge someone? Clearly, we shouldn't be too quick to assume that if someone makes an accusation, it must necessarily be true.

[ronnie624]

133. I have always wanted to commend you

for your valiant defense of the people of New Orleans against the vile slander they had to endure on top of the horrors in the wake of the hurricane and the subsequent inaction of the federal government. Your position seemed a lonely one at times.

As I have spent many years studying propaganda, I recognized the filth being portrayed as "news" for what it was at that time, and I was there with you in spirit. I was stunned that so many on this board were so easily fooled.

Good luck to you.

[NorthernSpy]

142. thank you so much!

I have always wanted to commend you for your valiant defense of the people of New Orleans against the vile slander they had to endure on top of the horrors in the wake of the hurricane and the subsequent inaction of the federal government. Your position seemed a lonely one at times.

I'm a fallible person, and I get it wrong -- sometimes stunningly, resoundingly wrong -- as often as anyone. But I swear I'll go to my grave with the moral certainty that I was right about that one.

Must say, though: I was never alone in defending the Katrina survivors. LBN's own Judi Lynn was there, and Nothing Without Hope, and others -- good people, all! Some of us are involved in Katrina activism away from DU as well.


Thank you for your post, Ronnie. You've made my day.


(edit: fixed editing)

[entanglement]

58. No

I have heard the RW spew hate against all kinds of people and find it offensive, but I'd still prefer we don't have such a law, ever.

[oneighty]

38. delete

180

[iverglas]

47. Austria and Austrian law -- for anyone interested in facts

Mine are second hand; I have not been to Austria and know no Austrians (well, I did once date an Austrian who recalled trekking, as a young child with his mother, to Allied-occupied territory after the war), and my German is too crappy to read legislation or analysis in the original, and I can't find much in English. Nonetheless, there are trusted sources.

http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw97-8/austria.html
(emphases mine)

A survey carried out in 1997 revealed that Austria had one of the highest levels of racism in the European Union. The Austrian Freedom Party continued to register electoral successes and its leader, Jörg Haider, declared his intention to run for chancellor in 1999. Only a few violent anti-Semitic incidents were registered. However, it seems that not all anti-Semitic incidents are reported to the authorities or by the press. Many racist and anti-Semitic publications continued to appear regularly. An article in the new weekly Zur Zeit revived an old anti-Semitic blood libel.

... Extreme Right-Wing Political Parties

Since becoming party chairman in 1986, Jörg Haider has turned the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (Austrian Freedom Party -- FPÖ) into the most powerful and successful extreme right-wing party in Western Europe. With 40 deputies in the Austrian parliament and 6 in the European Parliament, the FPÖ continues to register electoral successes. At the end of January 1998, for example, it emerged as the sole winner of the elections in Graz, capturing 16 seats on the district council of Austria's second largest town.

Today, the FPÖ, whose leader is considered by 40 percent of the population to be a neo-fascist and who, according to a decision of Austria's High Court, may be called "the political foster father and ideologist of extreme right-wing terror," represents one-third of the Austrian population. ...

Extra-parliamentary Right-Wing Groups

Thousands of skinheads and militant neo-Nazis are active in groups and organizations that are considered dangerous to democracy in Austria (see ASW 1996/7). The banned Volkstreue Ausserparlamentarische Opposition (Ethnically Loyal Extra-parliamentary Opposition -- VAPO), the umbrella organization for many such groups, is still active underground, although its leaders are imprisoned.

Neo-Nazi support groups, such as Nationalfreiheitliche Gefangenenhilfe (National Freedom Aid for Prisoners) and Forum für ein humanes und demokratisches Strafrecht und zur Erhaltung der Menschenrechte (Forum for a Human and Democratic Penal Code and for the Defense of Human Rights -- FSM) continued their advisory work for Holocaust deniers and provided a cadre for neo-Nazi activities. ...

ANTI-SEMITIC ACTIVITIES
Violence, Vandalism, Threats and Insults ...
Propaganda and Holocaust Denial ...

Court Cases and Legal Proceedings

... During 1997 several activists of the militant neo-Nazi VAPO were found guilty of plotting to abolish the democratic system and replace it with a Nazi dictatorship, with Austria annexed to a Greater German Reich. ...

... A court case that aroused much interest in Austria was the suit filed by the film maker Andreas Gruber, against Helmuth Jossek, an FPÖ district councilor in Wels. Jossek called Gruber a Volksschädling (people pest) and Stadtschädling (town pest) after the latter described in his film Hasenjagd the escape of Soviet war prisoners from the Mauthausen concentration camp in early 1945. Gruber instituted proceedings against Jossek on the grounds that these expressions were part of the terminology of the Nazi regime.

One may also usefully read here:

http://eumc.eu.int/eumc/as/PDF04/AS-Country-AT-PDF04.pdf

http://www.cospe.it/ONWEB/raxen/AntiSemitism-Main-report.pdf

LEGISLATION WITH RESPECT TO ANTISEMITISM

The prevailing approach in the Austrian legal system is to see racist discrimination or racist violence as acts deriving from extreme rightwing or National-Socialist ideology. Legislation applicable to racist and xenophobic violence and crimes therefore focuses on crimes in the context of National-Socialist ideology. The Constitutional Act prohibiting the NSDAP (National-Socialist German Workers' Party) ..., which was enacted in order to comply with the international obligation resulting from Art 9 of the Vienna Treaty forms the legal basis for sanctions against racist actions and incitement within the context of (neo-) Nazi ideology.

Other racist crimes that are not linked to National-Socialist ideology cannot be subsumed under the Prohibition Statute. Sec 33 no. 5 of the Penal Code states that in cases of offences committed for racist or xenophobic reasons, the motivation is to be investigated in court and considered as an aggravating factor in determining the particular sentence. Section 283 of the Penal Code punishes incitement to hostile action, if someone publicly induces or incites - in a manner likely to endanger public order - the commission of a hostile act against a church or religious community existing in the state or against a group determined by appurtenance to such a church or religious community, race, nation, ethnic group or state. Furthermore, sec 283 prohibits public agitating against such a group or insulting or disparaging it in a manner violating human dignity.

... Secondary antisemitism

Since open antisemitism, in the sense of the often self-declared antisemitism from before the Second World War, was now associated with "Auschwitz" (the main metaphor up to the 1970s for the genocide against the European Jews) and was censored, antisemitic statements had to be recoded so as to avoid being labelled as such. Although antisemitism in politics can be found in different European countries, political antisemitism based on parties, organizations and newspapers has been pushed to the margins of the public sphere. The result of this transformation is that post-1945 antisemitism can be haracterized as an "antisemitism without antisemites."

Antisemitism since 1945 is not just characterized by the absence of self-labelled antisemites, but also by "secondary antisemitism," which, broadly defined, is any form of antisemitism that is itself a reflection of the establishment of the taboo of expressing antisemitism. The notion is commonly used primarily to describe antisemitism in Austria and Germany, where secondary antisemitism is usually considered as a reaction to the debates on national identity and National Socialism. Drawing on older stereotypes about Jewish power and influence in the media, a typical claim of secondary antisemitism is, for example, that Jews are manipulating Germans or Austrians exploiting feelings of guilt. The term has proliferated in scholarly analyses particularly to explain the debates on National Socialism and antisemitism in Germany in the 1980s.

Characteristic of all forms of "secondary antisemitism" is that they relate directly to the Holocaust allowing speakers to avoid expressing open antisemitism by addressing the taboo itself. It is thus a form of recoding antisemitism so that it can be expressed without appearing antisemitic.

Secondary antisemitism also has a psychological component. Rather than constituting a form of antisemitism that exists in spite of National Socialism, it exists because of it: in the context of the German debates of the 1980s, Henryk Broder coined the aptly provocative phrase: "Germans will never forgive the Jews the existence of Auschwitz."

Since the concept of secondary antisemitism, including the historical and psychological analysis that comes with it, has been developed mostly for Germany and Austria, it remains open if this term can also adequately describe antisemitism outside of these countries.

Points of interest, to me at least:

- what might appear to some Muslims like unequal treatment -- hate speech against Jews is prohibited, hate speech against them is not -- has its roots in the historical context, and the fact that anti-Semitic speech is regarded as, and in most cases plainly is, coded neo-Nazi speech (which anti-Muslim/Arab speech today could arguably also be regarded as, but is not as necessarily, in the specific context);

- Austria is required by the 1955 Treaty of Vienna (restoring its sovereignty post-WWII) to outlaw the National Socialist Party -- bizarrely, I can't find an English version of the Treaty on the net, but essentially it set out the terms on which Austria, which was something less than hostile to Nazism during WWII, was granted its sovereignty again by the Allies: "we", not Austrians, chose this.

Just some stuff I've learned more about because someone posted a news item at DU ...

[PhilipShore]

63. Interesting topic: Free Speech

I am not a lawyer, but I think the fundamental meaning of the word law, is the responsibility to love.

So it seems to me that laws and rules of law are necessary, so that people can live in a free society.

The pro babble crowd seems to say: well the ACLU calls it Free speech rights, so it must be a right liberals must defend.

The essential point they have is that; if the law of Austria -- was made law here in the USA mass hysteria would develop. Why? The law is quite specific; it refers to anti-Semitism hate speech, and I would modify it to include racial hate, etc.

I think the actual founder of the ACLU was a pacifist, and he was not aware of the -- CIA -- which has become and has a history of using hateful speech to cause violence in the United States, specifically against blacks regarding the civil rights movement.

If he knew about the actual use of language; which results in unwarranted violence to people based upon religion, race, etc. my guess is the ACLU would be a strong supporter of tough laws that prevents language that is anti-Semitic, and racially motivated.

[CTLawGuy]

224. you mean the same ACLU

that defended the Nazi's right to march in Skokie IL?

BTW, who is to decide what promotes "racial hatred", you?

[iverglas]

227. missed some points, did you?

One such point would be that the ACLU deals with issues that arise in the US, in the context that prevails in the US, not issues that arise in Austria or anywhere else.

Another would be that (in the poster's opinion) the original founder of the ACLU (about whom I know nothing, so I am not stating any personal opinion) would not have defended the Nazis' "right" to march in Skokie.

BTW, who is to decide what promotes "racial hatred", you?

I give up; who is to decide what incites riots, you?

You never heard of elections, legislatures and courts?

[PhilipShore]

232. No, but perhaps an International rule of law and/or change the law

No, but perhaps a International rule of law similar to Austria's, and a civil rights law in the USA, similar to Austrias law --would in fact protect our civil liberties as Americans.

Just because the ACLU says it is a just law for Americans does not make it so, even the ACLU lawyers can make mistakes, about laws.

I think that the ACLU should change its pro Nazi policy, because the policy is unreasonable in the Military-Industrial-complex type of secret government, which is running the country, (NSA, CIA, PNAC, etc.).

If I was a lawyer; I would probably create my own ACLU as a pacifist, and challenge the law in court.

[Realityhack]

74. Thank you.

thank you for posting that. Its nice to see someone go out and bring back some information instead of just shouting in peoples faces. those are some very interesting and extreamly pertinant facts and shead a lot of light on this issue.

[iverglas]

86. it took me a while ;)

I did try right off the bat to find out exactly what Austrian law says, and then to find out exactly what the Vienna Treaty says, and I just can't believe I couldn't!

Maybe some helpful Austrian will happen by and give us that info, and an informed opinion about the subject. I know I'd still really like to see the actual legislation, and hear informed argument in support of the law and the application of it to Irving. (Not that all Austrians would support them, of course -- I'd just like to hear specifically from Austrians, or Europeans, who do, and learn more about why.)

May I say how very nice it is to meet someone who likes light to be shed rather than noise to be made!

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

132. Deleted message

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[fedsron2us]

53. How common are custodial sentences for Holocaust Denial in Austria ?

Is this the normal tariff for the crime or is Irving being treated with unusual severity ? Often when the accused admits guilt the court imposes a lesser sentence. This does not appear to have happened in this case. I know one or two Jewish groups are concerned that this judgment is going to wind up turning Irving into some sort of martyr for the extreme right.

On edit - It seems that the court definitely did make an example of Irving

One hundred and fifty-eight people have been convicted of Holocaust denial in Austria between 1999 and 2004, but only a handful other than Irving have been imprisoned. -

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2050069_2,00.html

Whether three years in an Austrian prison is likely to prove more damaging to Irving than the scathing veddict delivered on him by the British judge at the Deborah Lipstadt libel trial remains to be seen.

[entanglement]

56. I hope we never have such laws here

because they'd most likely be misused.

[951-Riverside]

60. WHAT THE HELL? (Don't you dare say this okay!)

Whats wrong with this world today if he wants to deny it thats his damn business if anything he should be sentenced to visit a synagogue MAX.

Am I going to face 3 years for believing that the Bush regime was behind 9/11 to further their agenda, are you going to face 3 years for simply being a democrat?

Where the hell does it end this is NOT acceptable!

[Charlie Brown]

61. Yeah, I find it hard to believe that anyone can justify this

yet here it is.

If this is what middle-America associates with liberals, no wonder we're the minority party.

[mondo joe]

94. I can justify anti Libel laws.

I don't see this as being very different than that.

[Charlie Brown]

96. A law prohibiting the "glorification of Nazism" is a libel issue?

Libel is usually an issue for civil court, not criminal. There's a difference.

[mondo joe]

98. I didn't say it was identical - but not that different.

And I don't see why the government should be any more disinterested in harm incurred from falsehoods than a private citizen should be - especially as regards a class of persons or even the country itself.

[Name removed]

140. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

234. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

236. Deleted message

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[LynnTheDem]

65. You gotta be kidding...!

WTF is wrong with this world???!

[daleo]

82. I suppose the Muslim world will call this hypocrisy

The west's belief in free speech includes cartoons mocking their prophet, but not heresies about the holocaust. Like it or not, that's the lesson they will take from this.

[PhilipShore]

87. Not the West in general....but CIA provocateurs

In the USA the CIA has a long history of routinely using professional cartoonist provocateurs; to make racial issues into some kind of cultural issue, for the specific purpose of causing violence, such as the CIA would create cartoons that make blacks look foolish and then have it published in the Western media MSM, especially during the civil rights 60s.

I think when one sees the cartoons that have outraged -- Islamic community, that my guess it that it was CIA created.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

137. Gee, ya think?

I find this beyond hypocritical?

Europeans are free to blaspheme against God, Jesus and Mohammad ... just not the Holocaust.

[iverglas]

141. if only you'd read some facts

Try my post 47.

Europeans are free to blaspheme against God, Jesus and Mohammad ... just not the Holocaust.

The prohibition on Holocaust denial has precisely nothing to do with "blaspheming". (How does one "blaspheme" an event?)

To be as brief as possible: it has to do with preventing the resurgence of Nazism in Austria. Denying real, atrocious crimes committed by Nazis is a tool used by Holocaust deniers to attract support for neo-Nazism, and this is the reason why it is outlawed.

Not out of respect for the victims, not as preferential treatment given to Jews. As a recognition of historical reality and the need to prevent that reality from being misrepresented for the purpose of recreating it.

People don't want to prevent the recreation of Nazi states for the sake of Jews alone, surely we would all agree.

Do neo-Nazis exploit anti-immigrant / anti-Muslim / anti-Arab sentiment to attract support for neo-Nazism in Europe? Yes, I think they do. It is certainly arguable that today is different from the post-war period, and today's Nazis are different from Hitler's, and so others of their activities need to be suppressed as well if a resurgence of Nazism is to be prevented. I'm not saying that I argue it; I'm saying it's arguable.

But at present, Holocaust denial, especially, is still crucial to their efforts, which is both why they put such effort into it and why it is considered important to prohibit it. Holocaust denial is pretty expressly neo-Nazi in its intent and effect on those who believe it. Ordinary, garden-variety bigotry, racism, xenophobia and ethnicentricity aren't necessarily as closely associated with promoting Nazism, and might better be addressed by different means.

Common decency on the part of anyone purporting not to be a neo-Nazi, like people who publish newspapers, is always a good start. When it fails, and they do things that appear to create risks for the people they have dishonestly and unfairly targeted, action may be needed.

[Name removed]

148. Deleted message

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[iverglas]

151. trying again

What other kinds of words, opinions or ideas should be banned because they might encourage a hate-based following of another sort??

Holocaust denial is NOT banned because it "might encourage a hate-based following".

It is banned BECAUSE IT IS A RECRUITING AND PROPAGANDA TOOL USED BY NEO-NAZIS.

NOT because it incites hatred of Jews.

BECAUSE IT INCITES ADHERENCE TO NEO-NAZISM.

I know that North Americans of a generation older than mine (my own being post-war already) don't get this. Nazism wasn't "about" Jews. It was about totalitarian oppression. The Nazis didn't bomb England every day for two months, killing 20,000 people over the eight months the Blitz lasted in 1940-41,
http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/MOLsite/exhibits/blitz/bigstory.html
in order to get the English Jews. The Nazis didn't start the war that cost 7 to 17 million civilians their lives in the Soviet Union in order to get the Soviet Jews. Had the Nazis never abused or killed a single Jew, the Nazis would still have been guilty of some of the most atrocious acts of aggression and inhumanity the world has seen, and been a threat to the entire world.

