you make a good point that this Austrian law is inconsistent with western free speech values, but the issue of cartoon riots is not a free speech issue just as eating and having sex during ramadan is not a blasphemy issue for us in the west. free speech is our cultural value, not the muslim world's. the issue of cartoon rioting is one primarily of sensitivity (i, for one among many people, somehow gleaned in my years that many muslims find depictions of the deity and the prophet to be blasphemous) and secondarily of hot-heads on both sides who wish to provoke precisely such responses on both sides. to jump into the fray with xenophobic assertions of our own (irrelevant) cultural values simply muddies already sullied waters.

eat heartier, put rocks in your socks, whatever you have to do to keep your feet on the ground. either that or get an honest job. that probably came out harsher than necessary....

In writing in my own blog on February 21 about Arthur Butz, the Northwestern University professor who is perhaps OUR most notorious holocaust denier, I said the following about Irving and "freedom of speech:"

I don’t know why he went to Austria in the first place, knowing that in effect, he was a "wanted" man in that country. Maybe he wanted to be remembered as a martyr - though it doesn’t seem that way considering his attempt to reverse himself, saying that he now accepted the existence of gas chambers and the "final solution" for Europe’s Jewish population. In the end, most of these people are cowards of one kind or another.

I personally do not approve of the German and Austrian laws that call for prison sentences for those found guilty of preaching Holocaust denial rubbish. I would be in favor of civil suits against those kinds of idiots instead of waiting for them to sue when they’re exposed as liars and history revisionists. I might even be in favor of a "three times and you’re out" criminal law - imposing fines for a first and second offense and jail if the idiots don’t get the message and continued to preach nonsense. And I certainly would be in favor of deporting someone like Irving or classifying him as an "undesirable" and not allowing him entry into European countries that have anti-Holocaust denial laws.

But if I had a choice between how these people are currently handled in Germany and Austria and how they continue to be allowed to flourish here under the protection of the first amendment - and, in academia - "tenure" - I think I might opt for the European approach. It is of course an extreme approach to the problem - but so is freedom of speech without limit - and if you think about it for a while, it isn’t hard to arrive at the conclusion that making a specific, clearly identified kind of hate speech a criminal offense is less dangerous to society at large than allowing anyone to say or publish anything they want to say or publish - no matter how untruthful it may be.

We’re in a period of history where hard choices have to be made, such as the new law introduced in the UK Parliament making "glorification of terrorism" a criminal offense. The law has flaws as many of its critics have pointed out - but the reasoning behind it is understandable. Decent people are saying "enough already" - and are trying to do something about it in as decent a way as possible.

Northwestern University is in a position to do something here of a much less stringent nature but that would say the same thing to the enemies of civilized society as the glorification of terrorism law. Fire Butz. Send the message.

Enough already!!!

In writing in my own blog on February 21 about Arthur Butz, the Northwestern University professor who is perhaps OUR most notorious holocaust denier, I said the following about Irving and "freedom of speech:"

I don’t know why he went to Austria in the first place, knowing that in effect, he was a "wanted" man in that country. Maybe he wanted to be remembered as a martyr - though it doesn’t seem that way considering his attempt to reverse himself, saying that he now accepted the existence of gas chambers and the "final solution" for Europe’s Jewish population. In the end, most of these people are cowards of one kind or another.

I personally do not approve of the German and Austrian laws that call for prison sentences for those found guilty of preaching Holocaust denial rubbish. I would be in favor of civil suits against those kinds of idiots instead of waiting for them to sue when they’re exposed as liars and history revisionists. I might even be in favor of a "three times and you’re out" criminal law - imposing fines for a first and second offense and jail if the idiots don’t get the message and continued to preach nonsense. And I certainly would be in favor of deporting someone like Irving or classifying him as an "undesirable" and not allowing him entry into European countries that have anti-Holocaust denial laws.

But if I had a choice between how these people are currently handled in Germany and Austria and how they continue to be allowed to flourish here under the protection of the first amendment - and, in academia - "tenure" - I think I might opt for the European approach. It is of course an extreme approach to the problem - but so is freedom of speech without limit - and if you think about it for a while, it isn’t hard to arrive at the conclusion that making a specific, clearly identified kind of hate speech a criminal offense is less dangerous to society at large than allowing anyone to say or publish anything they want to say or publish - no matter how untruthful it may be.

We’re in a period of history where hard choices have to be made, such as the new law introduced in the UK Parliament making "glorification of terrorism" a criminal offense. The law has flaws as many of its critics have pointed out - but the reasoning behind it is understandable. Decent people are saying "enough already" - and are trying to do something about it in as decent a way as possible.

Northwestern University is in a position to do something here of a much less stringent nature but that would say the same thing to the enemies of civilized society as the glorification of terrorism law. Fire Butz. Send the message.

Enough already!!!

Everybody finds nazism despicable, usually for all the right reasons. US Army photographs of the concentration camps during the first days of liberation are testament to the inhumanity of what was done. However, in order for free speech to have any meaning or effect in our American republic, we must endure the morally repugnant views of a historically biased minority and use them as case points and object lessons to demonstrate the wrongness of what is being espoused. Attempts to censor or silence will only backfire, lending credence to claims that may otherwise be dismissed as rubbish.

Morally repugnant views cannot be treated as 'thoughtcrime' for precicely the reason that one blogger identified, and that is the martyrdom of the individual being marginalized. We may not like it, we may criticize it, but opinions should never be criminalized no matter how unpopular they are.

The point is not how many Jews died because of the Nazis; any number in excess of five digits qualifies as democide. In this regard, communism holds a more infamous position having murdered over 200 million in the 20th Century, as opposed to Hitler's 4-10 million. So let's not quibble over the numbers, mass murder is mass murder.

The point is not merely how many died in the camps, but the overall number of people killed throughout the sphere of nazi control. Many of the early genocide victims were killed by gunshot and portable gas chambers in vans. Nor was the nazi killing machine intended strictly for Jews; an equal number of Christians were likewise executed as well as significant numbers of Romy (Gypsies). Let's not forget that nazi doctrine also required the euthanasia of all the elderly, babies with birth defects, mentally retarded and insane adults, ad nauseam...

The sheer evidence of what Hitler and his evil goons had perpetrated is inescapable. The fact that Mr. Irving was coming to his senses and willing to recant his earlier views should have been taken into consideration and cited as a mitigating factor, or possibly even as cause for dismissing all charges. Unfortunately, laws such as these only serve to reinforce anti-semitic views ('jewish conspiracy') among those so inclined.

The free speech & intellectual freedom guarantee enshrined in the First Amendment to the US Constitution is not only what distinguishes America from Europe, but insures that while some countries may prosecute politically incorrect thinking, we will continue to have a marketplace of ideas for as long as we remain vigilant for the sake of our Liberties.