Does Holocaust Denial Prohibition Make Sense?

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Re: Does Holocaust Denial Prohibition Make Sense?

#121  Postby NineBerry » Jan 30, 2012 11:44 am

epepke wrote:
That "public peace" idea that has been attributed to German law, for instance. It seems to amount to saying that it's to prevent speech that makes anybody feel unsafe or unsettled. That's what offensive speech does, makes people anxious. I'm not convinced that this is a bad thing. As an atheist, the pan-Christian impulse makes me feel unsafe. I think that's a good thing, because knowing about it enables me to make choices.


No, you still don't understand the concept.

Public peace means that no one has the objectively correct impression that they don't get equal protection of their rights by the state.

The German state accepts that holocaust denial is not merely an academical opinion, but that it is most often used as a means to incite hatred against Jews. Since the German state protects groups against incitement to hatred, not persecuting holocaust denial that can be objectively seen as inciting hatred against Jews would therefore objectively make Jews feel that their equal right to protection from incitement is not fulfilled. And that would disturb public peace.

This disturbance of public peace could indeed be seen in reality. I have linked to a thread on RDF where I have shown opposition to right-wing extremisms in the German public in the mid 90ies. There were widespread protests, anti-rightwing pop songs and so forth. All evidence to the fact that the state failed to protect the rights of Jews and other immigrants in the eyes of the public. The issue of holocaust denial was a big topic in public discourse and it was seen as "the state is blind on its right eye" that there was not more done to prevent holocaust denial.
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Re: Does Holocaust Denial Prohibition Make Sense?

#122  Postby Shrunk » Jan 30, 2012 11:56 am

NineBerry wrote:
epepke wrote:
That "public peace" idea that has been attributed to German law, for instance. It seems to amount to saying that it's to prevent speech that makes anybody feel unsafe or unsettled. That's what offensive speech does, makes people anxious. I'm not convinced that this is a bad thing. As an atheist, the pan-Christian impulse makes me feel unsafe. I think that's a good thing, because knowing about it enables me to make choices.


No, you still don't understand the concept.

Public peace means that no one has the objectively correct impression that they don't get equal protection of their rights by the state.

The German state accepts that holocaust denial is not merely an academical opinion, but that it is most often used as a means to incite hatred against Jews. Since the German state protects groups against incitement to hatred, not persecuting holocaust denial that can be objectively seen as inciting hatred against Jews would therefore objectively make Jews feel that their equal right to protection from incitement is not fulfilled. And that would disturb public peace.

This disturbance of public peace could indeed be seen in reality. I have linked to a thread on RDF where I have shown opposition to right-wing extremisms in the German public in the mid 90ies. There were widespread protests, anti-rightwing pop songs and so forth. All evidence to the fact that the state failed to protect the rights of Jews and other immigrants in the eyes of the public. The issue of holocaust denial was a big topic in public discourse and it was seen as "the state is blind on its right eye" that there was not more done to prevent holocaust denial.


That seems perfectly consistent with epepke's understanding of the concept. It seems to me the onus should be on the state to reassure citizens that it can protect them without trampling on civil liberties.
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Re: Does Holocaust Denial Prohibition Make Sense?

#123  Postby NineBerry » Jan 30, 2012 2:34 pm

No, it's not the same. It is not a subjective feeling by persons that feel threatened, it is an objective situation of the state not offering protection.
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Re: Does Holocaust Denial Prohibition Make Sense?

#124  Postby epepke » Jan 30, 2012 2:36 pm

NineBerry wrote:
epepke wrote:
That "public peace" idea that has been attributed to German law, for instance. It seems to amount to saying that it's to prevent speech that makes anybody feel unsafe or unsettled. That's what offensive speech does, makes people anxious. I'm not convinced that this is a bad thing. As an atheist, the pan-Christian impulse makes me feel unsafe. I think that's a good thing, because knowing about it enables me to make choices.


No, you still don't understand the concept.


I understand the concept. I just don't see that evidence is there to support it, or that evidence has been presented.

Public peace means that no one has the objectively correct impression that they don't get equal protection of their rights by the state.

The German state accepts that holocaust denial is not merely an academical opinion, but that it is most often used as a means to incite hatred against Jews.


This is an assertion. It clearly implies the assumption that there is a monotonic, causal relationship between permitting holocaust denial and incitement of hatred against Jews. Therefore, if you make holocaust denial illegal, it necessarily reduces hatred of Jews.

I see that assumption, and I understand what it is. I just doubt its accuracy. I haven't even seen attempts at arguments in favor of its accuracy.

