Freedom of Speech Includes Holocaust Deniers

For anyone who would deny the Holocaust I have a long list of relatives who disappeared into the Nazi death camps. I've done research at Dachau and at Holocaust Museums to affirm the family stories. The facts of the Holocaust are well established and not at all reasonably deniable.

And yet, everything must be open to question if we are to live with academic and intellectual freedom. One can assert in front of the gate of Buckingham Palace that Queen Elizabeth is a man and her children are adopted, her pregnancies were staged. You can pass out leaflets under the Eiffel Tower insisting that DeGaul was a space alien defending France from Nazis in order to protect eggs from another galaxy from which giant lizard people will emerge one day to devour us all. All kinds of foolishness is permitted so it can be recognized for the idiocy it is.

Almost all. While Holocaust denial is not just foolish, but repugnant, outlawing it reduces truth to dogma and shuts down honest discussion; the historical facts of anti-Semitic genocide are reduced to a mythological fetish.

In a "Western Culture" that so values free speech and inquiry this one huge, horrific fact is uniquely placed as a dogma that cannot stand up to questioning. Pish and tosh. The facts are clear and can withstand any investigation. But this fetishization, the banning of free inquiry invites doubts. And why is this one huge and horrible act of genocide held so uniquely unquestionable aside from the many acts of genocide that have bloodied our history? The Armenian genocide remains a matter of great debate; the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia are treated as footnotes in history; the 6 million gentiles who were killed by Nazis alongside the 6 million Jews are nearly forgotten. We have here a double standard that not only reduces historical truth to fetishized dogma, but sets a people apart and fetishizes OUR history, and ultimately US. With all its good intentions this is dehumanizing, setting us apart from humanity. It is a well-meaning, but still perverse sort of "affirmative action" that holds the Jews and Jewish history to a different standard. Where Jews find themselves in conflict, as in Israel/Palestine, it undermines intellectual honesty, and thus efforts for peace thad depend on each side honesty hearing each others' stories.

The irony is that Jews have traditionally been at the forefront of independent thought and investigative thinking. On this matter especially we should be willing to take any question, exactly because the answers are so clear.

This is a thoughtful comment by Pamela Taylor that does not inflame emotions. Everyone knows that the holocaust occurred. What people may object to is the constant use of the holocaust as a club to limit discussion or criticism of what Israel is doing in the modern era of mass communication and weapons of mass destruction.

Holocaust - Degree of importance.

Why Hitler resorted to massacre certain groups including jews?
And if just the jews, then why the jews.
It is not right to blame the euro-christains.
It is upto an individual how much times one likes to read a particular chapter of history and to memorise it.
After all if the house of the jews suffered then they can attach more importance to it. But they cannot demand the rest of the people to give it same importance.

If someone dies in one's family the grief is overwhelming among its members. The rest of the community do condole but the event is not that important for them.

The Iraqis and the afghans suffer these days, there grief and hardship is known only to them
and the feeling of such suffering is shallow in the other parts of the world. Probably some even dont bother if they are human beings like them, or just animals.

Holocaust - Degree of importance.

Why Hitler resorted to massacre certain groups including jews? and if just the jews then why the jews. It is not right to blame the euro-christains.
It is upto an individual how much times he likes to read a particular chapter of history and to memorise it.
After all if the house of the jews suffered then they can attach more importance to it. But they cannot demand the rest of the people to give the same importance.

If someone dies in one's family the grief is overwhelming on its members. The rest of the community do condole but the event is not that important for them.

The Iraqis and the afghans suffer these days, there grief and hardship is known only to them
and the feeling of such suffering is shallow in the other parts of the world. Probably some even dont bother if they are human beings like them or just animals.

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for

people we despise, we don't believe in it at all

- Noam Chomsky

To be a Western Anglo-Saxon-turned-muslim wearing a 'look-at-me' woman's head covering -- a loud symbol of religiously enforced female subservience -- while proclaiming a 'progressive' set of values, is just weird! I'm at a total loss for words to describe how totally bizarre this artlicle is!

Therefore, all I can do is quote the following by houseofphysics above in absolute agreement:

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You claim to have progressive values?

Since when has willful obfuscation of the truth been a progressive value. That you represent Muslims for Peace, yet in that name, you equivocate to allow the horror perpetrated against other humans (whom you would presumably like to make peace with and show how progressive you are) to be diminished in a cloud of well spun double speak is utterly reprehensible.

You have simply marked yourself as one of those pseudo-intellectual racists who then would get very offended at having it pointed out to her.

Repugnant.

