February 22, 2006

David Irving: Another View

Neo-neocon ends up where I do, but presents the case for Austria criminalizing Holocaust denial:
To Germans and Austrians the danger of public promulgation of Holocaust denial may indeed (especially when the laws were first passed) have seemed like the danger of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Likewise--although to a lesser extant--to countries such as Poland, who have reason to know the Holocaust in a way that countries such as Britain and the US never can, Holocaust denial may seem a particular affront and a special danger. "He jests at scars that never felt a wound;" and so it is much easier for countries who have not experienced such a cataclysmic upheaval to be absolutist about protecting freedom of speech.
N-n points to the adoption by many in the Muslim world of the buzzwords and libels of European anti-Semitism, although that cat's out of the bag. Nn ends up with the free speech position, but treats the contrary argument carefully.

No comments: