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I still don't understand WHY there are holocaust deniers...
I mean you have places, pictures, trials, witnesses, books, records, and pretty much everything you need to say "yup, this happened."
-It's like denying gravity...
Actually, that's basically why.
Richard Evans wrote a very good book, called "Lying about Hitler" that explores some of these issues (in the context of the Irving trial). Basically, Holocaust denial exists precisely because there's so much evidence that must be eliminated or airbrushed away in order to establish the legitimacy of the Nazi ideology.
Of course, this asks the question of why anyone would want to do that.... but the unfortunate fact is that there are still a lot of people who strongly believe in the Nazi ideology. While these people may be an unpopular minority today (they're probably measured in the hundreds of thousands or at most millions world-wide), this isn't necessarily the case. And in order to reestablish themselves, the neo-Nazis need to create a credible ideology worthy of serious consideration.
Hence idiotic statements like "[t]here are people who checked the Architectural plans of Austwich [sic] and found that the stories don't add up." I don't know if DM Elton himself is a fellow-traveller or merely a dupe, but that kind of statement can create the appearance of legitimate debate when, in fact, there is none. In fact, it's intended to create such a false debate. (Evans actually dealt with the Auschwitz reports in detail, and I recommend it.) Similarly, Irving takes great pains to attempt to create false interpretations of history that essentially whitewash Hitler of any anti-Semitism, interpretations that will not stand up to any sort of evidence-based scrutiny. (See Irving's treatment of the Shlegelberger note for an example.)
As to why he does it? He's a card-carrying, raving, anti-Semite. He fundamentally believes "that Jews were themselves to blame for stirring up conflict, and that the suffering inflicted upon them by the Nazis was only a logical defensive position against dangerous and subversive Jews." (description courtesy of the Anti-Defamation League). Historian Ernst Nolte identified Irving's fundamental goal as "undisguisedly a vindication of Hitler."
If we're really willing to sit down and give serious consideration to the proposition that Hitler was right all along, the Holocaust deniers have already won a major victory. No sensible person would have accepted that proposition in 1954; too many people had seen what was going on. Sixty years later, no sensible person should, but the eyewitnesses are getting rarer. When the last eyewitness is gone, it will be much easier to put lies into the documentary record.
Explaination of holocaust denial.You missed the somewhat related attempts to ride the coat tail of 'mainstream' efforts to correct the record on people like Nietzsche (his sister edited and misused him, he hated anti-semitism and national socialism) and the attempts rehabilitate Haegele (noted anti-semite and national socialist), but yeah what you said.
I did, and thank you for your addenda.
Something else that should be added, is that Holocaust denial itself has become substantially more sophisticated in dressing up (i.e. disguising) its ideas in recent decades. In the same way that "intelligent design" is really just "creationism in a cheap suit," so modern Holocaust denial is anti-Semitism in a cheap suit.
In either case, the intention is to create controversy where there is none by aping the forms of scholarly discourse without actually involving any reasoning or evidence. The Irving trial (and Evans' report on it) provide numerous examples. One of Irving's favorite tricks, for example, is to provide extensive citations to Nazi documents that he accepts unquestioningly (Evans: "taking the euphemistic language of Nazism at face value because it seeks to disguise the fact that mass murder was the subject it was referring to, but casting doubt on any source which speaks directly and in unvarnished terms about murder and extermination.") Another is simply to misrepresent the contents of documents in the hopes that future historians will be unable or unwilling to check his story against the original. For example, Irving misrepresented the dates of Goebbel's diary to suggest that Hitler was unaware of the extermination program instead of being its primary architect, twisted the minutes of a meeting between Hitler and HImmler to suggest that Himmler was "pull[ing] the wool over Hitler's eyes," placed remarks between Hitler and Horthy into a completely false context and the wrong date, and eliminated two entire sentences from a Ribbentrop interview where he (Ribbentrop) acknowledge that the entire extermination plan originated with Hitler. Perhaps most blatantly, he blatantly validated a crude forgery about the casualties from the Dresden bombing (Evans: "wholeheartedly embracing a document he himself had branded a forgery in print only a year previously") and lied about its source in order to establish credibility.
The effect is that his work superficially appears to be that of a legitimate and diligent historian, despite the fact that it's all a pack of lies.
I suggest this for anyone interested in the true history of Auschwitz, The Auschwitz Volunteer
Witold's Report was written in 1943.
StuffSo, everyone who sees the world differently is a "lunatic"? You have 100% of the answers, no one else can be right?
Nah, they're not crazy, you're just "right".
At some point, yes.