People have the right to their own opinions, this is true. They do not have a right to their own facts. 2+2=4 whether you like it or not. The American revolution happened. Care to debate that? And yet, the Holocaust, sadly, happened.

One of the curious bits of double think from the Muslim talking head world is the mental frisson between wanting to deny it happened and screaming that Muslims should do it again - like they are in Darfur.

You have made it plain you do not want peace. You have made it plain that your values are not progressive. You have made it plain that you are nothing more than a whitewashed, spinned up, P.C. version of the Jihad masquerading as an intellect.

You have lost any respect that I ever had for you.

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...with the exception of the fact that I personally have NEVER had any respect for her.

At last it seems I have found the only post within reason in this forum.

And it came from a Muslim. For the record I am not a Muslim myself. But I cannot but agree with the author.

Well done Mrs Taylor, I agree with you one hundred percent. Insh Allah, and sorry for my diction.

And for "asizk", I am a Westerner and I believe you are unfair to consider each and everyone of us an accessory of the state of Israel.

Life is not black and white you know. There are shades of grey in between.

Of course Holocaust deniers have the right to say anything they wish. That's freedom of speech. Similarly, those who dislike Holocaust deniers have the right to call them leaking plastic bags of decaying pig vomit.

Would you say the same thing if there were a school of people arguing that slavery in the U.S. was utterly benign, that Africans volunteered to come to the US in the millions and that they argued against the Emancipation Proclamation and had to be free against their will?

I doubt it.

As Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said: people have a right to their own opinions, but they do *not* have a right to their own facts.

I think Ms Taylor is right.Why anything in history is subject to debate exept the hollocoast.? Why do we call a historian or researcher ,who find out that the number of jews killed by the nazi is less than 6 million,a holocoast denier who can be prosecuted?( by the way some of them are jews). Why do`nt we respond by arguments to convince instead of saying this is a fact no discussion?.Ar`nt we making most of the people suspicious?
Why do we misuse the holocoast to massacre the palestinians?
It is sad to ask these questions in the 21st century

Part of the freedom of speech is the freedom to say stupid and offensive things. The historical record, including eyewitness accounts say the Holocaust happened. Science tells us the world is round. But we should neither jail Holcaust deniers any more than we'd jail flat-earthers. If you prohibit certain speech, you just make more people interested in it. If you let the Holocaust deniers shoot their mouths off, you will reveal them to be the racist fools that they are.

Let us keep this simple and examine reality. Yes, their are a few folks who believe, subject to change with indisputable evidence, the holocaust of the second world war every existed, so what! These folks have only a self limiting belief, no proof to offer, born of misconception, a lack of knowledge and confused information motivated by self justification, ignorance, and other similar dumbed down aggregators. The question is not did it occur but rather what is most likely the deniers underlying motivation? History cannot be changed for one moment for it is past tense. What the real question here is what do we the informed do when confronted by one of these misspeaking deniers. Never refute reality. Speak right up by first not arguing with them, second laying out only a few facts proving your point, third smile at them announcing it certainly is their right to suffer any way they please. Good-bye.

You claim to have progressive values?

Since when has willful obfuscation of the truth been a progressive value. That you represent Muslims for Peace, yet in that name, you equivocate to allow the horror perpetrated against other humans (whom you would presumably like to make peace with and show how progressive you are) to be diminished in a cloud of well spun double speak is utterly reprehensible.

You have simply marked yourself as one of those pseudo-intellectual racists who then would get very offended at having it pointed out to her.

Repugnant.

People have the right to their own opinions, this is true. They do not have a right to their own facts. 2+2=4 whether you like it or not. The American revolution happened. Care to debate that? And yet, the Holocaust, sadly, happened.

One of the curious bits of double think from the Muslim talking head world is the mental frisson between wanting to deny it happened and screaming that Muslims should do it again - like they are in Darfur.

You have made it plain you do not want peace. You have made it plain that your values are not progressive. You have made it plain that you are nothing more than a whitewashed, spinned up, P.C. version of the Jihad masquerading as an intellect.

You have lost any respect that I ever had for you.

Further more, here is how we in the engineering field define “Opinion”

A statement without facts to back it up is merely an “Opinion”.

The “Holocaust” is a FACT.
To deny it goes against all logic, therefore it is hateful.

You are not entitled to be hateful.

Mark
Always seek the truth.

The events to what is now called “the holocaust” are a documented fact.
Denying it is hate speech and should not be allowed.
Calling a denial of the holocaust a “free speech” right is lunacy.

