Free Speech Does Not Apply to The Holocaust

He deserves jail for voicing an unpopular opinion? YMBFJing!

"I don't like jews" <--- Unpopular opinion

"The holocaust didn't happen" <--- Ignorant statement of incorrect fact or hateful lie, depending on how generous you are

There are many levels of "Deserved". What the man deserves is to be thrown IN one of the WWII-era german concentration camps for a few weeks. Since that can't happen, a luxurious prison seems fitting.

Still don't agree with the law.

An unpopular opinion might be: Garlic is a good flavor for a daquiri.

This goes beyond an unpopular opinion. Trying to wipe away the deaths of millions and state it never happened, and therefore, that people who claim it did have an agenda... that's not an unpopular opinion. That's evil.

Not saying I agree or disagree with the jail sentence. I have mixed feelings. But let's not pretend it's just a matter of having a quirky outlook on life.

All history is opinion. The winner of wars sets history. If Germany had won WWII, we would have a different set of "facts" to back the other "reality".

Not exactly. There are no laws against denying the purges of joseph stalin, the chinese cultural revolution, the killing fields of pohl pat in cambodia, among many others. This is not about free speech or the merits of the idea, this is about the choice of two nations to make the denial of past bad conduct a criminal offense. They have made a legal choice that says they feel the obligation to ackknowledge the sins of the past outwieghs the individual's interest in free expression.

It is not about denying the the deaths of millions being evil.

And Kevin, in the US we have the supreme court that nominaly prevents silly laws from being passed by the whim of the majority, and a president who can veto such laws. Thus flag-burning is not a crime in the US.

Really? I know an old man who has a set of numbers tattooed on his arm. Is that an opinion, too?



Aaah, and there's the difference. You were talking law; I was talking morality. It's not surprising the two don't mix well

But, if we're talking about the law itself, it might not hurt to remember the climate in which it was passed. After WWII, *many* Germans outright denied the Holocaust ever happened. I know this because my grandmother was one of them and denied it, as far as I know, to her dying day. The Allies, and later the governments of West Germany and Austria, had an interest in stopping that behavior.

Again, I have mixed feelings on it, and I'm not saying it's 100 percent wrong or right. Just pointing out that the laws weren't passed in a vaccuum.

I love situations like this where the Left gets to prove once again that they are on the wrong side of everything.

But before I get into that, let me weigh in on the actual topic of this thread-Free Speech. I agree with Eboni (not unusual) that this is a blow, however well meant, against free speech. I do not want the government deciding what I can and cannot say except in issues of national security. (they should throw away the key on whoever leaked this NSA thing AND the reporters AND the editor who published it)

There are plenty of people who don't believe the Holocaust occured, or downplay it in some fashion, or think it did happen and it was really great! The more vocal of these groups, Skinheads, WAR, etc, we simply marginalize and shake our heads at. The quieter ones we just call Liberals.

No matter how the Israelis came to own their land, they own it. Period. Everybody knows how we got the US and you won't find many Americans willing to give it back and move back to their ancestors' home of record so expecting the Israelis to do it is hypocritical...which, of course, is typical of the Left.

Finally, I just want to thank the Lefty leaders who came out to this thread to show their asses.



Really, Kendra, why aren't you saying if you agree or not? Is it because there's safety and deniability in the grey area? Or are you just wating to get moveon.org position statement? Call me crazy, but I'm gonna come right out and say I disagree with this guy.



And here we have the classic Liberal tactic: If Your Position Is Indefensible-Try Debating the Meaning of Words! We saw this used to great success during the Clinton years when Liberals started a national discussion on the meaning of the words "sex" and even "is". But maybe Dianne is right. Maybe all he really wants to do is just shift Isreal's location a little bit...like into the sea.

And now the Jews are terrrorists. That's hawt. Now who is revising history? Tell me all about the Jewish carbombers blowing up busloads of innocent Palestinians, Dianne.

Oh, and a Palestinian terrorist, Arafat, was invited to the White House in the 90s and also got a Nobel Peace Prize despite the fact that his government was paying tens of thousands of dollars to the families of suicide bombers.



Right! Because of course Ahmadinejad is clearly a peace monger! Yeah! And even though his country is sitting on tons and tons of oil, they only want that nuclear technology for energy! Yeah! That's the ticket! And all this time I thought he was a "crazed dictator".



-Kiamat Dusk
...cue Left wing hysterics...

Mostly because it wasn't germaine to the point I was making, however, if you truly think a middle aged jewish woman who's family was effectively gutted in concentration camps in Poland needs to wait for moveon.org to form her own opinion on the Holocaust then you are sadly mistaken.

In fact, it's my awareness of what happened to Germany under fascism that leads me to be as watchful as I am of the Bush administration.



and now with even more success Bush uses it to start a national discussion on the meaning of "torture" and "spying".






How racist of you.








What acts of agression has Ahmadinejad committed again? Oh that's right I'm engaging in pre-9/11 thinking --let's just carpet bomb another sovereign nation on a hunch.

As usual, Kiamat --you never dissappoint with your Rush Limbaugh retread funnies.

-Kiamat Dusk
Condi '08!

Bring out the "history" along with the old man's arm so we can inspect them. Oh, right, history is an account of events. As told by an observer. The events can't be recreated for inspection.

You still seem to not understand the meaning of "opinion".

An "account of events", accurate or innacurate, is not an opinion. You can have an opinion on if an account is accurate or not, and you can suggest alternate accounts - but the account itself is not an opinion.

