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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Orphaned Response
Message-ID: <7800485@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 8-Oct-85 23:38:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.7800485
Posted: Tue Oct  8 23:38:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Oct-85 05:38:23 EDT
References: <195@pyuxh.UUCP>
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Nf-From: inmet!janw    Oct  8 23:38:00 1985


> >[eklhad@ihnet.UUCP (K. A. Dahlke)]
> >Similarly, if not more so, denying the existence
> >of the holocaust is (I believe) *very* dangerous in the long run.
> >On this basis, I would support a law/ruling prohibiting individuals from
> >making such claims.  The trouble is, I can't *prove* it is dangerous.
> 
> [Rick : mcgeer@ucbvax]
> The hell it's not.  "You shall know the truth, and the truth will
> make  you  free".   In  the  long run, teaching kids socialism is
> dangerous, and I can damned well prove it: look how  many  people
> on  this net believe in socialism.  
> ... Or consider the rather vast number
> that assured us that there were and are no concentration camps in
> the Soviet Union, or that Nicaragua is a wronged paradise...
> 
> If people are allowed to say that there was no holocaust, a  cer-
> tain  percentage  on the lunatic fringe will believe it -- but so
> long as the vast majority speaks the truth , and speaks it loudly
> and  clearly,  the  risk  to freedom from them is far less, in my
> mind, than from those who would deny them speech.

I think you're both right in your assessment of danger - but Rick
is  right  in his conclusions. Denying Holocaust *is* dangerous -
and prohibiting such denial makes it *more* dangerous. The danger
comes  not only in the long run, by creating a precedent of  cen-
sorship,  but  *immediately*, and  on  the  same   Holocaust  is-
sue.  Unless  you  run  a regime that makes people disappear, and
other people afraid to speak of it,  -  you    CANNOT    suppress
ideas,  and  every  attempt  to  do  so *strengthens* these ideas
- especially lunatic ones for which  it is the first hard fact in
their  favor.  Think  of  the wide publicity the condemned Nazi
got, think of his permanent  place  (along with  Horst Wessel) in
their martyr gallery. I believe that Canadian hate law to be quite
counterproductive.

We (and I mean all Western countries) are simply no good
at limiting liberty. For better or worse, we are condemned
to keep expanding it.

		Jan Wasilewsky