I still don't like giving the government to shut up the crazytalk though.
StuffSo, everyone who sees the world differently is a "lunatic"? You have 100% of the answers, no one else can be right?
Nah, they're not crazy, you're just "right".
At some point, yes.
I still don't like giving the government to shut up the crazytalk though.
I think I'm with BigNorseWolf here.
Even without this law, there's evidence and conviction to make nutjobs like Williamson pariahs.
I see Holocaust deniers the same way I see 9-11 Truthers. Used to be, thinking that the US government was behind the 9-11 hijackings was popular. Now, the only idiots who believe that are TEA Party fringe and assorted whackjobs. Every time I've seen one of them speak up outside of a controlled environment, they've been shut down and ridiculed by more knowledgeable people.
Freedom to believe without freedom to act on that belief is not freedom of belief.So does that mean that one shouldn't be free to believe that (Jews/blacks/homosexuals/women) are (inferior/evil) or that one should be free to act on those beliefs and discriminate against them?
I can read the logic either way.
To a certain extant, yes. They should at least be able to voice that opinion. I also think that private businesses that are not working for/with federal/state/local government should be able to deny hiring/services to whoever they wish. If someone did deny services to one of the groups you mentioned, I'd probably think them a jerk and say so, but I still think they should be allowed to do so.
StuffSo, everyone who sees the world differently is a "lunatic"? You have 100% of the answers, no one else can be right?
Nah, they're not crazy, you're just "right".
At some point, yes.
I still don't like giving the government to shut up the crazytalk though.
It has to be considered in the context of German society though. I agree, we should have no such law here in the US, but Germany was responsible for some pretty horrifying things and declaring that support of such things within Germany unlawful seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Here in the US, Nazi's are just crazy's who very few people pay attention to.
In Germany, they're a group responsible for killing several million people.
Nazi's aren't gone from Germany either. They're much fewer in number and in hiding, but they still exist. Within the context of German history, I don't think they should be given any mercy or protection for their beliefs.
So free speech is equated to screaming "Fire!" in a crowded cinema. Big surprise. Free speech means specifically that opinions you do NOT like can be spoken. Freedom to say what people around you LIKE to hear has never needed protection.
However, the biggest problems with this type of law are usually not discussed.
First, it's a way to keep the official narrative sacrosanct, unchanging, untouchable. Certainly, the reasons for this are good, understandable... but unsatisfying. Society changes. People change. Political climate changes. There are many reasons the narrative SHOULD change. Each new period will use different words, different values and different views, and even a CONSTANT narrative would need to be updated. For a pop cultural reference, see Captain America in the recent Marvel movies. He is a man out of time, from the very period we are discussing, and consistently painted as different. It's laughable to say that the original accounts are enough. While they are original and important, they are also a product of their time, just like all other accounts.
Second, as was pointed out, history IS written by the winners. It takes time for truths about any historical events to come out. New discoveries, new testimonies, new comparisons are found every year, and parts of what we thought we know DO turn out to be embellishments or outright lies. Often, the climate of the day does not allow criticism of this. But if what we are seeking is understanding, and I like to think it is, we need to keep an open mind even to viewpoints we do not agree with. And let's not fool ourselves: The opposing viewpoints are going to get spread whatever we do. At that point, it does us no favours to cling to the old story if we're suddenly faced with evidence of tampering. It's about showing a good mix of vigilance and mental agility to deal with things like this. We're fooling ourselves if we think the race has been won forever. Don't rock the boat is not a winning strategy. The boat WILL be rocked whether we like it or not.
Third, and perhaps the most important part of this: An unchanging narrative keeps the wounds open and fresh. While we might not like to think about it, the world moves on even after monstrous events. The survivors find new lives, new reasons, and new thoughts. Memories ARE SUPPOSED to fade, in time for new generations and new times. Most of the Germans today can't be said to carry much if any responsibility for what Germans did during WWII, simply on account of not having been born then, or being too young to realistically have influenced the proceedings. And while the memories will go the way of everything else on this Earth, the political events that lead up to WWII are well known and understood, so we know what to watch for. Which leads me to...
Fourth, I can understand that people want to prevent a new fascist/nazi movement to take power, and that these laws seem to be a good way to do so. Nothing strange about it. But what amazes me is that people seem to think that "if we just keep the extreme right out of power, we're in the clear". The truth is that EVERY totalitarian movement, whether on the right or the left or even one espousing totalitarianism for any other goal (environmentalism, religion, conservatism) presents exactly the same danger. The totalitarian leftist societies certainly didn't shy away from executing people in nightmarish numbers either. I am with Churchill on this. The next time this is done, it will probably be done by people calling themselves anti-fascists. Fear of nazis is just as much fear as fear of jews, and can be twisted and used for exactly the same purposes by those fanatic enough about whatever goals they have.