This disturbance of public peace could indeed be seen in reality. I have linked to a thread on RDF where I have shown opposition to right-wing extremisms in the German public in the mid 90ies. There were widespread protests, anti-rightwing pop songs and so forth. All evidence to the fact that the state failed to protect the rights of Jews and other immigrants in the eyes of the public. The issue of holocaust denial was a big topic in public discourse and it was seen as "the state is blind on its right eye" that there was not more done to prevent holocaust denial.


What you haven't shown, and I don't think you or anybody else has tried to show, is whether such actions actually in fact reduce attitudes of the kinds that led to the holocaust in the first place. The laws made some people shut the fuck up. I am not doubting that, at all. But did it have a positive effect on the underlying problem of Judenhass?

I left a six-figure job in Atlanta and went into penury, from which I haven't recovered in 10 years, in part because of intense racism. It's a special kind of racism that is just under the surface and nobody admits to but is much more dangerous because of that fact. Atlanta is like a sheet of tempered glass. You can hit it with a hammer, and it will probably not break, but nick it with a chisel and the tension is released, and the whole thing shatters, as happened during the Rodney King riots.

Even on a daily basis, there's a huge amount of racially-motivated violence in Atlanta. It's just that people don't talk about it. The racism is there, but it's sugar-coated, and it's much more dangerous because it is sugar-coated.

Now, superficially, Atlanta seems great and free of racial tensions. I wouldn't have known how bad the racism was if I hadn't lived there for two years, nor would I have known if I didn't have a rather unusual conception of race. I never perceived it when I visited for conferences and conventions. I'm sure that the pretense surrounding racism in Atlanta is sufficient for most White people to pat themselves on the back and tell themselves that the problem of racism has been solved. It hasn't. It's just been made more dangerous and destructive, being hidden.

One anecdote. At the Bluepointe bar, a very ritzy, superficial place I liked to go to because it was convenient to work, I met a guy who had a consulting firm. He was chuffed because he had made $50,000 in a single day, which I doubt that I'll ever do. He kept buying me drinks because, as he said, he wanted to see if they would have an effect. (It is extremely difficult to get me drunk, which I ascribe to my Bavarian liver.) By the end of the evening, he was in tears. He told me how he had to tell clients that he was the "regional manager" of his firm. When I talked about some of the things I had done, such as collaborate with another scientist to do studies of communication patterns in disaster situations, at first he refused to believe me, so strong was his conviction that people of different colors could work together like that. It was all because he was Black.

Now, I'm not Black, but I am a Jew, albeit a completely non-religious one with a tall, broad-shouldered Germanic physique who could easily pass. When I go to Germany, it doesn't take my living there for a time to see under the surface. I feel it immediately. Given that, if I'm with someone, or even in the same country with someone, I would far, far rather know that they are a holocaust denier because they feel free to talk about it than blithely pretend that everything is Nu-Perfect because nobody is permitted to express their bigotry under law.

I'm sure that you can come up with reasons to fail to understand the "Atlanta analogy," while telling me that I'm the one who doesn't understand.

I'm also sure that the prohibition on holocaust denial makes Germans feel smug and morally superior, but then again, so did the holocaust in the first place. Let's face it. If the Allies had not seen fit to bomb Germany into rubble, the Germans would be dancing the Shueblaten on Hitler's birthday today, except in the North, where they'd be dancing all stiff in black leather trousers. Hitler didn't lose. He won, and the reason he won was that's what most people wanted, not only in Germany, but in huge swaths of Europe and the US. This doesn't change in 70 years. It doesn't change in 50,000 years.

It probably won't be Jews next time, unless the ostensible band-aid of preventing holocaust denial lulls enough Jews into a false sense of security so that there are enough to make it easy and fun. It might be Roma or Muslims or Serbs or Estonians or people with narrow nostrils or hazel eyes or people who prefer dogs to cats or something. I don't know. All I can predict is that it will be done by people who are more enlightened and educated than their neighbors, and when other people get sick of it and make it stop by killing them, they'll pretend their shit doesn't stink. Both of which apply to Germany.

Though this idea makes me vomit a little in my mouth, I think it's true. I can't hate Germans, because I am one, and this is a basic feature of human psychology. It doesn't belong to any nationality, religion, race, or sex. This is what people do when they get into power. They hurt people, and then they pretend it's all better.

All I can hope is that the tendrils of influence by corporations will slow this process down, divert the nastiness of greed to something slightly less dramatic, and enable people's doing the great and wonderful things they are also capable of.
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Re: Does Holocaust Denial Prohibition Make Sense?

#125  Postby NineBerry » Jan 30, 2012 2:41 pm

Well, election results for right-wing parties and the number of crimes motivated by anti-semitism went down.
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Re: Does Holocaust Denial Prohibition Make Sense?

#126  Postby Shrunk » Jan 30, 2012 2:49 pm

NineBerry wrote:No, it's not the same. It is not a subjective feeling by persons that feel threatened, it is an objective situation of the state not offering protection.


