WOI we have had this duscussion about how to deal with Holocost deniers before. I do tend to think European countries have gone overboard on this issue. Telling someone they can't do something tends not to stop it, it merely drives it underground. So instead of an overt problem that you can deal with you have a covert problem.

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The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu

Gort is spot on. Society's ridicule at these types of people does more to discredit their views and actually stop it from spreading than infringements on liberty ever will.

Europeans need to get over their touchiness when dealing with WWII and the Holocaust. There is no reason why German and Austrian youth should not be shown "Triumph des Willens" to help them truly understand how Hitler operated. The Holocaust happened. There is nothing that can now be done about it and hiding the racism that still exists through the stifling of free speech is just insulting to the victims.

I understand your position and a lot could be said for it indeed. Yet, the European perspective is different. Despite what people may say, the Holocaust is not something to 'get over'. It is the single worst episode in humanity's existence, it happened on European soil and was executed by Europeans. This temporal insanity that affected millions of Europeans (and not just Germans, far from it, the Flemish collaboration e.g. is an actual topic) must never reoccur. "Nie wieder Faschismus - never again fascism" is an idea held by all rational thinking Europeans and is considered to be of the highest importance. There is definitely a sense of shame involved. That is why even I, as an anarchist, have no problem with this law.

You must understand that the only people that question the Holocaust are fascists, not just extreme rightwingers, but real life fascists, the very same breed that constituted the Nazi party and that today advocate a new Holocaust, this time against Muslims. And these people are not covert, nor need they go underground. There's a substantial fraction of them in the European Parliament (with members like the pig that was convicted here, the Vlaams Belang, and none less than Alessandra Mussolini, the granddaughter of Il Duce himself).

The main difference here, I think, is that Americans think that fascism cannot take over your country. That might be so, or not, that's not the issue. But the Europeans know that it can happen again in Europe, as it already has once. And the general consensus is : Never that again. And indeed, an infraction upon freedom of speech (from your perspective, not ours) is considered but a very small price to avoid a reoccurence of the 30's and 40's.

I know it's an awkward and even somewhat distasteful way of putting it, but the Holocaust was 2,000 9/11's in terms of victims.

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"Say not, 'When I have free time I shall study'; for you may perhaps never have any free time"
Hillel the Elder

The logic still makes no sense. The general consent of Europeans is that they never want fascism again. This is an overwhelming majority. If this is the case how are fascists any sort of threat? There is no way they are any sort of threat. What good does hiding them do? It just moves them underground as Gort said. If you want to weed out fascists let them speak freely and show everyone exactly how retarded they are.

For crying out loud, you introduced those covenants to substantiate your argument. Now that I've shown they do not apply, you question them.

What's this got to do with Holocaust denial anyway ?
Be more specific if you want an answer. What kind of 'radical brand' ? Wahhabism ?

The same restrictions apply, yet this issue is not a subject of the laws in question, ergo it bears no relation to the current discussion.

I doubt any Jew, let alone a 'Talmudic diehard' would question the Holocaust, don't you think ?

See my reply to Gort. You do not support free speech. You support an interpretation of it that does not apply to French law. And even then, you support it only for fascists.

So what if they're Jews or not ? So fucking what ? Were they practising Jews ? Did their ancestry cause their authoritarian beliefs ? How about the Jews that suffered from the progroms of these folks ? They even included Trotzky and Zinoviev !
Geez, more and more you're orientating this discussion to vile anti-Semitism.


Post 37, paragraph 11.

I offered you a reproduction of the very document.

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"Say not, 'When I have free time I shall study'; for you may perhaps never have any free time"
Hillel the Elder

Just have a look on the frank's website... You will understand

He comes here not to defend free speech but to advocate the nazi era...

Show me where I advocated the 'Nazi' era on my website? I believe I have two posts that 1) Detail the Israeli hatred toward their Arab citizens and 2) Critique the Babylonian Talmud.