Regarding the Holocaust specifically, it's a quirk of history that it was performed by a group who believed strongly in meticulous documentation. Whatever else, we should count ourselves lucky for this - the nazis left enough paper trails to prove it exceedingly well.
Actually sissyl, that wasnt winston churchill, it was huey long, and in relation to american patriots, not autonomous antifascists. Which are very very different.
But yeah, totalitarian movements tend to do crap to the working class, whether theyre fascist of some flavor, stalinist of some flavor, religious of some flavor, or capitalist of some flavor.
That said, i vehemently disagree with the whole everyone should get to speak their opinion, no matter how horrid. Im all for juridical freedom of speech as protection from the state (as the state will always work to uphold status quo, incuding the kyriarchy and capitalism) but goddamn do i prefer neonazis beaten up then organized and beating up people. Because that is what happens. Antifascism is self defense.
As for the "it'll spread anyways, so no point in outlawing" argument, murder is illegal in most countries, yet it still happens. Is that a reason to abolish laws about murder?
Laws are ways for society to determine what is and is not acceptable. In Germany, it is not acceptable to deny the Holocaust.
Thing is, to many, fascism isnt just some "horrible ideology", it is adirect threat to their health and lives. The neonazi and fascist movements are violent, and murder people time and again. Just in my country, people are getting stabbed, a guy in a wheelchair got tortured to death, a woman got murdered and dismembered by neonazis in a town just a few miles from mine. Union locales are getting firebombed, racialized peopleterrorized and so on and so on.
You cant meet that with rational debate. Not only is there no point, but the energy spent trying is energy that the nazis use to kill people. If im in a burning building, i dont spend time tellng the fire to stop being so hot.
And the reason for the whole "fsscists of the future" quote is because the people it referred to - flagwaving american patriots - have a lot in common with fascist ideologues. The might makes right, the homophobia and racism, the nationalism, the anti-union stances, their glorifying of institutional violence et cetera.
Ilja: Doesn't that prove quite well that you don't actually need these laws for fascist crap to be illegal enough? Last I checked, stabbing people, torturing people to death, murdering and dismembering people, firebombing houses are ALL illegal acts. If these people are doing all these things, that some of them claim the Holocaust didn't happen is not going to change much in the legal situation, is it? It sounds like what is needed is more resources spent on investigating them and their actions and prosecuting them for it, not more laws for minor crimes that also carry big risks for misuse. And, of course, free speech only means that you are allowed to speak in relation to the state, not that you should not suffer ridicule, ostracism and similar punishments for what you said. And sometimes, that leads others to use violence against you. That should, of course, be similarly investigated and prosecuted.
I find it strange that you say that all the totalitarian systems are bad for the working class... I would far prefer to say that they are crap to our entire societies and more or less everyone in them. Isn't that a better reason to reject them than the plight of only the working class? Or is it that you consider yourself to be living in a totalitarian society because it's a capitalist one?
And whether Churchill said so or not, it still says what is important, that authoritarian and totalitarian political movements run off fear, and anything can be used as the target of that fear.
Thing is, laws are pointless in a vacuum, their relevance only comes from their consequence.
Its like with drunk driving; drunk driving is illegal because theres a risk of hurting someone. Now, hitting people with your car is already illegal, so we should.t need a law against ,drunk driving, right? Thing is, without that law, more people will get hit by car. That its illegal and the offender might be punished really has no relevance there, because the victim is already hurt. And might not have been if drunk drivig was illegal. In so, the law against drunk driving prevents deaths. Just allocatig more funds to investigating who thedrunk driver was does very little.
That is the goal of the german law (and similar laws, like against incitement etc). The point of the law is to prevent neonazi lies and propaganda from spreading, becausehen the propaganda spreads, they have an easier time recruiting, which leads to higher frequency of Breiviks. Its hard to know how well it works without seeing a study on it, but it doesnt seem unlikely that it works to some extent.
The reason i reject them because of what they do to the working class is because they dont do anything bad to the ruling class, more than that it changes exactly who it is composed of. I dont care if an exploitive bastard gets taken out by another exploitive bastard, I care about lessening the exploitation.
Sadly, that is a false equivalence, Ilja. Drunk driving is illegal because it increases the number of ACCIDENTS unacceptably. You are claiming the fascists are bad because they are violent, hardly a good comparison since that violence is anything but accidental.