Hatred of Jews (and a bunch of other people) seems to be inherent in Nazism, but it is not the only reason that Nazism is, and needs to be, opposed.

Why can't denying the Holocaust be taken at its face-value. Anybody saying that should immediately be deemed an anti-semite, irresponsible, potentially dangerous loon.

And of course they are so "deemed" ... by decent, right-thinking people everywhere. The "should" part really can't be enforced. I think that what you're saying is that they should ONLY be deemed to be loons, and nothing else should be done.

And as long as people deny the Holocaust and do so for the purpose of persuading and attracting people to neo-Nazism, in contexts where the danger of Nazism being revived is indeed real and present, the results of doing nothing but deeming them to be loons might be really rather unpleasant.

[biggles1]

204. It is immaterial as to WHY he made those comments...

...whether it was to insult Jews, or to act as a recruiter for neo-Nazism. It doesn't matter. WHAT matters is that he was jailed for his SPEECH and his IDEAS. As such, Austria fails one of the tests of a democracy. This test is NOT the ability of people to make thoughts known which are acceptable and supported by the rest of us....rather it is the test of permitting the most UNacceptable thoughts to be put..........

[PhilipShore]

95. Telegraph.co.uk: Irving clutches Hitler book in court

Telegraph.co.uk
Irving clutches Hitler book in court
21/02/2006

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/02/21/wirving121.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/02/21/ixnewstop.html

David Irving appeared in Vienna's criminal court yesterday clutching his notorious book, Hitler's War. "It's my flagship," he said. "It represents more than 35 years of my life."

Each edition has been painstakingly revised by Irving since it was first published in 1977. In it he claims the dictator had no knowledge of plans to exterminate the Jews.

With each update Hitler's responsibility for the Holocaust has diminished and the 67-year-old has been further isolated by respected historians who once praised him for his thoroughness and indefatigable scholarship.

[distantearlywarning]

97. Holy Cow!!!

Some of the opinions in this thread are really scary. If drawing arbitrary lines between free and hate speech with the intent of imprisoning people you don't happen to agree with is the future of the Democratic Party, then count me right out of it.

David Irving is an asshat. He's not only an asshat, he's an offensive asshat who's completely full of shit. There's no question about it. But putting people in jail for expressing their opinions (no matter how distastful, offensive, even hateful we find them) differs not in the slightest from what the Nazis did (a dreadful irony here). And it's what this administration would love to do to all of us given the slightest provocation.

One person's "hate speech" is just another person's opinion. And free speech is about supporting the right of the other person to express that opinion, no matter how dreadful, uninformed, or "dangerous" you think it might be. Because if you don't support their right to express themselves, you give them the opportunity to suppress your speech. And that leads to the most dreadful, awful, dangerous thing of all: a completely silent society where the only speech anyone hears is that of whatever little tinpot dictator happens to be in power at the time.

[Karenina]

99. You don't "get it"

standing on your Ami corner of the intersection, without the benefit of the living historical memory of those who live on THIS SIDE of the pond. "NEVER AGAIN" is taken seriously and any actions taken that create an atmosphere in which a re-occurrence could happen are dealt with strictly. NO. You cannot scream "Heil Hitler" on the streets cuz da POLICE will cart you off forthwith.

The Holocaust happened and denying it is a LIE. NO. You are NOT PERMITTED to spew lies in the name of "opinion" or "free speech."

[LynnTheDem]

101. Then you do not have free speech.

It's that simple.

PS; and yet you do have Neo-Nazi groups.

Hmmm.

[Karenina]

105. I'll tell ya the truth Lynn

I encountered more neo-nazis on Venice Beach who were a LOT more dangerous than any I've met here. You may hear reports of them (250-strong) marching in these parts. What you will not hear is that the city has to pay for police protection, recruiting from forces hundreds of kilometers away to protect them from the MANY THOUSANDS of counter protesters.

[LynnTheDem]

115. I lived in Europe for years.

Neo-Nazis are nasty where ever they are.

But they have the right to be stupid ignorant SOBs, imo.

[Karenina]

122. Did you live on base?

[LynnTheDem]

171. No.

Never live on a base if you can avoid it.

:)

[CTLawGuy]

225. I am proud to be an American today!

there hasn't been much opportunity for that lately, but this instance is one.

:patriot:

[iverglas]

228. Bush will be smiling tonight

That's just exactly what he likes to see. USAmericans remaining firmly and contentedly ignorant of the ideas and values of other peoples and cultures, utterly convinced that the USofA is the bestest and every other country in the world is populated by benighted savages and haters of freedom.

Maybe you'll get a commendation.

[CTLawGuy]

239. I am proud to be American

because, at least in theory, the government does not prescribe what ideas and beliefs are acceptable to hold and advocate.

I can feel safe that no matter what my beliefs, the state cannot permissibly throw me in jail for expressing them or for advocating for the government or social movement I want to.


Hitler rose to power because the German people viewed democracy as a joke. They did not care as the state removed freedom after freedom, especially for people who weren't favored in society. And they shrugged their shoulders as Hitler defanged the Reichstag and became dictator.

Free Speech is the lynchpin of a democratic state. Without it, the people cannot govern themselves. If they have to work within a framework of "acceptable" ideas set by the state, then fascism exists as the people are subordinate to the state instead of the other way around, as it should be.

In America, I and anyone else have the right to advocate for a Nazi state, as much as I personally would disfavor it. Because most people are against such a state, such state will not rise up. And if we did criminalize it, the movement would not die, but fester in secret, unbeknownst to society, but very much alive.

In the end you've accomplished nothing.


So yes, I am damn proud to be an American. I am a Democrat because I want America to live up to its ideals, and that is not the path of the Bush administration.

So you can take your fascist state and I'll take America. Then we'll both be happy.

[Charlie Brown]

103. Not as long as that axe can also swing toward me

I will not support the persecution of ideas when I myself could be hauled off one day. The right over here would like to criminalize all sorts of speech that conflicts with their ideology. Religious conservatives in this country get just as passionate and vehement about abortion and anti-gay issues as you get about the Holocaust. They would gladly lock a quite a few people on the left up if given the opportunity. I got people in my neck of the woods who wear sheets and defend lynchings, and if you think that's not highly offensive, then you live in a very small world. You can learn to live with your wackos without sending them to jail, just like we do over here.

I will not give them that power to criminalize speech for the sake of sending an idiot like Irving to jail.

[distantearlywarning]

123. Actually, I AM permitted to do so.

I lie every day of my life, and so do you. We all do. That little white lie you told to your sister about her new haircut? Calling in sick when you really were sleeping in late? Should that be punishable by law? And who makes the decisions about what is "spewing lies" and what is truth? The Bush administration says that Iraq had WMDs and that anyone who says otherwise is "spewing lies". Would you give them the legal permission to put people who express an alternative opinion about that "fact" in jail? Because that's what you're advocating here, whether you realize it or not. You want to give permission to whatever ruling party is in power at any given time to not only decide what constitutes a "lie" but to silence and imprison the "liars". That's great when you rule and the liars are holocaust deniers. It's not so great when the holocaust deniers are the ruling party and they put you in jail for saying it happened. This is exactly what the Repukes do in this country - they forget that oppression is great as long as you are the oppressor. And they can't see past their own hysterics or "moral mandates" or immediate selfish desires to a time when they might really want the right to tell "lies" or to opt out of religious instruction in public schools. It's all great until the gate swings the other way. They don't realize that, and apparently neither do you.

If you want to live in a society where the "lie police" come and cart you off for expressing contrary opinions, fine. But I will fight that crap with every fiber of my being, even if that means battling with my fellow progressives. Yes, I might be an American, but I'm not ignorant about the Holocaust. In fact, it was learning about that period in history as a young teenager that formed the beliefs about free speech that I have now. Nobody should have the right to tell me what I can and cannot say, in public, about any subject, no matter how ill-informed or hateful or unpopular with my government my opinion might be. Nobody. At least at the present time I still have that right here on my American corner. I'm terribly sorry for you that you can't say the same thing over in Europe. That's really sad. It sounds like you all didn't learn as much from the Nazis as you think you did.

[iverglas]

125. words fail

The offensiveness of your trivialization of what you are responding to (by plainly deliberately taking the comments out of context) and of your attempt to patronize someone living a reality you very plainly don't know, from your cozy, contented little paddock in North America, and insult Europeans for not being as clever as everybody in the good old USofA ... words really do fail.

Speaking of cozy, contented paddocks ... how 'bout those "free speech zones", eh? Let me know next time you see a bunch of Europeans agreeing to be rounded up and corralled somewhere back of nowhere when they want to express actual political dissent.

[distantearlywarning]

126. Well, all you have to do is wait.

Eventually somebody in America will pass a law giving you the right to come get me and cart me away for saying things you find offensive, just like they have in Europe. And then you can come down and put me in the white van. Until then, I guess you just get to be mad and think I'm an idiot. Lucky for me. Too bad for you.

Have a nice day! :hi:

[iverglas]

128. you'll be needing some of this

Oh, dang. The site with the pic of the slippery slope personal lubricant is down just now.

Eventually somebody in America will pass a law giving you the right to come get me and cart me away for saying things you find offensive, just like they have in Europe. And then you can come down and put me in the white van.

Nah, they won't be letting me across the border when that happens, I imagine. I'll be up here, demonstrating my support for you ... wherever I bloody well want. Just like I demonstrated my opposition to your president last year when he came to town, a lot closer to him than you'll ever get. I'm sure the Europeans will be with me.

Oh, by the way, if you ever decide to learn something of what you're trying to talk about, and acknowledge that no one has been carted away for saying something I or anyone else "finds offensive", do feel free to come back and join the discussion.

Or, of course, when you get carted away for telling lies under oath/affirmation in a court, I could come out and demonstrate in support of your right to say whatever you want, whenever you want, to whomever you want. Let me know when you decide to exercise that right, and I'll make up a sign.

[Karenina]

130. BWHAHAHAHAHA!!!! You're quite amusing

"At least at the present time I still have that right here on my American corner." Well, sorta... :rofl::rofl::rofl:

The case in point is in Austria. They have enacted their own laws for their own reasons, which IMHO are quite sound for THEM. Irving broke them and was asked NOT to return. He flaunted them again and has been sentenced to jail. I got NO PROBLEM with it.

[Raskolnik]

166. That's demonstrably false

"NEVER AGAIN" is taken seriously and any actions taken that create an atmosphere in which a re-occurrence could happen are dealt with strictly.

I don't think you can make a very good case that Europe takes it seriously at all. Showy trials that put a crack-pot in jail? Sure. But taking *any* sort of meaningful action to actually stop genocide when its occurring, even on THAT SIDE of the pond itself? Not so much

[Karenina]

178. ...

:eyes:

[Raskolnik]

179. ***

Can't argue with that.

[tocqueville]

104. absolute free speech is a myth

it depends on the historical/cultural/political context : in France you can say "fuck" on National TV and even show a nipple or two without being immediately fired... But you can't say that the holocaust didn't exist, because it serves only a purpose, to incite to anti-semitism, which in itself is a crime. You cannot say that "niggers are dirty" for the same reason.

According to you saying "all niggers should be exterminated" is in theory an "opinion". But it isn't, it's barbary.

forbidding and punishing hate speech does'nt lead to a "silent society". A good example of that is that the European media are far more critical of their political or other leaders than the US MSM where "free speech is allowed", that is to say no charges against a Pat Robertson that incites to murder and absolute security measures against any tit appearance or even the utterance of the word "bullshit in a loaded situation...

and in the land of "free speech" no MSM had the guts to show the Danish cartoons, at least to initiate the debate...

WHO THE FUCK IS SILENT ?

[NorthernSpy]

113. every lynch mob began with an act of free speech

It's pretty hard to avoid concluding that our much cooed-over liberty of the press really did breathe to life the infamous 1921 Tulsa pogrom.

Look, I don't know what Austria should do with David Irving; I'm not exactly a partisan of either of the two main camps of thought that have expressed their views in this thread. It's just that I'm not a hundred percent convinced that one man's interest in running his mouth automatically trumps the targeted population's interest in not having their lives ruined by his vicious advocacy.

[iverglas]

124. scary opinions ... "imprisoning people you don't happen to agree"

What I once again find scary is the eagerness of some people to spew opinions about things they know nothing about, and to condemn people who do know what they're talking about for things they have never said.

No one, not one single person, has advocated imprisoning people for saying things s/he doesn't agree with. No one.

Even people who (tentatively, provisionally, for the most part) agree with the decision to imprison Irving do NOT agree with it because they disagree with Irving. And Irving was NOT imprisoned for disagreeing with anyone.

Irving was imprisoned for violating a law that prohibits the glorification of Hitler and Nazism by denying the crimes of which the world knows they were guilty.

Irving was not imprisoned "for expressing his opinion". Irving was imprisoned for insistently and repeatedly telling lies about a crucial event in human, but especially European, and more especially Austrian history, an act that is defined by law as promoting Nazism.

Does the law admit of exceptions for people who sincerely and honestly tell that lie with no intent to promote Nazism? Well, since there are probably millions of people in Europe who deny the Holocaust and one might think that numerous of them do it aloud, one might suspect that prosecutions are undertaken only in situations where the speaker could simply not have been unaware that the effects of his/her speech would be to support neo-Nazis and Nazism. Really; what do you imagine that Irving was doing?

Remember all the USAmericans who died in WWII because of Nazis and Nazism? How anxious are you for this to happen again? How eager are you for the neo-Nazi right wing to come to power in Europe?

Austria was required by the terms of the 1955 Treaty of Vienna to outlaw the Nazi party, or the Allies would not have returned its national sovereignty to it. That is how concerned the US and the other nations that went to war against Nazis and Nazism were about the resurgence of them in Austria. The US and the rest of the Allies are the ones who required that Austria outlaw this party. Austria has decided that in order to prevent neo-Nazis from gaining power, it must outlaw the means that they use to win support: speech that denies the crimes committed by the Nazis.

One person's "hate speech" is just another person's opinion.

IF WE WERE TALKING ABOUT "HATE SPEECH", you might have a point. Since we aren't, and you don't even seem to grasp that fact, you don't.

Because if you don't support their right to express themselves, you give them the opportunity to suppress your speech.

Your problem here is that Nazis TOOK the opportunity to suppress speech -- and they not only suppressed speech, they also murdered millions of people and committed atrocities against untold others. This is NOT a hypothetical; this is a REALITY.

And the people denying that reality ARE the people trying to recreate it. So it is very arguable that if you DON'T suppress their speech, THEN you are giving them the opportunity to suppress yours -- and, more importantly, to take your property, to imprison you, to use you for medical experimentation, to starve you, and to kill you.

Well, maybe not you. Of course, they didn't get a chance to come for you, last time. Who knows, next time?

[dysfunctional press]

106. the holocaust happened- it's the torah that's fiction.

along with the rest of the bible.

[JVS]

107. "Freedom is always the freedom of those who think differently"

Rosa Luxembourg

[Susang]

111. Here's a question for anyone who supports this

Have these laws worked? Will jailing Irving for three years do anything to stop Holocaust denial or will it in fact, give Irving more publicity than he's ever had in his entire life? He's now been made a martyr to the cause. Congratulations, you've supressed nothing and possibly recruited more converts to his side.

How many of you know that Professor Lipstadt, the American academic and crusader against Holocaust denial, the woman he sued for libel in England (he lost) actually agrees with me.

Here's what she had to say about it:

"I would not want to see him spend more time in jail," she says.

"I am uncomfortable with imprisoning people for speech. Let him go and let him fade from everyone's radar screens."

"Generally, I don't think Holocaust denial should be a crime," she says. "I am a free speech person, I am against censorship."

"I don't find these laws efficacious. I think they turn Holocaust denial into forbidden fruit, and make it more attractive to people who want to toy with the system or challenge the system.

"We don't have laws against other kinds of spoken craziness. If you're a medical quack and you hurt someone, there's a law against that.

"But if you're a medical quack and you stand on the street corner preaching that you have an elixir that cures cancer and saves lives, no one throws you in jail."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4578534.stm

[iverglas]

127. me

How many of you know that Professor Lipstadt, the American academic and crusader against Holocaust denial, the woman he sued for libel in England (he lost) actually agrees with me.

I knew it. And I've considered it. And I've stated the opinion that a three-year sentence was possibly unwise, for that among other reasons. I think I'd be in the take his assets, lock him up for 3 months (to express public denunciation of his acts and deter others) camp.

I don't have to agree with Lipstadt just because she's a scholar, or a Jew, or anything else. And if I were Austrian, I certainly wouldn't have to agree with her opinions about what public policies are best for my society.

From the Austrian perspective, Holocaust denial isn't (just) anti-Semitic speech, it is pro-Nazi speech. Austrians have a huge stake in preventing neo-Nazis from coming to power -- not just in terms of what it would mean internally (who wants to live under Nazism?), but also in terms of what it would mean in terms of their national sovereignty, which remains premised on preventing the formation of a Nazi party, let alone allowing it to come to power.

So Lipstadt's opinions about speech don't even address all of the issues involved, let alone decide them.

And her premises aren't even correct:

"But if you're a medical quack and you stand on the street corner preaching that you have an elixir that cures cancer and saves lives, no one throws you in jail."

