David Irving arrested in Austria

[Gurdur]

Really? Why not put that idea to the test?

Because it was already done in 1933 and 1939-1945 is well-known?
*sigh*
Not listening, are you? I've already detailed that neonazi-sympathetic political parties who still remain within the law are allowed to run for office in Germany, where they regularly get trounced at the polls; and Haider's party is losing support badly in Austria.

 

[Gurdur]

The KKK (from Wikipedia):

At its peak, Klan membership exceeded 4 million and comprised 20% of the adult white male population in many broad geographic regions, as high as 40% in some areas. Most of the membership resided in Midwestern states.

The peak being somewhere around the 1920's, I assume.

The name "Ku Klux Klan" has since been used by many different unrelated groups, including many who opposed the civil rights movement and desegregation in the 1960s. Today, dozens of organizations with chapters across the United States and other countries use all or part of the name in their titles, but their total membership is estimated to be only a few thousand.

So we're talking about more than five.

In 2005 there are an estimated 3,000 Klan members, divided among 158 chapters of a variety of splinter organizations, about two-thirds of which were in former Confederate states. The other third are primarily in the Midwest region.
The ACLU has provided legal support to various factions of the KKK in defense of their First Amendment rights to hold public rallies, parades, and marches, and their right to field political candidates.
In a July 2005 incident, a Hispanic man's house was burned down in Hamilton, Ohio, after accusations that he sexually assaulted a nine-year-old white girl. Klan members in Klan robes showed up afterward to distribute pamphlets.

Which might give an idea why some advocation is illegal.

 

[Gurdur]

Some odd history from the Wikipedia piece on the KKK:

In Illinois, the Klan supported national Prohibition. In 1923, the Klan essentially took over Williamson County, Illinois, forcing elected government officials out of office, to be replaced by unelected "Kluxers", as they were called in Illinois. Federal officials apparently deputized the Klan. Large mobs went door to door, searching houses for alcohol. Persons possessing alcohol were taken to Klan prisons. This eventually led to the "Klan War" in which local gangsters eventually overpowered the Klan and allowed the restoration of lawfully elected government (Charles Birger and Shelton Brothers Gang).

A place is in a really bad way when it has to depend on criminal gangsters to protect a democracy.

 

[Ed]

Really? You do have evidence to back that up?

Pretty much common knowlege after one of the groups lost a wrongful death civil suit and were personally responsible for massive awards. I guess that finding out that your trailor has to go to pay some darkies took the wind out of their sails.

n.b. Wiki suggests 3000, currently. I somehow think that that is a bit high but then again, I am pretty sure that you can find 3000 adherents to anything in a population large enough.

Was that always so?

No. Then again, JFK was considered a liberal in his time.

C

You actually so sure of that? Or just saying that?

I, personally, espouse lynching. There, I said it. I'm still here. The point is context and even if one were in front of a bunch of white trash kinda guys and pointed a finger at Al Sharpton and said "lynch the ******" if you were charged it would not be for advocating lynching, per se.

Work out what you want to mean.
Can a restaurant or private bus line practice racial segregation? If not, why not?

Public accomodations cannot. Private clubs can, and do.

The famously acronymed Bob Jones U. (or BJU to the undergrads) had a policy

Interracial relationships at the university were prohibited for many years, but the ban was lifted in 2000 after Dr. Bob Jones III announced its nullification on Larry King Live.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Jones_University

No datin' darkies at BJU, dammit. Note that that was because of embaressment, not any laws.

What do you actually mean here?

The cross thingie went to SCOTUS (court, not body part) a couple of years ago. The Dewyt The Dunce summary is here

1. No. 01-1107, Virginia v. Black (the cross-burning case), affirming in part and vacating in part. Justice O'Connor wrote an opinion for a majority concluding that a state may constitutionally single-out cross-burning with an attempt to intimidate for special sanction, i.e., that cross-burning intimidation can be treated more severely than other forms of intimidation. Justice Souter wrote a dissenting opinion on this point, joined by Justices Kennedy and Ginsburg. Justice O'Connor's opinion also concluded, for a four-Justice plurality, that a particular provision in the Virginia statute, which makes the cross-burning itself prima facie evidence of an intent to intimidate, is facially invalid "at this point," i.e., until the state courts construe it in a manner that avoids the constitutional concern.
http://www.goldsteinhowe.com/blog/archive/2003_04_06_SCOTUSblog.cfm#200108598

This says, in essence, that a cross burning meant to intimidate can have laws against it. Note that cross burning, per se. is OK. Naturally, there must be a law. I am not aware of any except Va. So, be relieved, you may burn a cross.

