Iran hosting Holocaust conference

[peter12]

It does concern me that one can get into legal trouble for
stating an opinion. Even if that opinion is wrong.

Freedom of expression and speech are constrained by reasonable limits justifiable in a free and democratic society.

Basically, if you state an opinion which is hateful or capable of inciting violence (historically anti-semetic statements have done both) then you can get in trouble. It makes perfect legal and constitutional sense.

However, you make a good point.

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by peter12

It does concern me that one can get into legal trouble for
stating an opinion. Even if that opinion is wrong.

Freedom of expression and speech are constrained by reasonable limits justifiable in a free and democratic society.

Basically, if you state an opinion which is hateful or capable of inciting violence (historically anti-semetic statements have done both) then you can get in trouble. It makes perfect legal and constitutional sense.

However, you make a good point.

I understand and agree that there needs to be some limits to free
speech. However I think the burden of proof should be on the prosecutors
to prove that the accused statements have a high likelihood of inciting
violence. If some non-conformist wrote a letter to the editor stating
why he believes there was no holocaust he should be met with more free
speech refuting his assertions and no more.

How about this. As a Christian I believe that Mohamed was a liar and a false prophet. I also believe that if Allah exists he is a deceiving spirit(a demon} and they both will one day bow before Jesus before being cast into an eternal hell. Those are beliefs I shouldn't express openly to every Muslim I run into. It would be hurtful to them and serve no purpose beyond perhaps inciting a conflict. But the question is should I not be
allowed any expression of those beliefs and how does one decide when and where such things could be said? Should this even be a legal matter?

[blankall]

Originally Posted by peter12

It does concern me that one can get into legal trouble for
stating an opinion. Even if that opinion is wrong.

Freedom of expression and speech are constrained by reasonable limits justifiable in a free and democratic society.

Basically, if you state an opinion which is hateful or capable of inciting violence (historically anti-semetic statements have done both) then you can get in trouble. It makes perfect legal and constitutional sense.

However, you make a good point.

Does anyone know if holocaust denial is actually illegal in Canada? I know it is in Germany and a few other states.

I think in Canada it should depend on the context and methodology. For isntance, if you are using scientific methods to see the number of people actually killed that should be alright....

If it is part of a wider scheme of hatred, then that should fall under the hate laws in the criminal code. Langauge is a very powerful thing...

[blankall]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

Take it up with someone else then, because I didn't make that argument. I don't disagree with the points made in your post. I asked a question.

sorry i wasnt trying to accuse you of anything. It's just difficult to follow who has what opinion on the internet sometimes....

[HOZ]

Originally Posted by blankall

Does anyone know if holocaust denial is actually illegal in Canada? I know it is in Germany and a few other states.

No it is not and it should not be. People have been taken to court for insighting hatred (stating their opinion, however wrong) and such but there is no specific law against denying the holocaust.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by HOZ

No it is not and it should not be. People have been taken to court for insighting hatred (stating their opinion, however wrong) and such but there is no specific law against denying the holocaust.

I'm no legal expert, but I suspect that in cases like this, context matters. If you express that opinion as a private citizen, you might be an idiot, but you have the right to be an idiot. If, say, you're a school teacher and you decide to go ahead and teach a group of 4th graders that the "holocaust" in their history books is a fabrication of the international Jewish banking conspiracy, then that is probably illegal. Again, I'm not a lawyer, but I suspect that expressing an opinion like holocaust denial is probably only illegal when you represent it as "official" speech in some way.

[Cowperson]

Originally Posted by JimmytheT

And by the way, unrelated to the above quote, though their were other non-jewish victims of the holocaust, it is anti-semitism that fuels the holocaust deniers. There are virtually no deniers of the "Killing Fields" in 1970s Cambodia, .

Amusingly, Noam Chomsky has been famously accused of denying for quite some time the veracity of claims of a holocaust in Cambodia. . . . .

http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/...03/chomsky.htm

http://www.jochnowitz.net/Essays/ExtremistLang.html

Regarding whether or not denying the WWII holocaust is illegal, this piece in Wikipedia (I know, I know!!) describes the Jim Keegstra situation fairly well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Keegstra

He was convicted of "willfully promoting hatred against an identifiable group."

Keegstra appealed this conviction, claiming that it was in violation of Section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This section guarantees "freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication." Keegstra also challenged his conviction on the grounds that Section 319(3) of the Criminal Code of Canada, which states that a person cannot be convicted of promoting hatred if she or he establishes that the statement is true, was a violation of Section 11(d) of the Charter. That section guarantees "the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal."

The appeal ultimately reached the Supreme Court of Canada, in the case of R. v. Keegstra. In December of 1990, the Court upheld Keegstra's conviction, ruling that the law's prohibition of hate propaganda was constitutional.

Cowperson

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Keegstra--that's the guy I was thinking of. Thanks Cowperson.

But again, it seems to me in this case that context is important, because Keegstra was a high school teacher. This from that Wikipedia page:

Keegstra was an auto mechanic, a former mayor, and a high school teacher in the town of Eckville, Alberta [1]. In 1984, Keegstra was stripped of his teaching certificate and charged under the Criminal Code of Canada with "wilfully promoting hatred against an identifiable group" by teaching his social studies students that the Holocaust was a fraud and that Jews are "treacherous, evil and responsible for depressions, anarchy and war." He attempted to have this charge quashed as a violation of his freedom of expression; this motion was denied, and he was convicted at trial.

If he had said that in a coffee shop, he'd just be an offensive crank, but doing it in his capacity as a social studies teacher is completely different, because he is then, in a sense, representing that opinion as "official."

And anyone can tell that teachers don't have complete freedom of speech anyway. You have to follow a given curriculum, and you can't just make stuff up. For instance, you can't teach that the earth is flat, or that the world was created by a fire-breathing turtle named Wilbur. You are free to believe that as a private citizen, but you can't represent that stuff as true in a classroom setting.

[Flames in 07]

Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy

Your comparison doesn't make any sense. That is all I am trying to say.

Makes perfect sense to me. The only posts I'm confused with on this string is yours.

kipperfan is simply stating that they are both well documented historical facts ... any other comparisions (ie you suggesting that it has some special meaning to him) is simply a inferenced created from thin air, by yourself.

[Cowperson]

An interesting and learned opinion piece on this conference - and conspiracy theorists - at CBS News.com this morning. The second page is more interesting than the first:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/...n2253855.shtml

Cowperson

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Cowperson

An interesting and learned opinion piece on this conference - and conspiracy theorists - at CBS News.com this morning. The second page is more interesting than the first:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/...n2253855.shtml

Cowperson

Interesting piece. I particularly liked this quote:

The Lenins, the Maos, the Pol Pots — even Ahmadinejad, in a low-rent kind of way — they are no different than the types collected in Tehran. It is a mistake not to take such people seriously and not to accept that they believe what they say they believe. The liberal impulse to discount the extremist, to rationalize his views, to refuse to take his threats literally, especially when he is in power, is itself a form of denial.

I'm not sure it's a "liberal" impulse, but I agree. Too often our reaction is just "that's crazy," rather than trying to understand the core values (however repulsive) that feed such a belief system.

On the other hand the liberal rationalist in me does have one question. Let's say you're David Duke--you've been drummed out of American politics and now you're meeting with anti-semitists in Iran--don't you have to know that you're a crank? Wouldn't it have to cross your mind that YOU might be the crazy one?