Plain and simple lunacy…

Mark
Always seek the truth.

The hypocricy in and of the West is mind-boggling: you can deny the existance of God and its ok;you can defame Jesus and its ok;and you can defame the Prophet Muhammad and it's ok.

But you can not discuss,debate or deny a dubious and marginal event within a greater context of a world war!!!!!!!!Just unbeliveable.

Holocaust...holocaust...to dievrt attention from the sixty year of slow and going holocaust of the Palestinians:beisged, straved,bombed 24/7 for 22 days by American taxpayer's weapons and murderig and maiming over seven thousand Paolestinians including 400 infants, children,women and the elederly,in full day ligt of history.

Evrey time the racist apartheid jewish ethno-theocracy is big trouble, the holocaust and anti-semitism are invoked!!!!!!!!!

Frankly am sick and tired of the myth of the so called holocaust and "anti-semitism" as well.

Tens of millions of other human beings perished in the two world wars-not just jews.Why should jewish lives be any different than the French,the Dutch, the Russians...and the victimised Palestinians exapmle which the jews just oblitrated in a savage and barbaric war on a besieged and straved 1.5 million Palestinians.

""Holocaust denial is incomparably repugnant because the evil which was the Shoah was incomparable.""

Actually, it's incomparably-repugnant *because* *it's not.*

Just bigger.

And more recent.

And cause a lot of 'White Christians' think it's something different from Rwanda or Darfur or any of the more personal horrors we live with, even reinforce, and say, 'It can't happen here.'

It does. Dammit.

One thing about denying... Or citing, or invoking, any previous horrors is...

Whoever does it is looking to justify something.

Look.

Face the memory until you can face the reality, that blank detachment or 'defensive' rage that comes over the eyes of anyone doing something very wrong to someone else... And if you cannot fight, stand and look. Let it be known you're looking. Whatever the person beating someone else down is screaming at you to justify their actions, watch. Look them in the eyes.

Then smile when their victim is a block away. :)

This is America. We don't say 'It Can't Happen Here.'

It does.

We just do not let it. We may not be able, always, to personally-engage and defeat all 'evil' in the world. No such thing.

But we see, we astand, we do not look away, and we do not forget.

Also we have bats.

This is what we are sworn to as Americans, who believe in the unalienable 'rights of man' though only one nation, not the world's police.

"Holocaust deniers have the right to their opinion, just like any one else does. They have the right to publicly declare their opinions, to publish them, and promote them."

I don't know if you've noticed, but they ain't exactly supplying footnotes, Ma'am.

'Opinion' isn't an *excuse to lie and deceive and call it academic.*

Anyone wants to make this a world of rigorous fact-checkers, let's do it.

In the meantime.

No illusions.

Seriously.

"Holocaust denial is incomparably repugnant because the evil which was the Shoah was incomparable."

Incomparable, perhaps. Despicable in its goal of permanent ethnic cleansing, definitely.

I fear, though, that we Westerners use a barometer calibrated strictly for the use of other Westerners in assessing incomparability.

Rwandans, Sudanese, and Congolese (to mention just a few) may have something to say about the enormity of their brush with pure evil.

It is a dangerous business to erect and then have to maintain the status of "most heinous atrocity." It takes nothing away from the unimaginable horrors suffered by Holocaust survivors and their descendants to acknowledge that other genocides in other parts of the world at other times in history are/may have been equally as horrific.

Spark1,

About Religion/Cult and History;

Alexander the Great was a historical man,King of Macedon,military commander and God believed by some Greeks.
He had lived between 356 BC-323BC(more than 1000 years before islam)

Quran says *Alexander was a muslim*(describes him as muslim).If it is written in quran,it is part of religion/cult and muslims should believe that Alexander was a muslim.

What should parameters be about Alexander the Great ?

I do agree with the writer.
Is Holocaust part of religion? if so then the parameters should be different. But if it is history then anyone can deny or accept it.

Well, yes, freedom of speech does include Holocaust deniers. But this was not posed as a free speech issue. It was posed as a "how do we respond" issue, and more specifically, how do we respond in the context of being people of faith? Believing that the earth is flat doesn't hurt anyone. Holocaust denial, on the other hand, is a particularly noxious expression of anti-Semitism, and anti-Semitism, like bigotry of any sort, is intolerable within the community of faith. Holocaust denial is incomparably repugnant because the evil which was the Shoah was incomparable.

Ms. Taylor makes an important point. While our society permits bigots to speak freely it also permits others to speak in censure of them. We need to voice that censure whenever it is necessary but not seek to shut down the source. That can happen only in death.