If you want to discuss the dangers of political propaganda, then maybe Breivik should be discussed along with the RAF? It's odd how it seems that ANY ideology that is embraced to the level of fanaticism gives its proponents the subjective right to kill people they perceive as enemies, isn't it? And, of course, as you say, there is no study on it.
And if you seriously think a totalitarian regime is NOT bad news for people who do not belong to the working class... I am sorry, your social narrative is much too simplistic. I don't know how to help you.
Im not saying fascists are like drunk driving, Im saying laws are made because of the cpnsequence theyll have. Laws made on principle rather that because a certain consequence is preferred are pointless.
The reason we dontdiscuss Breivik alongside RAF is mainly because RAF havent done anything in nrealy 20 years. It could of course also be noted that the whole organization of RAF killed less than half as many as Breivik alone did, less targets where civilians, they didnt target children and it should be noted that germany did arrest people for supporting them, not only those that killed people. Not that Im a fan of Baader Meinhof, im no stalinist or maoist (as you can guess from my preious posts in this thread), but there is a certain difference between them. But again, the main relevant difference is that theres 20 years between them. We dont have a rampantly spreading epidemic of militant stalinists, withfascists and neonazis we do.
And, well, not all.societies have a working class per se. Some have a slave class or similar instead, which fill the same function. But i can tell you that those living as part of the ruling class under NSDAP or Stalin or Pinochet or Kim Jong or global capitalism or any other gauthoritarian system - they fare quite well.
This is of course with a historically materialist perspective, where working class are those who need to sell their labor to live a decent life and the owning (or ruling) class is those living on the working class' labor. I dont mean class as in the neoliberal "working class/middle class/upper class" but in the historically materialistic "working class/owning lass".
thejeff: Of course. At the point you describe, people are still using words to disagree with one another, which is far better than both a) the state throwing people in jail for saying things the state doesn't like to hear, and b) the same people beating each other up over their differences.
Being called a fascist isn't the worst thing that could happen to someone. A free society means you need a pretty thick skin.
Ilja: If you claim that principles do not have a place in which laws should be made, and that laws should be made just to deal with specific situations, I do not agree with you in the slightest. Society is based on certain principles, and the laws should be the expression of those principles. This goes far deeper, but I am not prepared to discuss that now.
We're still discussing the nazis, who stopped doing what they did in 1945, aren't we? I think time passed since the RAF disbanded is a pretty useless argument. And to be perfectly honest, Breivik was a man who planned a single event and managed to slip through the system, and killed a number of the people he saw as oppressors of humanity (social democrat-active youths). Such individuals have always been a difficult thing to stop, in every society. The RAF was a far, far larger group of people who performed dozens of strikes, with public support, with financing from the STASI. The scale is pretty different. And my point remains: any totalitarian ideology is dangerous and leads to that sort of shit when embraced to fanaticism. And while nationalists are on the rise, you don't see many bombings or assassinations beyond Breivik even today. When he killed people, he was an anomaly in the statistics to the security analysts.
How large would you say the ruling class of Sweden is, Ilja? In percents of total population?
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Actually... while that's sort of true, this was tracked during the fall of the Soviet Union. Some were cast out... but at least after a while, it turned out that most of the people successful enough to be called the ruling class were the SAME people who were part of the ruling class before. Turns out valuing no principles more than your lust for power is a pretty good recipe for getting power. The people who are fanatics and ideologically bound are not the people who end up in power - in fact, most of them get shot when the totalitarian society has been set up.
Rabble-rousers and troublemakers are needed before and during a revolution, not after it.
Breivik is a symptom of his time. He would not have existed in the 60ies. He was a member of a major party until just before his attack, where vocal about his opinions and recieved a lot of support from other neonazis even before the attack (and stilldoes after). Individualizing roght-wig terror is common but always equaly flawed. And when i say havent been active for 20 years, i dont mean just the RAF, but european militant stalinists in general. When was the last time a stalinist killed someone in scandinavia? Has it happened, apartrom the germans going to the german ambassad and killing other germans, 20 years ago? Meanwhile the number of fascist and neonai deaths in scandinavia is in the hundreds during the same period.
But i agree with you on authoritorian movements, fuly. Its just that you seem to claim that any militance is authoritarian, or that resistance is authoritarian, or tcat any stance against authoritarian movement s must include an unlimited freedom of speech.