I am unsurprised.

Very cutting.

No need for your self-deprecation.

Whoa. Clever humor. Love it.

 

[Gurdur]

Pretty much common knowlege after one of the groups lost a wrongful death civil suit and were personally responsible for massive awards. I guess that finding out that your trailor has to go to pay some darkies took the wind out of their sails.

So something was illegal, otherwise they wouldn't be losing civil suits.

n.b. Wiki suggests 3000, currently. I somehow think that that is a bit high but then again, I am pretty sure that you can find 3000 adherents to anything in a population large enough.

So not your claimed "five". So your claim was simply badly wrong --- by almost three orders of magnitude.

even if one were in front of a bunch of white trash kinda guys and pointed a finger at Al Sharpton and said "lynch the ******" if you were charged it would not be for advocating lynching, per se.

That of course would depend on just which USA state you were in --- State laws differ.

This says, in essence, that a cross burning meant to intimidate can have laws against it. Note that cross burning, per se. is OK. Naturally, there must be a law.

So, D'uh, it is incitement which is the legal point at stake --- just as in Holocaust denial or racism advocation. Get the point?

Whoa. Clever humor. Love it.

Better than making silly rhetoric about Transubstantiaon in lieu of any actual rational argument.

 

[richardm]

Actually, no. They were the fourth biggest party in the UK for a while in the 1980's, but lost a great deal of support and members since then.

Actually, I don't believe that is true. Some numbers here (Warning: PDF File). Check out Page 2. They are bumping along the bottom for vote %, but note the large increase in the last election round. Even though it was a poor show it was enough to net them some councillors. Sure you're not thinking of the SNP? (Ducks before Rolfe arrives)

Oh - sorry (for the error, not the fact that you're European...)

Why not put that idea to the test?

I think they take the view that the consequences were so severe last time that they are simply not prepared to fiddle around with it.

 

[Ed]

I trust you are joking, albeit a bit morbidly? Surely, the KKK has more support than that.

A bit more. Not a lot.

Is there a reason why I can't utter death threats against the President of the United States without severe consequences?

Perhaps there are people and then there are people?

Of course there are. It's different in Denmark?

I looked around a bit and it seems that the words "Kill Bush" are not illegal, per se but that, like any threat, the action is investigated. In the case of the President, it appears that the investigation is taken a bit more serioiusly than for ordinary folks.

Some moron (in SF unsurprisingly) said just that and was picked up by the Secret Service and cooled his heels for two days in the slammer. He was released when they determined that the "threat" was not credible.

The libertarian in me says that a threat against the President is in fact illegal. The actual words, I mean. And that the punishment is flexible, two days in jail at the minimum. Call it waht you will but the guy was in durance vile for the specific words.

 

[Ed]

So something was illegal, otherwise they wouldn't be losing civil suits.

Ummm.... I said "civil suit". Nothing to do with the state.

So not your claimed "five". So your claim was simply badly wrong --- by almost three orders of magnitude.

Are you really so foolish?

That of course would depend on just which USA state you were in --- State laws differ.

Feel free to find a state statute and report back. But if the statute is too broad and inclusive, it would go, eventually, to SCOTUS and be kicked out, I suspect, as the Cross thing was.

So, D'uh, it is incitement which is the legal point at stake --- just as in Holocaust denial or racism advocation. Get the point?

No. Perhaps you can explain using full sentences strung together in a coherent paragraph. I see a difference between a group of men menacing a family in their house and simply words. Brused feelings don't count.

Better than making silly rhetoric about Transubstantiaon in lieu of any actual rational argument.

I am expecting one on my point above.

 

[Ed]

Some odd history from the Wikipedia piece on the KKK:


A place is in a really bad way when it has to depend on criminal gangsters to protect a democracy.

There is a point here, I suppose.

 

[Chaos]

Indeed.

