Even in Austria or Germany, Irving's claims are discussed, debated and refuted. Just too bad for him he can't actually advocate such claims.
Again, the practical difference is between incitement and mere discussion.
David Irving arrested in Austria
Again, the practical difference is between incitement and mere discussion.
Oh dear. Contravention of Godwin's Law, banalization of terms into meaninglessness, no argument, no logic, simply the sound of panties in a twist, I guess some people simply cannot handle the free speech of disagreement. Tsk!
I'll see your Godwin's and raise you a tu quoque. And it's always a pleasure watching someone trying to defend abrogation of rights based on logical expedience. Why, someone could almost defend rounding up folks and putting them into camps with reasoning like that. After all, what's a few rights being mauled when we're talking about the will of the majority, right?
I'll say it again, Gurdur... it's their country, they can do what they like. But there's a reason why what happened there happened there, and not here. Have a nice day.
Who said there is no censorship in the USA? Or is "in effect" your code word for "straw man"?
Mycroft
High Priest of Ed
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- 20,501
Not the point.
A couple of people have tried claiming in effect no censorship exists in the USA.
Quite obviously, they're wrong.
They've also tried claiming censorship is necessarily always a bad thing, which is just too bad for them, especially once we get onto showing snuff films in junior schools.
Demonstrating that censorship happens isn't the same as demonstrating that censorship is a good thing, and citing examples from our McCarthy era doesn't make for a strong argument, as here that's generally accepted as something we should not repeat.
Not showing snuff films in junior schools is not censorship. Censorship is an active process where you prevent someone from saying what they would otherwise say. The curriculum of junior schools isn’t made up of whatever is not forbidden, but what is chosen by the educators as the most important information the students should learn with the time and resources they have available.
Oh gosh, I suppose you really didn't mean it when you said the following:
here, where you claim in effect that no censorship exists in the USA --- unless you think censorship is OK for everything except Nazism, which would be very silly, wouldn't it?
Here where you make the silly claim that in the USA messages are legally only determined by their "delivery", not by their content
Here where you claim an announcement of intent to kill the President is not illegal, which is a silly claim, in view of the actual evidence given to you
oh that last one is no quite on-topic, but I thought I would throw it in as yet one more of your refuted assertions anyway.
Here where you claim I am "defending" censorship and implicity you claim none exists in the USA -- you prefer how things are done in the USA
etc. etc.
So I guess you really didn't mean it all that time, and given the induitable evidence given to you of censorship actually existing in the USA, you will no doubt emigrate for greater freedom of speech
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*yawn*
You have no "right" to commit burglery. Too bad.
Abrogation of rights? Do tell, I love it when someone makes an appeal to magical and mythical objective rights.
* Biiiig yawn *
The slippery slope fallacy in full flight!
If anyone disagrees with you, they must be nazis. Oh dear!
Oh, unless you didn't mean that either, and you've simply wasted time making rhetorical claims easily shot down.
Logic is just such a drag after all. Tsk!Oh gosh, in the tu quoque spirit please do explain:
1) the KKK
2) why blacks in the USA army were not paid the same as whites till 1954 -- i.e. late in the 20th century
3) segregation
4) the need for the American Civil War
5) including the existence of legal slavery inside the USA long after the UK, France and Germany had made it illegal
6) ID and Creationism
and BTW, the thread is littered with your other claims you need to try backing up. Be sure to have a nice day too!
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Nick Bogaerts
Muse
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- 617
I would say that it is up to those who wish to impose limits on free speech have to demonstrate that the censorship will have a positive effect, not vice versa.
Therefore, those who support stifling Irving have to demonstrate that it helps fighting the lies he spreads. I do not believe the case has been made.
Incidentally, I would also apply this to age restrictions on depictions of sex and violence. I have seen no evidence that porn is detrimental to the well-being of adolescents.
I would also like to add, despite Sackett and BPSCG tarring us with a broad brush, last I checked I was still European.
Therefore, those who support stifling Irving have to demonstrate that it helps fighting the lies he spreads. I do not believe the case has been made.
Incidentally, I would also apply this to age restrictions on depictions of sex and violence. I have seen no evidence that porn is detrimental to the well-being of adolescents.
I would also like to add, despite Sackett and BPSCG tarring us with a broad brush, last I checked I was still European.
No-one said it was. What you ignore is that I shot down the argument that it must be necessarily a bad thing.
Wrong again. Many examples were of very recent and actual events. Contraception, remember? Or say being forced as a teacher to claim evolution uis unproven and kids should learn all about ID too.