That's just nonsensical. Like I said, if the state is not "objectively" offering protection to its citizens, then the state should start doing so, or the citizens should vote the gov't out and replace it with one that is able to protect them.

I still fail to see the connection between the state's ability to protect its citizens and posters making comments denying the Holocaust on this site.
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Re: Does Holocaust Denial Prohibition Make Sense?

#127  Postby NineBerry » Jan 30, 2012 2:53 pm

epepke wrote:
This is an assertion. It clearly implies the assumption that there is a monotonic, causal relationship between permitting holocaust denial and incitement of hatred against Jews. Therefore, if you make holocaust denial illegal, it necessarily reduces hatred of Jews.


Holocaust denial IS incitement of hatred against Jews. There is no way of denying the holocaust without inciting hatred. Maybe you have to live in Germany to understand why this is the case. But it is real.
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Re: Does Holocaust Denial Prohibition Make Sense?

#128  Postby NineBerry » Jan 30, 2012 3:01 pm

Shrunk wrote:
NineBerry wrote:No, it's not the same. It is not a subjective feeling by persons that feel threatened, it is an objective situation of the state not offering protection.


That's just nonsensical. Like I said, if the state is not "objectively" offering protection to its citizens, then the state should start doing so, or the citizens should vote the gov't out and replace it with one that is able to protect them.


Protection from incitement to hatred.

Okay, let's use an analogy.

A single individual person is held hostage by another person for months, is raped, tortured and nearly murdered, only rescued in the last hours before he would have died.

Now perpetrator is caught and put before a court and judged guilty and put into prison. A few months later the perpetrator's son brings out a book wherein he claims that his father was innocent that the victim is lying and this is all a media conspiracy.

Do you think the victim should have legal means to stop the book from being distributed?
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Re: Does Holocaust Denial Prohibition Make Sense?

#129  Postby epepke » Jan 30, 2012 4:04 pm

NineBerry wrote:Holocaust denial IS incitement of hatred against Jews. There is no way of denying the holocaust without inciting hatred. Maybe you have to live in Germany to understand why this is the case. But it is real.


No; it isn't. You really don't seem to understand the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions. Possibly you don't care. You started to do better when you wrote:

Well, election results for right-wing parties and the number of crimes motivated by anti-semitism went down.


That would be interesting and supportive of your thesis. However,

1) It is still pretty bald. You haven't presented much in the way of underlying evidence.

2) It really took a hell of a lot of argument to get you even this far.
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Re: Does Holocaust Denial Prohibition Make Sense?

#130  Postby epepke » Jan 30, 2012 4:12 pm

NineBerry wrote:
Shrunk wrote:
NineBerry wrote:No, it's not the same. It is not a subjective feeling by persons that feel threatened, it is an objective situation of the state not offering protection.


That's just nonsensical. Like I said, if the state is not "objectively" offering protection to its citizens, then the state should start doing so, or the citizens should vote the gov't out and replace it with one that is able to protect them.


Protection from incitement to hatred.

Okay, let's use an analogy.

A single individual person is held hostage by another person for months, is raped, tortured and nearly murdered, only rescued in the last hours before he would have died.

Now perpetrator is caught and put before a court and judged guilty and put into prison. A few months later the perpetrator's son brings out a book wherein he claims that his father was innocent that the victim is lying and this is all a media conspiracy.

Do you think the victim should have legal means to stop the book from being distributed?


My answer is "no." The guy should be able to publish whatever the fuck he likes, and he should be able to say whatever the fuck he like in the appeal hearings. Whether he will be believed is another matter. That's what courts are for.

I cannot speak for @Shrunk, but I'd guess he might agree.

ETA: In fact, that's what the justice system is based on. The idea is that everything should be aired and not prohibited, and then people get to judge. It's the same thing in the court of public opinion. Let people be informed as much as possible even to the extent of lunacy and let them judge.
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Re: Does Holocaust Denial Prohibition Make Sense?

#131  Postby NineBerry » Jan 30, 2012 4:15 pm

What is the legal situation in the US? Does that victim not have legal means to stop distribution of libellous material?
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Re: Does Holocaust Denial Prohibition Make Sense?

#132  Postby NineBerry » Jan 30, 2012 4:19 pm

You know, there is the universal declaration of human rights

Article 12:
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 7:
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Seems the concept of public peace is part of human rights: Everyone is entitled to protection against incitement to discrimination
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Re: Does Holocaust Denial Prohibition Make Sense?

#133  Postby Shrunk » Jan 30, 2012 4:54 pm

NineBerry wrote:What is the legal situation in the US? Does that victim not have legal means to stop distribution of libellous material?