Is simply pointing out Israeli prejudice and offering a critique of a religious text promoting the 'Nazi' era?

And in the same post I mentioned that they were not worth the paper they were written on...is that false? Re-read my post; you will indeed see that I did indeed make such a comment.

Okay lets say Wahhabism?

Actually holocaust denial has nothing to do with the topic of this thread either has Bruno Gollnisch did not actually deny the holocaust. If anything if we go back to post # 3; you introduced that red herring strawman into the debate. Thanks to you we went off-topic at post # 3.

If we are going to stay on topic maybe you should take the lead in doing so....

I did see your reply and the only part that captured my attention was this...

'It is the single worst episode in humanity's existence' - WOI

Again, just to quote Dr. Normal Finkelstein:

"This notion of Holocaust uniqueness has no basis in historical fact and is an immoral doctrine, because it ranks human suffering, saying some suffering is better and some suffering is worse."

I am sure the victims of Pol Pot, Stalin and Yagoda would agree with the good Doctor on that view!

I am aware the axe eventually came down on Apelbaum and Bronstein and I would not be suprised if your concern with Stalins victims was indeed limited to the Jewish population of Soviet Russia.

However, I did not orient the discussion toward these folks! If you go through the thread again, you will see that I was not the one that brought these two up; you were.

You also baited me into responded as I did with your conspiracy theory implication involving the protocols. If you do not want a conversation on these issues do not start or continue them.

You offered an alleged reproduction hosted on a biased website!

Forgive the error; you provided an unreadable link! MUCH BETTER!

In a democracy, especially if there are numerous political parties as in most European nations, there's always the chance that an election will turn out so that a small party is 'on the fence' and decides the constitution of the ruling coalition. If this is a fascist party, however small, it can start dictating its wants to a much larger part of the representatives, in fact, to the majority.
This is an inherent weakness in democracy (and one of many reasons I'm not a democrat; note the small 'd').
Don't forget that these people do more than negating the Holocaust. They perform bomb attacks, kill foreigners, beat up folks with dark skin, and a legion of other anti-social activities. If I were Karl Rove, I'd call them the European Axis of Evil.

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"Say not, 'When I have free time I shall study'; for you may perhaps never have any free time"
Hillel the Elder

I have seen expressions involving teapots and kettles many times on this forum, and often phrased like "the teapot is calling the kettle black" or something. What does it mean?

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It all comes down to this on election day: Are you a racist, or do you look down on spastics?

Its an expression that basically points out somebodies hypocrisies.

The teapot is black in color, yet it is insulting the kettle by calling it black.

I believe the true threat comes from the minority populations within Europe? At least according to very recent history the statistics back that position!

-85% of people convicted of rape in Sweden were immigrants or born of immigrants.

-82% of youth brought before Danish judges in 2004 were of foreign descent.

-65% of people charged with rape in Norway in 2000 were classified as non-western immigrants; in 80% of all cases their victims were Norwegian women.

-55% of Dutch prisoners in 2004 were immigrants; at least 30% of prisoners come from predominantly non-white lands. The Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) said 9 percent of detainees were born in Suriname, about 9 percent came from the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba, 7 percent were Moroccans and 5 percent were Turkish

-50% of criminal offenders in numerous Italian regions were illegal immigrants.

-47% of prisoners on remand for violent crimes such as murder, attempted murder and rape in Denmark come from immigrant backgrounds.

-40% of all Belgian prisoners in 2005 were third world immigrants; Moroccans, Algerians and Turks made up the largest number of migrant prisoners.

-40% of all crime in Russia in 2003 was attributed to immigrants largely from developing nations by Russian officials.

-30% of all serious crimes committed in Cyprus involve foreigners. Refugees were noted as overrepresented in such statistics.

-25% of those imprisoned in Denmark are either immigrants or direct descendents of immigrants.