She obviously hasn't read any consumer protection laws lately. Jail, maybe not. And that's a debatable question in the Irving case too, among people who sincerely disagree about strategy.

And that "Let him go and let him fade from everyone's radar screens", well, it is pleasant wishful thinking. It's just funny how the whole thing about letting good ideas and bad ideas battle it out in the marketplace of ideas doesn't always result in the good ideas winning. And when the very, very bad ideas win, people do die. Millions of people, sometimes.

And if the bad idea in question is precisely that millions of people did not die ... and millions of other people are persuaded to believe that lie ... well, surely the problem becomes apparent.

[Susang]

139. No, your premise is incorrect

He was fading from everyone's radar screens. He lost his suit against her and he was hiding from paying her court costs, as he was required to do. Now he's been made a hero and a martyr to these people. Don't know why you don't seem to understand that.

And yes, you can stand on a street corner and tell everyone that you have an magic potion that cures everything. People do it all the time. Have you checked out the alternative health book section lately? They're not putting those authors in jail, are they? You can write about it all you want, you can even sell the books. Or do you really think that Kevin Trudeau should be put in jail too? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0975599518/qid=1140549884/sr=2-2/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_2/002-0168244-0605634?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

[iverglas]

145. "why you don't seem to understand that"

He was fading from everyone's radar screens. He lost his suit against her and he was hiding from paying her court costs, as he was required to do. Now he's been made a hero and a martyr to these people. Don't know why you don't seem to understand that.

Gee. Maybe it's because I do.

Maybe I just don't think it's the one and only issue here. Of course, maybe I also specifically and clearly said that I thought the sentence he was given was unwise. You could have addressed what I said, by considering whether the law is wise, and the prosecution and conviction were wise, but the sentence wasn't. You didn't. Oh well.

People who commit most crimes aren't let off scot free just because they're boring. The sentencing of individuals is designed not only to punish them, but also to give expression to public revulsion at their behaviour and deter others from replicating it.

A law that people are permitted to break with impunity is a useless law.

You can write about it all you want, you can even sell the books.

Did I say you couldn't?

I seem to recall saying that you can't market the products by calling them something they aren't. I gather that you in the US have weaker protection from con artists who do this than we in Canada have, but you do have some.

Or do you really think that Kevin Trudeau should be put in jail too?

Well, I'd never heard of him, so I looked him up.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/trudeau_cpb.html

I gather that what he is selling is a book, and that he doesn't actually allege that the book will cure cancer. (I dunno; would one eat it, or smoke it?)

From my exceedingly brief look into it, he sounds like a moron, and not a particularly honest one. As long as he's not trying to sell people something that he promises will cure their cancer, he's engaging in expressive rather than commercial speech, it seems to me. You do grasp the difference between writing about something and marketing something, right? He or anyone else could write about how snake oil is a cure for cancer all they like; as long as no one may market snake oil as a cure for cancer, there's a degree of protection from the harm he is trying to cause.

It's arguable that people will heed his speech at great cost to themselves, but that's rather different from people heeding neo-Nazis' speech at great cost to millions of other people.

And yes, you can stand on a street corner and tell everyone that you have an magic potion that cures everything. People do it all the time.

And I guess it's generally felt that they're really rather different, and the threat they present is really rather different, from people who stand in front of crowds of neo-Nazis in Austria and tell them that the Holocaust never happened, and the threat they present. Do you really not think they are?

[Susang]

164. Kevin Trudeau writes and sells books

You could also claim that he sells ideas that are potentially dangerous, no? The same with David Irving, so yes, I do believe that they are the same. Ideas are ideas, once you start imprisoning people for for them where will you stop?

The fact is, David Irving's influence was waning (whether you want to believe it or not) and now he's become more popular, all because of these laws. You can condescend to me and belittle my analysis all you like, but that is the case. Austria's made a new martyr to the cause and Irving's gotten more publicity for his writing than he's ever gotten in his life. How is that serving anyone?

BTW, Kevin Trudeau does say he can cure cancer with coral calcium. You should have looked a little harder. He's not allowed to sell the product on television any longer, but guess what? Due to the first amendment, he's allowed to sell his book, thus proving Professor Lipstadt's point. Here's a link, since you obviously don't think much of my opinion or sources: http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=1503856 ;-)

[iverglas]

167. I give up

Kevin Trudeau writes and sells books
You could also claim that he sells ideas that are potentially dangerous, no? The same with David Irving, so yes, I do believe that they are the same.

If only Irving had been imprisoned for IDEAS, we'd at least be starting.

If you claim not to see the difference between the "idea" that food cures cancer and the "idea" that the Nazis did not murder several million people, I can't think of anything to say.

If you claim not to see the difference between writing a book in order to make money and writing a book in order to incite support for Nazism, well, I can't think of anything to say.

"Food cures cancer" and "the Nazis were wonderful people" and "blue is a nice colour" are all "ideas". So I guess we can just go home now.

Ideas are ideas, once you start imprisoning people for for them where will you stop?

When will YOU and all your contemporaries here stop pretending that Irvin was "imprisoned for ideas"?

What utter nonsense, and how disingenuous to keep saying it.

As I've said a few times (and have yet to receive a response): when next you decide to lie in court about an important fact, and a serial killer is acquitted as a result, and you are convicted of and sentenced for perjury, will you want me outside protesting how you've been imprisoned FOR YOUR IDEAS? Obviously, that's what will have happened.

BTW, Kevin Trudeau does say he can cure cancer with coral calcium. You should have looked a little harder. He's not allowed to sell the product on television any longer, but guess what? Due to the first amendment, he's allowed to sell his book, thus proving Professor Lipstadt's point.

Guess what? Since -- and I seem to have to say it again -- I was talking about prohibitions on MARKETING crap to cure cancer, and not about people SAYING that crap cures cancer, it doesn't seem that my looking any harder would have helped you. And in point of fact, Trudeau IS PROHIBITED from marketing crap to cure cancer, not just on telivision, but in any way, shape or form:

"In addition, Trudeau cannot make disease or health benefits claims for any type of product, service or program in any advertising, including print, radio, Internet, television and direct mail solicitations, regardless of the format and duration."

Maybe he could still stand on a streetcorner, I dunno.

Coral calcium isn't the invasion and occupation of other countries and the suppression of trade unions and the abuse of ethnic, sexual and religious minorities and the murder of millions of people. Amazing, isn't it?

His lies are apparently not leading to the deaths of millions of people who believed and acted on them -- LET ALONE to the deaths of millions of people at those people's hands. I wonder whether, if that does happen or it appears that it might happen, someone might suggest that the ideas shouldn't be published.

Kevin Trudeau is prohibited from selling a product by making claims to the public. David Irving is SELLING A PRODUCT by making claims to the public, and that product is Nazism. He is marketing Nazism by making false claims about its benefits and efficacy, in the form of false claims about the known facts about its non-beneficial effects.

Yes, that is waxing poetic a little too much. To put it less floridly, David Irving is not trying to get people to read his book so that he can get rich; he is trying to get people to read his book so that they will agree to institute a system of vicious, inhuman government under which it can be expected that individuals will be imprisoned, killed, discriminated against and tortured on grounds that reasonable and decent people regard as illegitimate.

Kevin Trudeau doesn't give a shit whether people believe him or agree with him. DAVID IRVING DOES. Trudeau and Irving are NOT engaged in analogous activities. Trudeau is NOT selling ideas, he is selling a BOOK. Irving is not SELLING anything, he is engaging in persuasive discourse. There IS NO analogy. Trudeau is PRETENDING to market ideas, Irving IS marketing an ideology.

Due to the first amendment, he's allowed to sell his book, thus proving Professor Lipstadt's point.

As usual, I'm charmed by the US first amendment and references to it. It is of no relevance to Austria or to me, however.

And it is completely beyond me how the way that one society has chosen to organize itself, i.e. what is in its constitution, could conceivably prove anyone's point about the efficacy or even the justifiability of what a completely different society chooses to do.

As I recall, the US constitution and its amendments never did descend from on high, pre-writ in stone. And the people who have since interpreted and applied it don't actually have a secret telephone wire hooked up to universal truth. "Because the first amendment says so" doesn't work any better on me than "because the bible says so".

Anyhow, your first amendment says that freedom of speech shall not be abridged, and your governments abridge it all the damned time. If you disagree with the law against perjury, stand up and be counted. After all, lies told in court are (just) ideas.

[Susang]

174. Okay. Fine.

If Irving was not imprisoned for his ideas, then please enlighten all of us poor rubes, who apparently love to talk about things we know nothing about (and thank you for that one, very conducive to discussion describing your fellow progressives that way) just exactly what was he prosecuted for?

Oh and please, no vague pronouncements about "hate speech", that just doesn't fly. Those are ideas, no matter how you like to spin it. Perjury comparisons don't fly either, as Irving we have no way of knowing whether Irving actually believes what he's saying or not. It actually seems that he did at the time he made the comments he was being prosectuted for (17 years ago), so that would mean that he wasn't lying.

Just out of curiousity, have you even read anything David Irving has ever written? Or are you just going on what other people are saying he's said and written? Just exactly how much actual research have you done on this subject.

I've done a lot. I actually do know something of what I'm talking about here. You seek to minimize my opinion by implying that you somehow know more about this situation than I (or anyone else on this board) does. Unfortunately, you know nothing of my experience, or anyone else's for that matter. I am intimately acquainted with issues pertaining to the holocaust and yet still believe that David Irving or anyone else for that matter should be allowed to say whatever they like. Driving them underground is far more dangerous.

[iverglas]

181. at least make an effort, eh?

If Irving was not imprisoned for his ideas, then please enlighten all of us poor rubes, who apparently love to talk about things we know nothing about (and thank you for that one, very conducive to discussion describing your fellow progressives that way) ...

My "fellow progressives"? Well, yes, there are a couple in this thread; they're not the ones spewing opinions about things they know nothing about, of course.

I still don't get it. If Irving were being imprisoned for his ideas, where are the transcripts of the electronic listening device that was evidently implanted in his head to record his ideas?

Irving was imprisoned FOR HIS ACTS. He was no more imprisoned for his "ideas" than someone who peddles cocaine to children is. If he had not chosen to MAKE SPECIFIC STATEMENTS in a public place, he would not be in prison.

Surely we can all recognize that it is possible to make statements promoting Nazism in public, specifically by denying the Holocaust, AND FIRMLY BELIEVE THAT THE HOLOCAUST OCCURRED. What "idea" might a person who does that be getting punished for? Not one that s/he believes, obviously, so hardly his/her idea.

... just exactly what was he prosecuted for? Oh and please, no vague pronouncements about "hate speech", that just doesn't fly.

Well, how cleverly pre-emptive to caution me against saying something that it wouldn't have occurred to me to say in a million years.

Why would I say anything at all about "hate speech", when what Irving was prosecuted for has precisely bugger all to do with "hate speech" ... and when I have made that point in this thread over and over and fucking over again?

Do YOU have any idea at all what Irving was prosecuted for??

Perjury comparisons don't fly either, as Irving we have no way of knowing whether Irving actually believes what he's saying or not. It actually seems that he did at the time he made the comments he was being prosectuted for (17 years ago), so that would mean that he wasn't lying.

Ah, some day, someone will construct the perfect analogy, and everyone else will just have to shut up.

Oh, wait, maybe not. I mean, if an apple were EXACTLY like an orange, then IT WOULD BE an orange. So we wouldn't be needing no analogy.

It "seems" that Irving believed what he said??? To whom, a blind horse?

Or are you just going on what other people are saying he's said and written? Just exactly how much actual research have you done on this subject.

Well, it's been a few years, actually. Is there anyone in particular whose words about what Irving has written I should distrust? Lipstadt? Apparently she proved to a court that Irving lied about the Holocaust -- i.e. deliberately made statements he knew to be false. (You may not know it, but Irving was also found by a Canadian immigration tribunal to have lied, about something altogether unrelated to the Holocaust, but that finding did provide a nice reference point for "Irving's a liar" claims.)

You familiar with Keegstra at all? Irving isn't the only Holocaust denier in the world. Keegstra, a schoolteacher, was convicted of "promotion of hatred against an identifiable group".

http://canlii.com/ca/cas/scc/1990/1990scc128.html

Mr. Keegstra's teachings attributed various evil qualities to Jews. He thus described Jews to his pupils as "treacherous", "subversive", "sadistic", "money-loving", "power hungry" and "child killers". He taught his classes that Jewish people seek to destroy Christianity and are responsible for depressions, anarchy, chaos, wars and revolution. According to Mr. Keegstra, Jews "created the Holocaust to gain sympathy" and, in contrast to the open and honest Christians, were said to be deceptive, secretive and inherently evil. Mr. Keegstra expected his students to reproduce his teachings in class and on exams. If they failed to do so, their marks suffered.

The law prohibiting the promotion of hatred (an act that is defined narrowly) against an identifiable group (an expression that is defined specifically) was upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada, even though our constitution says pretty much what yours says about free speech.

The issues in Canada are somewhat different from the issues in Austria and in Europe in general. Here's something the Chief Justice said; unfortunately, he too seems to have failed to grasp the context and purpose of anti-Nazi speech laws in Europe, but he makes a point about the alleged inefficacy of anti-incitement of hatred laws that's worth reading:

As for the use of hate propaganda laws in pre-World War Two Germany, I am skeptical as to the relevance of the observation that legislation similar to {the Canadian criminal law in issue} proved ineffective in curbing the racism of the Nazis. No one is contending that hate propaganda laws can in themselves prevent the tragedy of a Holocaust; conditions particular to Germany made the rise of Nazi ideology possible despite the existence and use of these laws (see A. Doskow and S. B. Jacoby, "Anti Semitism and the Law in Pre-Nazi Germany" (1940), 3 Contemporary Jewish Record 498, at p. 509).

Rather, hate propaganda laws are one part of a free and democratic society's bid to prevent the spread of racism, and their rational connection to this objective must be seen in such a context. Certainly West Germany has not reacted to the failure of pre-war laws by seeking their removal, a new set of criminal offences having been implemented as recently as 1985 (see E. Stein, "History Against Free Speech: The New German Law Against the `Auschwitz' -- and other -- `Lies'" (1987), 85 Mich. L. Rev. 277).

Nor, as has been discussed, has the international community regarded the promulgation of laws suppressing hate propaganda as futile or counter-productive. Indeed, this Court's attention has been drawn to the fact that a great many countries possess legislation similar to that found in Canada (see, e.g., England and Wales, Public Order Act 1986 (U.K.), 1986, c. 64, ss. 17 to 23; New Zealand, Race Relations Act 1971 (N.Z.), No. 150, s. 25; Sweden, Penal Code, c. 16, s. 8; Netherlands, Penal Code, ss. 137c, 137d and 137e; India, Penal Code, ss. 153-A and 153-B, and generally, the United Nation's Study on the Implementation of Article 4 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination).

The experience of Germany represents an awful nadir in the history of racism, and demonstrates the extent to which flawed and brutal ideas can capture the acceptance of a significant number of people. One aspect of this experience is not, however, determinative in deciding whether or not hate propaganda laws are effective.

You seek to minimize my opinion by implying that you somehow know more about this situation than I (or anyone else on this board) does.

You're still implying that Irving was convicted of engaging in "hate speech", and you wonder why I might question how informed you are about the subject of this discussion??

I did the fucking work. I googled and googled and googled, and I found descriptions of and explanations for the statute under which he was convicted. That's something that no one denouncing the conviction seems to have done.

Unfortunately, you know nothing of my experience, or anyone else's for that matter. I am intimately acquainted with issues pertaining to the holocaust and yet still believe that David Irving or anyone else for that matter should be allowed to say whatever they like. Driving them underground is far more dangerous.

And those underlined bits there are still YOUR OPINIONS, and you have still failed, all these words later, to offer any reason why your opinions about a situation and events in a country that is not yours (i.e. whether people in Austria should be permitted to say whatever they like, or specifically to promote Nazism) and about the future effects of a law (i.e. whether it will drive them underground, and whether that is more dangerous than permitting them to operate in the open) should be agreed with, rather than the opinion of the people of Austria who elected the governments that enacted and enforce the laws in question regarding pro-Nazi speech, and the opinion of, for instance, the governments cited by Chief Justice Dickson regarding the incitement of hatred.

[Raskolnik]

185. Possible?

Do you think its possible that an honest, thoughtful person could disagree with you about this subject?

Do you think that such a person could reasonably believe (as I do) that this type of speech regulation is unwise and ultimately counterproductive?

[Susang]

187. Thanks Raskolnik

But you're probably wasting your time. Can't you see that I don't know what I'm talking about? ;)

[Raskolnik]

193. Maybe I don't either...

But I thought I'd give it a whirl.

[Susang]

195. I give you my best

And wish you well as I pass the baton! }( :toast:

[iverglas]

190. Diogenes says

Do you think its possible that an honest, thoughtful person could disagree with you about this subject?

Find me one in this thread -- someone who has indicated that s/he has bothered to inform him/herself about the subject of the thread, and who has spoken to/about someone who disagrees with him/her without misrepresenting what said that person said or thinks or otherwise slandering that person -- and show me where I have said anything to suggest that I don't think that his/her disagreement with me, or anyone, is honest or thoughtful.

