3 Years for denying Holocaust

Does Europe have the equivalent of the ACLU in the states? Who fights for the civil rights of unpopular opinions in old Europe?

At the same time I would appreciate it if the Council of Europe would confine its moral judgements to its own members who are not without their own issues.

georgeob1 wrote:

and re: Larry Sommers...he talked about women's brains being biologically different from men, which was the reason, in his opinion, why women did not do so well in science and academia. not just about low enrollment. he was not forced to step down, though he should have and would have if he was a decent man. that has little to do with freedom of speech. that was just blatant idiocy on his part and has nothing to do with the rest of this thread.

Oh, I see. It is Freedom of Speech except when it involves one of your prejudices.

According to news reports the Board of the Harvard Corporation is now considering whether to continue Sommers in his role at the university. The reasons have to do with the women in science issue and, as well, his revolutionary idea that teachers and professors in the Black Studies program at Harvard should teach and engege in scholarly activities.

My comment regarding the Council of Europe had to do with some of its recent pronouncements about the United States, which is not at all a member of that august group.

I disagree with this for one reason. Freedom of Speech-- even for people you find reprehensible-- does not take away any of your rights. Quite the contrary. When the rights of one group is taken away, it weakens the rights of everyone.

This man was arrested and jailed for "holocaust denial". Denying the Holocaust does not hurt the human rights of anyone. No one is losing their liberty because of what this man says. No one is losing life nor liberty.

Now you will say that this man is deeply offensive (and I will agree with you).

The right to not be offended is not a basic human right. The fact that the Holocaust was unbelievably horrible and still painful makes this that much more offensive. But the fact remains that that you can't keep people from offending you if you want liberty.

Claiming there is a right to not be offended on the same level as the Freedom of Speech is dangerous. The line gets real fuzzy. Atheism, Homosexuality, Judaism, flag burning and opposing war are all deeply offensive to some.

To you Naziism and Holocaust denial are clearly offensive and Miscegination is not-- but do you see the danger? You are setting the precedent that if a belief is deemed deeply offensive by a significant part of society, it can be legally stuffed underground.

Quote:

I don't know what cannot be expressed legally in the States - but again - I don't necessarily think that that is a GOOD thing.

Freedom of speech means that every idea-- good, bad, horrifying controversial or revolutionary can be discussed and accepted or rejected as part of public discourse. In the United States the freedom of speech is very well established-- with exceptions for threats and incitement to violence; but Nazi's and the like are protected along with hippies, anarchists and peace-niks.

I find the Nazi's as vile as you do, but I don't fear their ideas. Let them express it-- and then let me respond. More important is that when I have an ideas that goes against popular opinion, I have the legal right to state my case without worrying about being legally muzzled.

would you care to expand on your comment about Council of Europe's statements re: United States, georgeob? We cannot read your mind just yet, so a link or a quote, or at least an explanation would be appreciated.

What happened to free speech.

This makes the European assertion of their right to offend millions with religious cartoons seem awfully hypocritical...

and re: Larry Sommers...he talked about women's brains being biologically different from men, which was the reason, in his opinion, why women did not do so well in science and academia. not just about low enrollment. he was not forced to step down, though he should have and would have if he was a decent man. that has little to do with freedom of speech. that was just blatant idiocy on his part and has nothing to do with the rest of this thread.

So my best guess, to provoke you, of what's behind all of this is that the largest phenomenon, by far, is the general clash between people's legitimate family desires and employers' current desire for high power and high intensity, that in the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination. I would like nothing better than to be proved wrong, because I would like nothing better than for these problems to be addressable simply by everybody understanding what they are, and working very hard to address them.

Holocaust outrage by beauty queen
Mark Dunn
22feb06

A FORMER Australian beauty queen has called for the bodies of Holocaust victims to be dug up to see if they really were gassed.



Lady Michele Renouf, who was Miss Newcastle 1968 and briefly married to financier Sir Frank Renouf, questioned whether Nazi extermination camps killed six million Jews during World War II.

The socialite divorcee was speaking outside a Vienna court where British historian David Irving was jailed for three years yesterday for denying the Holocaust.

Irving, 67, pleaded guilty after admitting he'd been wrong to doubt the Nazi extermination of millions of Jews.

The charges relate to a lecture he gave 17 years ago in Austria, which was once run by the Nazis.

It is a crime to deny the Holocaust in Austria, the country where Adolf Hitler was born.

Irving was arrested when he returned to Vienna in November.

Outside court, Lady Renouf, 59, ran the risk of being charged herself when she called for the bodies of "so-called Holocaust victims to be exhumed to see whether they died from typhoid or gas".

Dressed in a pinstripe suit with a Union Jack lapel pin, she praised Irving for "standing up to the Zionists".

"I am here to free David Irving and free Austria from this totalitarian law," she said.

Formerly Michele Mainwaring, she acquired her title after a brief 1991 marriage to Sir Frank, who described the union as a "nasty accident".

Sir Frank terminated the marriage after he found out that far from being the "Countess Griaznoff" she claimed, his wife was in fact the daughter of a Central Coast truck driver.

Since then she has become a fixture on the London society circuit and been an outspoken anti-Semite who was kicked out of an exclusive club for her views. She once reportedly called herself the world's "most unsuccessful bimbo".

Jeremy Jones, from the Australia-Israel Jewish Affairs Council, described her comments yesterday as "mindbogglingly stupidity even for a supporter of David Irving".

Irving has been banned from Australia, where he has a Queensland-based daughter, Beatrice.

He will appeal against the jail sentence. with agencies

heraldsun

Oddly this august group did nothing whatever to even slow down the slaughter in Bosnia and Croatia in the early '90s -- and they are in Europe. They should deal with their own problems before advising us on how to deal with ours.

i didn't say it isn't, thomas. read again what i said.

But since he wanted to provoke, he should probably have chosen a forum on which people could talk back immediately.