-25% of all crimes in Sweden between the years of 1997-2001 were committed by immigrants. Immigrants in Sweden were four times more likely to be investigated for lethal violence and robbery than persons born in Sweden to Swedish parents, the National Council for Crime Prevention said on Wednesday. Immigrants were also three times more likely to be investigated for assault and five times more likely to be investigated for sex crimes.

SOURCES:

• Russia moves to control immigration – BBC News -2003
• Immigrants Behind 25% Of Swedish Crime - The Local (Stockholm)- 2005
• Criminologist: Immigrants are rape champions – Copenhagen Post - 2001
• Muslim Rape Concern – Copenhagen Post - 2001
• Oslo Rape Statistics Shock – Aftenposten -2001
• Four in Ten Detainees are Immigrants – Expatica - 2006
• Foreign Born Prisoners Outnumber Dutch – Expatica - 2004
• Muslim Rape Wave in Sweden – FrontPage Magazine - 2005
• Foreigners Dominate Denmark’s Criminals – Eurosavant - 2004
• One in Three Crimes Involves Foreigners – Sunday Mail Cyprus -2004
• Criminal ambitions increase in immigrant gangs – Copenhagen Post - 2005
• Pisanu: Some Regions, 50 Pct Crimes of Illegal Immigrants – AGI (Italy)- 2005

Maybe Europe should ban third world immigration as many of those people rape women with white skin, kill people, form vicious murdering gangs and end up overrepresented in prison statistics?

WOI it seems to me that this potential exists whether you have outlawed holocost deniers or not. That simple removal of a persons right of free speech, and to make a fool of him or herself in front of the electorate, isn't going to change the potential effects of your parlimentary electoral system.

We have numerous political parties in the US as well, more than likely the same number as you do. But because we chose not to go down the parlimentary path they are of little consequence. SOmetimes that is good, in fact most times it is good because it keeps the really off the wall parties like the fascists and communists and greens out of power (and believe me these or the more sane of the off the wall American political parties), but on the negative side it also tends to keep new third parties from gaining any success like the reform party and also keeps more mainstream parties like the libertarian party out of the proccess.

The point is we have our own skelitons in the closet that we never want to see happen again. In our case it is slavery. Yet we recognize that the best way to deal with it is head on, not passing laws that essentially sweep it under the carpet. We know there will still be groups like the KKK that think the golden age was when salvery was in place. We also know that educating the public on tis is the best way to fight it. SOme of our children still grow up in families that are racist and there is nothing we can do to stop that. No law is going to make someone who is racist decide not to be a racist. However when their children see how society reacts to the beliefs their parents are teaching them that in fact does have an impact and they start to question those beliefs. If we forced then to simply shut up then all that would happen would be that they would pass on those beliefs covertly and since they were not allowed to speak their mind publically those children would never see the counter arguments society has ready to deal with these racists.

No the reason you have these laws isn't because of the horror of the holocost. Oh I am absolutely sure that has something to do with it, but I think it has more to do with the fact that from my persepctive anyway European governments have always tried to bury the things they do not want to really address. It is much easier to actually outlaw holocost denyers than to try and figure out what makes them tick and deal with that. So instead you tell yourselves Niemals and then tell yourselves you can simply pass a law to make sure that Niemals will actually happen. The facct that 60 years later these people are still there and seem to be thriving given your concern about the political situation your approach hasn't worked.

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The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu

Well put

Hiding something never makes it go away. It will act just like a mold. It will brood and spread undercover and out of sight until one day it bursts out and destroys everything. Ethnic tensions are on the rise in Europe and unless you are willing to address these issues head on racism will re-emerge and become a powerful force yet again.

It is becoming a powerful force is largely if not entirely due to the kind of migrants being admitted into the west. For example according to British 'Yougov' statistics 32% of UK Muslims view western culture as 'immoral,' decadent and something they should help bring to an end. In this case why would such tensions not escalate?

I would say that it is perfectly normal for a majority population to resist a fifth column segment of a minority population who seeks an end to their way of life. Until the EU government deals with this issue; things will not improve in my view.