To take another example: going aroud putting up around ypur house sayig you deserve to die and that anype who reads it should consider killing you is illegal. Its also saying an opinion. It also is illegal to kill you and not a question of accidents. And i think it should stay illegal. And if i see someone putting up those posters id beat them (if i werent such a coward - but i support beating them to get them to stop). And i consider that self defense, even though what threy did was just expressing an opinion.
Becaise words matter. Propaganda matters. Thats why freedom of speech is inteeresting at all - if words couldnt be used to exert force, noone would ever care about limiting it. But since words do carry force, i think people are within theor roght to protect themselves from that forcewhen it is used to opress. Exactly where the line goes isnt clear, of course - is it okay if tvey just say ideserve to die without advocating others should do it? Is it okay if they frame it as a joke? Is it okay if they skip referrig to me as a person and instead refers to an oppressed group im part of (like, "gaysshould die. Here lives a gay person."? Its not always clear, but I believe strongly that the opressed group should be given the benefit of doubt. I believe if neonazis come around waving the flags of those who thinks gay people should die, hailing those murderers as heroes, andspreading theor lies - that is a direct threat to my life and well-being. And if i defend myself - even with force - that is justified.
Of course, but the argument is that such social ostracism measures are actually an infringement on free speech and close to fascism, and those arguments are being used by those in (or connected to) politics, that's a little different than being upset about being called a fascist.thejeff: Of course. At the point you describe, people are still using words to disagree with one another, which is far better than both a) the state throwing people in jail for saying things the state doesn't like to hear, and b) the same people beating each other up over their differences.
Being called a fascist isn't the worst thing that could happen to someone. A free society means you need a pretty thick skin.
Only if you consider that logic to actually be correct, thejeff. Free speech means you can say stupid things, ostracize people for saying them, and criticize the ostracizers for doing what they do, whoever you are. So long as the situation stays with these arguments, free speech is working as intended. If the people in power actually start throwing people in jail for saying stuff, whether for saying stupid things, for ostracising people, or for calling the ostracizers fascists, you no longer have free speech - and no longer a free society.
Thejeff: well, it depends, but yeah often. Thats why i said they change who composes the ruling lass. But in cases like the nazi germany, those ghat werent jewish and that owned businesses remaied in power. NSDAP was greatfr the capitalists - free labor, crushed unions and an ideology that hailed them as strong and migghty.
Also, i find it kind of silly to equate "free speech" with "free society". I know from moy school years that i would have been a lot freer if my bullies werent allowed to speak freely.
Ilja: Polls showed that the RAF had the support of a significant part of the West German population under 40 years old. Breivik had and has the support of a tiny fringe. The scales are not even in the same world. As for his killing spree, they never managed to show anyone else actually involved to my knowledge. And no, there hasn't been Stalinist bombings or the like these last twenty years, what we do have is one failed islamist bombing, on the political front in Sweden. I am not knowledgeable enough on the rest of Scandinavian terrorist acts, but to put it simply: Our liberal democracy, such as it is, has worked to the point that there have been extremely few such events here in a long time. And hundreds of dead due to neonazi violence in the last twenty years? If true, that would be very surprising and I would like to see numbers on it. There have been violent deaths, certainly, but that's not quite the same thing as political assassinations and bombings, to my thinking. I would also like to know how many deaths have resulted from radical leftist violence during the same period of time. Do you have official numbers? Also, I should add that while things have gotten uglier since 2001 and the war on terror, even before that, various leftist organizations put thousands of radical people on the streets for rioting time and time again.
I understand the frustration people can feel about it. I understand that some people act to cause fear in others - and that fear demands a response somehow. I honestly think the police should be directing their resources far better than they are - why the everloving f&*# do we allow football matches to sink our cities into riots? Why do we set the police to checking for drunk drivers outside of universities in broad daylight to meet the quota for checks made without the paperwork and hassle of filing reports when you actually find someone? And so on. Society does have resources, we're just misapplying them. There are laws we could use and we certainly don't need new ones to fight neonazis - wearing a paramilitary uniform would work wonders. It would also be pretty effective against radical leftist elements who participate in rioting.
Also, i find it kind of silly to equate "free speech" with "free society". I know from moy school years that i would have been a lot freer if my bullies werent allowed to speak freely.
Free speech is a requirement for a free society. Do yourself the favour to not imagining things with bullying wouldn't have been far, far worse in a society that did not even aspire to free speech. After all, a pupil complaining about bullying is a problem to the school. They would have used the laws against various types of speech against YOU, not the bullies.
Of course, after punishing you for complaining about it, and making sure nobody documented it, the bullying would continue but you would be smart enough not to talk about it. Thus, when the statistics about your school time were put together, the school could show data about no bullying occurring in their school, making it so much better than school in all those failed schools in free societies that have bullying problems.