No, not really. To explain part of the situation:
There is the Basic Law in Germany, for example, akin to a constitution, whcih states unchangeably that the basic rights of a citizen may not be violated in any way: it can and is interpreted that the basic righhts of a citizen include not having to listen to someone advocate openly killing the handicapped or killing all blacks.
*snip*

To quote the relevant portions of the Grundgesetz:

Article 1
(1) Human dignity is inviolable; to honor and protect it is the duty of all governmental power
(2) The German people have acknowledge the inviolable and unalienable human rights as the base of all human communities, of peace, and of justice in the world

Article 2
(1) Everybody has the right to free display of his personality, unless this violates the rights of others, the constitutional order or ethics.

Article 5
(1) Everybody has the right to express and publish his opinion in [spoken] words, writing or pictures and to inform himself by means of publicly available soruces. [...] Censorship does not take place.
(2) These rights are limited by general laws, [...] and the right to personal honor.

Article 9
(1) All Germans have the right to form clubs and societies.
(2) Societes whose purpose violates criminal law or is directed against the constitutional order [...] are illegal.

Article 18
Whoever abuses freedom of expression (Article 5), [...] the right to form societies (Article 9) [...] to fight against the liberal democratic order, forfeits these basic rights. [...]


I think that´s pretty much it. I just translated this myself "on the fly", and I´m no lawyer or anything, so some of the terms may not be quite right.

In my view, Article 1.1 and 5.2 (last part) clearly say that hate speech does not have to be tolerated, especially if it contains outright lies about those it is directed against - as Holocaust denial does.

 

[Gurdur]

Actually, I don't believe that is true. Some numbers here (Warning: PDF File). Check out Page 2. They are bumping along the bottom for vote %, but note the large increase in the last election round. Even though it was a poor show it was enough to net them some councillors. Sure you're not thinking of the SNP? (Ducks before Rolfe arrives).

One:there is some noise about the BNP being the "fourth-largest party" at the moment, see the Wikipedia piece on the BNP for a good run-down on the argument.

Two: I was mistakenly thinking of the National Front, the party from which the BNP grew, and it was the 1970's, not the 1980's, but it was definitely the fourth-largest party then (see the Wiipedia article on it.

So, the NF, not BNP, in the'70's, not the 80's. My mistake.

 

[Gurdur]

......I think that´s pretty much it. I just translated this myself "on the fly", and I´m no lawyer or anything, so some of the terms may not be quite right.

wooo, many thanks for adding that, Chaos. Makes up for my own laziness.

 

[BPSCG]

In my view, Article 1.1 and 5.2 (last part) clearly say that hate speech does not have to be tolerated, especially if it contains outright lies about those it is directed against - as Holocaust denial does.

So it is illegal to deny the Holocaust?

Question: What would happen (hypothetically) if someone found some evidence that Hitler wasn't actually the bad guy. Say it was Himmler all along, that he directed everything from off stage (Minister of Propaganda, remember), and that Hitler was in fact a person of barely marginal intelligence with a gift for making speeches, some kind of idiot savant, if you will, who didn't even understand the words that were being put into his mouth.

Would it be a crime to publish such findings?

 

[Gurdur]

So it is illegal to deny the Holocaust?

Yes, when in public.

Question: What would happen (hypothetically) ....
Would it be a crime to publish such findings?

No, it would not be illegal to publish such findings.

 

[richardm]

One:there is some noise about the BNP being the "fourth-largest party" at the moment

They target their seats very carefully, and in some wards in the General Election they may well have been fourth-largest. I don't think that holds nationwide, though, and it still wasn't enough to net any MPs. Still, it's a worrying trend.

 

[Ed]

To quote the relevant portions of the Grundgesetz:

In my view, Article 1.1 and 5.2 (last part) clearly say that hate speech does not have to be tolerated, especially if it contains outright lies about those it is directed against - as Holocaust denial does.

Lord a mercy, that is vague.

 

[Chaos]

So it is illegal to deny the Holocaust?

According to my professor (I have to take Public Law this semester) it is; there´s supposed to be a specific law to deal with Holocaust denial in particular, but it´s not in the collection of laws I bought for this course, which is focused more on commerce law.

Question: What would happen (hypothetically) if someone found some evidence that Hitler wasn't actually the bad guy. Say it was Himmler all along, that he directed everything from off stage (Minister of Propaganda, remember), and that Hitler was in fact a person of barely marginal intelligence with a gift for making speeches, some kind of idiot savant, if you will, who didn't even understand the words that were being put into his mouth.