Several years ago, two academics at prestigious universities collaborated on a book called THE BELL CURVE. They purported to have demonstrated through sociological research that African Americans are less intelligent than white Americans.

What happened? After the book was published, a huge debate ensued throughout the academic world, and the conclusions of the two authors were disproven and rejected as bad social science.

The lesson here ought to be clear. Had the book been suppressed as "hate speech" and never published, the authors would have had a forum from which to protest: If you can't read our research, how can you condemn our findings?

However, because the book was published and both academic and general audiences were able to read it, the research was proven fraudulent and the authors lost credibility.

Bigotry, prejudice, and hate speech are deplorable and repugnant human behaviors. But by shining a light into the dark corners where they reside, we can make them public and make them account for their beliefs.

*Holocaust deniers have the right to declare their opinions*

Muslims have right to say *Islam is a religion of peace* and someones have right to declare *world is flat*

In the United States we have a guarantee of freedom of speech, but this does not mean that we have the right to say any and everything we may wish to in any setting. I am not certain as to the legal definition of "hate speech", but hopefully it is illegal.

It seems that in this great nation we generally have the right to express our opinion whether it is rational or not, historically or scientifically supported or not, and we can even deliberately state as fact things we know are not true (we can lie). Thus, it seems to me that the holocaust deniers have a right to express their views provided hate speech is not involved.

Should we challenge them? I doubt that a direct challenge would convert them or shut them up. They are either woefully ignorant or misguided, or deliberately deceitful for their own purposes. They are not likely to change.

However, it is important for groups and individuals to continue to put before the public as forcefully as possible the truth about the holocaust - the eye witness accounts, the historical facts. This is the way to educate the young and other uninformed.

Freedom of Speech- 101

Are you ready? The Five Steps to Deprogram/Deflaw Islam

Using "The 77 Branches of Islamic "faith", a collection compiled by Imam Bayhaqi as a starting point. In it, he explains the essential virtues that reflect true "faith" (iman) through related Qur’anic verses and Prophetic sayings." i.e. a nice summary of the Koran and Islamic beliefs.

"1. Belief in Allah"

"aka as God, Yahweh, Zeus, Jehovah, Mother Nature, etc." should be added to your cleansing neurons.

"2. To believe that everything other than Allah was non-existent. Thereafter, Allah Most High created these things and subsequently they came into existence."

Evolution and the Big Bang or the "Gib Gnab" (when the universe starts to recycle) are more plausible and the "akas" for Allah should be included if you continue to be a "creationist".

"3. To believe in the existence of angels."

A major item for neuron cleansing. Angels/devils are the mythical creations of ancient civilizations, e.g. Hittites, to explain/define natural events, contacts with their gods, big birds, sudden winds, protectors during the dark nights, etc. No "pretty/ugly wingy thingies" ever visited or talked to Mohammed, Jesus, Mary or Joseph or Joe Smith. Today we would classify angels as fairies and "tinker bells". Modern devils are classified as the demons of the demented.

"4. To believe that all the heavenly books that were sent to the different prophets are true. However, apart from the Quran, all other books are not valid anymore."

Another major item to delete. There are no books written in the spirit state of Heaven (if there is one) just as there are no angels/"pwtfft"s to write/publish/distribute them. The Koran, OT, NT etc. are simply books written by humans for humans.

Prophets were invented by ancient scribes typically to keep the uneducated masses in line. Today we call them fortune tellers.

Prophecies are also invalidated by the natural/God/Allah gifts of Free Will and Future.

"5. To believe that all the prophets are true. However, we are commanded to follow the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) alone."

Mohammed spent thirty days fasting in a hot cave before his first contact with Allah aka God etc. via a "pretty wingy thingy". Common sense demands a neuron deletion of #5. #5 is also the major source of Islamic violence i.e. turning Mohammed's "fast, hunger-driven" hallucinations into horrible reality for unbelievers.

Accept these five "cleansers" and we guarantee a complete recovery from your Islamic ways!!!!

Obviously there is a word with which Ms. Taylor is unfamiliar, viz "lucid."

Ms. Taylor, ask anyone to define the word for you. Perhaps, someone can help you to look it up in a dictionary. Next, you might try finding an educated person and ashing him/her to define "hate speech" for you. An althernative would be to find a less educated person and to ask him/her to google "hate speech" for you and translate into one-syllable words the definition s/he finds.

Try a word a day; i.e., try learning a new word or even a new phrase (of two-to-three words) every day. Remember: Slow and steady wins the race.

Good luck, dear.