Otherwise, I don't know why you'd ask this question. I mean, unless you wanted someone to think that I don't think that honest, thoughtful people could disagree with me on this subject, without offering any basis for saying it.

How 'bout post 88? Any indication there that I don't think that honest, reasonable people could disagree with me?

How 'bout post 23? -- where I expressly said:

There is an infinite number of points on the continuum between allowing the absolute and unfettered exercise of freedom of speech and suppressing all dissenting opinion, and reasonable people speaking in good faith are capable of expressing disagreement on where the line is drawn without anyone calling anyone else a Nazi.

(I actually think that was a pretty mild response to an assertion that applying a law intended to prevent the rise of Nazis to power was "Nazi-like".)

How 'bout post 152, in which I referred to what was said in the post I was responding to as "arguable points and opinions" and "a reasonable question", and proceeded to address them by offering facts and arguments and my own conclusions from them?

Do you think that such a person could reasonably believe (as I do) that this type of speech regulation is unwise and ultimately counterproductive?

Don't you see that I can't have any opinion on that issue without the information I would need in order to form it -- and that the information I need consists expressly of whether the person claiming to "reasonably believe" something believes it on some basis that could be reasonably called reasonable?

If I don't see some demonstration that a person expressing that "belief" even knows what the offence in question is, let alone has investigated the really quite complex reasons why the offence was created -- at an absolute minimum -- why would I just assume that I am looking at a person with a reasonable belief? When the belief expressed is "the sky is falling! the thought police are out of control! punishing people for their ideas is wrong! the first amendment!", what earthly basis do I have for thinking I am reading the words of someone who has done any of that?

And if I don't see some demonstration that the person expressing the "belief" has ever bothered to consider contrary opinions him/herself -- starting with finding out what they are, and moving on to finding out what they are based on -- before pronouncing judgment on them, again, what earthly basis do I have for thinking I am reading the words of someone who has a reasonable belief?

What I actually see, more often than not, all over this place just like all over the internet and much of real life -- and yes, I am referring to people in the US -- is a whole lot of people apparently reared in the self-esteem movement and sent to finishing school in the Jerry Springer audience. People who believe they have no duty to anyone but themselves, no responsibility to inform themselves before they speak when their words could have effects, no responsibility to consider what other people say before characterizing them as neo-Nazis or dog knows what other stupid, evil thing. People who worship at the altar of opinion, and especially their own, and simply don't give a shit about reason or thought.

Yes, I believe that someone could honestly and reasonably believe that the legislation in issue here is ultimately unwise and counter-productive. (Of course, those are not the same things, and there are other scales against it needs to be measured as well.)

And I will believe that any particular person is such a person when I see evidence of it.

And then hell, I'd be overjoyed to engage in a real discussion in which the merits and demerits of the adverse arguments are addressed by both parties sincerely, honestly and in good faith. I'd probably also swoon if I saw someone initiating such a discussion in this place, but I'd get over my amazement quickly.

[Raskolnik]

192. You're seeing such a person now.

Show me where I have said anything to suggest that I don't think that his/her disagreement with me, or anyone, is honest or thoughtful.

Well, I would suggest that constantly referring to people disagreeing with you as "spewing opinions about things they know nothing about" certainly qualifies. I think most of those you've been discussing this with agree that you are less than respectful when addressing their opinions.

Although your posts seem to indicate you won't accept this, it *is* possible for a person to be relatively well-informed, have a solid historical knowledge, and still come to the conclusion that this prosecution is unwise and ultimately counter-productive. I am such a person.

I believe that although these policies had their place in post-war Europe, they have served their purpose.

Don't you see that I can't have any opinion on that issue without the information I would need in order to form it -- and that the information I need consists expressly of whether the person claiming to "reasonably believe" something believes it on some basis that could be reasonably called reasonable?

Ok, I admit--I have absolutely *no* idea what this means.

[iverglas]

198. you know what I would suggest?

Well, I would suggest that constantly referring to people disagreeing with you as "spewing opinions about things they know nothing about" certainly qualifies.

I would suggest that if you or anyone else wants to keep repeating this filth, you find someone who's interested.

Hey, maybe some of the peole I have referred to as "spewing opinins about things they know nothing about" are of Chinese origin; wanna call me a racist? Maybe they were women; you could call me a misogynist. Quite possibly some were Jews. Go ahead now; say that I have referred to Jews as "spewing opinions about things they know nothing about".

I do not use this description BECAUSE people disagree with me, and your clear insinuation that I do is intolerable filth.

I describe PEOPLE WHO SPEW OPINIONS ABOUT THINGS THEY KNOW NOTHING ABOUT as people who spew opinions about things they know nothing about. Whether they agree with me has nothing to do with it, your vile insinuation notwithstanding.

I think most of those you've been discussing this with agree that you are less than respectful when addressing their opinions.

And I DON'T GIVE A FLYING FUCK. The topic of discussion here is NOT the people discussing it. Much as a whole lot of people attempt to make that the topic of discussion.

Although your posts seem to indicate you won't accept this, it *is* possible for a person to be relatively well-informed, have a solid historical knowledge, and still come to the conclusion that this prosecution is unwise and ultimately counter-productive. I am such a person.

And I HAVE NEVER SAID YOU ARE NOT, and my posts do NOT SEEM to indicate any such fucking thing.

For the love of god, why would someone claiming to be well-informed and possessed of historical knowledge waste time repeatedly making that claim instead of SAYING SOMETHING? Whether someone is well-informed or knowledgeable is NOT a useful topic of discussion. WHAT THEY HAVE CONCLUDED about something about which they are informed and knowledgeable, and WHY THEY HAVE CONCLUDED IT, may well be useful for someone else to know.

I believe that although these policies had their place in post-war Europe, they have served their purpose.

And amazingly enough, I have already said, in post 141:

Do neo-Nazis exploit anti-immigrant / anti-Muslim / anti-Arab sentiment to attract support for neo-Nazism in Europe? Yes, I think they do. It is certainly arguable that today is different from the post-war period, and today's Nazis are different from Hitler's, and so others of their activities need to be suppressed as well if a resurgence of Nazism is to be prevented. I'm not saying that I argue it; I'm saying it's arguable.

-- not exactly the same thing, but certainly acknowledging that it's no longer 1945 or 1955 and different considerations may need to be applied.

So you have made a statement of belief, coupled with a claim to be well-informed and knowledgeable.

What use is that to me? You haven't shared your information or knowledge, you haven't explained why you reach the conclusion you reach from that knowledge. All I know is that you claim to be informed and knowledgeable and you have a particular opinion. I have learned precisely nothing.

Why would I want to know what your opinion is; why would anyone care what anyone else's opinion is? Why is it not obvious to more people that what other people are interested in is WHY they hold their opinions, WHAT those opinions are derived from?

Why?, I ask. Well, the answer is all too obvious, to me. Because the people being told someone else's opinion mostly don't care, themselves, how that opinion was formed. They don't want to know what information and knowledge and reasoning it is based on. They just want to praise it if it looks like their own, and call it names if it doesn't. They don't want to LEARN anything, let alone entertain the possibility that their own opinions are derived from ignorance or faulty reasoning.

*I* find issues like the Irving conviction complex and difficult. *I* want to know what other people have considered in coming to their opinions about it, and why they have weighed those considerations as they have. *I* expect that if I offer information or opinion about a complex and difficult issue, someone will offer information to counter mine, or argument for placing different considerations in the forefront. I just don't expect to see my statements twisted and myself lied about. Well, of course that's not true; that's exactly what I expect around here.

Don't you see that I can't have any opinion on that issue without the information I would need in order to form it -- and that the information I need consists expressly of whether the person claiming to "reasonably believe" something believes it on some basis that could be reasonably called reasonable?

Ok, I admit--I have absolutely *no* idea what this means.

You ask me whether it's possible for a reasonable, thoughtful person to believe "X".

Well heck, as the expert witnesses say on Law&Order: anything's possible.

But what your question really implied pretty clearly was that I had seen examples of reasonable, thoughtful people believing "X". And I really hadn't. Belief in "X" is not proof of being reasonable and thoughtful. Claims to be reasonable and thoughtful are not proof of being reasonable and thoughtful. Reasoned, thoughtful statements about an issue are proof that the person making them is reasonable and thoughtful.

A person who is reasonable and thoughtful DOESN'T spew opinions without offering a reasoned, thoughtful basis for them. It's pretty self-definitional.

And so I don't refer to people who DO give evidence of being thoughtful and reasonable as spewing opinions about things they know nothing about, which I think was equally obvious.

[Raskolnik]

201. Let's back off the hyperbole for a bit

I'm not really sure that my questioning the merits of your discussion style qualifies as "intolerable filth" or a "vile insinuation" in the grand scheme of things. So let's just agree to disagree on your particular debate tactics, shall we?

Now, to the subject at hand...

I disagree with your position that speech regulation of this sort is effective, much less necessary, in preventing a Nazi resurgence in Europe. I think the political climate in Europe is sufficiently stable (in comparison to the period immediately following WWII) to deal with figures like Irving.

When his ideas are held up to public scrutiny, they inevitably fall apart (as they already have). They are ridiculed, debunked, and the proponents come away looking like fools to the vast majority of observers. When these ideas are driven underground, however, their proponents gain a sort of martyr status that gives them a power that they otherwise would not have.

[jpgray]

144. Jailing people for dangerous ideas has always worked, after all

Gave Hitler time to write his book. I suppose he faded into obscurity afterward, yes? The Beer Hall Putsch was of course a much more valid reason to jail someone, but the jail time doesn't solve the problem. It can even exacerbate it. Jailing people for expressing ideas doesn't stop the ideas. Also, imprisonment for harebrained historical interpretation is ridiculous.

[iverglas]

147. if only ...

someone in issue here had been "jailed for dangerous ideas".

Keep it up. There are already scores who believe it. Maybe you can persuade a few more.

Gave Hitler time to write his book. I suppose he faded into obscurity afterward, yes?

Damn ... if only Irving hadn't already written his book ...

Oh, and if only Hitler had been "jailed for dangerous ideas" ...

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/putsch.htm

On the evening of November 8, 1923 leaders of the Bavarian government were holding a rally at a Munich beer hall before 3000 spectators. Suddenly, Hitler burst into the hall, fired a pistol in the air and announced that the building was surrounded by 600 of his stormtroppers. The Nazi leader whisked the stunned Bavarian officials off the stage and into a back room where he vowed to hold them hostage until they expressed support for his revolution. The hostages soon acquiesced. Unfortunately, the spontaneous enthusiasm Hitler expected from the local population was not immediately forthcoming. By dawn the following day, the coup attempt was running out of steam, riddled with confusion and lack of direction.

... you might have had a point.

Tried and convicted of treason, the Nazi leader was sentenced to five years of confinement under reasonably comfortable conditions, but actually served only eight months.

The experience taught Hitler that power was to be achieved not through armed conflict but through manipulation of the existing political system.

Huh. Imagine that.

Seems Irving learned Hitler's lesson well.

[jpgray]

150. I knew you'd pounce on the minutiae, but you missed my edit in your haste

You also missed the point. The point of the anecdote is that jailing those who express or act on a dangerous idea does not solve the problem of the dangerous idea in any way. The next point is that publishing a deeply flawed historical analysis should not in any case be a jailable offense. State-sponsored criminalization of distributing ideas is totalitarianism, no matter how morally wrong the ideas are.

[iverglas]

153. "points"

I wish I saw some occasionally.

The point of the anecdote is that jailing those who express or act on a dangerous idea does not solve the problem of the dangerous idea in any way.

That was the point you wanted to make by presenting the anecdote (which didn't make the point).

I'm still waiting for the point to be made.

The next point is that publishing a deeply flawed historical analysis should not in any case be a jailable offense.

And that one isn't a POINT, it's an OPINION.

Is it really that hard to see the difference?

You've stated your opinion, and you undoubtedly believe you have good reasons to offer for holding it. Other people believe they have good reasons for holding different opinions. Most of the time, people arguing from an adequate information base, in good faith, will recognize that other people have good reasons for their opinions, they simply won't regard them as good enough to justify the position taken.

State-sponsored criminalization of distributing ideas is totalitarianism, no matter how morally wrong the ideas are.

Well, that's your definition, irrelevant as it is ... since no one is talking about "morally wrong" ideas, much as some people really really want to frame the discourse that way.

State-sponsored criminalization of the distribution of ideas is practised by every liberal democracy I know, in point of fact. You just want to draw the line in one place, and others want to draw it in different places. Where anyone draws the line very often depends on the context in which the ideas are being distributed, it seems to me.

This has been pointed out so many times that it's unbelievable that anyone would continue to act as if s/he hadn't known it all along.

[jpgray]

157. OK, this time let's circle the lines you should have read between

The point of the anecdote is that jailing those who express or act on a dangerous idea does not solve the problem of the dangerous idea in any way.

That was the point you wanted to make by presenting the anecdote (which didn't make the point).

I'm still waiting for the point to be made.

1. Hitler possessed and distributed dangerous ideas.
2. Hitler was jailed.
3. The jail time failed to slow or stop the distribution of the ideas.

This is an example where jail time had no discernible impact with regards to a person spreading dangerous ideas. This cuts against the contention that jail time is effective in slowing or stopping unwelcome ideas. On the other side of the morality coin, Gandhi, Mandela, Biko and others with ideas "dangerous" to those in power also received jail time, and this did little or nothing to stamp out their beliefs. In fact in all cases it had the opposite effect. If you have compelling evidence of jail time stamping out an idea the state finds displeasing, I'd like to see it.

And that one isn't a POINT, it's an OPINION.

A tedious war on word choices? The least you could do is pick a fight you can win. A "point" can certainly be an "opinion." What you're thinking of is a "fact"--that you are ignorant of at least one word's meaning has been revealed as belonging to this category, for example. A "point" is just a separated or single article, item or clause in a discourse. You're attributing some burden of objective truth to the word "point" that simply isn't there.

You just want to draw the line in one place, and others want to draw it in different places. Where anyone draws the line very often depends on the context in which the ideas are being distributed, it seems to me.

Provide me a context wherein I would agree that published historical interpretation should be a jailable offense. I doubt you can. As for people in the thread disagreeing as to "where the line should be drawn"--isn't that what this thread is about? Are you expecting some person to objectively establish a universal legal standard on censorship for all time?

[iverglas]

160. yada yada time approacheth

Provide me a context wherein I would agree that published historical interpretation should be illegal.

Can't see why I'd bother. I mean, since I didn't suggest you would.

Maybe you can provide me with an unequivocal, unqualified statement that no speech should ever be illegal.

If you do, then we'll be doing that agreeing to disagree stuff. You will have defined yourself out of the circle around "liberal democracy", and I won't need to address anything you say.

As long as you admit the justifiability of prohibiting ANY speech, you're just picking your own line and saying it's better than someone else's. It may very arguably be. It may also very arguably not be.

As for people in the thread disagreeing as to "where the line should be drawn"--isn't that what this thread is about? Are you expecting some person to objectively establish a universal legal standard on censorship for all time?

I wish it were what this thread was about. Discussion, in my world, consists of something other than saying "no, full stop, period, I'm right, you're wrong", and "this excellent person agrees with me", and "so you've said something completely stupid and evil, or so I'll say, even though you actually didn't, and meanwhile I'll ignore everything you did say".

All I expect is for people to know what they're talking about before they speak, and address what other people have to say about the subject they speak on. So easily pleased, me.


1. Hitler possessed and distributed dangerous ideas.
2. Hitler was jailed.
3. The jail time failed to slow or stop the distribution of the ideas.

This is an example where jail time had no discernible impact with regards to a person spreading dangerous ideas.

The damned thing would be that it wasn't INTENDED to have any such impact. His time in jail probably also didn't have any impact on his fondness for dogs, for cripes' sake.

1. Hitler owned dogs.
2. Hitler was jailed FOR ATTEMPTING A COUP.
3. Hitler still liked dogs.

Y'know, I really don't think that anyone has said, or would say, that outlawing Holocaust denial is single-handedly going to prevent a resurgence of Nazism in Austria.


Gandhi, Mandela, Biko and others with ideas "dangerous" to those in power also received jail time, and this did little or nothing to stamp out their beliefs.

What a clever construction: "with ideas ... received jail time". Not quite "imprisoned for banned speech", though.

But even if: a number of questions might be asked. One would be: Were they imprisoned by democratic governments as an exercise of the will of the people for the purpose of averting a threat to liberty and rights and democracy?

Is it really reasonable to compare speech that advocates liberty, rights and democracy to speech that advocates abolishing liberty, rights and democracy? To compare banning speech that advocates liberty, rights and democracy to speech that advocates abolishing liberty, rights and democracy?

Isn't that kinda like saying that homicide committed in self-defence is just exactly the same thing as homicide committed for profit?

Should we permit homicide for profit just because we permit homicide for self-defence?

Yup, speech ain't homicide. But neo-Nazis aren't Gandhi, either. Really.

[Susang]

165. !

Discussion, in my world, consists of something other than saying "no, full stop, period, I'm right, you're wrong", and "this excellent person agrees with me", and "so you've said something completely stupid and evil, or so I'll say, even though you actually didn't, and meanwhile I'll ignore everything you did say".


