Thursday, February 23, 2006

holocaust denial

David Irving, the British "historian" and holocaust denier is an idiot. He is his own worst enemy. His most severe legal troubles stem from his own stupidity.

To wit:

1. His biggest legal problems in the UK were when he took American academic Deborah Lipstadt to court for libel, when she called him a holocaust denier. In court, it was proven that he was a holocaust denier, and he lost.

2. Austria banned him from the country. He knew that there was essentially a national restraining order in place, and knew there was a warrant for his arrest stemming from a previous holocaust denial incident within Austria. He went anyway and got thrown in the poky.

In each case, he's been the author of his own downfall (as well as the author of some very dubious stuff he calls "real history").

Still, I don't think he should be in jail for holocaust denial. He was sentenced to three years in prison, and Austrian prosecutors are appealing against the sentence saying he should be chucked in for the maximum ten. This despite the fact that he plead guilty, recanted on the denial, and apologised for hurt and affront. (Though to be fair, I don't put much weight on his mea culpa)

Now, I think people who publicly deny the facts of the holocaust should be lampooned and discredited or perhaps just denied the oxygen of publicity.. I don't think they should be thrown in jail - made a martyr to their stupid cause. I don't think that people should be thrown in jail for what they write and say...(mostly, there is the issue of child porn and direct incitement to violence).

Most commentators in the UK are sort of defending his "right to be wrong", but I don't think many on the Left or Right are shedding too many tears. I have to admit I'm not either, I find him abhorrent.

But in the wake of the Danish Mohammed cartoons, I find his incarceration for three years disturbing. Very disturbing. There's been an escalation of penalties for offending others - and as one person is punished for offending an orthodoxy or breaking a taboo, so all the other orthodoxies clamor for their own protection under the law. It's a dangerous climate for free-thinkers as well as vile campaigners.

_____

The other night, the Vol-in-Law took me to a lecture on multi-culturalism and the law (he sure knows how to show a gal a good time) by Professor Ralph Grillo an anthropologist. He took us through the Bezhti affair (a play found offensive by some Sikhs who smashed in the Birmingham rep) and covered the Danish cartoons as well.

He seemed to be coming from the premise that we really oughtn't to be offending anyone...and that free speech was a good thing generally, but it was better not to offend. He was speaking in a law lecture series, but no one could quite pin him down to what he thought the law ought to be. At one point he was pressed...who has the right not to be offended, religious adherents? (yes), members of ethnic minorities? (yes), various nationalities? (yes). He never answered the question of why religion (a system of belief, i.e. thought) deserved any gentler treatment than any other system of thought or belief (utilitarianism, liberalism, conservatism, Darwinism) that all have to take their knocks.

I'd rather think that we all have the positive right to be offended. Yes, you can say what you like, but I have the right to object, to argue back and to feel aggrieved. As I said above, when we start going down the road of protecting the precious sensitivities, everyone wants their sensitivity protected, too, until finally we're paralysed by it and can't speak out when things are really wrong.

Tags: Free Speech, Austria, Holocaust, irving,

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well said. I am sick and tired of
people being so thin skinned. Our illustrious preacher now says that those of us who are not big fans of his are possessed of an evil spirit. Now that raised some hairs on the backs of necks in L'burg. This is the second time I have been accused of being in league with the devil (the other was the yoga incident). Now if anyone should be offended.....I have learned to laugh it off and say give people enough rope and they will hang themselves. Is this kind?

jen said...

I think the right to free speech should be absolute. Full stop.

But just because you have the *right* to offend someone, doesn't mean you deliberately should.

My 2p

Anonymous said...

"Freedom of speech" appears to be defined by whatever self-serving group or individual who literally owns and/or runs the country in question. The "holocaust" issue refers specifically to a claim that the Nazi regime slaughtered 6 million jews in a failed attempt to erase their people and religion from existence and as such is strictly kept solely as a jewish issue by the majority of jews.
It must then be obvious who controls the countries which pass federal laws enacting automatic jail sentences of several years duration for refuting the "holocaust" claim in any degree. (Hint: if hitler won the war, he may well have claimed that the jews murdered 6 million germans.) All these countries are under very strong economic control by wealthy and influential jews. There is no freedom of speech in any of these countries if the speech is in a non-supportive tone for the jews, whatever the issue.

If the muslims took over and kicked out the jews, we still would not have any freedom of speech since we would be murdered for saying anything that may upset a muslim. Oppression knows no racial bounds.

Thus, it makes no difference what is right or wrong, what really did or did not happen, or which group is the victim or the fiend; ANYBODY who uses their power and position to prevent others from having their say is the worst kind of dirtbag and obviously has a selfish agenda to attend to, regardless of who they hurt or kill. Only those with dark secrets to hide would stop others from talking. The jews in control of the "holocaust" dispensing are worse than hitler by destroying free speech and they do not represent the intelligent jews who oppose such actions.
Between 12 to 14 million russians were allgedly slaughtered at the same time in history yet nobody has gone to jail yet for denying that occurence. A recorded and documented number of at least 25 million ukrainians (as many as 32 million) were allgedly slaughtered as well, but not a soul has spent time in prison for denying that occurence.

The entire holocaust issue ignores and seperates itself from the other nationalities and religions who apparently suffered and died in far greater numbers. In this sense, the jews in charge of the holocaust business are themselves denying the mass murders of tens of millions of other peoples. Should we put them in jail as well?

Sometimes were right, sometimes were wrong, sometimes we just want to be irritating to those who irritate us. Sometimes we may spout off inanely.
Freedom must NEVER be restricted, even if it is the freedom to be an idiot.

Anonymous said...

Which is why that post by the idiot Anonymous is allowed to stand.

Vol Abroad said...

Ummm yeah... wow! Though since it's my space I can restrict comments. But I won't. (I do delete spam comments with links to "enhancement" technology, though)

I leave it, partly because we see in the 2nd anonymous comment (the first is from VolMom)the new face of holocaust denial - a not quite denial, but close enough.

This is something I can't quite get my head around...but people seem determined to believe stupid crap in the face of facts all the time. Hey, if you want to be a National Socialist - well go ahead - it's vile on all kinds of grounds, I'll denounce you for what you are, but so long as you guys refuse to even recognise FACTS - I have to just laugh at your stupidity.

And yes, I believe in freedom of speech holocaust deniers, too. And when they are jailed I worry about the principles, but don't expect me to fret too much about the personal "tragedy" of jailed neo-Nazis.

Abu Hamza - jailed in the UK recently, was convicted of inciting violence, but also for stirring up hate - I'm glad he's in jail for the former, but shocked and horrified that he's in jail for the latter.

Vol-in-Law said...

"It must then be obvious who controls the countries which pass federal laws enacting automatic jail sentences of several years duration for refuting the "holocaust" claim in any degree"

I love this, it's just so ridiculous. On this reasoning Austria and Germany are controlled by Jews, while countries like the USA that protect free speech are not? No matter how anti-semitic you are you must see how stupid that sounds. In my experience the countries with the strongest "holocaust denial" laws are also among the most racist and anti-semitic in the western world. In the Austrian case especially I think that jailing foreign historians lets them feel good about themselves while they smugly ignore the truth about their own society. Grrr.

jen said...

Freedom must NEVER be restricted, even if it is the freedom to be an idiot.

Ha! Clearly s/he was oblivious to the raging irony in that statement ;)

I just came back to these comments - VolAbroad, you're much more tolerant than I. Free speech is a wonderful thing, but I say, that's what myspace.com is for - getchyer own damn website!

But I'm evil like that...