Irving bid to recant Nazi line [Irving acknowledges gas chambers did really exist]

The Australian ^ | November 26, 2005

[RedMonqey]

"How are Irving's claims in any way "Opinions"? It seems more like slander."

Slander is a personal crime.
Who has he slandered? He is talking in broad historic terms about the Holocaust.


He's an idiot but that's not a crime....yet.

[AmishDude]

Actually, your answer was crystal clear.

[AmishDude]

Perhaps what you are saying is that it is not good to make him a martyr in the eyes of his followers, much less to resurrect him long after he'd been discredited.

[Cicero]

That, certainly. There are still a few holocaust deniers around, but there has never been much danger that this particular kind of historical revisionism would spread very widely, I don't think. I move in academic circles and I have never once run into it personally, anywhere.

I don't worry so much about making him into a martyr as criminalizing speech, even vile and offensive speech, which is tempting but can breed more problems than it solves.

When I look around at the faculty of American universities, at the people who shape our future citizens, I see no apparent Nazis at all, but I see huge numbers of leftists who demonize Israel and glorify Palestinian terrorists, and who for all intents and purposes spread a vile kind of antisemitism far and wide under cover of anti-Israelism. Even some of my leftist friends have been discouraged by the extremes to which this sort of thing can go.

To change the subject somewhat, that's my problem with the ADL under Abraham Foxman; they aren't looking for their current enemies in the right places.

[Rembrandt_fan]

Just as I thought: you cannot even respond simply and directly to a yes or no question.

The whole Holocaust Denial deal is absurd on its face. The Germans were the most meticulous record-keepers on the planet: all i's dotted, all t's crossed. The documentary evidence alone is irrefutable. Thousands of eyewitnesses. Mountains of corpses. By the way, did you know the largest technical obstacle to murdering millions of people is body disposal? The crematoria at Auschwitz, for example, simply couldn't keep up.

You wrote: "So you even seek to control any words I have to say too, by demanding my answer fit your format--else you will call me names. If there is nothing to hide, what do you fear?"

First of all, what you've done is answer a question with a question, which is not an answer. Secondly, I have nothing to fear from your kind, and I certainly don't fear the truth--which, by the way, is blatantly self-evident insofar as the Holocaust is concerned.

Call you names? No name quite captures the contempt and loathing I feel for you and your ilk.

[Rembrandt_fan]

You're right insofar as the threat in Europe is concerned: the odd bonding between the Left and the Islamic extremists is both unsettling and illogical. Reason for the Left, in both Europe and here in the US, has left the building. However, I don't discriminate overmuch when it comes to the bad guys. They all serve the same master. It's like that pop-up gopher game in arcades, the one my kids played when they were younger: whenever the little rodents show their heads, one hits them with a hammer.

[gondramB]

"You're right insofar as the threat in Europe is concerned: the odd bonding between the Left and the Islamic extremists is both unsettling and illogical"


It's also real stupid strategically for the left - if the Islamofacists should ever win (God forbid) the individual rights that left so cherishes would evaporate. On the other hand they might like the mandatory political correctness.

[Age of Reason]

The allies pushed the Germans when they were hungry, weak and desperate, and then they made the opposite mistake and tried to appease them after Hitler came to power.

I used to believe the second part of your post--but I am beginning to learn things may have beem more complex then they first appear.

It is possible they allowed Germany to grow in power in the expectation it would stop the spread of communism--perhaps even that Germany and Russia would destroy each other.

Things did not turn our that way--although they almost might have; so maybe the appeasers weren't quite so foolish as they seem in hindsight.

[Cicero]

You can certainly make a case for that. I don't think I would go so far, but it's true that Communism was a terrible threat.

In the end, of course, we went in on Stalin's side and helped save the Soviets, so if that was the plan it didn't turn out too well.

[Age of Reason]

I suspect an alternate view of history to that which most of us have been taught.

I believe that had Churchill not made the English and others paranoid over the growing German military, then there is a chance England might not have joined with France to declare war on Germany.

Many leaders in England believed that Germany had no quarrel with them.

They may well have been correct (at least in their day), for Hitler pursued the war with England half-heartedly, desiring above all to attack Russia.

But to give credit to Churchill--while it may be true that he aggravated tensions at a time when Germany may have had no desire to war with England, Churchill may have been correct in the long run--that it would be unwise to allow Germany to conquer too much of Europe and seriously upset the balance of power in Europe.

And besides, Churchill would have known that weakness sooner or later invites attack no matter what.