Holocaust Denial

I'll try answering more briefly then: TANSTAAFL.
Does that help?

No. I am supporting the right to say what (s)he likes, simply requesting (not requiring) they do so with a measure of respect for others. That's a measure of respect, not a subservience to.

My punch in the mouth is a personal expression of disapproval, in the specific and is separate from my defence, in general, of their right to say it. Since the general principle takes precedence over my personal feelings in the matter it is appropriate that the law be brought to bear on me for my actions.

Things are both black and white and grey. At the same time. If light can be both a particle and a wave I have no difficulty applying the same dichotomy to ethics.

 

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This usually isn;t a case of someone saying that the Holocaust didn;t exist or was not as massive. One usually gets away with a lot of spoken word. What is usually the case is this law punishes those who present "scientific papers", "Historical studies" and other type of pseudo-researched and vetted reports. In other words people trying to give some legitimacy to their lies.

 

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When both sides says the same damn thing! testimony is not hard scientific proof, but in historical context, testimony is evidence.

I don;t doubt six million Jews dead for a minute. There were at lest 200% of that number in the countries the Holocaust raged in. Assuming that between extermination camps and the way some Jews may have died in hiding, six million deaths is an easy number to imagine. Then there is aht gypsies, gays, blacks, and all other of Hitler's undesirables.

 

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Thanks for finally providing some links regarding your claim in the OP. Shame they actually falsified it. Only a handful have ever been convicted. Most if not all of those imprisoned have actually been released so aren't exactly 'rotting in jail' at all.

David Irving as I mentioned earlier is notorious in Britain for his 'work' with the far right in whipping up hatred and violence. He did deny the holocaust but when he was given irrefutable proof continued his nefarious ways by denying that gas chambers were used in Auchwitz again despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. When faced with a pending conviction he furiously back peddalled refuting his 'research' regarding his claims. In Britain he is seen as a joke, albeit a dangerous one, rather than a 'historian'. As far as I understand he is no longer in prison either.

As I also said earlier any genuine historian who uncovers real evidence regarding an historical event is well aware of processes involved in presenting their findings to their peers and it doesn't involved handing out pamphlets and speaking at nazi rallies. Not if they wish to be taken seriously as historians or expert amateurs at any rate.

By the way I'm very capable of using google. I'm also capable of reading books, newspaper articles and visiting places where primary materials (ie evidence) on the subject at hand are available to the public for viewing and I have also had the opportunity to talk to holocaust survivors. This tends to give a more rounded opinion on a subject than a google search. You should try it sometime cellar.

 

Again I must apologize. I was under the impression we were discussing what should be, not what is. In the case of what should be, your personal opinions wouldn't matter unless they are the same as a larger group of those who either profess the same opinion or oppose it. If one of those two factors were in play, then they would form the consensus of opinion I spoke of.

I believe that laws that govern societies behavior should contain stern enough penalty to dissuade the members of that society from performing actions that defy those laws. Through trial and error, the penalty must be discovered that will prevent those punches in the mouth that require the intervention of authorities.

A peaceful society would be one in which no one would dare break a law, due to the severity of the consequences.

Of course, a law with penalties would have to be in place for those who think they can say things that cause mental anguish to those who are deeply offended by certain subject matter.

In truth, I don't think this type of society can be formed. It strikes me as the type of society that is portrayed in movies like "Soylent Green" and "1984".

I believe that the only way to change society is over time. Large amounts of time. I believe that in a few hundred years, our current societies will be looked at in much the same manner as we now look at the Middle Ages.

Nat

 

I admit that 'many people' is misleading - but a 'handful' (which could be anything from three to a hundred depending on the context) is still too many.

As for David Irving - he is one example, and his ruling was partially due to another 'incitement of racial hatred' charge. Vincent Reynouard, on the other hand, is a better example of where Holocaust Denial can land you. He wrote a fairly concise 16-page pamphlet on the improbability of the logistics of the 'six-million' figure. My point, essentially, is that his questioning was valid and worthy of a floor. ANY OTHER event in History would have allowed for this.

You seem to discredit David Irving's revisionism just because it is accompanied by his far-right politics. That is really not the point in question here.
And please do not lecture me on his status in the UK. I do not have time to engage in a defence of my knowledge of the politics (and Holocaust Denial Movement/Laws) of my own country; if that is your excuse for a thorough counter argument, then you are obviously scraping the barrel.

 

If that's the case I wish no laws at all. Laws are oppressive and restrictive. I don't like them and I rarely pay them any heed.
I suspect we will simply have to agree to disagree.

