james_gnz wrote:I get the impression that most free speech advocates aren't really that interested in porn.

Indeed, much irony. Sincere liberals form their principles intending to oppose totalitarianism. The same principles then end up being used to defend the propagation of extreme porn and sadistic violence that must turn their stomachs. Similarly I wonder how the people who wrote the Declaration of Human Rights in the shadow of the Holocaut would feel if they could see it being used by footballers trying to keep their marital indiscretions out of the newspapers.

Morgan Everett wrote:Holocaust denial should never be criminalised, and doing so will certainly not discourage people from embracing it.

I find it interesting that the denial sometimes goes hand in with justifications that it was not wrong. Germany seems to find this a threat and has laws against it. I can't find fault with this given the local history.

Oldskeptic wrote:

Morgan Everett wrote:Holocaust denial should never be criminalised, and doing so will certainly not discourage people from embracing it.

I find it interesting that the denial sometimes goes hand in with justifications that it was not wrong. Germany seems to find this a threat and has laws against it. I can't find fault with this given the local history.

This just means that germany cannot argue against it because the suggestions are no longer in the public arena. They are underground and festering without critical analysis or rebuttal.

DanDare wrote:

Oldskeptic wrote:I find it interesting that the denial sometimes goes hand in with justifications that it was not wrong. Germany seems to find this a threat and has laws against it. I can't find fault with this given the local history.

This just means that germany cannot argue against it because the suggestions are no longer in the public arena. They are underground and festering without critical analysis or rebuttal.

Plus it doesn't explain why you can't just ban advocating for genocide while leaving Holocaust denial legal.

Shrunk wrote:Plus it doesn't explain why you can't just ban advocating for genocide while leaving Holocaust denial legal.

indeed - incitement to lawbreaking is quite different to people making up shit about the past, especially if simply by saying what they [claim to] think, it'd make the great majority of people dismiss them immediately as nuts or idiots.

Personally I'd be very wary of singling out any one event for special protection, particularly if one of the rallying cries of the likely deniers seems to be not merely that some elements of the victim group concerned think their group is special (since that could probably be said with some justification about elements of pretty much any identifiable group) but that elements of the group have managed to get special treatment denied to other groups with not obviously radically dissimilar histories of victimisation.

Similarly, there's a risk that having a blanket ban can actually polarise things such that someone might well feel unable to do entirely honest historical research if they fear that stating any conclusion which departs even slightly from a seemingly officially sanctioned one risks having them branded a denier rather than someone just looking at the evidence.
Potentially, if extreme and historically inaccurate views are forced underground, that can result in perfectly factual conclusions (or even questions) ending up as the most extreme things publicly permitted, which doesn't necessarily seem like the healthiest of situations.

Even more generally, why should making up politically convenient stories or outright lies about any generally-accepted historical persecution event be treated any differently to making up politically convenient stories or lies about anything else?

People are allowed to make all kinds of claims to ownership of territory based on one or other historical or cultural or religious myth, and that can end up causing any amount of suffering, and likely will do so again and again in future, so why shouldn't that be illegal as well?
If someone claims that one or more earth/fire/sky/sea deities created them differently from everyone else and gave them a particular piece of land, if that contradicts archaeological/genetic evidence, why shouldn't making those claims be illegal, in the interests of the general public good?

If someone claims that all the trouble in/since [insert date] was the fault of [insert 'other' group] when that simply isn't true, why should *that* not be illegal if making false claims about some specific other event is illegal?

Etc.

tolman wrote:People are allowed to make all kinds of claims to ownership of territory based on one or other historical or cultural or religious myth, and that can end up causing any amount of suffering, and likely will do so again and again in future, so why shouldn't that be illegal as well?
If someone claims that one or more earth/fire/sky/sea deities created them differently from everyone else and gave them a particular piece of land, if that contradicts archaeological/genetic evidence, why shouldn't making those claims be illegal, in the interests of the general public good?

Well put. People like to believe things that benefit them. Holocaust denial is motivated by Germans not wanting to think badly of their relatives. Judaism depicts reality skewed in favour of Jewish people for the same reason. If we're going to outlaw intellectual dishonesty, we ought to be consistent about it.

Yup. Biafra denial laws. Armenian, Cambodian, Cherokee, Uzbekistan etc. All unique in their own bitter way.

All or nothing, I say.

Otherwise those in favor of Holocaust denial laws unfairly diminish the tragedy of those in the "others" folder.