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Comment by nihilocrat | Hacker News Reader

The mountain of evidence pointing towards the Holocaust actually happening means that we should indeed let deniers speak but any position they take is so indefensible that it's more an exercise in observing human stupidity than considering two sides of an argument.

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My main problem with this is the fact that it's actually a crime punishable by jail sentences in many places in Europe.

Call it an observation of human stupidity, sure. But, last I checked, we don't jail people for being stupid or saying stupid things.

edit: Something interesting I just thought of.

A lot of Islamic & Arab countries have laws in place that punish "insulting Islam". A lot of these "insults" (see Jyllands-Posten) seem to come from Europe, who advocate a huge amount of free speech. How can the laws ban one instance of hate-speech and not another? Is Satire or Humor allowed?

Again, if anyone can shed light on this matter, I'd appreciate it, but in countries like France or Germany, are there laws in place to protect against all kinds of hate-speech or just specifically Holocaust Denial?

Yes, in Germany, open Holocaust denial is only one form of Volksverhetzung (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung)

The reason that this is punished is not stupidity. Publicly spoken words are never just an personal opininion, but have the potential to influence other people, and can lead to violent actions. In that case, the german constitution holds that the safety and dignity of the targetted people (e.g. an ethnical group) outweigh the personal freedom of an individual.

This trade-off has to be made somehow, and I would agree with the german constitution: personal freedom ends where other people get physically hurt or degraded.

"This trade-off has to be made somehow, and I would agree with the german constitution: personal freedom ends where other people get hurt or degraded."

Merely hurt or degraded? That is one hell of a low bar.

With hurt, I meant physically hurt, thanks for letting me clarify. Updated my post.

Ah, ok. That makes more sense.

The interesting thing is that it is actually against Danish law to "threaten, taunt, etc" people based on their race, color, national or ethic origin, religious belief or sexual orientation (straffeloven paragraph 266) if the messages have been said (or printed) in public or with the intent of wide distribution. In 2003 four people were given suspended sentences for violating this law.

In addition it is a violation of paragraph 140 to publicly taunt or make fun of the belief or (religious) practices of any legal religious society. Nobody has been punished under this paragraph since the late 30.

But you are free to deny the holocaust or join a nazi group.

Which plays into the author's main point which is you deny young children the opportunity to hear how stupid these theories are when you don't discuss the matter. Because you can't really silence a school of thought. All you can do is drive it underground.

So by abolishing discussion you actually create what can be seen as proof of the false theory. Parents who believe this stuff tell their kids "it's a Jew cover-up" and use the censorship as proof. And since society has stopped giving the other side of the story those kids are left to believe the lie. Meaning the end result is we've made a ridiculous theory stronger by handing a whole new generation over to it.

Next thing you know there's some poor University Professor in a class full of kids who believe this ridiculousness because they've never heard the other side of the story.

Agreed, a form of intellectual vaccination, if you will. And as with vaccination, it will fail for some (or lead to wrong beliefs) but in general will be very beneficial for the society at large.

Note that what really turned the public against McCarthy in his communist witch hunt was to experience first hand his vileness: "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

With the relatively recent rise of 'Obama is a secret muslim!' and various other idiotic statements, I question the ability of a lot of people to dismiss these ideas as stupid.

So as some of these comments suggest, yes, perhaps we need to actually teach people how to recognize outright stupid ideas even if it seems obvious to you and me.

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