:rofl:

[iverglas]

169. oh look, personal commentary

I'm not at all sure how we got to this, except that I dared not to agree with you/Deborah Lipstadt and to say why.

I guess I'll have to add that in my world, discussion doesn't include insinuations of things that one offers nothing to back up, that being the only meaning I am able to take from the non-verbal silliness I'm looking at.

I'd meant to mention that in case you wondered why I don't regard Lipstadt as the prophet of political correctness, you could read here; I mean, I disagree with her on something already, and I can't imagine why I would be bound to agree with her on anything else:

http://www.zmag.org/Zmag/articles/cot96church.htm

"Assaults on Truth and Memory: Holocaust Denial in Context" by Ward Churchill

Ah, how interesting. At the time I read it, I didn't know who Ward Churchill was -- 'cause of course he wasn't the demon that Bill O'Reilly later made him, at that time. (The actual thesis of the piece is about a rather different subject, and while I do recommend it in that respect, that subject is not relevant here.)

Where scholars deny genocide, in the face of decisive evidence that it has occurred, they contribute to a false consciousness that can have the most dire reverberations. Their message in effect is: {genocide} requires no confrontation, no reflection, but should be ignored, glossed over. In this way scholars lend their considerable authority to the acceptance of this ultimate human crime. More than that, they encourage--indeed invite--a repetition of that crime from virtually any source in the ate or distant future. By closing their minds to the truth, that is, scholars contribute to the deadly psycho-historical dynamic in which unopposed genocide begets new genocides.

-Roger W. Smith, Eric Markusen and Robert Jay Lifton "Professional Ethics and Denial of the Armenian Genocide" 1995

Of all the intellectual monstrosities arising during the course of the late 20th century, one of the most vicious and factually indefensible has been that 'school of historical revisionism" known as "Holocaust denial." Its proponents purport to have "proven" that the systematic nazi extermination of somewhere between five and six million Jews did not occur. Such genocidal dimensions were never really part of the nazi character, they argue. Rather, the whole idea of a Holocaust perpetrated by the Third Reich is instead a colossal and sustained "propaganda myth" contrived for purposes of gaining moral advantage by Germany's politicomilitary adversaries, in combination with an amorphous "International Jewish Conspiracy," during and after the Second World War. ...

And I certainly don't disagree with Lipstadt in this respect:

It is to these much more diffuse, institutionalized and ubiquitous symptomologies of denial, rather than the blatant crudities of Rassinier and Butz, that we must address ourselves, Lipstadt contends, if we are ever to rid ourselves of the hideous implications represented by the deniers themselves. "If Holocaust denial has demonstrated anything," she observes, "it is the fragility of memory, truth, reason, and history." The object, of course, is to affirm and reinforce each of these as natural societal barriers against repetition of that which is being denied and forgotten. "When we witness assaults on truth," she says, "our response must be strong, though neither polemical nor emotional. We must educate the broader public and academe about this threat and its historical and ideological roots. We must expose these people for what they are," most especially when they - like Reagan, Mitterand, Kohl and the intellectuals in their service - occupy positions of elite authority.

But the question arises: who are "we" and what power do we have to do these things? Can the broader public and academe be educated? Do good ideas always win out? Especially when there are the Reagans and the rest protecting the bad ideas?

If good ideas always won out in time for nobody to be hurt, nobody would be addicted to drugs, nobody would be committing homicide, nobody would be invading Iraq. Everybody would have adopted good ideas, and rejected bad behaviour.

Back here in the real world, some ideas might just be bad enough that we can't risk the harm that results from widespread acceptance of them if good ideas don't immediately win.

[Susang]

175. No ideas are so bad

That they can't take the light of day. Sorry, just don't believe it.

I'm sorry you don't agree with Lipstadt that the public can be educated. I do. Where I live, an infamous Holocaust denier is a tenured professor (Arthur Butz) at Northwestern University. He's managed to not get himself fired by saying anything too controversial. Amazingly enough, there's a group of students who've formed to work against everything he stands for. http://www.neveragaincampaign.org/ What they ask for is reasonable and does not infringe on Professor Butz's free speech rights.

As far as the personal commentary, we both have been guilty of that. Your comments have been quite condescending and demeaning to myself and others who do not agree with you and your views on this thread. I suppose you don't see it that way.

[iverglas]

183. yes, well, and I'm sorry

I'm sorry you don't agree with Lipstadt that the public can be educated.

... that you chose to represent what I said as a statement that I don't believe that the public can be educated. What kind of a moron would believe that the public can't be educated, anyhow? I'm always curious.

Here's what I did say:

Can the broader public and academe be educated? Do good ideas always win out? Especially when there are the Reagans and the rest protecting the bad ideas?

If good ideas always won out in time for nobody to be hurt, nobody would be addicted to drugs, nobody would be committing homicide, nobody would be invading Iraq. Everybody would have adopted good ideas, and rejected bad behaviour.

Back here in the real world, some ideas might just be bad enough that we can't risk the harm that results from widespread acceptance of them if good ideas don't immediately win.

Now, if you choose not to grasp that I was talking about the possibility that the public could not be educated in time to avert serious harm resulting from widespread adoption of, and implementation of, "bad ideas", well, not much I can do about it.

Your comments have been quite condescending and demeaning to myself and others who do not agree with you and your views on this thread. I suppose you don't see it that way.

You suppose very correctly, and the reason would be that your statement is inconsistent with fact.

I tend to grow increasingly impatient with, and feel decreasing obligation to be nice to, people who misrepresent the subject matter they are addressing, if they even have a clue what it is to start with, and what other people have said about it, and the people who have said things about it that they don't like. It's hard not to appear condescending to people who don't have a clue, won't get a clue and insist on spewing opinions anyway. It's really not like I regard people like that as equals.

Really, you're the one who started this little sub-discussion by stating an opinion and citing your favourite opinion-leader as agreeing with you. You didn't address ANY facts or arguments that had been presented in what was already a very long thread on the subject you were speaking about. Hell, you didn't even wait for answers to your questions:

Have these laws worked? Will jailing Irving for three years do anything to stop Holocaust denial or will it in fact, give Irving more publicity than he's ever had in his entire life? He's now been made a martyr to the cause. Congratulations, you've supressed nothing and possibly recruited more converts to his side.

before accusing someone (the Austrian criminal justice system, I suppose) with whom some here agree, who disagrees with you, of aiding and abetting neo-Nazis, and without offering a stitch of anything to support those accusations. Your statement that prosecuting Holocaust deniers suppresses nothing is a theory, your suggestion that doing so possibly recruits more converts to his side is a theory. That's all.

If you wanted someone to take your theories seriously, you might have offered some reasons for accepting them, rather than just badmouthing anyone who disagreed. Really; you are the one who started that in this little sub-discussion, by accusing others of helping the Holocaust deniers.

I really don't think I've stooped to accusing anyone here of helping neo-Nazis.

[Susang]

186. How very interesting Iverglas

I tend to grow increasingly impatient with, and feel decreasing obligation to be nice to, people who misrepresent the subject matter they are addressing, if they even have a clue what it is to start with, and what other people have said about it, and the people who have said things about it that they don't like. It's hard not to appear condescending to people who don't have a clue, won't get a clue and insist on spewing opinions anyway. It's really not like I regard people like that as equals.

That pretty much says pretty much all I ever really want to know about you and your opinions. If that's how you really regard others and their opinions, then thanks for the entertainment, it's been a laugh. I'll be sure to give my regards to my relatives in Poland. I'm sure they'll be thrilled to know that you know so much about the holocaust and that you feel my knowledge is lacking. I'm sure they can use the laugh too.

[iverglas]

191. talk about proving my point

It's hard not to appear condescending to people who don't have a clue, won't get a clue and insist on spewing opinions anyway. It's really not like I regard people like that as equals.

That pretty much says pretty much all I ever really want to know about you and your opinions. If that's how you really regard others and their opinions ...

That's one mighty big IF there, and one mighty pointless statement by you if you were really intending that IF to have meaning.

If that were really how I regard others and their opinions, I might have said that it was how I regard others and their opinions.

What I actually said was that this is how I regard PEOPLE WHO DON'T HAVE A CLUE, WON'T GET A CLUE AND INSIST ON SPEWING OPINIONS ANYWAY. If anyone in particular thinks that the shoe in question fits him/her, s/he may be right. I wasn't actually offering the shoe to you, but whatever.

How and why anyone could twist what someone else said so revoltingly, I will probably go to my grave not understanding.

I'm sure they'll be thrilled to know that you know so much about the holocaust and that you feel my knowledge is lacking.

And if that's what you plan to tell them, then evidently you have no compunctions about telling your family things that aren't true. Nothing I can do about that.

I have yet to see evidence that your knowledge OF THE LEGISLATION UNDER WHICH DAVID IRVING WAS CONVICTED is sufficient to provide a basis for one of those reasonable opinions about THE LEGISLATION UNDER WHICH DAVID IRVING WAS CONVICTED, that being what I said. If I'd meant to say that your knowledge about THE HOLOCAUST was lacking, I'd have said that your knowledge about THE HOLOCAUST was lacking. I didn't. But don't let that stop you from saying I did.

See what I mean, at all?

No, no need to answer. I have quite sufficient basis on which to form my own opinion on that one.

[Susang]

194. Just gotta have the last word, dontcha?

I've got a bit of that in me myself. }(

Of course, you realize that there wasn't really any reason for you to answer me either. But you did Blance, you did.

[Name removed]

202. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Tripmann]

116. Personally,

I think the guy is a jackass who lacks the backbone to stick to his claims once the possible severity of his punishment became apparent.

On the other hand saying that halocaust denial aids and abetts neo nazi-ism smacks of the same thinking of the "for us or against us" rigt wing brigade who percieve a difference of opinion as unpatriotic and dissenting.

He's a horrible person. Does he deserve to be jailed for stating a different opinion to the norm? With the mohammed cartoons currently putting europe on a right to free speech pedestal, is a european country jailing this idiot for stating his opinion the correct move??

[andyv]

121. European Hypocrisy

The EU started, last year, the admission negotiations with Turkey, a country that does not recognize the Armenian genocide.

[iverglas]

129. USAmerican arrogance

In 1955, the US REQUIRED that Austria outlaw the Nazi party as a condition of regaining its national sovereignty.

Maybe THE US could try requiring that Turkey acknowledge the Armenian genocide as a condition of, oh, military assistance ...

[Spinoza]

136. Good point. This was another HUGE and

hypocritical mistake by the U.S. government. Holocaust denial, repugnant as it may be, is (properly) considered free speech in the U.S. Even Nazi marches in predominantly Jewish neighborhoods, including many Holocaust survivors, (Skokie) was considered an act of free speech and therefore could not be proscribed by law. Certainly, the U.S. had no right to make demands of the Austrian government which limited the rights to free speech. (My father, born in Linz, Austria, beaten near to death by the Gestapo on Kristallnacht, and incarcerated at Dachau completely supported the right of the Nazis to march in Skokie.)

[iverglas]

138. "certainly"

Certainly, the U.S. had no right to make demands of the Austrian government which limited the rights to free speech.

And that will be your opinion, and your father's opinion about the Skokie marchers will be his.

Since the US had just fought a war that cost the lives of a lot of USAmericans, not to mention Europeans and Russians and Chinese and Canadians and Australians and New Zealanders and a bunch of others who were either killed by Nazis invading their countries or killed trying to defeat the Nazis, and not to mention that decent people care about what happens to others even if they aren't likely to suffer themselves, I'd say that the US (and the other Allies) did have an interest in the matter of Nazism in Austria. The "right" to impose terms on the return of sovereignty arose from the international law of war, it seems.

Whether the threat present was sufficient to justify the exercise of that right in the way it was exercised, i.e. the imposition of this term -- and indeed, whether any threat every justifies the imposition of such terms -- is open to debate. Nobody's opinion is authoritative, since the matter is precisely a matter of opinion.

[Spinoza]

155. Yes, I agree, "nobody's opinion is authoritative".

I cited my fathers views to emphasize that, despite a burning and personal hatred of German, Austrian and American Nazis, despite his deep offense at everything the Nazis stood for and advocated, despite his own sufferings at the hands of German and Austrian Nazis, (and many Austrians who were not Nazis, but took advantage of the situation to persecute their Jewish neighbors) despite the murder of most of his own family by Nazis, he would not allow his FEELINGS to overcome or dictate his reason which was convinced of the absolute right of free expression even for Nazis, and (though he is now dead) undoubtedly would extend to the rights of Holocaust deniers in his (detested) home country of Austria.

[iverglas]

159. and I'm sorry

... he would not allow his FEELINGS to overcome or dictate his reason which was convinced of the absolute right of free expression even for Nazis ...

but all this is only relevant if we are talking about a law that is based on anyone's FEELINGS.

I mean, I suppose that laws against homicide are based on our shared FEELING that it's not a nice thing, when it comes down to it.

And Austrians seem to FEEL that they'd rather not live under Nazism again, for whatever odd and unfathomable reasons they might have.

Your father's decision that his feelings about Nazis in the US, or his hypothetical feelings about Nazis in Austria, don't overcome anyone's rights just isn't relevant. No one is saying that they do. His position -- which appears to be that he rejected his feelings as a basis for law, you having said nothing about how it addressed serious threats to social order, the rule of law and people's lives as a basis for law, and those being the actual questions here -- just don't settle any question.

But hey, they sure do appeal to the emotions of anybody reading, eh? If a camp survivor can be so magnanimous, why can't everybody?

I might ask: if a camp survivor can be so magnanimous, why didn't he stay in Austria? I wonder whether he might have felt not quite, well, safe.

[Spinoza]

220. He believed

(as I do) that limits to the rights of free expression was a fascist, a Nazi concept and practice. (You will never find a fascist, a Nazi arguing in favor of the unlimited rights of free expression. They agree with your basic point that free expression may be limited for the benefit of a society. Granted they will disagree with you as to what a 'benefit' would actually be, but thats just a difference of opinion over particulars, not essentials. The concept that a wicked idea can be limited or prevented in action by BANNING its expression is not only unproven, false in history, but riduclous on the face of it. A false or wicked idea can only be combated by open debate and ridicule, not by jailing its adherents. Are you arguing that the U.S. government should have the right to ban, for example, flag burning if the society feels, as many Americans do, that this is a wicked or evil action. (In this respect I remember arguing with veteran Marine of WWII, who had held his dead brother in his arms on Iwo Jima, and literally wept at the thought of Americans burning the flag. Flag burning outraged his very soul. He believed flag burning was evil, wrong, horrible and should be banned. While I had sympathy for his feelings, he had no right to demand any limits to the right of Americans to free expression, which included flag burning. Would you agree or disagree on this issue?

"Magnaminious"? What are you talking about? He left Austria because, for him, it was a Charnel House. He had no magnaminity toward Nazis or Nazi sympathizers of any kind. He certainly had no magnaminity towards Holocaust deniers whom he considered the lowest scum. He just didn't believe that he had the right to demand any limitations on free expressions. What does "magnaminty" have to do with it.

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. "
Noam Chomsky

"You have not converted a man because you have silenced him."
John Morley

"Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself."
Salman Rushdie

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Voltaire

[iverglas]

221. like I said (edited to add)

I saw no point in pursuing the discussion. Your insinuation that I am a fascist does not change my mind.

He believed (as I do) that limits to the rights of free expression was a fascist, a Nazi concept and practice. (You will never find a fascist, a Nazi arguing in favor of the unlimited rights of free expression. They agree with your basic point that free expression may be limited for the benefit of a society. Granted they will disagree with you as to what a 'benefit' would actually be, but thats just a difference of opinion over particulars, not essentials.

And I have to assume that you will only take off your own Nazi cap when you have denounced laws against perjury, conspiracy to commit murder, counselling the commission of murder, threatening to commit murder, and the various other examples one might produce of limits on speech in societies generally recognized as non-fascist. Oh, and don't forget shouting "fire!" in crowded theatres. Chomsky might reject 'em all; I don't know, and don't particularly care.

He just didn't believe that he had the right to demand any limitations on free expressions.

Again: so? That's his belief; he was free to argue that it be made into public policy, in his own jurisdiction. Others who disagree are free to argue the opposite, in their own jurisdiction. And other jurisdictions are free to apply their own criteria and come to the conclusion they think best for their societies.

And anyone who trivializes the concept of fascism by applying it to a democratic society that takes measures that it deems necessary to protect its democracy against fascists or otherwise to preserve the liberty and security of its members -- let alone by attempting to liken flag-burning in the US to glorifying Nazism in Austria -- hasn't got much to say that I'm interested in.

We were born with brains that enable us to distinguish one thing from another, and I find it useful to employ mine to that end.


p.s.

I do trust we will now hear outcries from all those who are offended by rudeness at the impropriety of likening someone with whom one disagrees to a fascist/Nazi. Damn, even moi has said that reasonable people of good will can honestly disagree.

[Spinoza]

237. Please, lets

confine ourselves to a civil discourse.