Oh, you're just kidding me now.
Let's say some group or teacher wants to show a hardcore porno snuff film to junior kiddies. They're not going to get away with it.
This is mere empty evasion. The excision of information on contraception is an active process of censorship; the ideas on just what students should learn is of course a subjective idea, and any idea what not to teach constitutes a form of censorship in actuality,
Er, discussion - even positive discussion - of any of these will not get one arrested in the US, which is rather the point.
and BTW, the thread is littered with your other claims you need to try backing up. Be sure to have a nice day too!
Oh, like the claim that someone (me? sure, why not...) made that there is no censorship in the US? Yeah, I'm still waiting for that quote from you. You know, you don't have to hide behind links, you can simply quote the poster... unless of course, you can't actually find one that said that.
Discussion of Irving's claims in Austria or Germany will not get you arrested either.
BTW, you're wrong about it being the point in that little segment -- see below.
What's your next evasion going to be?
I gave you the links.
Actually, quoting the words would have been downright timewasting. Any disinterested person can judge for themselves.
Especially seeing how I refuted your claims each time, and you simpkly ignored the refutations in favour of more attempts at appeal to emotion and slippery slope.
But hey, I will indulge you as you try hiding behind rhetoric, and just wait for you to substantiate your claims. Especially your slippery-slope claims. Unless you didn't mean those either, of course.
Just to indulge you:
Do try making a logical argument to back up this latter silly claim of yours:
Whatever that's supposed to mean, of course.
Or:
And lastly:
Wrong again about that being the particular point in that little context! You made a heavily emotional implication of an argument, I just showed you bad things happened in the USA as well. Do try to keep up.
heh heh heh.You mean you want to ignore every bit of evidence given, not answer any points, you can't defend your emotional claims, and you have zero case to make, and you now want to run away.
Seriously, do you think that worries me?
Seriously now?Tony
Penultimate Amazing
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- 15,410
That still doesn't justify silencing free-speech.
heh heh heh.You mean you want to ignore every bit of evidence given, not answer any points, you can't defend your emotional claims, and you have zero case to make, and you now want to run away.
Seriously, do you think that worries me?
I'm not interested in worrying anyone. I'm interested in not wasting my time on people such as yourself. Keep knocking down your own straw men as long as you wish; no one here is fooled. Besides, we have a special term for beating yourself here in the States. Enjoy your stay here at JREF.
I haven't yet seen your argument for not "silencing free speech", whatever that may mean.
Let's get down to business:
1) There is no "silencing free speech". There is only the illegalisation of say Holocaust denial and (in Austria) revivalism, neither of which constitute a "silencing of free speech", they only constitute a banning of certain advocations. IOW, you make too blanket an assertion.
2) Free speech is not and never was an absolute and unlimited right.
That point has been made throughout this thread; there are always limitations upon free speech, the important argument is on just what those limitations are or should be.
There has been an inordinate amount of evasion throughout this thread on the issue, but as pretty much every disinterested observer sees, limitations exist everywhere.
3) Merely making an assertion regarding a value does not cut the mustard.
Merely saying something is not justified does not make the claim correct.
You need an argument about why it is not correct.
4) So........ what's your argument that it is not justified here in Irving's case?
Oh come now, you've wasted tons of time in this thread making emotional asides because you refuse to make any argument.
Oh puh-leeeeeze, is this some attempt to kill me by making me laugh too much?
Come off it, you are not everyone here. Too bad. Your opinion is your own, unsubstantiated as it may be.
Tell me, could you ever make a rational argument instead of these meaningless asides?
I am sure I will, but do you have any rational argument?
Any at all?I'd pretty much checked out of this, since Gurdur seemed interested in responding to my questions only by posting irrelevant links, but let me ask you the same question I asked him: What bad things would happen if Europeans were exposed to speech espousing Naziism?
I understand the European discomfort with the subject, probably better than many Americans. My father was a Jew who was able to get out of France as a teenager in 1940, and spent much of his life trying to understand how something as horrifying as the Nazis could have happened to the nation of Goethe and Beethoven. And my mother spent the war years in Paris.
But if you don't allow the horror to speak, you eventually forget what a terrible price civilization paid for not recognizing it. And how will you recognize it when it comes along again?
Here in the States, there's a newspaper column called "Miss Manners." She handles etiquette questions with a dry wit and incredible common sense; she made me realize one day that if people always acted courteously and with common sense, we would need very few laws.