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When the few who govern the many do as they wish againts the expectations of the many, thats called tyranny.Yeah. Good luck getting the consensus of the populace to "losing the Great War."
Sometime circumstances force governments to take unpopular acts.
Er,.... no.
The "expectations" of both sides heading into the Great War was a short victorious war. "Home by Christmas" was the usual phrase in August 1914. Also on both sides it was quite a popular war; a populist like you would have insisted that war had to happen, by public demand.
The problem is that it's literally not possible for both sides to win the war, so someone's "expectation" was doomed to be dashed.
I assure you that the German government didn't "wish" to lose the war, but circumstances forced it upon them. And it's precisely lunatics like yourself, who insisted that the the "tyrannical" government had "betrayed" them that brought the Nazis to power.
I'm serious, YD. Shut the hell up. Your political philosophies have literally killed millions of people. Between Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot, there seems to be literally no ideologue promising a better world that you won't support. There seems to be no amount of damage you are unwilling to inflict upon the world in order to achieve a literally impossible golden age that exists somewhere in your bong water, and nowhere else in the multiverse. You are dangerous to yourself and others.
I vote no to all further elections. Ill see you in parliament with an expectation you represent yourself. Equality isnt just a right, its an obligation.
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Ok so nazis deserve no freedom of speech because they might be dangerous. So where does that end? we have environmental terrorists so do we ban talking about the environment? Animal rights folks destroy property and engage in intimidation some times so can we ban talking about ethics and animals? Unions have a colorful history or violence and intimidation so can they and even the talk of collective bargaining not be banned?
How far can we take this before the only free speech you have is what you are told you can? Much as a dog on a leash has the freedom to run, at least till the end of that rope. And like that dog, run till the end you just may hang yourself with it.
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Ok so nazis deserve no freedom of speech because they might be dangerous. So where does that end?
Just before an idiot invokes the slippery slope fallacy, at the point where rational discussion of costs and benefits is still possible.
As has already been pointed out, Holocaust denial has been illegal in Germany for decades, and yet somehow none of the consequences that you are concerned about have happened, or even been seriously discussed.
I dunno that I agree with the law per se, but I can appreciate the responsibility Germany took to make sure that it's own people would never forget what they had done.
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Ok so nazis deserve no freedom of speech because they might be dangerous. So where does that end?Just before an idiot invokes the slippery slope fallacy, at the point where rational discussion of costs and benefits is still possible.
As has already been pointed out, Holocaust denial has been illegal in Germany for decades, and yet somehow none of the consequences that you are concerned about have happened, or even been seriously discussed.
Yep, but will that happen that way every time in every nation?
I can trow a snowball on a mountain top, see it land and walk away. maybe a dozen times. At some point however i will get an avalanche. would you like to be under that avalanche? Also giving power to the government never seams to end well. You want to give up freedoms you do not value but will cry bloody murder when others turn that power on you. THAT is how the nazis and commies came into power. THAT is how millions died. Its ok to hurt them, its not me after all, im still safe from those in power.|
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So free speech is equated to screaming "Fire!" in a crowded cinema. Big surprise. Free speech means specifically that opinions you do NOT like can be spoken. Freedom to say what people around you LIKE to hear has never needed protection.
However, the biggest problems with this type of law are usually not discussed.
First, it's a way to keep the official narrative sacrosanct, unchanging, untouchable. Certainly, the reasons for this are good, understandable... but unsatisfying. Society changes. People change. Political climate changes. There are many reasons the narrative SHOULD change. Each new period will use different words, different values and different views, and even a CONSTANT narrative would need to be updated. For a pop cultural reference, see Captain America in the recent Marvel movies. He is a man out of time, from the very period we are discussing, and consistently painted as different. It's laughable to say that the original accounts are enough. While they are original and important, they are also a product of their time, just like all other accounts.
Second, as was pointed out, history IS written by the winners. It takes time for truths about any historical events to come out. New discoveries, new testimonies, new comparisons are found every year, and parts of what we thought we know DO turn out to be embellishments or outright lies. Often, the climate of the day does not allow criticism of this. But if what we are seeking is understanding, and I like to think it is, we need to keep an open mind even to viewpoints we do not agree with. And let's not fool ourselves: The opposing viewpoints are going to get spread whatever we do. At that point, it does us no favours to cling to the old story if we're suddenly faced with evidence of tampering. It's about showing a good mix of vigilance and mental agility to deal with things like this. We're fooling ourselves if we think the race has been won forever. Don't rock the boat is not a winning strategy. The boat WILL be rocked whether we like it or...