I disagree. Here is my definition of opinion to start with...

A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof: “The world is not run by thought, nor by imagination, but by opinion” (Elizabeth Drew).

An account of events from a single perspective is "A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof".

Let me explain. I see Jim run in a house with a gun. I hear a bang, then Jim runs out. My perspective would lead me to a "belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof".

My opinion would be Jim fired a shot inside, perhaps shooting someone. But my knowledge is limited to what I actually saw. I don't know Jim or the people in the house.

Now, if I'm the one making the history concerning Jim and the gun story, I'm going to tell my conclusion, not just what I saw. Furthermore, I may even embellish the story for personal reasons. Remember the winner of a war gets to write history, and even gets to demand the losers agree with their accounts.

Once a professor of mine, to show how poorly eye witness accounts really are, had a young man run into class and steal his glasses. Afterwards he asked several students to describe the thief. There were so many conflicting statements. No one was even able to describe the correct color shirt. We all had an opinion as to what we saw. One said his shirt was blue, another said red. In the end we found out the shirt was green.

So, yes, accounts of events are indeed opinions, even among eye witnesses.

So it doesnt matter if there was one or fifty railcars filled with dead bodies, when the allies reach the deathcamps, because of the possibilty that some of the details may be incorrect! Throw the baby out with the bathwater, eh?

Newsflash Kevn, and I don't care what your professor said (and it doesn't take a professor to make that point btw, I think most adults realize that), opinions can have basis in verifiable fact, and even if some details are incorrectly reported, or different witnesses have slightly different accounts of the incident, it likely still happened. Your professor's glasses were still stolen, regardless of the eyewitnesses reports.

I suppose I should ask you if you're saying that varying eyewitness accounts are reason enough to disqualify the larger, verifiable truth?

Actually, I'm not questioning or supporting the account of events as told by the winners of WWII in this thread. My point in this thread has been freedom of expression, something I hold most dear.

You might tell me the World Trade Center Bombing was not done by Arab terrorists, but by our own government. To the victims it might be considered sacrilegious, but it's not illegal to hold differing opinions in America, for now.

I can't think of any historical event that would be protected by force of law, keeping any lips from uttering dissenting interpretations.

Perhaps it is almost like a religious belief, this historical account. I know Iranians can be jailed for blasphemy.

That is one accepted definition of opinion according to the OED, out of nine possible, but not, I don't believe, what anyone else in this thread is using it as.

Photographic evidence does wonders.

Does that mean anytime there are pictures of an event, no one can offer differing opinions as to the meaning of the pictures?

Even if the guy is out of his mind wrong there should be no law forcing him to shut up.

I pretty much anticipated this response.

No, of course not. However, carried to it's ultimate extreme, there's no point in teaching anything or believing in anything in history, since it's all "opinion" by your reasoning. Rather, I say, we fall back on the juror's law... reasonable doubt. It doesn't mean no doubt. Is the holocaust beyond reasonable doubt? Yes. Is it beyond any doubt? Apparently not, to some people.

I mean, honestly, yest it is, but some asshats have to be contrary.




I agree! I just also think it's funny as hell and he deserves it in a karmic sense. A space-time vortex opening up and dropping him naked into the middle of auschwitz would also be funny, but, admitedly, less likely to happen.

If it can happen to him, it can happen to you or me. I wouldn't be joyful to see people persecuted by the thought police.

I make it a point not to be an asshat.

Asshole, maybe. As you may be able to guess from my signature, me and shadenfraude have a healthy and not entierly platonic relationship.

Has anybody here read any history? The Jews who moved to the British Mandate did buy land from the Arabs. The Jews who were already living there (Jerusalem had a Jewish majority for centuries before the state of Israel was created) didn't have to buy land, because they already owned it.

And most of the Israel bashers, including the moronic President of Iran, are avoiding one simple fact about Israel. The majority of Israelis are from the Middle East and North Africa. The President of Israel was born in Iran. Most Israelis are from Arab countries. They were expelled after Israel declared its independence. So why on earth should they move to Europe? They and their ancestors had lived in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Morocco and other parts of the Muslim world for generations. Will these Arab countries take them back now?

Really? What a load of crap. I challenge you to go to Tehran and tell them their belief in the Prophet is a myth. See how much time they give you to explain that you meant "sacred story". These are people who burn embassies because of cartoons. So go on, tell the nice Muslim man that his beliefs are myth. See what happens.

Yes Kevn, if you go to Austria and publicly deny the existence of the Holocaust you too can be arrested. Austria is a democracy. Austrians chose this law because of Austria's history and society. That's called local government. This law doesn't target any single religious, ethnic or economic group. It is simply in effect as a measure to keep a fourth Reich from arising. If the Austrians decide they don't need the law any more they can repeal it.

What I find absolutely effing amazing is the people quoting the President of Iran one minute and decrying the loss of free speech the next. Go to Tehran and try to express yourselves. See what happens. Why are there always two standards of conduct in these cases? One for the Americans, Europeans and Israel and a much lower standard for Muslim countries? How can some one who claims to be concerned with Freedom of Expression quote the president of a country that sentenced Salman Rushdie to death for his fictional book.

Who is quoting the president of Iran? Not I....

What amazes me is people actually think it's okay to jail people based on their opinions. Surely these aren't Americans. And if they are, they are not freedom loving. A true freedom loving American would never suggest it's okay to jail a person based on their opinions. This World is going to hell in a hand basket.