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From: clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Zundel etc.
Message-ID: <420@mnetor.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Apr-85 10:21:17 EST
Article-I.D.: mnetor.420
Posted: Mon Apr 15 10:21:17 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Apr-85 12:20:21 EST
Organization: Computer X (CANADA) Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Lines: 84

wjr@utcs.UUCP (William Rucklidge) writes:
> 	Unfortunately, in Keegstra's case, the people he was exposing were
> not able to critically examine this information: as their teacher, he was
> presumably viewed as a source of knowledge and, as the testimony of some
> of the students seems to indicate, the beliefs he was spreading were accepted
> by the students. This was, of course, reinforced by the necessity that they
> do assignments about the Jewish conspiracy etc., and the fact that they
> received better marks for agreeing with him.
> 

What I don't understand (in this respect), is, where were the student's 
parents during all this?  Surely, something as virulent as the hearings 
lead us to believe would have been *really* obvious to the parents 
(other teachers, the principal etc).  I know one thing, if my child
ever came home spouting such garbage, I wouldn't sit back and let
it continue.  Surely it could have been stopped
before it got this far.  Schools do have the ability to impose sanctions
upon school topics without reliance on more global restrictions upon
freedom of speech.  If I recall correctly, this action was initially
prompted by a Jewish group, not anyone connected with the school.
Somewhat of a poor commentary on the good sense of small towns in Canada
I guess.

cdshaw@watmum.UUCP (Chris Shaw) says:
> Laura says she knows an Arab person whose family died in the 6-day war,
> and as a consequence hates Zionism, and by extension all Jews. (or words
> to that effect). She then goes on to wonder about the possibility of being
> legislated into not hating Zionism/whatever.
> 
> Another group of postings suggest banning/rewriting separate works as the
> Bible, certain movies, and so on.
> 
> Both sets of postings widely miss the mark. The laws in question here 
> (177 and the other one) have nothing to do with banning books, but with
> telling lies (in the face of readily and universally verifiable fact)
> to the purpose of harming the reputations/livelihoods of people being
> lied about.

The discussion has strayed from the particular laws in question to a more
general discussion of how best to handle similar incidents.

> In no way can the laws be interpreted as acting on works produced more than
> (say) five years ago. Shirley Temple is safe, since the movies are 40 years
> old. The bible is safe for both reasons of age, and because the laws in
> question specifically don't apply to religion.

I wasn't talking about these laws in particular, rather the intent of them.
Shirley Temple movies (etc.) aren't safe - they've been restricted already
(although unofficially).  Does anybody remember seeing the Bill Cosby
film on them?

Why should the Bible be safe from such laws anyways?  If we attempt to
restrict publication/spoken word representations of false material,
it shouldn't matter *when* it was written, nor should it matter on whether
the material is religious in nature.  I was speaking in terms of the
material itself, not necessarily with respect to criminal proceedings
against the writer (just try prosecuting someone who is dead!).
 
> In fact, the laws are reasonably safe, since one way to beat a conviction
> is to satisfy the jury that you acted in good faith. However, given the
> overwhelming amount of evidence (and a lack of conflicting evidence worth
> mentioning) about the holocaust, someone maintaining that it didn't happen
> is either mentally ill or is a viscious, criminal scum out to propogate
> mindless hate.

True.  Was the court able to prove either?  Because of the verdict they
evidently chose the latter.  My fear is whether the conviction was based upon
the legal requirements, or personal bias of the jurors.

> Given the amount of concern expressed by nearly everyone about possible
> misuse of these laws, it is clear that the independent, impartial judiciary
> must be very careful and forthright. Many people have the fear that someday,
> the government will turn into a monster and use laws like this to hunt 
> certain people down. I, for one, don't think this too likely for some
> rather obvious reasons: If the government is in this state, there are plenty
> of more powerful tools it can use (such as the war measures act) that
> it would simply be wasting its time otherwise.

Yes, that is a good argument.  But, then again, most monsters started out 
small.
-- 
Chris Lewis, Computer X (CANADA) Ltd.
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