I think, while I do agree with most of what you say, that you are missing a crucial factor here - the scale of time.
Talking in a historical perspective, barely any time elapsed at all since world war 2. We are talking 2 - 3 generations here, which is nothing. On any meaningful historical scale, we are still in the same time period as the holocaust.
Which is why many of your arguments about trying to force a constant narrative on a changing society, or about Germans today not being responsible for the deeds carried out during the 1940's, kind of crumble. Sure, what you say makes sense and will make a perfectly reasonable explanation about why things would look different in 2100, but for now not enough time has passed for us to sufficiently distance ourselves from events.
You say that a law forbidding some things from being discussed publicly is too stiff for the ever changing reality. Well, laws can change too, and when the time is right, this law will.
What I'm saying is, have perspective and patience. Those kinds of things need time to play themselves out.
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To a certain extant, yes. They should at least be able to voice that opinion. I also think that private businesses that are not working for/with federal/state/local government should be able to deny hiring/services to whoever they wish. If someone did deny services to one of the groups you mentioned, I'd probably think them a jerk and say so, but I still think they should be allowed to do so.
I could somewhat see the argument for this if all the races and ideological groups were on equal footing. Then the person owning a discriminatory business would suffer from shutting out a portion of their customers. However that's not the case different races are differently economically able and as such there are plenty of places where say refusing to serve black people doesn't hurt you noticeably but does noticeably harm the black people you are removing service from.
Take for example a good private school in an area where public schooling is really terrible. There is a black student who is gifted enough to utilize the better private school, and with effort his parents can pay for it. Well too bad the owner of the school hates black people. The only options now available to them are either to get lucky and find jobs for the parents in other school districts or allow the black child to go to the terrible public schools and be permanently locked out opportunities to utilize their intellect. As a result that child will be unable to receive a higher paying job and the cycle of racial poverty will perpetuate.
Very very similar situations would exist for insurance companies or doctors offices in small American towns. Which if you let them deny people based on race would leave minorities homeless or dying. What about volunteer fire departments where a government run one can't be funded. If the fire department is full of racists should they be allowed to just ignore a burning building because it's full of asians?
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Except you ostracise people for the lie they choose to believe isnt the lie you believe in. Fact: there is only the human race so the cry of racism is a lie as is the belief that I am a different race from you. Its skin colour and culture. That has to do about thinking its ok to sleep with your cousin because the girl in the village over the hill isnt pretty enough.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6, Contributor
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Yellowdingo, you seem to be engaging in the fallacy that all opinions have equal weight. The ravings of lunatics (such as holocaust deniers) lack much of value. I'm a pretty hard-core free speechist, but nothing of value is lost when a holocaust denier can't spread their filth. Really, with them, it's just a test of how committed you are to letting even the most vile, harmful speech be spewed.
HAH! I was about to point that out:)
As for the main point of the topic, a few things:
First, ideology, in general, seems to me to be rooted in an ultimate fear that humans are not capable of making reasoned judgements in a given situation and/or that people will generally make decisions we don't agree with. The response, then, seems to be to set up a system of "rules" to try and remove the onus of decision makers from actual human beings, and instead to rely on some external guiding principle to absolve us of the need to make a reasoned decision (and thus risk being wrong). Ultimately, I think that is an act of moral cowardice - to me, the "optimal" ideology is one of reasoned pragmatism. This means that sometimes it is okay to regulate speech, and other times it is not. The risk that people will accidentally go to far is simply the price we pay for living in a world with other, imperfect humans.
Second, it's important to note WHY Holocaust denial is such a uniquely bad thing. Consider that the aim of the "Final Solution" was not merely to kill people, but rather to erase them from history. The fact that in this day and age we can still have people 'debating' the factual nature of that attempt shows just how terrifyingly close the Nazis came to succeeding. When you deny the Holocaust, you are not merely "teaching the controversy", or "questioning dogma", or "challenging the historical record", you are actively participating in the systematic attempt...
you may be more right about the Nazis success than you think. Even in mainstream teachings of the Holocaust, including this very thread, many groups targeted by the Nazis tend to be ignored in favor of grouping them all as "Jews". This marginalizes the 1 million to 2 million Roma (gypsy if you only know the slur)killed during the genocide, and the smaller though still present number of Slavs, homosexuals, and Catholics killed in extermination camps.