 

Well try googling it!

A handful suggests enough to fit in the grasp of a hand (ie less than half a dozen) not hundreds!

David Irvings is discredited not by me but by his own dishonesty (to which he confessed) and by the exposure of the lies (again self-confessed) he tried to pass of as research which were then used by the far right to justify violence against jews and other minorities in the UK and Europe. This information was contained in one of the links you and Sam posted as evidence to support your own positions.

And for the last time. Anyone with new evidence wanting to be taken seriously knows what route to take when presenting the evidence for scrutiny and again it is not handing 16 page pamphlets out on the streets of Paris but if that's good enough evidence for you....

 

Does it matter whether he lied or not? It was his opinion right or wrong and while he may be debated over it, I do not think he should be arrested for having them.

 

You may be misunderstanding me. I don't wish to disagree with you. I want to learn how you really think about this issue.

If you're just tired or bored with the subject, I understand. If you wish to continue discussing it, then I'd have to ask you if you're being facetious with your last statements. Having absolutely no restrictions to anything what-so-ever is something I don't think will ever happen, even in a hundred thousand years.

Realistically, what major sociological changes do you think the world will take in the next one hundred years?

Do you think laws will become more restrictive or more lenient? Do you think another "World" war will take place?

I'm curious about the broader aspects of your opinions about our worlds future.

 

I'm not talking about what will happen, but about what I would like to happen. I am not talking about absolutely no restrictions. I am talking about absolutely no laws. Do you see the difference.
In a world where people behaved in an ethical manner at all times, out of a sense of obligation and cooperation, laws would be unnecessary. Utopian? Of course it is.

Unless we struggle to achieve the Uptopian ideal I have mentioned we will sink into a fascisistic, 1984 nightmare world where we have surrendered our liberty out of a pathetic fear of the odd, oddity who flys planes into buildings.
And sadly, in such a world the only heroes left, will be left with no option but to fly planes into buildings.

How many people die in the US each year from the consequences of drinking and driving?
Have we invaded the breweries?

How many people in the US each year die of gunshot wounds?
Have we invaded the armouries?

How many people in the third world each day die of malnutrition and dirty water?
Have we invaded our consciences and demanded an accounting?

 

Hand them out on the streets of Paris? It's hard enough wading through your bile as it is, without the added difficulty of you making things up.
Yet another cheap and false attack at the 'convict' in question in place of a solid argument against his right to free speech. You are avoiding the relevant point.

It would be interesting to read the quote for that.

 

Ophiolite:I'm not talking about what will happen, but about what I would like to happen.

I would love that to happen as well. Maybe after humans evolve for a few thousand more years, the Real Estate, religious and pigmentation prejudices will cease and a world more in line with what you and I wish for will happen.

I am not talking about absolutely no restrictions. I am talking about absolutely no laws. Do you see the difference.

We can play semantic games.....hehe

The "law" of gravity? The laws of physics?

I know what you mean. I'm just having fun.

In a world where people behaved in an ethical manner at all times, out of a sense of obligation and cooperation, laws would be unnecessary. Utopian? Of course it is.

What a very cool world that would be.

Unless we struggle to achieve the Utopian ideal I have mentioned we will sink into a fascistic, 1984 nightmare world where we have surrendered our liberty out of a pathetic fear of the odd, oddity who flies planes into buildings.
And sadly, in such a world the only heroes left, will be left with no option but to fly planes into buildings.

That sounds like the only possibilities in your mind are Utopia or Hell with no 'tweens'.

How many people die in the US each year from the consequences of drinking and driving?

Many many more than would if the punishment for doing so was a mandatory life sentence at hard labor for the first offence in a prison where there are no tv's, no weight rooms, no visitors, and nothing but basic dietary needs fulfilled. Something like the tent jail in that Georgia, USA county. Enforce the first thousand and the rate of incidence would drop like a rock.

Have we invaded the breweries?

No. We slap their hands and let them do it as much as they wish.

How many people in the US each year die of gunshot wounds?
Have we invaded the armouries?

Again, no fear of consequences that are too lenient. They get sent to that prison country club for a couple of years.

How many people in the third world each day die of malnutrition and dirty water?
Have we invaded our consciences and demanded an accounting?

Mankind is too intent on battling over real estate, religion and pigmentation to take care of the real problems of the world. People are pretty stupid mostly. Imagine some of the more crazy of current incidents; people murdering their own daughters because the young women are doing something against their Fathers religious code. Monkeys are smarter.

To stop the craziness, you first have to change the mindset of the entire world. Only something radical like an Extraterrestrial invasion would do that. Perhaps a plague that wipes out 98% of the humans on the planet would do it.

