More David Irving Fallout
In the wake of Holocaust denier David Irving’s three-year jail sentence, the consensus opinion seems to be: yeah, he’s a scumbag, but he ought to be free to be a scumbag. Here’s the typically excellent Oliver Kamm:
The issue for public policymaking is not that Holocaust denial is offensive (though it certainly is that) but that it is false: malevolently, systematically so. The proper policy with regard to malevolent falsehood is to expose it rather than suppress it. That is the task of historians rather than legislators or the judiciary.
Bill Quick:
It’s a truism because it is true: if unpopular views enjoy no rights to free expression, no views do. The right does not exist, or, rather, it exists, but is ignored.
Tim Cavanaugh sees a parallel between Irving’s case and the NSA story:
The idea that there’s any expression that goes beyond the bounds of permissibility comes from the same foul logic that produces the arguments from Bush Administration shills for temporarily suspending civil liberties in wartime: You have all your rights until you actually need them.
Don’t expect the case to be overturned on appeal, however; the laws in Austria are very clear, and U.S. laws and views on free speech, needless to say, don’t apply…
Able Danger Conference Call
Earlier this evening, I was able to participate in a conference call with Mark Zaid, the attorney representing Lt. Colonel Tony Shaffer in his dispute with the DIA in the Able Danger controversy. Joining in the call were the group…
Here is a free speech issue which is unsettling: apparently there is a man named Rev. Fred Phelps who organizes protests as the funerals of soldiers, because “Phelps believes American deaths in Iraq are divine punishment for a country that he says harbors homosexuals. His protesters carry signs thanking God for so-called IEDs — explosives that are a major killer of soldiers in Iraq.”
A number of states are passing laws to prevent protests like this from happening. I’ve always been an absolutist on first amendment rights – no matter how obnoxious, all speech should be allowed except for the usual exceptions (libel, commercial speech, yelling fire in movie theaters, etc.) – but this really seems beyond the pale. I’m curious how others feel.
Thank God for the counter-protesters:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/02/21/funeral.motorcyclists.ap/index.html
Yeah, an interesting story (the counter-protesters, I mean). I guess I’d have to say free speech is an absolute (exceptions as you note), but Phelps is, no doubt, scraping the bottom of the food chain…disgusting, to pull that garbage at the funerals of our brave servicemen and women who payed the ultimate price….