I never 'insinuated' you were a fascist or Nazi. I stated very clearly that your view that governments have the right to restrict some speech and writings for the public good would NOT be disputed by fascists. You would (I am sure) disagree about the definition of the 'public good', but, in respect to the issue of freedom of expression, this would simply be an argument over definitons, not essential principles. It is MY belief that no government should EVER censor free speech or print that would be utterly opposed, IN PRINCIPLE, by ALL fascists. As I understand your views you also oppose this idea IN PRINCIPLE. But I certainly did not call you, or intend to insinuate, that you yourself are a Nazi or fascist. If I gave that impression please accept my apologies.

Do you approve of the recent U.K. law which bans the advocacy of (undefined) "terrorism"? Let me change that question. Do you believe the U.K. government had the moral and ethical right to ban speech which in the opinion of the U.K. government, or its organs, is advocating terrorism? If you do disapprove of this law, please clarify how and why the Austrian government has the right to ban
(what it considers to be) Holocaust denial, but the U.K. government has no right to ban (what it considers to be) terrorist advocacy. Do you see no danger at all in giving government the power to censor speech and writing?

Of COURSE the issue of flag burning is germane to this discussion. In YOUR opinion, despite the fact that they are both issues of free expression, banning flag burning in the U.S. has nothing in common with banning Holocaust denial in Austria But what if, for example Dubya has a DIFFERENT opinion on this point? Since you have conceded the basic right to restrict some 'harmful' speech, you can only HOPE that YOUR opinion of what actually constitues 'harmful' speech will prevail. What if it doesn't? (And please, do not bring up the tired example--is there ever a different example--of 'shouting fire in a theatre'. Noone disagrees that shouting fire in a confined space is IMMEDIATELY and DIRECTLY physically injurious to life and limb. However, there is huge disagreement on what constitutes directly injurious speech in virtually every other context.) What if Dubya feels, or the Supreme Court feels, that flag burning must be banned in order to (your word) "protect" our "democracy"? Is this really a power you want the current American regime to have? Because when you concede that ANY government has the right to restrict 'harmful' speech, the definition of 'harmful', which (I believe you will agree) is open to dispute will be decided by whatever government may be in power. In practice if not in theory.

This is becoming a quite enjoyable discourse. I look forward to your response.

[iverglas]

241. please, let's

not make shit up.

I never 'insinuated' you were a fascist or Nazi. I stated very clearly that your view that governments have the right to restrict some speech and writings for the public good would NOT be disputed by fascists.

Damn, some people's memories are short.

Here's what you actually stated very clearly:

He {the Spinoza} believed (as I do) that limits to the rights of free expression was {were, surely} a fascist, a Nazi concept and practice.

Carefully worded, certainly, but not so carefully as to be capable of rewording as you have done.

It is MY belief that no government should EVER censor free speech or print that would be utterly opposed, IN PRINCIPLE, by ALL fascists.

And YOUR belief that no government should censor GLORIFICATION OF NAZISM would be ENTIRELY SUPPORTED by all fascists. Sauce, goose, gander. And yet I haven't called your views fascistic.

As I understand your views you also oppose this idea IN PRINCIPLE.

And again -- unless you are going to tell me once and for all that you DO NOT OPPOSE laws prohibiting the shouting of "fire!" in crowded theatres, then YOU ALSO oppose that idea IN PRINCIPLE. And yet I'm not calling your views fascistic. Hell, I haven't even called you a hypocrite.

But I certainly did not call you, or intend to insinuate, that you yourself are a Nazi or fascist.

Oh, of course not. How could I have imagined such a thing, simply from reading a statement that something I support -- limits on speech (I assume you meant; "limits on free speech" makes no sense) -- is "a fascist, a Nazi concept and practice". You were just remarking on how I and fascists are coincidentally fond of punctual trains.

Do you approve of the recent U.K. law which bans the advocacy of (undefined) "terrorism"? Let me change that question. Do you believe the U.K. government had the moral and ethical right to ban speech which in the opinion of the U.K. government, or its organs, is advocating terrorism?

Actually, I think I'm aware that there is no such law. Perhaps I'm wrong, or perhaps you are confusing criminal law and immigration law.

Perhaps you also don't understand how countries under the rule of law operate. If there were a law banning advocating terrorism, it would not be the opinion of "the government" that would matter, it would be the opinion of the courts, which, in the UK, apply things like the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights.

I opposed the actual proposed law of which I am aware, I think right here at DU -- the one that involved deporting non-nationals of the UK determined to have advocated terrorism:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,15935,1543385,00.html
-- on the ground that it would apparently permit removal to countries that practise torture and so on, and is therefore a violation of various laws, conventions and rules of common decency.

If you do disapprove of this law, please clarify how and why the Austrian government has the right to ban (what it considers to be) Holocaust denial, but the U.K. government has no right to ban (what it considers to be) terrorist advocacy.

If there were a law banning advocating terrorism somewhere, I would have to look carefully at it. At present, where I'm at, it is an offence to counsel the commission of a criminal offence only if the offence is subsequently committed (kinda odd, but that's it). We have the odd "advocating" offence:

318. (1) Every one who advocates or promotes genocide is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.

and the like:

319. (1) Every one who, by communicating statements in any public place, incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace is guilty of ...

I really don't have much problem with them. In fact, I like them. I like a good, solid, public declaration that advocating genocide is not acceptable in my society, for instance. I happen to be rather intimately familiar with the details of the events that led up to the Rwandan genocide, and I can see the problems often associated with advocating genocide.

Did you know that Bill Clinton refused to jam the airwaves of Radio Mille Collines, which was broadcasting calls for genocide, because to do so would have offended free speech? Do YOU agree with THAT decision? Even knowing full well that people were acting on those calls, and that the station was even broadcasting the vehicle licence plate numbers of members of the targeted group? I'm sure that (the) Spinoza would have refused to interfere, eh? Certainly the genocidal broadcasters would have. Bedfellows.

Anyhow, advocating terrorism. One person's terrorism might indeed be another person's war of liberation, difficult though it might be to find reasonable examples of such a thing. I wonder; is one person's Nazi war crime another person's walk in the park? Heroic deed? Mistaken belief? Subject of genuine disagreement between honest, reasonable people?

Do you see no danger at all in giving government the power to censor speech and writing?

Do you see no danger at all in giving government the power to proscribe things that people might do and punish them for doing them? We allow governments to create "crimes", and to throw people in jail for doing things. Are you not afraid that those same governments might decide one day to make it a crime for you to eat pizza for breakfast, and jail you for life if you do?

Slippery slopes just don't cut much ice with me. If I and my fellow countryfolk decide to elect a government that is likely to prohibit me from saying "supercalifragilistic" in public and jail me if I do, I've got a problem that's waaaay bigger than the law against saying "supercalifragilistic" in public.

I see great danger in giving BAD governments the power to do ANYTHING. That's what I see. And I don't see much chance that constitutions, however nicely they are amended, are going to stop them if they've got that power.

Of COURSE the issue of flag burning is germane to this discussion. In YOUR opinion, despite the fact that they are both issues of free expression, banning flag burning in the U.S. has nothing in common with banning Holocaust denial in Austria But what if, for example Dubya has a DIFFERENT opinion on this point?

Then YOU'VE ELECTED A BAD PRESIDENT. How bleeding obvious is that?

This ain't utopia. Bad governments get elected. They sometimes succeed in getting their bad ideas made into law, and the bad laws upheld by the courts and enforced. THAT DOESN'T MAKE ALL LAWS BAD. The fact that a bad government might make a bad law if it gets the chance DOES NOT make every law that a government might make bad.

And no one's attempt to make one law look like another makes it like the other. A law against glorifying Nazism, in a nation where the resurgence of Nazism is generally perceived as a genuine threat to the rights, freedoms and democratic institutions of the nation and the people who live there, is NOT the same as a law suppressing political dissent in a nation where that the success of that dissent poses no threat to rights, freedoms or democracy. Apples and oranges: both laws, both fruit, look and smell and taste completely different.

Noone disagrees that shouting fire in a confined space is IMMEDIATELY and DIRECTLY physically injurious to life and limb.

Well there's a completely false statement. **I** disagree, and so does anyone with a clue. Shouting "fire" in a confined space may be immediately and directly physically injurious to the eardrum of someone close by, but that is the sum total of any physical injury it is the immediate and direct cause of.

If someone shouts "fire!" in a crowded theatre and everybody else pelts him/her with popcorn and boos, while remaining firmly seated, whither your immediate and direct physical injury to life and limb?

The speech is not harmful. The actions undertaken by other people upon hearing and believing the speech are. The criminalization of the speech is based on the way we assess risk: by considering both the likelihood of the risk materializing, and the seriousness of the harm that could occur if the risk does materialize, and weighting the two factors.

If you can explain how that makes shouting "fire!" in a crowded theatre different from shouting "the Holocaust is a lie" in front of a crowd of drunken neo-Nazis --

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,395810,00.html

"Standing in front of 10,000 people who waited an entire day, and who are now sitting on hard benches drinking their beer, waiting for you to speak -- that's the ultimate reward," he said in 1992 during a speaking tour. Auschwitz expert Robert van Pelt considers Irving hysterical. "He's quite a good speaker, but he gets his energy from his audience, and he tells them what they want to hear."

-- and in book after pamphlet after speech praising Hitler -- well, I'd like to hear it.

However, there is huge disagreement on what constitutes directly injurious speech in virtually every other context.

Well, there's pretty huge agreement on the legitimacy of prohibiting lying under oath/affirmation in a court. It's pretty widely agreed that the serious harm that is quite likely to result if the speech is believed and acted upon -- freeing of dangerous people, damage to the integrity of the justice system ... -- justifies that restriction on speech.

Irving's behaviour looks a lot like perjury to me, in that sense: public speech that, if believed and acted on, is very likely to result in serious harm. Never the perfect analogy, but a whole lot better than flag-burning in the USofA.

What if Dubya feels, or the Supreme Court feels, that flag burning must be banned in order to (your word) "protect" our "democracy"?

What if I'm stupid enough to believe him, or evil enough to say I do? I guess I'd vote for him. I guess if enough people are that stupid or that evil, he'll be president. Oh look. Shit happens.

Are you somehow suggesting that a ban on flag-burning IS WORSE THAN the invasion and occupation of Iraq, with the deaths and dismemberments and destruction that has meant?? What stopped THAT monstrous evil (to name but one sitting on his doorstep) from happening? NOTHING AND NOBODY. Why in the name of everything decent would I be all worked up about the POSSIBILITY of Dubya banning flag-burning when I can get so much more usefully worked up about Iraq, New Orleans, softwood lumber, Kyoto and the International Criminal Court??

Bad governments do bad things. I'm really quite surprised that you might expect otherwise.

That little "democracy" thing comes into play here. Liberal as a democracy may be, it will always involve governments. And the people who elect them. And the liberality of the democracy will always depend on the liberality of those people, not of any parchments they may be supposed to revere or laws they don't enact.

Is this really a power you want the current American regime to have?

WHO THE HELL is talking about the current USAmerican régime??? We're talking about Austria, I think.

I don't want the current USAmerican régime to have ANY power. That's really the only thing that needs to be said.

This is becoming a quite enjoyable discourse. I look forward to your response.

Hey, at least we can both spell most of the time. Might I get you to work on that paragraphing, though?

[PhilipShore]

242. Media manipulation of news by Nazi money question

Irving's behaviour looks a lot like perjury to me, in that sense: public speech that, if believed and acted on, is very likely to result in serious harm. Never the perfect analogy, but a whole lot better than flag-burning in the USofA.

During the course of some of my research into dissent movements in Germany -- that opposed Nazism; I stumbled upon some of the Nazis, whom fled to Latin America and the United States, just after the war.

I was not even born at the time; but I don't think Palestinian Rights issues was a major story for or against, in the mainstream media.

According to the source; that I was reading from, powerful Nazis whom had a ton of money which they had stolen from the Jews during the War -- came to the United States, and went to some power political politicians -- whom as I recall were Republicans -- and gave him money to lobby the media to promote the rights of Palestinians, and to make it a story. In the USA -- we call news that is advertising an idea or slogan, infomercials.

I'm sure much of that money is still around -- probably for promoting, Palestinian and/or Nazi principles. I'm assuming your not from this country -- but what would be the law-- if any -- in your country that addresses this issue of media manipulation to promote organizations or groups that support anti-Semitism?

Or, what do you think the law of Austria -- would say about this?

I am not a lawyer.

[iverglas]

244. ah, the Canadian media

You heard of Conrad Black? ;)

Lord Tubby of Fleet acquired the major daily newspapers in most urban centres in Canada a few years back, and started his own national one: the National Post. Citing the National Post is kinda like citing WorldNewsDaily. He also owned the Telegraph in the UK, the Jerusalem Post, and various other things around the world. Think "Murdoch", only really, worse. His wife Barbara Amiel is kinda the Ann Coulter of Canada, or at least wishes she were.

He was Canadian. He renounced his citizenship when the Prime Minister (the two had long hated each other) refused to grant him permission to take a British title (actually Lord Black of Crossharbour), and sit in the House of Lords, and still be Canadian. Then ... you may know the more recent bits. He lost control of Hollinger, the publishing empire through which he operated, had all sorts of bother with securities regulating agencies, and is now facing charges in Chicago.

His empire in Canada has been acquired by an extremely Israel-friendly family, not that Black himself wasn't one of Israel's biggest apologists already. (He is a Roman Catholic convert, so we're talking political in his case, not anything else; the current owners of the empire are Jewish and active in Jewish organizations and pro-Israel efforts.)

The main problem in Canada, as in the US, is concentration of the media in the hands of a few. The third national TV network, CanWest Global, is owned by the corporation that took over Black's press empire. The big serious Toronto/national newspaper of record, The Globe and Mail, is now owned by the same company that owns the second national TV network, CTV -- Bell somethingorother, which of course also owns much of the country's telecommunications system. Both corporations' media are right-wing (in Canadian terms, of course). The CBC TV and radio network remain in public hands.

Nope. Not much sign of either traditional Nazism or pro-Palestinian sympathies in the Cdn media. The two being, of course, completely different things. And if the tales of Nazi money being used to promote pro-Palestinian sympathies at one time are true, I don't think they're of much relevance today. I really wouldn't think it appropriate to suggest that contemporary supporters of Palestinian rights are being funded by Nazi money.

Canada has, of course, had Nazi and other WWII war criminals hanging around, and some long drawn out court cases as the govt tries (belatedly) to get rid of them.

As far as Austrian law, one would be answering a hypothetical question about something I don't know anything about: was Nazi money used to acquire/manipulate media? Certainly, I would expect, there are extreme right-wing elements in the Austrian media, but Nazi money? Probably not likely. It seems to have the usual mix:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_in_Austria

In Canada, manipulation of/by the media for any purpose is generally handled the way it is in the US (perhaps a little more effectively): by public denunciation by those who object, and debate. Canada does have very narrow laws against very narrowly defined "hate speech", which have been used a very few times. A leading figure in the First Nations was quite recently convicted because of some really quite appalling (and apparently drunken, but nonetheless apparently intended) anti-Jewish things he said in a public speech. Quite beyond anything Irving seems to have said (and highlighting the distinction between hate speech and pro-Nazi speech):
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2002/12/17/ahenakew021217.html

On Anti-Semitism in particular, the Canadian Jewish Congress is about as activist as could be imagined -- I was just looking at a long index of recent media reprints and press releases as its site yesterday, let me see whether I can find it ...

main page: http://www.cjc.ca/
"CJC in the news": http://www.cjc.ca/template.php?action=itn&Story=0

It's a big one, watch out. Samples:

Feb 22, 2006 - / CJN - Mosque vandalism denounced

Feb 22, 2006 - Paul Lungen / CJN - Toronto police report big drop in hate crimes

Feb 22, 2006 - Ron Csillag / CJN - Ont. law passed to ban faith-based arbitration

Feb 21, 2006 - Barbara Yaffe / The Vancouver Sun - When it comes to tolerance, Canada stands tall in the world

Feb 21, 2006 - Carolynne Wheeler / The Globe and Mail - Native leaders visit the Wailing Wall
Cultural-exchange program is accelerated after an anti-Semitic hate-case conviction

Feb 20, 2006 - Richard Brennan and Rob Ferguson / The Toronto Star - Tory promises help on private school fees; Faith-based institutions top his list
Leader convinced it's a fairness issue

... Feb 17, 2006 - Jim Robinson / The Ottawa Citizen - Unduly provocative

... Feb 14, 2006 - Agnès Gruda / La Presse - Un périodique canadien publie huit caricatures du prophète Mahomet
(a Canadian periodical publishes caricatures of prophet Mohammed -- I'd check which one it was, but the damned CJC site very nearly crashed my Netscape already)

Feb 14, 2006 - / CTV.ca - Muslim leader accuses Cdn publisher of hate crime ...

The "unduly provocative" letter is to one of the ex-Hollinger papers (the abject piece of crap that passes for the serious daily in Ottawa, the nation's capital) which decided against publishing the cartoons:

I commend the Canadian Jewish Congress and others who have condemned the cartoons, saying they are needlessly provocative.

Gosh, I wonder why, if the Canadian Jewish Congress can say it, so many people around this place couldn't. :shrug:

[Spinoza]

248. Thank you for your detailed response.

Actuallyu also for your grammatical corrections and suggestions. English is not my native language so I appreciate your helpfulness.

