Yakman
2009-12-11 13:46:43
There exist laws in Germany and Austria which make it illegal to publicly deny the holocaust.
This completely flies in the face of freedom of expression and freedom of press.
If you're not German or Austrian, would you like those laws to be implemented in your country?
In other words, do you think you're not grown-up enough to decide this for yourself and that the central government needs to decide for you what you can and can't hear or read.
To whom do you award to right to decide which speech is harmful or who is the harmful speaker? To who would you give the task of deciding what you can hear? Who has the knowledge to decide in advance what the bad consequences might be? To whom would you give this job.
Its a well known story about the man who has to read all the pornography to decide what can be published is the man most likely to become corrupted.
Nobody has the knowledge to make the decision of which speech is harmful, and one must suspect the motives of anyone who claims that they do.
If everybody is taught at school the sensitivities of the holocaust and the final solution, about which nothing was done by America or the UK while it was going on, but lets say as compensation everyone is made to learn an official and unalterable story now. If that's the case with everybody as it more or less is, and one person gets up and says "You know what, about this holocaust I'm not even sure it happened, In fact I'm fairly certain it didn't".
That person doesn't just have a right to speak, that persons right must be given extra protection. Because what he has to say, must have taken him some effort to come up with, might contain a grain of historical truth. In any case, it might cause people to think about why do they know what they think they know.
How do I know that I know this except that I've been taught it at school and never heard anything else?
It always worth establishing first principles. Its always worth saying, what would you do if you met a member of the flat-earth society.
Come to think of it, how can I prove the earth is round?
Am I sure about the theory of evolution? I know its supposed to be true, here's someone who says there's no such thing and its all intelligent design.
How sure am I of my own views?
Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus, and the feeling that whatever you think, you're bound to be okay because you're in the majority.
Germany and Austria have clearly shown they have the courage to face their past, and lock up people for no crime other then that of thought and writing. That's a scandal.
Never forget that as well as people having the freedom to deny the holocaust, us sensible people also have the freedom to tell them bluntly and explicitly exactly what we think of them.
This completely flies in the face of freedom of expression and freedom of press.
If you're not German or Austrian, would you like those laws to be implemented in your country?
In other words, do you think you're not grown-up enough to decide this for yourself and that the central government needs to decide for you what you can and can't hear or read.
To whom do you award to right to decide which speech is harmful or who is the harmful speaker? To who would you give the task of deciding what you can hear? Who has the knowledge to decide in advance what the bad consequences might be? To whom would you give this job.
Its a well known story about the man who has to read all the pornography to decide what can be published is the man most likely to become corrupted.
Nobody has the knowledge to make the decision of which speech is harmful, and one must suspect the motives of anyone who claims that they do.
If everybody is taught at school the sensitivities of the holocaust and the final solution, about which nothing was done by America or the UK while it was going on, but lets say as compensation everyone is made to learn an official and unalterable story now. If that's the case with everybody as it more or less is, and one person gets up and says "You know what, about this holocaust I'm not even sure it happened, In fact I'm fairly certain it didn't".
That person doesn't just have a right to speak, that persons right must be given extra protection. Because what he has to say, must have taken him some effort to come up with, might contain a grain of historical truth. In any case, it might cause people to think about why do they know what they think they know.
How do I know that I know this except that I've been taught it at school and never heard anything else?
It always worth establishing first principles. Its always worth saying, what would you do if you met a member of the flat-earth society.
Come to think of it, how can I prove the earth is round?
Am I sure about the theory of evolution? I know its supposed to be true, here's someone who says there's no such thing and its all intelligent design.
How sure am I of my own views?
Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus, and the feeling that whatever you think, you're bound to be okay because you're in the majority.
Germany and Austria have clearly shown they have the courage to face their past, and lock up people for no crime other then that of thought and writing. That's a scandal.
Never forget that as well as people having the freedom to deny the holocaust, us sensible people also have the freedom to tell them bluntly and explicitly exactly what we think of them.