Comments on: Defending the odious

By: Martin B

Martin B — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 01:15:28 +0000

My personal inclinations are towards wider free speech, so my sentiments are those of the majority opinion above. (See groupthink works, even if not always with the predictable result )

I think DDs two questions are apposite. However even in regards to question 2) I don’t think it is all that simple.

I disagree with the notion that internet publication should be subject to prosecution only in the country of origin, and should be subject to national filters outside that country. I am actually comfortable with the idea that posting on the internet means publishing internationally with all of the consequences.

Now that does mean that nearly every internet poster in the world is potentially subject to prosecution under bad laws in other countries. I don’t think that should be the case, and so would hope that my home courts have robust enough extradition hearings to prevent it.

However I certainly don’t oppose extradition entirely, even under laws that do not exist in the jurisdiction from which extradition is sought.

So after a groupthink, I’m going to have a fence-sit. I don’t think that either “the internet should be totally free” or “no extradition” are adequate. For me it comes down to whether the law is a bad one or not, and despite my free-speech inclinations, in this case I really am not sure.

By: Graham Bell

Graham Bell — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:04:14 +0000

Robert Merkel and All:

I was reluctant to comment here in case I ever had to go back to Germany. I didn’t fancy being arrested for “encouraging a Holocaust Denier” upon entering the country. Still, now that the Depression/Economic Meltdown has hit like a tsunami, there’s no chance I will ever get back there.

If Toben’s views are wrong and ridiculous then the German government should treat them as such …. and attack them with verifiable factual information and with scorn and ridicule. Merely arresting and then imprisoning someone because they shoot their mouths off and try to incite ignorance is about as counter-productive as you can get. It is not Toben who is being silly, it is the German government …. and I say that in having Toben arrested, they have have strengthened, not weakened, the cause of Holocaust Deniers.

If the German government still insists in detaining Toben then instead of chucking him in prison, why the hell don’t they take him on a fully-escorted personal tour of the relics of his precious Nazi regime. Not just to the concentration camps but force him to meet and listen to Germans who had to carry out the orders of the Nazi regime AND to meet Germans who had been victims of that regime.

It’s high time the German government took a more sober and practical stand on that relatively brief and deeply troubling part of their national history. Not to diminish or to forget, in any way, the terrible things that happened back then but to place it in a more rational context …. and while they are on the job, how about remembering all the terrible evil that was done from one end of Germany to the other in the Thirty Years War. If evil is forgotten then there is a risk that it will emege again ….

By: brettc

brettc — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:24:55 +0000

I much prefer the ridicule approach towards the likes of Toben and, especially, Irving. And Amrozi etc by the way. Personally, I’d far rather that (caution: potential Godwin’s law breach ahead) more top Nazis had been gaoled, like Speer, than executed, so that they could at least potentially have witnessed how wrong they were. Probably wouldn’t have made a difference to them, but maybe it would’ve. Which means, as already pointed out, that we must protest and protect our freedoms by supporting loathsome toads. C’est la vie.

The long standing bans on Irving’s entry into Australia should be rescinded: I’d happily go protest any appearance he may want to make. Maybe buy a ticket and a whistle. Or a fart machine.

And how can anyone take the current policy of prtesting the death penalty against Australians only? It’s only worth protesting if it’s applied to all, otherwise it’s only whitey exceptionalism.

As a potential German lawbreaker (if I ever get any of those model Luftwaffe planes put together they’ll be carrying the banned Hakenkreuz) I am already aware of Germany’s extrateritorial laws (try and buy a model Bf109 that comes with swastika decals). Enough.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 07:48:21 +0000

It’s quite simple, Jenny. Nobody is asking you to ‘campaign’ for anyone

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I am. I’m asking you and everyone else here to campaign for the free speech right to produce and broadcast a new reality TV show: Let’s Hunt and Kill Billy Ray Cyrus.
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You know it’s the right thing to do.
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I would be able to empathise with Amrozi & Van Nguyen, sympathise… NEVER.
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I sympathize, with Ngyuen. He was just trying to get his arsehole brother out of debt. His arsehole brother was the one that should’ve dropped (not that I support the death penalty). Amrozi is a religious psycho dickhead. I’m allergic to them sorry. Fuck him.

By: steve at the pub

steve at the pub — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 04:42:27 +0000

If you wish to stretch definitions that far Fine, I would be able to empathise with Amrozi & Van Nguyen, sympathise… NEVER.

By: Fine

Fine — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 04:28:51 +0000

Yes, steve I know. And I was using it the sense of putting yourself in another’s place.

By: professor rat

professor rat — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 04:11:16 +0000

I’m prepared to take a minority position on this, even within the libertarian-socialist left where Noam Chomsky is a world famous defender of known fascists.
The argument goes like this – the right to free-speech is not absolute as you will quickly find out if you start a stampede in bad faith.
Then its generally accepted that the community has a right to defend itself against any incitements to violence where there is a clear and direct link between the speech and the violence. Case in point hate speech such as holocaust denial.
Now I know these sort of laws have been abused and twisted 180′ degrees by corrupt police nevertheless I do believe its worth persisting with them with the following caveats.
That they be universal – that they include other genocides such as the various Holodomors that killed more and in worse ways than even the Shoah and that – most importantly for all anarchists – that the overall size and power of the state be decreased to compensate for these new anti-violence, anti-fascist laws.
So long as we have the net I believe this compensates. Also the jury system is vital here – there must be community input on every particular case.
No Euro style courts unless agreed by the accused who retains natural justice rights at all times.
I don’t accept free speech rights for any hate speech that leads to violence – such as the Danish cartoon incident so I remain a minority arguing all this.
Its conditional and its provisional but then in the long run we are all dead and until then we might introduce sunset clauses on all new legislation.

By: steve at the pub

steve at the pub — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 02:58:51 +0000

Fine, a hint for you: “empathy” is not a synonym for “sympathy”.

By: Robert Merkel

Robert Merkel — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 02:19:58 +0000

Haiko: yes, I am aware of the German – and Austrian – extreme right. Nasty pieces of work, certainly. But, to put it bluntly, their current targets are not Jewish – as I understand it, it’s recent immigrants. Holocaust denial laws are therefore irrelevant to their current activities.

By: paul walter

paul walter — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 02:10:10 +0000

I notice a bit of Amrozi- bashing. Lets remember that from the point of view of many poverty-stricken people in Indonesia, these people ( poor, poorly educated and susceptible in their misery to demagogues ) are regarded as “resistance”, rather as some Jews admire the Irgun and Stern Gang for its campaign in Palestine in the late ‘forties.
Hard tho it may be to beleive, it is just possible that these people feel they were doing the moral equivalent to what we were doing along the Kokoda Trail in the early forties- defending their world from godless and barbaric invaders and exploiters, responsible for much threat.