Anyway, someone once wrote to her asking what kind of snappy reply she should have made to someone who'd said something gratuitously ugly and insulting to her, in front of others. "Miss Manners" reply was along the lines of, "Nothing. Best to let the insult stand there alone, in all its radiant ugliness, so everyone could appreciate its ugliness, as well as the quality of its creator."
This is a completely ridiculous claim. Since the actual history is discussed in great detail time and time and time and time again in France or Germany, throughout the media, and where it is also a set part of the scool curriculum, it's totally laughable to think it would be forgotten. I guess you also miss the part where it has been stated many times that neonaziism and Irving's claims are very often discussed throughout France or Germany (notably say in relation to Le Pen), so for goodness' sakes, is there any actual reason to think it would be forgotten? Or was that again mere rhetoric?
NoZed Avenger
Penultimate Amazing
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From Michael Shermer, coincidentally in a work on Holocaust denial:
"It is error alone which needs the support of government," Thomas Jefferson wrote in his Notes on the State of Virginia. "Truth can stand by itself."
Or, if he is too American to hold a legitimate viewpoint, what about JS Mill?
“If [an opinion] is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth” (On Liberty, p. 36).
The question is not whether there may be limits on freedom of speech or whether other limits are good or bad, but whether this particular proposed limit is a good one.
What is the danger in making expression of a point of view or advocacy of it unlawful? Even assuming that we are correct on the truth of the matter under discussion -- which I firmly believe -- an untested truth loses its power. The reason the western world relies (in several contexts) on an advocacy model is that we believe that it is a crucible for discerning truth -- and that the side with the correct position hones and strengthens itself by clashing with opposing viewpoints. It is almost Darwinian -- the struggle not only helps to ensure that the strongest ideas flourish over time, but that they remain vigorous by continually defeating incorrect viewpoints.
As a very rough paraphrase of Mills' point: Once no one is allowed to dissent against any given truth, it can no longer be counted on in the same way, because it does not regularly affirm and demonstrate that it is, in fact, true. Even if a suppressed opinion is completely false, free expression can still be beneficial. In the end, a person may believe an opinion is correct if and only if there exists the liberty to question, criticize, and investigate that opinion. Without the ability to defeat the incorrect opinion in the open, there is an opportunity for it to flourish in the shadows.
And I personally find any distinction between allowing "discussion" -- as long as no one is allowed to actually advocate a contrary position -- and censorship to be a distinction with no real difference. You can argue that such censorship is justified under the circumstances by pointing to the plusses and minuses (certainly reasonable people can disagree here), but avoiding calling it censorship seems more a verbal sleight of hand than anything else.
"It is error alone which needs the support of government," Thomas Jefferson wrote in his Notes on the State of Virginia. "Truth can stand by itself."
Or, if he is too American to hold a legitimate viewpoint, what about JS Mill?
“If [an opinion] is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth” (On Liberty, p. 36).
The question is not whether there may be limits on freedom of speech or whether other limits are good or bad, but whether this particular proposed limit is a good one.
What is the danger in making expression of a point of view or advocacy of it unlawful? Even assuming that we are correct on the truth of the matter under discussion -- which I firmly believe -- an untested truth loses its power. The reason the western world relies (in several contexts) on an advocacy model is that we believe that it is a crucible for discerning truth -- and that the side with the correct position hones and strengthens itself by clashing with opposing viewpoints. It is almost Darwinian -- the struggle not only helps to ensure that the strongest ideas flourish over time, but that they remain vigorous by continually defeating incorrect viewpoints.
As a very rough paraphrase of Mills' point: Once no one is allowed to dissent against any given truth, it can no longer be counted on in the same way, because it does not regularly affirm and demonstrate that it is, in fact, true. Even if a suppressed opinion is completely false, free expression can still be beneficial. In the end, a person may believe an opinion is correct if and only if there exists the liberty to question, criticize, and investigate that opinion. Without the ability to defeat the incorrect opinion in the open, there is an opportunity for it to flourish in the shadows.
And I personally find any distinction between allowing "discussion" -- as long as no one is allowed to actually advocate a contrary position -- and censorship to be a distinction with no real difference. You can argue that such censorship is justified under the circumstances by pointing to the plusses and minuses (certainly reasonable people can disagree here), but avoiding calling it censorship seems more a verbal sleight of hand than anything else.
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The discussion isn't about what is allowed in USA or not but there is always somebody that will jump into a general topic and start the eurobashing in a quite a jerkish fashion...
To return to the topic,I received the following passage from a jewish friend. He disagreed with me in certain points and I find his point of view interesting.
To return to the topic,I received the following passage from a jewish friend. He disagreed with me in certain points and I find his point of view interesting.