Freedom of Speech

[ishmael]

I read recently that David Irving, controversial British historian of WWII and The Holocaust, was arrested in Austria under its laws regarding Holocaust denial. If brought to trial and convicted he could face twenty years in prison.

He was in Austria to speak, in private, at the invitation of a group of university students. The police, through surveillance, got wind of the visit.

A serious historian, at least early in his career, the charge stems from twenty years ago when Irving first gained notoriety as a Holocaust revisionist. He's bucked the official version of history in rather striking ways, including revising way down the number of Jews killed, saying the gas chambers at Aushwitz are a fiction, etc.

Irving may or may not be a Nazi sympathizer, I don't know his reputation or work well enough to say. My question is about the different attitudes about freedom of speech in Europe and the US. As I understand it, 'hate speech' has been banned in the EU, not specific to Holocaust denial which law has been around for awhile, but speech denigrating anyone. How is this spelled out and interpreted? How do our European members feel about it?

In the US, the First Amendment is, likely, our most sacred natural right -- to the point of absurdity at times. It's summed up by the following:

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for
people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."

-Noam Chomsky

This attitude is under attack here also, particularly on some of our college campuses, where political correctness is carried to absurd levels. But it is so engrained in our psyches I don't imagine we'll repeal the free speech parts of the First Amendment anytime soon.

[ 11-18-2005, 11:55 AM: Message edited by: ishmael ]

[LeeG]

"it's treason to criticize the president while at war,,think of the effect on the marine in the field"...

trying to have it both ways?

[huisjen]

Funny, Lee, but that's just what I was thinking.

Dan

[Meerkat]

Marines in field? I'm beginning to understand why the Prez isn't doing so well with this war...

Marines are found afloat and/or on beaches... tongue.gif

[troutman]

Is the same person saying the First Amendment is our sacred right and that criticizing the prez is treason? Man, my head hurts.

[Norman Bernstein]

Is the same person saying the First Amendment is our sacred right and that criticizing the prez is treason? It's a political marketing technique, in vogue right now with Bush and Cheney. They don't say that criticism of the President is 'Treason'.... they just call it 'irresponsible'.

It goes hand-in-hand with the OTHER main political marketing technique they're fond of... the best example: accusing congressman Murtha of pushing the 'Michael Moore' agenda (Scott McClellan said so, in WH press conference yesterday). The idea is really quite simple... just associate ANY critic with the most extreme left wing nutcase you can think of.

These guys are slick. Not slick enough to really FOOL anyone, though, as the latest polls are proving.

[Sea Frog]

Existence of the Auschwitz' gas chambers has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt.
As historians, those Revisionists are a joke. They disgust me.
Revision isn't so much the problem -as History itself can be seen as a work of continuous revision- as the dubious agenda one may suspect lies beneath the whole job.
That said, although Austrians may have their own reasons to be careful with that particular axe, freedom of speech is freedom of speech, and PCness was taken much too seriously this side of the pond when it should have boiled down to yet another interesting and fashionable debate from the other side.
PC attitudes, yes. PC laws, heck no. Censorship sucks, whatever.

[ 11-19-2005, 07:36 PM: Message edited by: Sea Frog ]

[Victor]

Anyone read Irving? What exactly did he say?

[Phillip Allen]

Ever have a child ask a question so simple that the answer doesn't come? Political correctness is such a question. Ask someone you don't agree with..."ARE YOU A JEW!!!???" The question is straightforward but the accusatory tone is not. It certainly should not be wrong to ask that question (for its own sake) but try it on a college campus...assumptions will be made by the folks who rail at others for their presumed assumptions. I have observed PC proponents doing the very thing they accuse others of except their pre-judice is not only acceptable but pitched as enlightenment in the campus coffee house...(and who’s to tell these children otherwise?)

[ 11-19-2005, 06:07 PM: Message edited by: Phillip Allen ]

[Victor]

I once went to an antinuke symposium sponsored by the Socialist Workers Party. They locked everyone in the room and wouldn't let them leave til they drew pictures of flowers, children and puppydogs, all of which were to be sent to the Pentagon. A weird mixture of infantilism and despotism. Oh, well.

[Phillip Allen]

Originally posted by Victor:
I once went to an antinuke symposium sponsored by the Socialist Workers Party. They locked everyone in the room and wouldn't let them leave til they drew pictures of flowers, children and puppydogs, all of which were to be sent to the Pentagon. A weird mixture of infantilism and despotism. Oh, well.Is your nose growing longer? (GOT to be kidding!)

[Victor]

They've always been that way. You can spot their MO if you know what to look for. The PC thing has their hallmark all over it, which is why it's both rigid and stupid. I swear academics have more of a herd mentality than any other occupational group, not to mention being more prone to idiot ideologies than just about anyone else. Academics were among Hitler's earliest supporters.

This meeting I went to was in 83. I don't know anything about the SWP these days, but they're classic Stalinists. They worm their way into whatever leftwing cause they can and immediately seek to control it. Once everyone else leaves they start fighting with each other. Buncha clowns, but they were dangerous at one time.

[Phillip Allen]

I've always thought academics demonstrated the heard /flocking mentality. I've long gotten past thinking there is any depth to them...a general comment for which there will always (thankfully) be some exceptions.

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

Irving was sued in Britain. I don't remember the allegations.
His defence would, of course, force him to defend what he was promulgating.
There was a docudrama where actors spoke dialog directly from the court transcripts. My estimations were that he was very bright but did not do well against a well prepared opponent.
One of his contentions was that X number of btu's would be needed to burn one body. If that were true the requisite amount of coal to perform the burning of thousands of bodies a day would be so large that it would be impossible to conceal. Yet, of the thousands of pictures of death camps (some taken by the Allies from the air) there is no sign of coal piles anywhere big enough to do the deed.
The plaintiff's lawyer admitted that was true. Then he quickly brought out translations of documents from the camps which described the cremations in detail. The German engineers where thrilled to discover that precious coal was only needed to start the cremation process. Once the ovens were hot enough the only added fuel necessary was the body fat of the victims. Cremations could continue as long as a supply of well fed corpses was available.
Irving lost.
As Americans you must disabuse yourself of the idea that our legal system is the measure of all others. Most of Western Europe favors legal systems based on the Code Napolean. It's quite different from ours but it works very well. Their political systems tend to be based on the parlimentary principle. In Britain every new law is considered "constitutional" on it's face. Even the "Official Secrets Act" which allows the government to conceal almost anything and liables devulgers of designated secrets to be imprisoned is "constitutional" until overruled by another law which will also be "constitutional".
Charlie

[ 11-20-2005, 08:42 PM: Message edited by: Cuyahoga Chuck ]

[Antonio Majer]

In Italy there is the so called "apologia del fascismo" (defense of Fascism through speech, books or papers), which is still a crime, severely punished with imprisonment up to 5 years (in the case of armed organizations, the penalty may reach 25 years).

[ 12-02-2005, 03:03 AM: Message edited by: Antonio Majer ]