While David Duke is a cretin and denying the holocaust is abhorrent i can't help but think making it illegal to have a particular view is a dangerous path to take. Didn't we fight the nazis specifically to prevent this kind of thing?
This is pretty dangerous territory. On April 16th another 'Holocaust denier' was convicted in Australia for publishing material on the Internet "of an anti-Semitic and/or revisionist nature" which denies, approves of, or plays down the Holocaust. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...Ql-fnlCKWZ-aZA ------ [YESTERDAY] - Obama pledges to confront Holocaust deniers WASHINGTON (AFP) — At a ceremony Thursday remembering millions of Jews slaughtered in World War II, President Barack Obama reaffirmed the strong US bond with Israel and vowed to confront Holocaust deniers... http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hV18fZB0yVFj1F0eCha8PGWvVD_Q
To deny Holocaust is extremely distasteful. But to draw a parallel, what about the actions of the Danish newspapers who published the cartoons critical of Prophet Mohammed? If the latter is tolerated even though it is of extreme bad taste, then why shouldn't the former? I do not support both actions, just thinking are we judging based on different standards?
Since there is an anonymous coward afraid of making his/her views known publicly through fear of having them torn to shreds ill post what they left in rep and address it here. well of course there is a difference. The comparison i was drawing was the similarity regarding imprisoning people for holding views, oppressing a minority and enforcing a consensus by making it illegal to disagree.
Denying the Holocaust should not be a crime anywhere. I like to know who the ignorant fools are, we should let them embarrass themselves freely.
The Czech PM is in Israel today saying how they will strengthen their ties together. Coincidence??? http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1239710779972&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
I do not agree with anyone being put in jail because of their views no matter how stupid or offensive they are (and this view is extremely stupid & offensive.)
Luckily, nobody has taken that path. It's not "having" the view that's illegal. It's expressing it. We believe, broadly speaking, in the virtue of "free speech" and some mistakenly believe that their right to it is an absolute one. People who exercise their right to free speech in order to incite racial hatred, for example, tend to learn pretty quickly that it isn't absolute at all.
I hate to disagree with Alexa on the simple grounds that she says that really is her pic and it might disqualify my stalking privs (yes, I'm shallow, sue me)... but regardless that I think David Duke is a subhuman buffoon absolutely deserving of any foul fate that befalls... it seems to me inappropriate to jail anyone for basically being so stupid or vile as to publicly deny historical fact. Nobody with a single functioning brain cell believes anything he says anyway. Sedition is one thing, but Duke is just a public joke to start with. That said, I do hope during his stay he gets paired with a really large black guy with sociopathic tendencies as pronounced as his own.
David Irving was imprisoned in Vienna for having a particular opinion, and the evidence for that was that he had expressed it almost 30 years earlier, when it wasn't illegal. He was imprisoned for holding a particular view and he was refused bail on the grounds that he may express it at a later date. Inciting someone to do something is different to freedom of speech. Freedom of speech refers only to views and the expression of those views, not actions or calls for action. Freedom of speech has to be absolute. There can be no limitations on what views people are legally allowed to hold or express, regardless how fervently you disagree with them or how much it offends, and the right of the minority to express views which the majority disagree with need to be afforded most protection.
The problem you run into is how to decide which free speech is protected and which is unacceptable. You get into deciding which is politically correct and which isnt. Galileo was imprisoned for suggesting the sun didnt revolve around the earth... a heretical (and illegal) view at the time... now it is accepted scientific fact. I just don't like the idea of assigning the task of deciding what I/we can or cant say to bureaucrats, because as shown in the case of Galileo, their opinions are a moving target based on political conditions of the day. I'll accept the prospect of being offended by someone else's stated views in return for not running the risk of a prison sentence for my own.
I think that as well (I do see how the general tone and position in the thread of the factual point I made might have made it seem that I didn't!) He really wasn't, Stox. He was imprisoned for expressing it, not for holding it. I'm not suggesting at all that I agree that he should have been imprisoned, just pointing out that, with respect, you're actually factually mistaken here on a very fundamental level!
When you can be jailed for expressing a view doesnt it make that country not a democracy. This is crazy to jail the guy no matter what his views are or that he expressed them. I happen to disagree with david duke 100% because my uncle was in the army in ww2 and he saw the extermination camps up close after he arrived in normandy. All he could say is that it was brutal
I don't think it was illegal to deny the holocaust when David Irving expressed the view in the 80's, Which was the crime he was tried and imprisoned for. If it wasn't illegal he was either jailed retroactively, which is just as bad, or jailed for having the view and possibly likely to express it at some point - he was certainly denied bail on the grounds that he holds the view and may be likely to express it. if it was illegal at the time and his sentence was lawful it just serves to justify the views of these racists. Lothar Hobelt of the university of Vienna made a good case against having the law when he said; "In fact, having a law that says you mustn't question a particular historical instance, if anything, creates doubt about it, because if an argument has to be protected by the force of law, it means it's a weak argument."
People should be allowed to have freedom of speech against anything including religion and politics. If not, then freedom of speech isn't really free. Peace,
Most countries don't have free speech really - they only pretend to. There are always limits on it imposed by laws. Even in America where some people who haven't quite thought it through sometimes speak of "free speech" as if it's some kind of inalienable "right", you try using your "right to free speech" to incite racial hatred and see where it gets you.