He does, or to at least to be compensated for any damages that results from it. But he doesn't have the right to demand that any such material be prohibited a priori on the assumption that it will be libellous no matter what it says and without having the obligation to demonstrate that it is such.

In fact, your analogy is more apt than you realize. In order to prove libel, it is necessary to not only demonstrate that the claims are false, but that the plaintive has been materially harmed in some way by the material. This is very different than what you are defending, which is that holocaust denial must be presumed to cause harm whenever it is voiced.
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Re: Does Holocaust Denial Prohibition Make Sense?

#134  Postby Shrunk » Jan 30, 2012 4:55 pm

NineBerry wrote:You know, there is the universal declaration of human rights

Article 12:
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 7:
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Seems the concept of public peace is part of human rights: Everyone is entitled to protection against incitement to discrimination


I think that supports my point at least as well as yours. "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence....

EDIT:

You also overlooked a couple other articles in that declaration:

Article 18.
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
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Re: Does Holocaust Denial Prohibition Make Sense?

#135  Postby NineBerry » Jan 30, 2012 5:02 pm

Shrunk wrote:
In fact, your analogy is more apt than you realize. In order to prove libel, it is necessary to not only demonstrate that the claims are false, but that the plaintive has been materially harmed in some way by the material. This is very different than what you are defending, which is that holocaust denial must be presumed to cause harm whenever it is voiced.


Well, that's where the difference starts with German law. In Germany, libel is a criminal offence. And you needn't show any material damage but only that your reputation is damaged.

I hope you see that considering the way Germany deals with libel on a personal level, it is easier to understand how it deals with libel against a whole ethnic group.
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Re: Does Holocaust Denial Prohibition Make Sense?

#136  Postby NineBerry » Jan 30, 2012 5:06 pm

Ehm, this part refers to privacy of correspondence. It doesn't deal with freedom of expression. There is a separate article for freedom of expression. What is important: There are different rights that oppose each other. No right can be absolute. It is always checked by other opposing rights.

There is a right to freedom of expression. But there is also a right for protection against libel and a right for protection against incitement to discrimination. We must find some balance between these rights. Different states find different balances in different areas based on their own culture and context.
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Re: Does Holocaust Denial Prohibition Make Sense?

#137  Postby Shrunk » Jan 30, 2012 5:08 pm

NineBerry wrote:
Shrunk wrote:
In fact, your analogy is more apt than you realize. In order to prove libel, it is necessary to not only demonstrate that the claims are false, but that the plaintive has been materially harmed in some way by the material. This is very different than what you are defending, which is that holocaust denial must be presumed to cause harm whenever it is voiced.


Well, that's where the difference starts with German law. In Germany, libel is a criminal offence. And you needn't show any material damage but only that your reputation is damaged.

I hope you see that considering the way Germany deals with libel on a personal level, it is easier to understand how it deals with libel against a whole ethnic group.


Damage to reputation is included. I shouldn't have said "materially harmed", that's confusing.

But to follow up on your example: Suppose the victim successfully sues for libel. A year later, another writer claims to have uncovered new evidence to suggest that the victims claim was in fact false. Should this second writer now be banned from even discussing his views in public, on the presumption that it will be false and libellous?
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Re: Does Holocaust Denial Prohibition Make Sense?

#138  Postby NineBerry » Jan 30, 2012 5:15 pm

We know that holocaust denial is false and libellous. Don't need to have an expert hearing on that every second Wednesday. A court doesn't need to call expert witnesses to decide whether grass is green or not. The holocaust is a historic fact. Anyone who denies that only does so to promote national socialism and anti-semitism.
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Re: Does Holocaust Denial Prohibition Make Sense?

#139  Postby Horwood Beer-Master » Jan 30, 2012 9:24 pm

NineBerry wrote:...There is no way of denying the holocaust without inciting hatred...

Wouldn't the Muslims say the same about badmouthing Mohammed? Where does this end?

NineBerry wrote:...Different states find different balances in different areas based on their own culture and context.

That's all very well, but what if Germany and others with this law try to impose it EU-wide?
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Re: Does Holocaust Denial Prohibition Make Sense?

#140  Postby NineBerry » Jan 30, 2012 9:56 pm

Horwood Beer-Master wrote:
NineBerry wrote:...There is no way of denying the holocaust without inciting hatred...

Wouldn't the Muslims say the same about badmouthing Mohammed? Where does this end?


That the holocaust happened is a scientific consensus. That Mohammed was a prophet is religious belief. Quite a difference.

Horwood Beer-Master wrote:
NineBerry wrote:...Different states find different balances in different areas based on their own culture and context.

That's all very well, but what if Germany and others with this law try to impose it EU-wide?


We are having a much more difficult problem. We are developing a globalized culture.
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