I don't mean to imply you or anyone else in the thread did this on purpose, aside from the closet Holocaust denies we have. It's just a result of cultural perceptions and simplifications. Part of it is caused by a large portion of Europe still being very racist against the Roma and essentially not caring about their deaths.
Ok so nazis deserve no freedom of speech because they might be dangerous. So where does that end?Just before an idiot invokes the slippery slope fallacy, at the point where rational discussion of costs and benefits is still possible.
As has already been pointed out, Holocaust denial has been illegal in Germany for decades, and yet somehow none of the consequences that you are concerned about have happened, or even been seriously discussed.
Yep, but will that happen that way every time in every nation?
Well, Wikipedia lists 17 nations in Europe alone that have this kind of Holocaust denial law, and none of the consequences that you are concerned about have happened, or even been seriously discussed.
I can trow a snowball on a mountain top, see it land and walk away. maybe a dozen times. At some point however i will get an avalanche. would you like to be under that avalanche? Also giving power to the government never seams to end well.
Really? Never? We've just established that this particular issue doesn't seem to be a problem. Basically, now that I've prevented you from using the Slippery Slope fallacy, you now want to fall back on the fallacy of Insufficient Evidence.
Have you considered actual evidence-based reasoning instead of fallacies?
You want to give up freedoms you do not value but will cry bloody murder when others turn that power on you.
Nope. I never had the freedom to engage in conduct that is likely to result in the breach of hte peace; I'm not giving up anything.
The Germans who were 16 in 1945 were born in 1929. They are 85 today.
I'm curious. This guy said that the numbers were around 300,000 , not six million. My post civil war history isn't as good as I'd like it to be. How good is the case that he's wrong? How are they estimating the casualties?
Except you ostracise people for the lie they choose to believe isnt the lie you believe in. Fact: there is only the human race so the cry of racism is a lie as is the belief that I am a different race from you. Its skin colour and culture. That has to do about thinking its ok to sleep with your cousin because the girl in the village over the hill isnt pretty enough.
The first part of this is really obviously born of privilege. The second part I can't decipher. Yellowdingo are you against cosuin boning or pro cousin boning? Honestly provided the relationship is otherwise healthy there is nothing wrong with intimate relations with a cousin unless your family has a history of cousin marriage, as the possibility for birth defects is no greater than knowingly reproducing with someone whose family has had a case of cancer in the last 10 years.
Simply put, the nazis were pretty anal retentive about documenting it.
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I'm curious. This guy said that the numbers were around 300,000 , not six million. My post civil war history isn't as good as I'd like it to be. How good is the case that he's wrong? How are they estimating the casualties?
You can jut compare the censuses of Polish towns immediately after defeat by Germany and after the war ended and come up with a number much much higher than 300,000. It's completely bunk. Another easy source would be going through the families of immigrants to Israel and adding up all the family members that simply disappeared into concentration camps. Both of these end with numbers in the millions. The only way for his number to be even slightly right is if there was some other force rounding up and removing Jews, Slavs, and Roma. Like I guess if you were super delusional you could claim that every other European country had its own mini-Holocaust separate from Germany or that the USSR had secret agents that pulled them into Gulags. Either way it's silly and impossible but at least makes the numbers work.
You can jut compare the censuses of Polish towns immediately after defeat by Germany and after the war ended and come up with a number much much higher than 300,000. It's completely bunk. Another easy source would be going through the families of immigrants to Israel and adding up all the family members that simply disappeared into concentration camps. Both of these end with numbers in the millions. The only way for his number to be even slightly right is if there was some other force rounding up and removing Jews, Slavs, and Roma. Like I guess if you were super delusional you could claim that every other European country had its own mini-Holocaust separate from Germany or that the USSR had secret agents that pulled them into Gulags. Either way it's silly and impossible but at least makes the numbers work.
Another source of evidence is the Nazis' own records. For example, there's a report by Heinz Lorenz, one of Hitler's press officers, about one and a half million people being killed at the Majdanek extermination camp. The train schedules documenting cars full of people arriving at Auschwitz and other camps (and empty cars leaving) give us a good idea of how many people arrived at various locations and never left. The Einsatzgruppen units sent regular reports back to headquarters about how many people they killed (and what methods they used).
Worth noting is that while in some places, they tried to destroy the documentation, such destruction was far from complete. It was captured in several places, both centrally and in the camps. Another factor of interest is that the nazis had plans and projections for how many they needed to kill to achieve their goals, which they followed up, and so on. All in all, claiming it never happened is ludicrous. Certainly, any total figure is suspect at best, that's difficult to argue about, but honestly, does it really matter if it's five or six millions dead for how we should handle it today?