1) I stand by my statement that I did not intend to insinuate that you yourself were a Fascist or a Nazi. I wanted to make the point that in respect to the right of a government to impose censorship, your views, not mine, are in agreement with Fascists and Nazis. You both agree, in principle, that censorship is permissible, even desirable in certain circumstances. However, I can see how my comments could be misinterpreted and so I offered you, in good faith, my apologies. It appears you are refusing to accept them. Okay.

2)"And again -- unless you are going to tell me once and for all that you DO NOT OPPOSE laws prohibiting the shouting of "fire!" in crowded theatres, then YOU ALSO oppose that idea IN PRINCIPLE."

Shouting fire in a theater is NOT illegal and I do not oppose it. What if there actually is a fire? FALSELY shouting fire in a theater for the purpose of causing a panic IS (properly) illegal. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, the originator of the 'shouting fire' argument stated explicitly in "Schenck v. U.S.": " "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic." Note the words "AND CAUSING A PANIC" That is the specific test in American law. (Falsely 'shouting fire' can be prosecuted, even when a panic does not ensue, because it reasonably COULD cause an imminent panic.) But again the assumption is that a panic is likely to occur. Please direct me to the "panics' caused by Clifford Irving's speech or writings. Were there any 'panics' of crazed ex-Nazis in Austria after hearing or reading Irving?

3) “Do you approve of the recent U.K. law which bans the advocacy of (undefined) "terrorism"? Let me change that question. Do you believe the U.K. government had the moral and ethical right to ban speech which in the opinion of the U.K. government, or its organs, is advocating terrorism?”

“Actually, I think I'm aware that there is no such law. Perhaps I'm wrong, or perhaps you are confusing criminal law and immigration law.”

>snip
http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,1710278,00.html
MPs back ban on 'glorification' of terrorism

Matthew Tempest, political correspondent
Wednesday February 15, 2006
MPs today voted to create a new offence of "glorifying" terrorism, overturning opposition from both the House of Lords, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.
<snip

So, the Austrian government bans speech "Glorifying Nazism" and now the U.K. government bans speech "Glorifying Terrorism". No slippery slope here, right? And in both cases the identical rationale is used: Your phrase of "protecting" a "democracy". Hey, whats good for goose....

4)No onee disagrees that shouting fire in a confined space is IMMEDIATELY and DIRECTLY physically injurious to life and limb."

Well there's a completely false statement. **I** disagree, and so does anyone with a clue. Shouting "fire" in a confined space may be immediately and directly physically injurious to the eardrum of someone close by, but that is the sum total of any physical injury it is the immediate and direct cause of."

This was answered above in my earlier discussion of 'shouting fire', though admittedly my language here was imprecise. What is proscribed is NOT shouting fire, but rather FALSELY SHOUTING FIRE FOR THE PURPOSE OF CAUSING A PANIC.

5) "Do you see no danger at all in giving government the power to censor speech and writing?"

"Do you see no danger at all in giving government the power to proscribe things that people might do and punish them for doing them? "

You did not answer my question. To answer YOUR question: Yes, I do see a danger And this means government has the right to censor expression because.....?

6)"If you can explain how that makes shouting "fire!" in a crowdedtheatere different from shouting "the Holocaust is a lie" in front of a crowd of drunken neo-Nazis --"

It may not be. Your example could possibly qualify as a shouting fire issue since it reasonably could result in IMMEDIATE panic and physical harm. And this gives governments the right to censor free speech because....?

7)"However, there is huge disagreement on what constitutes directly injurious speech in virtually every other context."

"Well, there's pretty huge agreement on the legitimacy of prohibiting lying under oath/affirmation in a court."

Boy, talk about a Red Herring. http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/red-herring.html

8) "Are you somehow suggesting that a ban on flag-burning IS WORSE THAN the invasion and occupation of Iraq,.."

Another Red Herring. What does the invasion of Iraq have to do with the question of the proper powers of a government to censor free speech?

9)"Bad governments do bad things. I'm really quite surprised that you might expect otherwise."

Yes, and since we can never be sure that we, or any people, will not live under bad governments now or in the future, (in fact, based on history we can be pretty damn sure that we WILL live under bad governments) perhaps it would be prudent, it would be wise to insure that NO government has the legal power to determine what can be spoken or written.

10)"Is this really a power you want the current American regime to have?"

"WHO THE HELL is talking about the current USAmerican régime??? We're talking about Austria, I think."

We are talking about the Austrian governments censorship of speech and writing, and, by extension, the proper rights of ANY government to proscribe unwanted speech. You yourself have filled your post with references to Bush and his regime.

Finally, I have one question I hope you will answer in detail. Obviously you strongly disagree with (and seem to abhor) Voltaire's famous statement I had quoted in an earlier post: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." If the 'laughing philosopher' were to come back from the dead and repeat his statement in your presence, you would answer, exactly, ....what?

[PhilipShore]

249. Liberty--Democratic or authoritarian principle?

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Think of it this way -- what if he had said, "I disapprove of what you say and do that causes destruction and wars, but I will defend to the death your right to say it and fight the war.”

The philosopher was simply referring to ideas, that are disagreeable, and the political philosophy of liberty (freedom to speak your ideas), a kind of right to lobby and/or petition, etc., a government -- or those in power to change law about possible unjust and unfair, unreasonable laws.

Liberty (freedom to speak your ideas), has everything to do with democratic principles, not authoritarian principles (of Nazism); which frankly are not just mere speech but militant tools, specifically intended to cause harm, and deny freedoms, such as the right to say what he wanted. Nazism, is not simply just “saying” something, they are -- doing-- something by the speech language (doubletalk) by attempting to psychologically and physically harm others by anti-Semitic speech, thus causing fears and/ or Wars, or using the Nazi speak to justify continuing a War.

Do you seriously think, the philosopher would approve of -- a Nazi telling him he has no right to say what he wants-- because of his free speech rights as a Nazi?

[Spinoza]

251. Yes. He would approve of the RIGHT of a Nazi to TELL

him anything. Providing the Nazi does not initiate physical force of any kind.

"Do you seriously think, the philosopher would approve of -- a Nazi telling him he has no right to say what he wants-- because of his free speech rights as a Nazi?"

[PhilipShore]

252. I know I would not...

I would have called him a filthy Nazi bastard, and kicked him out of my house.

[iverglas]

255. yes, but ;)

I would have called him a filthy Nazi bastard, and kicked him out of my house.

If he said it in public, would you want him arrested? ;)

Pro-Nazi speech is actually the question, and the source of danger, rather than Nazi speech.

Expressing Nazi ideas -- like, "let's abolish free speech", say -- isn't likely to be too successful, and so not something a society like yours, mine or maybe Austria's really needs to take measures to protect itself against.

Expressing pro-Nazi ideas -- like, "Hitler has been falsely accused of crimes that he knew nothing about" (which is one thing Irving says) ... "and that didn't happen anyway" -- is more insidiously dangerous. Especially (maybe almost exclusively) in Hitler's homeland, where Hitler did indeed rally much sympathy in the past and continues to from the grave.

That's really your point, too. If Nazis just came out and proposed their platform publicly -- we're going to abolish trade unions, eliminate the right to fair trials and suchlike jazz, round up the Jews and Roma and homosexuals and anybody else who annoys us and imprison and starve them, outlaw abortion for some women and compel it for others, invade a few nearby countries ... -- they wouldn't get too far at all, very likely.

So those are indeed ideas best left to go down to defeat in the marketplace of ideas, at least in a society where a majority of people is hardly likely to buy them. Let the Nazi Party field candidates in Miama, attend all candidates' debates and state its platform, and take its chances.

It's the lies about past events, to conceal that agenda, that's intolerable. All political parties do that, but all political parties really aren't actually planning to abolish liberal democracy.

[PhilipShore]

258. Yes, because that is the non-violent way to handle it

If he said it in public, would you want him arrested?

Yes

[iverglas]

253. so, taking it from the bottom

Obviously you strongly disagree with (and seem to abhor) Voltaire's famous statement I had quoted in an earlier post: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." If the 'laughing philosopher' were to come back from the dead and repeat his statement in your presence, you would answer, exactly, ....what?

First, as I understand it, Voltaire never actually said that. Beam me up, Scotty. (Okay, another obscure allusion: to something no one ever said, but everybody thinks s/he has heard.)

What I would say is that the pseudo-quote doesn't address the issue. I am not talking about speech that is disapproved by me or anyone else -- any more than speech that consists of lying in court or conveying false alarming information is "speech that I disapprove". (Would Voltaire defend them? I'm sure he'd disapprove of them ...)

The fact that I "disapprove" of speech is NOT the ground that I am asserting as justifying limits on it. I do disapprove of it, but because of its nature, its nature being why I assert that it is grounds for the limit.

Again: I disapprove of homicide, and you could just as easily say that I want my disapproval to be made law, when I should be saying "I disapprove of what you are doing, but I will defend to the death your right to do it".

And no, don't be telling me that there is no right to commit homicide. There is no right to open one's mouth and make sounds either, except by our common agreement that it is impermissible to prohibit the doing of it.

I cannot appeal to any supreme authority, or any first principle, to justify my advocacy of prohibiting homicide. There are no sky faeries, and there are no unquestionable stone tablets, and there is no premise from which to reason the conclusion that homicide must be prohibited. The same is absolutely true of "free speech". There is no authority, or first principle, or premise, from which one can state the immutable and unquestionable and absolute nature of the freedom to speak.

I will not defend to the death the ability of anyone to say anything without sanction. I will not defend perjury, or conspiring to commit homicide, or threatening death, or advertising snake oil to cure cancer, or falsely shouting "fire!" in crowded theatres. (I do hope we can dispense with the herring of truthfully shouting "fire!" in crowded theatres.)

Falsely 'shouting fire' can be prosecuted, even when a panic does not ensue, because it reasonably COULD cause an imminent panic.

INDEED. Or, as I would put it, it can reasonably be expected that people will act on the message conveyed and do things that cause harm to themselves and/or others. Again: NO speech "causes" anything other than air movements. But we'll use "cause" as shorthand in what follows, since it is the same on both sides of the equation and cancels itself out.

Please direct me to the "panics' caused by Clifford Irving's speech or writings. Were there any 'panics' of crazed ex-Nazis in Austria after hearing or reading Irving?

Please let's consider the distinctions in our scenarios as well as the similarities -- and not just the distinctions in actual effect.

What is falsely shouting "fire!" in a crowded theatre intended to do -- or at least reasonably foreseeably going to do? Cause a panic, resulting in harm and possibly death.

What is falsely publishing "the Holocaust never occurred!" in a post-Nazi society intended to do -- or at least reasonably foreseeably going to do? Legitimize adherence to neo-Nazi ideologies ... and enable their adherents to come to power. Cause another Holocaust in which millions of despised minorities die, or another war of aggression in which millions of civilians and conscripts die, or maybe just the creation of a state in which the rights and freedoms and democratic processes for the exercise of state power that the world pretty much agrees are desirable cease to exist.

Both examples of false speech have the same intent, or reasonably foreseeable consequence and thus presumed intent: to cause intolerable harm. The harm doesn't have to be the same, and the mechanism by which it comes about doesn't have to be the same, in order for there to be an analogy.

Randomly taken from a US case on speech:
http://www.techlawjournal.com/encrypt/80702jun.htm

"Fighting words" are written or spoken in a language. While spoken or written in language, they are excluded from First Amendment protection. See, e.g., Sandul v. Larion, ... (1997) (observing that words "which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace" are not protected because they "are no essential part of any exposition of ideas ...")

Not protected -- because they are no essential part of any exposition of ideas. Why, I wonder, is it necessary to say that?

Is it arguable that "the Holocaust did not occur!" is an essential part of some exposition of ideas? It's arguable -- and context will be relevant. It's more arguable than in the case of "fire!" ... but not really more arguable than in the case of snake oil for cancer. It's just as possible to believe that snake oil cures cancer, and to want to put that idea out there for the public's benefit, as it is to believe that the Holocaust did not occur. More likely, I'd say.

It's more likely that "the Holocaust did not occur!" is an essential part of someone's attempt to deceive ignorant or willing people into believing that Nazism is a good thing and working to reinstate it. And when that is the case -- which it probably wouldn't be in, oh, Madagascar, or undoubtedly even the USA today -- I'd want as much protection against such speakers as I get against snake oil vendors.

"MPs back ban on 'glorification' of terrorism"
So, the Austrian government bans speech "Glorifying Nazism" and now the U.K. government bans speech "Glorifying Terrorism". No slippery slope here, right? And in both cases the identical rationale is used: Your phrase of "protecting" a "democracy". Hey, whats good for goose...

Well, like I said, slippery slope arguments are just nonsense. They assume that no one has any sense or decency.

How does "glorifying terrorism" in the UK compare with advertising snake oil or shouting "fire!", now?

Well, the UK has suffered a rather serious terrorist attack -- differing from the one in the US in that it was homegrown:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1121261681746_116670881

One phrase used by neighbors to describe the British-born, Pakistani-rooted London transit bombers is "utterly ordinary."

... The third suspect was Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30. He wasn't from there, but his wife was. Her mother was a pillar of the community. The two moved there about five months ago from Leeds.

... Despite Tanweer's and Hussain's brushes with the law {shoplifting}, police have described the suspects as "cleanskins," meaning they had no known connection to extremists or conventional criminal records.

... "There must be ringleaders working underground who are recruiting and pushing and motivating these young people to commit these atrocities," said Ishtiaq Ahmed of the Bedford Council of Mosques.

That's an internal threat to the safety and security of the society. And in fact, it's known to exist:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/01/20/mosque.raid/

British anti-terror police found a mini-arsenal of weapons when they raided a London mosque linked to a number of key terrorist suspects.

... The men held were believed to be "supporting or engaging in terrorist activity from within" the Finsbury Park Mosque.

... Finsbury Park mosque is the base of well-known radical cleric Abu Hamza. (Profile)

... "Police believe that these premises have played a role in the recruitment of suspected terrorists and in supporting their activity both here and abroad," the statement said.

... A Manchester police officer was stabbed to death and four other officers were wounded during a January 14 counter-terrorism raid connected to the ricin investigation.

Again: this is not Madagascar, and not even the US. This is a place where the threat is rather clear and present, and still imminent, and hardly negligible.

From the Guardian article:

But critics feared a catch-all offence of "glorification" of terrorism, rather than the "indirect incitement" the Lords suggested, would criminalise people supporting the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, or even celebrating the Easter Uprising of 1916 in Ireland.

... The human rights lawyer Geoffrey Bindman said existing legislation already outlaws the activities which ministers say the glorification offence will deal with.

He added: "The government wants to have a law that can be used prosecuting anyone one who says anything favourable about terrorism.

"But that becomes a very dangerous inroad on freedom of speech, because people may wish to express views about a repressive regime which may involve suggesting that ultimately it may be necessary to use violence to bring an end to that regime. That seems to me a perfectly respectable thing to do."

I know that in Canada, the courts might have a field day with such things.

It certainly doesn't sound like the legislation is well drafted. Here's an example of a criminal law limit on speech in Canada:

http://www.canlii.org/ca/sta/c-46/sec319.html

(2) Every one who, by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, wilfully promotes hatred against any identifiable group is guilty of {an offence}.

Defences

(3) No person shall be convicted of an offence under subsection (2)

(a) if he establishes that the statements communicated were true;

(b) if, in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text;

(c) if the statements were relevant to any subject of public interest, the discussion of which was for the public benefit, and if on reasonable grounds he believed them to be true; or

(d) if, in good faith, he intended to point out, for the purpose of removal, matters producing or tending to produce feelings of hatred toward an identifiable group in Canada.

That didn't save the guy teaching Holocaust denial and other anti-Semitism to schoolchildren, but it would certainly not catch publication of a scholarly article questioning various accepted facts about the Holocaust or, say, examining historical/anthropological data on Jewish non-assimilation practices and their effect on socio-economic status. (There is no "glorifying terrorism" offence in Canada, so I'm offering limits on "hate speech", and things that might or might not qualify depending on the context, as a rough analogy.)

I suspect that what the lawyer quoted said is true: that at least most of the things that should be caught by a "glorifying terrorism" law are already caught under existing laws. Would they all? I don't know. Would the other things mentioned really be caught by the new law? I have my doubts that anyone intends to use it for them, or that the courts would agree to that characterization of them (advocating violence against a government is really not, after all, the same as advocating terrorism, let alone glorifying it). Is it legitimate to do something to stop the recruiting of people in Britain to bomb subways and do whatever else they might plan to do with firearms and chemicals? I think so.


Another Red Herring. What does the invasion of Iraq have to do with the question of the proper powers of a government to censor free speech?

What it has to do with is your fear that your government will do bad things. Your government does bad things. The invasion and occupation of Iraq is an atrocious and horrific thing. And yet your government hasn't started shooting people walking down Main Street, USA, yet.

You seem to think that if I agree that Austria may outlaw pro-Nazi speech, I must agree either that the US may outlaw flag-burning or that the US outlawing flag-burning is some natural consequence of Austria outlawing pro-Nazi speech. I don't, and I don't have to.