 

I have not made anything up. I am quoting from the links that SAM put up as 'proof'. I read them you see as they were put up as the 'evidence'. Go see for yourself. As for David Irving: I mentioned he is a well known and a self confessed liar. :shrug: He BROKE THE LAW in a country he visited (having been given a previous warning that he was breaking the law) and was punished according to the law of the land.

 

That "law" is what we are arguing against. Whether he lied or not is irrelevant.

 

This is my position on this issue. I repeat:

 

That's not what I asked. Can you find me the quote where he admits he lied about his views? I seem to be having difficulty locating it.

Well then allow me to quote from the links that I read and provided, as I seem to have found a contradiction of sources.

"The work sent to museums and city halls across France"
- ("http://www.ejpress.org/article/21586")

 

How 'Holocaust denier' fought and lost
By Jon Silverman
Legal Affairs analyst


David Irving's reputation as a historian was shredded at the High Court in April 2000 in a devastating judgement.


It is not clear whether David Irving made other trips to Austria
At the conclusion of a libel action brought by Mr Irving against American academic Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books, Mr Justice Charles Grey described Mr Irving as a "falsifier of history" an "associate of right-wing extremists" and "an active Holocaust denier".

In a book, Ms Lipstadt had branded Mr Irving "one of the most prominent and dangerous Holocaust deniers".

The three-month case was among the most colourful in British legal history.

Mr Irving, defending himself and surrounded by a mountain of source material, opened by describing his opponents as "part of an international endeavour" to destroy his reputation and make him untouchable by publishers.

Later, a video was played to the court, showing him telling a meeting that "more women died on the back seat of Edward Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick than died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz".

Wider issues

Mr Justice Grey's judgement comprehensively dismantled Mr Irving's case and his reputation. It was later published as a book.

Although a libel action, it was Holocaust denial which was, by implication, on trial.

In Britain, to deny the Holocaust is not a criminal offence but it is in Austria and that is why Mr Irving has been arrested there.




In a co-incidence of timing, one of Mr Irving's associates, convicted Canadian Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, is standing trial in Germany, having been extradited to face charges of inciting racial hatred and spreading Nazi propaganda. Like Austria, Germany has a Holocaust denial law, as does France.

Lawyer James Libson, who represented Deborah Lipstadt in her battle with Mr Irving, believes it is right that they should have.

"Given Britain's history, it would be ridiculous to have a Holocaust denial law here. But in countries like Germany and Austria, where far-right, neo-Nazi parties are highly visible, it is different. However, the Holocaust denial message is still being disseminated, despite the law," he says.

Bankruptcy

Mr Irving is an undischarged bankrupt and the Trustee in Bankruptcy is still trying to recover assets tied up in archive documents and World War II diaries in his possession. Some are thought to be quite valuable.

Since losing his Mayfair flat, the disgraced historian has relied on an international network of supporters for financial help and from his speaking engagements abroad, which are invariably in front of extreme right-wing, anti-Semitic audiences.

Despite the mortal blow to his reputation in 2000, he remains a showman and may well relish the opportunity to grandstand before a wider audience if put on trial.

 

Holocaust denier Irving is jailed

David Irving arrived at court carrying a copy of one of his books
British historian David Irving has been found guilty in Vienna of denying the Holocaust of European Jewry and sentenced to three years in prison.
He had pleaded guilty to the charge, based on a speech and interview he gave in Austria in 1989.

"I made a mistake when I said there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz," he told the court in the Austrian capital.

Irving appeared stunned by the sentence, and told reporters: "I'm very shocked and I'm going to appeal."

An unidentified onlooker told him: "Stay strong!"

Irving's lawyer said he considered the verdict "a little too stringent".

"I would say it's a bit of a message trial," said Elmar Kresbach.

Karen Pollock, chief executive of the UK's Holocaust Educational Trust welcomed the verdict. "Holocaust denial is anti-Semitism dressed up as intellectual debate. It should be regarded as such and treated as such," Ms Pollock told the BBC News website.

But the author and academic Deborah Lipstadt, who Irving unsuccessfully sued for libel in the UK in 2000 over claims that he was a Holocaust denier, said she was dismayed.

"I am not happy when censorship wins, and I don't believe in winning battles via censorship... The way of fighting Holocaust deniers is with history and with truth," she told the BBC News website.

I'm not an expert on the Holocaust

David Irving

Case prompts Austria case
In quotes: Reaction

Fears that the court case would provoke right-wing demonstrations and counter-protests did not materialise, the BBC's Ben Brown at the court in Vienna said.

