Friday, February 17, 2006

Holocaust deniers must be encouraged to talk rubbish


That way it is easier to prove that they are idiots. And they really are idiots - some of them can't even get their sums right.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (pictured) repeated his view this month that Nazi Germany's mass killing of Jews was a "myth" and that Palestinians and Iraqis were suffering a "real Holocaust".

Foreign ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, followed up the remarks by saying that it was "necessary to determine the scale" of the Nazi Holocaust, implying that all the historical work done on this subject since WWII has been utter gibberish. Historians made the whole thing up, apparently.

The Tehran Times reports that, in this new scholarly spirit, Iran is planning to have a ‘special conference’ on the Holocaust. And, here's the best bit, Iranian experts, scientists and officials intend to come to Poland and 'investigate' and gather 'evidence' and compile 'a report' that will show the true numbers who perished.

Bless their cotton socks.

"It is necessary that historians meet, discuss and give their opinion, talk about numbers and this conference could happen this spring," Ambassador to Portugal, Mohammad Taheri [and one time Ambassador to Poland] said in an interview with public radio Antena 1.

The ambassador said he had personally visited Nazi death camps in Poland and had concluded it was not possible for six million Jews to have died during the Holocaust.

"When I was ambassador to Poland I visited Auschwitz and Birkenau twice and I did my own calculations. To incinerate six million people you would need 15 years," he said.

Mr Ambassador, you are a moron and not really fit for any sort of public office at all. Not because you deny the Holocaust – you have the same right of freedom of speech as I do – but because nobody has ever suggested that six million Jews were incinerated - Jews died and were disposed of in many horrible ways. Nobody has ever claimed, either, that six million Jews died in Auschwitz during WWII. The six million figure comes from the total deaths at the hands of the Nazis in all concentration and prison camps in Poland, Germany and elsewhere, and during the failed uprisings, etc.(though there is some controversy about the figures from some groups).

The number of people who died in Auschwitz is closer to one and a half million.

The stupidity of these people should convince everyone that instead of imprisoning cranks like joke historian David Irving for denying the Holocaust, we should let them speak and deny all they like. That way we can see easily what morons these people truly are.

The only people who have anything to fear from freedom of speech are liars, those who talk bullshit for a living, and the intellectually challenged.

Which one of those is you, Mr Ambassador?

More? See Even bigots and Holocaust deniers must have their say by Ronald Dworkin, Guardian, Feb 14
Or, Freedom of Speech on the Defensive, AWOT blog

6 comments:

beatroot said...

All history is bunk...Henry Ford.

But Austria and Germany still havn't got over the war. In Germany you can smoke ciggies unrestricted in most public places still. That's because smoking bans to a German have Nazi connotations - they were the last to bring in nationwide smoking bans.

But I agree with you, dbn. The authorities must have a strange view of the people if they think that a few words from a nutcase like Irving is going to set off another Holocaust.

Michael M. said...

I do agree with you, although the problem with morons airing their opinions is that many people have trouble recognizing that they're morons. Look at the "intelligent design" nonsense in the U.S. A lot of people hoped that people would see it for the junk science that it is -- but they hoped wrong.

When talking about the Holocaust I think the danger is that, even if people don't believe that it "never happened", they will think there is a genuine academic debate about it. Holocaust-deniers are mistakenly presented as academics in search of the truth, when they are actually anti-Semitic kooks and conspiracy theorists. We ignore people who claim the Earth is flat -- perhaps the same should apply to them?

beatroot said...

Do you really think that some people think that 'intelligent design' is science? I think the religious that agree with intelligent design know full well that it merely an attempt to get religion put on the science syllabus...

And if some do believe that there is an academic debate about the Holocaust still, then we had better have a debate about it, otherwise the deniers will gain some ground.

Banning the talk of denial will only strengthen the position of the deniers.

I get the feeling that many in the west are just not confident enough in things like science,rationality, truth (re: popularity of alternative medicines etc). And the cranks and lunies move into the space left by this lack confidence.

Edie said...

It is true that science, rationality, positivism, Enlightenment principles in general have been discouraged in the West. Be careful, therefore, in dismissing objectivity when it comes to history. Revisionism and relativism can cut both ways, from any direction politically speaking, and the result is always regressive.

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Anonymous said...

The Holocaust is just rubbish. It is only just a few years. Look at how the Palestinians are treated.

Viva Hitler. Make you shine in Heaven.