And all of the safeguards that one might assume are in place haven't stopped your government from lying and cheating and bulldozing your country into a plainly illegal war. If your government wanted to outlaw flag-burning, it would have precisely nothing to do with the Austrian government outlawing pro-Nazi speech.

Your question wasn't about "the proper powers of a government to censor ... speech". It was about what might happen once it started doing that. And my answer is that slippery slopes are no arguments. There is no slippery slope from Bush illegally invading Iraq to Bush mowing down members of the public on Main Street, and there is no slippery slope from Austria outlawing pro-Nazi speech to Bush outlawing flag burning. Just as there has been no slippery slope from outlawing shouting "fire!" in theatres to outlawing singing in church.


However, there is huge disagreement on what constitutes directly injurious speech in virtually every other context.
Well, there's pretty huge agreement on the legitimacy of prohibiting lying under oath/affirmation in a court.
Boy, talk about a Red Herring.
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/red-herring.ht...

You need to learn the difference between fish and fowl.

You claimed there was huge disagreement about something. I pointed out the irrelevance of this claim, by pointing out that there is huge agreement on many aspects of that something. The fact that there is disagreement on SOME aspects of the question of what speech may be prohibited doesn't mean that all limits on speech must be regarded as illegitimate.

What you have omitted is the part where I made that point:

It's pretty widely agreed that the serious harm that is quite likely to result if the speech is believed and acted upon -- freeing of dangerous people, damage to the integrity of the justice system ... -- justifies that restriction on speech.

Saying that there is huge disagreement about what limits may be placed on speech simply avoids the issue.

... it would be wise to insure that NO government has the legal power to determine what can be spoken or written.

And how do we do that? -- ask the sky faerie to put an invisible force field around us? Our constitutions are NOT stone tablets, and our courts are NOT emissaries of the sky faerie. You seek a security that does not exist in collective human life. Our laws against homicide do not prevent homicide, and no constitution has ever stood in the way of a government hell-bent on violating it. Laws and constitutions are just bits of paper to people with the power to violate them.

If a neo-Nazi party is elected to power in Austria, whither the Austrians' insurance policy then?

The only insurance each of us has against the harm that anyone else would do us is the goodwill of all of the rest of us. Constitutions don't impose new rules on people who don't want them; they state the rules that the people have agreed to. They're retrospective, in the main. (Although if they are, like Canada's, a "living tree", they can be trained to broaden their cover.)

What I would fear is that my fellow Canadians would elect a government that would outlaw flag-burning. Or, as has been proposed in your case, incorporate a ban on flag-burning into the constitution. Insurance policies are subject to riders if the parties agree to them, and it's that agreement, not some completely unrelated thing, that ya gotta watch out for.

And my position is that an arguably reasonable and justified way of making sure it doesn't happen is to prohibit speech that advocates it and that is reasonably foreseeably going to persuade enough people to make it happen, if the speech is permitted.

The Austrian prohibition doesn't just seek to deter people from promoting Nazism by the individual and general deterrent effect of sentencing. It also sends a loud, clear message about the values of the society: that the society rejects all aspects of Nazism, flatly and unequivocally and firmly. That's the "denunciation" principle of sentencing: not just you will be punished for doing "x", but "x" is beyond the pale in terms of what is done in civilized society and what a civilized society will tolerate -- it seeks to promote adherence to the rule, not just obedience to it.

I will continue to maintain that Holocaust denial -- in the form practised by Irving, at least -- is not mere "speech", i.e. an act engaged in to convey the message that it purports to be conveying; it is part of an attempt to reinstate Nazism. And a society really is entitled to protect itself against attempts to do that, just as it is entitled to protect itself against attempts to instigate stampedes in theatres and attempts to persuade juries to acquit murderers.

[PhilipShore]

154. Free speech is mlitary double talk for Nazis

If the Americans had allowed the Nazis free speech; I’m sure the military intelligence of the Americans at the time, knew that they would not exercise their free speech rights, to promote a democratic type of civil society, but rather the Nazis would of used - double talk - language to write laws, and put into power the same Nazis they went to war to stop.

One of my cousins was a professor at West Point-- before he left to go to law school; I never met him, but if I meet him I will ask him if he thinks, I am right or not.

[HEyHEY]

146. I think you have to appreciate where this took place

Yes, the holocaust is a sensitive issue everywhere, but it's a little more sensitive in Austria, don't ya think?
So, before you freak out about the sentence and what not, consider that.

[jpgray]

152. I'm not the best judge of how dangerous Nazi ideas are in Austria

But in my view, if you have folks like Haider free to run around with right-wing ideas under a "Freedom Party" banner, what good is a law that bans glorification of the Nazi Party? There are plenty of genocides and massacres that have gone wholly ignored by the Western powers, with nothing put in place directly or via embargo / sanctions to "outlaw" the ideas that caused the damage. But to kill an idea in the public mind, saying "it's forbidden!" is hardly the best way to go about doing it.

[iverglas]

156. arguable points and opinions

But in my view, if you have folks like Haider free to run around with right-wing ideas under a "Freedom Party" banner, what good is a law that bans glorification of the Nazi Party?

That is certainly a reasonable question.

As I understand the time line, the law banning glorification of Nazis post-dates the 1955 Treaty considerably. (I'm not at all sure, and may be wrong.)

I think we need to keep in mind that Holocaust denial is a relatively recent tool in the neo-Nazi toolkit. It became big news precisely because it was plainly being used as a covert, disguised method of defending Nazis against their detractors, thus creating an opening for exploiting pro-Nazi sympathies and recruiting supporters for neo-Nazi efforts.

I still do think that we North Americans need to try to understand that in Europe, Nazism isn't a tale told by old guys in veterans' hospitals who went off to fight that funny-looking Hitler guy. Its effects, the effects of the things that Nazis did and the war they started, are much more present and pervasive in European societies.

And neo-Nazism there isn't just one of any number of loony, offensive political schools of thought. It really isn't.

There are plenty of genocides and massacres that have gone wholly ignored by the Western powers, with nothing put in place directly or via embargo / sanctions to "outlaw" the ideas that caused the damage.

Indeed, but not in Austria. Austria is where this law was made and is enforced, and Austria has no authority over what laws are made or enforced in Rwanda, or what sanctions the US applies against Indonesia. The Austrian law addresses an Austrian problem.

And the Western powers that imposed the anti-Nazi requirement on Austria were acting in their own interests at the time. The fact that those same powers don't act in others' interests at this time doesn't make the requirement imposed on Austria improper.

And ... again ... the subject matter of the law is just not genocide or massacre. It is Nazism.

But to kill an idea in the public mind, saying "it's forbidden!" is hardly the best way to go about doing it.

I'm kind of reminded of what we up here call United Empire Loyalists, and you down there call traitors, and how they were treated during and after the USAmerican revolution.

http://collections.ic.gc.ca/heirloom_series/volume3/chapter4/69-74.htm

Revolutionary fervour demanded conviction: in a community those with neutral or Loyalist leanings were easily suspected. Rebel committees weeded out individuals not inclined to take their oath of allegiance to the newly proclaimed republic or join the local militia.

Societies and states really do take measures to protect the integrity of their governmental and political systems and the safety of their citizens and members. When promotion of ideas that are inimical to those fundamental things appears likely to result in serious threats to them, it's hard to argue that action may not be taken to avert the threat.

[Karenina]

177. These Irving threads are all

perfect examples of the near-total inability of Americans to step out of their own frames of reference (which of course are somehow "superior") long enough to understand WHY others may view things differently.

Irving was not convicted of a "thought crime" or for his "ideas."
He defied a travel ban to enter the country and violated Austrian law. He got busted and sent to jail.

The law in question is very specific in nature for historical reasons. Iverglas posted it upthread. It IS EFFECTIVE in the society in which it was enacted. Every child learns WHY it is forbidden. Perhaps there will come a time where it is no longer necessary, but that determination is best left to the Austrians.

[screembloodymurder]

158. If this is allowed to stand, it is the beginning of the end.

The politically correct thought police are out of control.

[iverglas]

161. the beginning of the end is already upon us

It starts with people spewing opinions in public when they have no clue what they're talking about, and it ends with television screens in every bedroom broadcasting Jerry Springer reruns and the war that we have always been at.

[PhilipShore]

162. Apocalypse Now--Great movie

Apocalypse Now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse_Now_Redux

[distantearlywarning]

170. Heck, the politically correct thought police are out of control

on this board. The opinions I have seen expressed here today have made me seriously rethink my affiliation with the Democrats. And that's really sad, because there's pretty much nowhere left for me to go. I know I'm just depressed today, but right now it's hard not to visualize DU and the whole world as just a collection of different out-of-control crazy groups, all screaming as loud as they can, and at the same time, trying to choke the living daylights out of the people in the other screaming group next to them so that they don't have to hear opinions they disagree with anymore.

[iverglas]

173. gee, I know how it feels

I'm just depressed today, but right now it's hard not to visualize DU and the whole world as just a collection of different out-of-control crazy groups, all screaming as loud as they can, and at the same time, trying to choke the living daylights out of the people in the other screaming group next to them so that they don't have to hear opinions they disagree with anymore.

I mean, I don't actually have a clue what you might be seeing that looks like that and is attributable to the "politically correct thought police", but I know a similar feeling.

On more and more days, DU looks to me like a collection of racist, ethnocentric, xenophobic, misogynist, homophobic bigots, all spewing their wilfully ignorant opinions at people they never miss a chance to portray dishonestly for disagreeing with them.

Fortunately, I've never belonged to the Democratic Party and couldn't if I wanted to, so I don't have to hold my nose and buy the card. I just assume that a lot of people here aren't actually Democrats anyhow (they sure aren't progressives, that much I know) and I can just hope that the racism and ethnocentricity and xenophobia and misogyny and homophobia and bigotry and arrogance and abject ignorance aren't as universal in the US as one might think if one hung around here too much.

[zwielicht]

189. hey, there are places worse than DU ;)

While i remember DU being a much nicer place some years ago, hmm.. I think on the net the ones who scream the loudest will always "win", while many many excellent postings will get no replies at all. But still lots of people will read them and be happy someone wrote them, it happens all the time! Sending hugs and best wishes, from an unknown stranger from austria ;)



After reading some of your posts i decided i needed to know a bit more about this law in our country, a quick summary: It was written in 1945 when there was still dangerous activity by remaining nazis. Its primary goal was to forbid the nsdap-party. Only one part of it is still living law, §3, which forbids founding or aiding national-socialist groups, praising the goals of the nsdap party and denying their crimes. A summary in quite simple german: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS-Wiederbet%C3%A4tigung

I personally am happy it exists. Of course i would prefer total free speech, but people are too stupid, err, not educated enough.. I know the racists hate speech in austria would be much worse without this law. There are too many people still talking positive about the nazi-times anyhow. Last year there was a creepy demonstration of nazis on the streets of lovely vienna shouting "sieg heil", this was only possible because the right-wing government we have now decided turned a blind eye (and let the police brutally fight our counter-demonstration..)

But it's a controversial issue - e.g. in fact the nazis are the people who talk about this law the most..

And karenina is also right: You too are not living in the most free country nowadays, i'm afraid..



Oh and yes i know i don't exactly know how to speak english, sorry ;)

[iverglas]

196. thank you, thank you, thank you

For the contribution, of course, not for any particular opinion.

Just one correction ;) :

And karenina is also right: You too are not living in the most free country nowadays, i'm afraid.

Ah, but I am. I don't live in those United States of America!

Actually, Canada didn't make it quite to the top of that "freedom index".

... Dang, I'm coming up short on original sources, and I'm short of time. I think the UN's Human Freedom Index has been discontinued, but sometime since 1991 it rated the top countries like this (highest score = most free):

Sweden 38
Denmark 38
Netherlands 37
Austria 36
Finland 36
France 35
Germany 35
Canada 34
Switzerland 34
Australia 33
United States 33
Japan 32
United Kingdom 32

Amazing, eh? Austria's higher than the US, and also than Canada. (We need to know what the criteria were in order to assess how meaningful the index is; I seem to recall Canada losing out on something to do with the media -- ah, maybe something to do with the hearings about whether Al Jazeera could be carried by cable broadcasters; the outcome had apparently been misunderstood, or this was used for the index before the outcome was known.)

Different values are placed by different individuals, and societies, on various things. Condemning other people's choices without even finding out why they made them just isn't civil, and it's hardly likely to persuade anyone who has made a different choice that they should switch.

Spreading freedom around the world ... by calling the rest of the world fools and villains because they have made different choices, regardless of what their reasons might be. Such good neighbours we have.

Of course you must be congratulated on your English. My own French is well up to political debate, but my German never made it there, and at present I might be able to ask the way to the toilet, if I had time to work it out ...

[Gregorian]

184. I'm one of those people you want to scream at.

This is just another example of how different we all are. Not all Bush haters are socially bright. I'm able to machine and weld, but have spent little time thinking about social issues. However, there are things that I am aware of that very few people are. And I want to scream at them over it. Huge issues that ecclipse Bush. So we are all different facets of that perfect human. And this is the beauty of this forum. The least of us shares with the greatest. And we all grow. The greatest always have to be patient. I've learned since my post above, what the ramifications of my idea could be. And how the judicial process handles the truth.

So don't freak out and get too depressed. We're all very different. I suppose Noam Chompsky has his weaknesses, as enlightened as he is.

[HEyHEY]

180. No they aren't

As I said above, look at where this took place. Many people who survived the holocaust are still alive, we're talking serious open wounds still. Nazi war criminals are still alive, many are still on the loose. These are the perps of one of the most disgusting acts of mass murder in the world's history.
It's easy to have the feeling this chapter in history is closed if you live over here, but it is not closed, far from it.
While I see the point many are making about free speech, I think if you were in a country where 60 years ago this happened, you would still view any denial of these serious crimes as a continuation of that regime attempting to control public opinion.
If the guy was denying the Spanish Inqusition took place, I'd probably be more on your side.

[Susang]

188. Not everyone feels that way

My holocaust survivors and their families have no wish for anyone to be imprisoned over speech like this. They prefer this to be dealt with out in the open, where their false statements and hatred can be refuted for all to see. I know this firsthand.

[HEyHEY]

200. Shutup!

;-)

Well, I'm in a grey area of it all... I'm not 100 per cent sure how I feel about this.

[Susang]

207. No, you shuddup!

How dare you not have a black and white opinion! :P

And next time, you better post at least five paragraphs, with quotes cut and pasted in bold type, refuting my arguments OR ELSE! }(

[Spinoza]

250. I must admit

that your post is hysterically funny. If I knew how to fill the page with "cracking up" icons, I would do it. You have to respect the sheer indefatigability. Its actually awe-inspiring. But the evident malice and dripping condescension and scorn......

[iverglas]

256. oh well

I guess you can take my last post in our little chat as my last post.

You feel free to make nice with people who lie about you and just about everything else, and spew stupidity and insult without learning who and what they're talking about, if you like.

I doubt that (the) Spinoza would approve of tolerating maliciously ignorant speech, and I imagine that he would rather say that it needs to be challenged at every turn. We've had Spinoza and Voltaire ... now who was it said that other thang ...

Ah yes. Edmund Burke.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

or words to that effect.

Me, I'll just keep on calling wilful ignorance, bigotry, and all the rest of 'em what they are when I see 'em.

[slackmaster]

163. Big dumb, dumb Irving

The 142nd fastest gun in the West.

[muriel_volestrangler]

209. Prosecutors appeal to have Irving's jail term increased

AUSTRIAN prosecutors dismissed the three-year jail sentence imposed on the disgraced historian David Irving as too lenient yesterday and filed an appeal for it to be extended.

Walter Geyer, a spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office in Vienna, said that he believed the jail term to be inadequate in the light of a possible maximum sentence of ten years and Irving’s iconic importance to right-wing extremists.

The move coincided with an appeal for a reduction in the sentence by lawyers for the historian, who pleaded guilty on Monday to denying the Holocaust, a crime in Austria, in two speeches there in 1989.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2051981,00.html

[PhilipShore]

243. I agree 100%, his jail term should be increased...

because it's fair and just for Austria, but it would also be -- fair for the International community. People -- should understand that -- when people promote hate, they create fear in the community not just in Austria but the world. And, from fear comes wars.

As a pacifist, that has researched aggression -- though I was not around in the Nazi era -- I think that this is -- one of the most significant court rulings, in my life time.

Nazism is a -- militant-- cancer; that should not be tolerated in any form whatsoever.

[Jack_DeLeon]

211. That is fucking wrong...

I believe in freedom of speech.

[Tight_rope]

245. I WISH THESE JUDGES WOULD JAIL BUSH AND CHENEY FOR LYING!

[PhilipShore]

246. Judges for the International Criminal court?

I am not a lawyer, but I think I read and article about how -- the International Criminal court is investigating the Bush administration.

[madmark]

254. holocaust deniers are idiots and pathological, but putting them in jail

for idiotic pronouncements opens to door to putting people in jail that that state doesn't like on pretty much any pretense and ironically, isn't that in the end what authoritarianism, like nazism, was all about.

[Name removed]

257. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Moderator]

259. Lock

No longer breaking news
subject talked to death
too much flamage