Irving, 67, arrived in the court room handcuffed, wearing a blue suit, and carrying a copy of Hitler's War, one of many books he has written on the Nazis, and which challenges the extent of the Holocaust.

Irving was arrested in Austria in November, on a warrant dating back to 1989, when he gave a speech and interview denying the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz.

He was stopped by police on a motorway in southern Austria, where he was visiting to give a lecture to a far-right student fraternity. He has been held in custody since then.

'I've changed'

During the one-day trial, he was questioned by the prosecutor and chief judge, and answered questions in fluent German.

He admitted that in 1989 he had denied that Nazi Germany had killed millions of Jews. He said this is what he believed, until he later saw the personal files of Adolf Eichmann, the chief organiser of the Holocaust.

"I said that then based on my knowledge at the time, but by 1991 when I came across the Eichmann papers, I wasn't saying that anymore and I wouldn't say that now," Irving told the court.

"The Nazis did murder millions of Jews."

In the past, he had claimed that Adolf Hitler knew little, if anything, about the Holocaust, and that the gas chambers were a hoax.

COUNTRIES WITH LAWS AGAINST HOLOCAUST DENIAL
Austria
Belgium
Czech Republic
France
Germany
Israel
Lithuania
Poland
Romania
Slovakia
Switzerland


Timeline: David Irving
Denying the Holocaust

The judge in his 2000 libel trial declared him "an active Holocaust denier... anti-Semitic and racist".

On Monday, before the trial began, he told reporters: "I'm not a Holocaust denier. Obviously, I've changed my views.

"History is a constantly growing tree - the more you know, the more documents become available, the more you learn, and I have learned a lot since 1989."

Asked how many Jews were killed by Nazis, he replied: "I don't know the figures. I'm not an expert on the Holocaust."

Of his guilty plea, he told reporters: "I have no choice."

He said it was "ridiculous" that he was being tried for expressing an opinion.

"Of course it's a question of freedom of speech... I think within 12 months this law will have vanished from the Austrian statute book," he said.

 

And some background:

Irving case prompts Austria law debate
By Bethany Bell
BBC News, Vienna



The British historian has been sentenced to three years in jail
The trial of the British historian David Irving has unleashed a debate in Austria about the country's Holocaust denial law, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail.
The law was enacted after World War II, and was meant to prevent any further Nazi activities.

Austria had been annexed to Nazi Germany in 1938, and was deeply involved in the crimes of the Third Reich.

A few Austrians, such as Lothar Hobelt, an associate professor of history at the University of Vienna, believe it should never have been set up at all.

"This is a silly law by silly people for silly people," he said.

"In fact, having a law that says you mustn't question a particular historical instance, if anything, creates doubt about it, because if an argument has to be protected by the force of law, it means it's a weak argument."


Denying the Holocaust

But many other Austrians believe that not having the law would lay them open to the charge that they were not confronting their country Nazi past.

For many years, Austrians saw themselves as victims not perpetrators. The legacy of this reluctance to admit responsibility still casts a shadow here.

Professor Theo Ohlinger, an expert in constitutional law at Vienna University, says the law is a sensitive issue.

"It is so clear that the Holocaust existed that everybody who denies it is considered a fool. But abolishing this law could signal that Austria may not be really active in fighting against any National Socialist activities, and that is a problem."

Memorial

Before World War II, 200,000 Jews lived in Vienna. Nowadays, the community is only a few thousand strong.

Vienna's chief Rabbi Chaim Eisenberg says denying the Holocaust is dangerous.

"All this is very ugly, despicable," he says.

Today we are talking about compensation payments, we are talking about restitution

Tina Walzer
Historian

"I am not sure if people should go to jail, but there should be some measure to make sure that this does not happen."

In Vienna's cobbled Judenplatz stands the stone memorial to the 65,000 Austrian Jews who died in the Holocaust.

These days, few Austrians dispute the genocide, and historian Tina Walzer says the debate has moved on.

"The discussion is on a completely different level," she says.

"Today we are talking about compensation payments, we are talking about restitution. This is much more concrete than just talking about 'did the Holocaust happen or did it not?'"

The fact that people are daring to debate the Holocaust denial law shows that Austrians are less afraid to confront the past.

But sensitivities still run very high, and as long as that is the case, the law will remain in force.


So the Austrians are talking about the issues themselves and when ready will repeal the law if they feel it is necessary. For me it is very sad, that despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary people are still denying that it happened. :shrug:

But hey that's freedom of speech for ya.