Would it be a crime to publish such findings?

I don´t think it would be. After all, it would not deny that any of these crimes happened. And you could hardly argue that it demeans the victims of National Socialism in any way, nor that it paints a positive picture of Hitler.

Off-Topic: wasn´t Goebbels the Minister of Propaganda, and Himmler the head of the SS?

 

[NoZed Avenger]

Which may sound lovely in theory, but is ridiculous in practice. Otherwise WW2 would never have been needed. Like that totally off-the-wall post before, Miss Manners is not an adequate defence against stormtroopers. Empty posturing does not help in the real world.

You seem to be holding two positions simultaneously.

First, everyone is allowed to discuss holocaust denial and that position, so that there is really no limit on speech at all. Second, without this (nonexistent) limit, all civilization collapses and we allow WWII.

You seem to equate allowing someone to advocate a position with allowing a repeat of WWII. Like your questions about allowing segregation, you consistently conflate the speech with the activity.

The KKK is free to advocate segregation and any other manner of racist bile all it likes; that does not mean that it can go ahead and segregate. But there is a clear distinction between the speech and action.

Now let's look at the other major fallacy here, since this lies at the very basis of this position: Just what is "truth" supposed to be here? You should know by now there is no such thing as objective truth when it comes to values; Naziism is not "untrue", it's simply immoral (at least by my own ethics).

In context, a distinction that makes no difference.

Don't be silly and try not to confuse me with other posters --- it was a poster who made a similar defence as yours, Sackett, who claims all "Europeans" think one way and all Americans think one way -- I personally would never be so silly as to believe such obviously untrue rubbish.
IOW; give up the strawman. No-one is being anti-American here, and if you can't handle skepticism, thats your own problem.

It was a joke. IOW, chill.

Oh puh-leeeze, so they should teach Intelligent Design and racism in schools then?

I am not sure why this tone is necessary, but teaching in school has been thrown about, so let's look at it.

People are free to advocate ID. People are free to advocate teaching it in school. People are free to form groups and even lobby the government for their position.

That does not equate to putting it (or anything else) into the curriculum. What a teacher says in the public school system is controlled in a number of ways, because that teacher is acting as an agent of the state. He or she is not free to teach anything they'd like in the classroom, but that has little-to-nothing to do with expression anywhere else.

This assertion is akin to saying you must have someone around simply to give every opposing POV there is. Impractical and unnecessary. Maybe Naziism or overly making an impractical fetish of "unlimited free speech" (i.e. allowing neonazis to rant) simply lost out in the "Darwinian" struggle?

It isn't requiring anyone to assert anything -- it merely allows the freedom to do so. And Nazism doesn't "lose out" if the government keeps it from ever competing.

Since it's been pointed out time and time again actual discussion goes on unhindered, more such rhetoric simply fails to deal with the point.

So if there is no difference, then how is allowing it going to lead to WWII and dogs and cats living together, etc. ?

 

[Gurdur]

Lord a mercy, that is vague.

Can you come up with any actual critique? Ore would you like the entire law statutes and law-rulings quoted at you just to impress you with specifity?
IOW, do you have any actual point or argument to make?

 

[Gurdur]

First, everyone is allowed to discuss holocaust denial and that position, so that there is really no limit on speech at all. Second, without this (nonexistent) limit, all civilization collapses and we allow WWII.

The fact that you willfully conflate seperate issues is your own problem.
I will repeat.
advocation of Holocaust denial is illegal.
Discussion of it is not.

Your claim that advocation is equal to discussion is simply not true, and it is a very important legal difference.

that does not mean that it can go ahead and segregate.

Bingo. A point made there.

IOW, chill.

Take your own advice and actually address the issues.

People are free to advocate ID. People are free to advocate teaching it in school. People are free to form groups and even lobby the government for their position.

You miss the point. People have been advocating in the USA that evolution must be taught with official demurrals in the schools, which already constitutes censorship --- as indeed so does teaching evolution without reference to ID demurrals of evolution.

He or she is not free to teach anything they'd like in the classroom,

Bingo again. Censorship of some kind exists no matter what you do.

So if there is no difference,

Again, this "no difference" thing of yours is only your own opinion, and various laws are built up on a very real difference being made.