Holocaust denier gets 3 years in the slammer

[RougeUnderoos]

With all the freedom of speech chatter and how great we in the west are, this struck me as kind of odd.

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article346727.ece

The 67-year-old was sentenced to three years in jail by an Austrian judge for denying, in two speeches he made 16 years ago, the existence of the gas chambers of the Second World War and the murder of six million Jews.

I'd never heard of the guy and obviously he has (or had) some pretty stupid ideas but 3 years in jail sounds a lot like the exact opposite of a right to free speech. He's literally going to jail for talking. Not inciting hatred or inciting violence but for saying he doesn't believe the holocaust.

[FlamesAddiction]

I actually know two old guys from Gemany and they would probably be considered "Holocaust deniers" back in Germany. They don't actually deny the whole thing, but they deny responsibility and claim that the numbers the Nazis killed are inflated and that other countries were either participating or choosing to look the other way because they really didn't mind. Passive participation I guess you could say.

I'm not sure if that is similar to what this guy was thinking, but I agree that they are dangerous ideas. I'm not actually a supporter of free speech without boundaries set by cultural acceptance, so this doesn't really bother me too much. For obvious reasons, the German and Austrian cultures are going to be more sensative to this particular issue.

[Cowperson]

Jim Keegstra was - is - a Holocaust denier . . . .

The President of Iran is an open Holocaust denier . . . . . .

Cowperson

[mbrown]

Austria and Germany have laws against denying the holocaust. You can't even display the nazi symbol there. The only thing more dangerous than denying that this happened is making it against the law for these wingnuts to say what they want. Give them the mike, they will embarass themselves for us and the people will see. By covering it up they are risking giving an air of legitimicay to it in my opinion.

We get into government 'cover-ups' and such.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I'm not actually a supporter of free speech without boundaries set by cultural acceptance, so this doesn't really bother me too much.

I'm not sure what you mean by boundaries set by cultural acceptance, but it seems that the guy and the views he has are not culturally accepted so the boundaries have been drawn regardless of an actual law on the books.

Just reading the wikipedia thing on the guy tells me he was long ago discredited by real historians and basically pushed so far out that his audience consists mostly of bald teenagers and less-than-influential extremists.

Putting him in jail for having a strange or stupid opinion is not, IMO, the way to deal with this kind of thing. If anything it will help the "cause".

[icarus]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I'm not actually a supporter of free speech without boundaries set by cultural acceptance.

I guess if this was the case we wouldn't have had a civil rights movement, a feminist movement, a gay rights movement, etc.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by icarus

I guess if this was the case we wouldn't have had a civil rights movement, a feminist movement, a gay rights movement, etc.

I never thought of it that way.

But nonetheless, I don't believe in a "one size fits all" template when it comes to issues of free speech. Certain things are more dangerous than others, and even that varies on the society and era. It's like trying to bring democracy to areas that don't have value systems consistent with it yet.

Free speech has to be limited by the reactions that it is going to cause. I don't know where to draw the line, but I think that if the potential outcome is a holocaust, then speech has to be curbed. If feminist thought led to a holocaust in the past, then I would say we should limit that too. Fortunately no civil right movement I am aware of has those kind of motives.

I guess it's all subject to interpretation of what is and isn't dangerous.

[mbrown]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I never thought of it that way.

But nonetheless, I don't believe in a "one size fits all" template when it comes to issues of free speech. Certain things are more dangerous than others, and even that varies on the society and era. It's like trying to bring democracy to areas that don't have value systems consistent with it yet.

Free speech has to be limited by the reactions that it is going to cause. I don't know where to draw the line, but I think that if the potential outcome is a holocaust, then speech has to be curbed. If feminist thought led to a holocaust in the past, then I would say we should limit that too. Fortunately no civil right movement I am aware of has those kind of motives.

I guess it's all subject to interpretation of what is and isn't dangerous.

In Canada the line is drawn when you call people to violence. pretty good line in my opinion.

[icarus]

Originally Posted by mbrown

In Canada the line is drawn when you call people to violence. pretty good line in my opinion.

Hate speech is also illegal in Canada.