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Hat tip Ralph Luker.
Well that "four million" figure is a new one to me. "Six million" is the usual figure for Jewish deaths due to the Holocaust. What research do you have in mind?
Now here's a report of an interesting take on this matter by Barbara Lipstadt, the Emory professor formerly sued by David Irving in a British Court. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060220.IRVING20/TPStory/TPInternational/
I might note that, IMHO, this is somewhat unexpected, as Professor Lipstadt was none to careful about who she tarred with the antisemitic brush in one of her previous books [including many Old Right revisionist in that category who probably didn't belong]. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452272742/qid=1140542342/sr=2-2/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_2/102-1948821-2976165?s=books&;v=glance&n=283155
Although her book on her trial with Irving was much better written and, apparently, somewhat more accurate. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060593768/qid=1140542440/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-1948821-2976165?s=books&;v=glance&n=283155
As a Southern Belle might say, "Why, Mr. Bolton, that's the nicest thing I've heard said all day!"
As a Southern Belle might say, "Why, Mr. Bolton, that's the nicest thing I've heard said all day!"
I very much like Mr. Palmer's set of distinctions and appraisal of the situation - so much so that I am [gasp] uncharacteristically speechless. ;-)
Many people on our planet have been known to tell and spread a few falsehoods. Why pick on Irving?
Research has shown that actually, four million, still a horrible number, but not six million, died in the Holocaust. Yet, that latter number continues in vogue, bandied about by those who know better.
Aren't they also lying? Should they also be punished?
I should have mentioned by the time I had posted the above, David Irving had already been sentenced to three years in prison: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4733820.stm The article informs us that he will appeal.
Point noted. But why should it be illegal to say things that aren't true? Or, to put it differently, how would we be sure of our judgements if those who disagree were forced to shut up? I see the distinction that Mr. Bolton has drawn, but I don't find it very weighty in a discussion of whether the expression of opinions should be punished.
Such laws had their place after the fall of the Third Reich, to be sure, but for the reason that Mr. Bolton alluded to, which was the criminality of the National Socialist regime, which had plunged Europe into war and killed millions of people. Thus, organizing to reestablish a murder regime was properly banned as a form of self-defense on the part of the rest of the population, at least. (Some especially foolish people disagree and think that having people who had just finished killing millions march in formation down the street with swastikas and weapons is just a case of the right to freedom of assembly and to keep and bear arms. Such people merely mock the seriousness of such rights by invoking them without regard to context.)
Still, the time for such laws banning Nazi propaganda (which included denials of the criminality of the regime) is long since past. They simply serve to make such absurd claims (e.g., holocaust denial) more appealing to the sort of person who revels in being against the establishment and draw more attention to them than they deserve.
So Irving shouldn't be in jail. At the same time, it should be kept in mind that he's no heroic defender of free speech. The British trial that Mr. Bolton mentions above was one initiated by Mr. Irving to force Deborah Lipstadt to stop characterizing him (quite correctly) as a holocaust denier.
Once again we seem to have a difference of opinion based on one of those nasty legal distinctions.
According to this story and others I've read on this subject "He [Irving] was charged under a federal law that makes it a crime to publicly diminish, deny or justify the Holocaust." Hence, this has nothing to do with "offensive speech." Rather, it has to do with a nation that was centrally involved in a major historical crime trying to assure that no one within its borders can deny the existence of this crime or that they go about trying to justify this crime.
Irving is smart to admit to have broken this law, since it was already determined that he did "deny the Holocaust" in a previous extensive civil trial in a British Court, and while the Austrian Court is not bound by that British Judgment it would probably find it to be persuasive.
Now, I am not at all certain that I agree with such a law, since I believe that such matters are generally best left up to "the market of ideas" so long as they do not start impinging on the use of force. However, I can see a distinction between a law against "historical denial" and a law that keeps a person from offending another's feelings or insulting another's beliefs.
The broad sweep of history, unlike assertions about who received what revelation, is simply not up for grabs. So what a case against such a law comes down to is a case that the government should not regulate certain forms of lying. [Indeed, I believe that they should not, except under the very narrow conditions specified in the seven elements of classical fraud, but there are many libertarians and conservatives who would disagree with that position.]