Yesterday, a two-day conference on the Holocaust came to an end in Iran, after establishing an "international committee" to "establish the truth" of the event. Billed as an academic inquiry, the thinly-veiled gathering of Holocaust deniers has drawn international criticism.
Let's be clear here. Holocaust deniers rank right up there with flat-earthers as people not to be taken seriously. They're a bit like creationists, pointing to bits and pieces here and there, or building elaborate theories based on the flimsiest conjectures, all while ignoring the towering mountains of evidence all around them.
But frankly I think the conference mostly demonstrates why countries like Germany and Austria are misguided when they make denying the Holocaust a crime.
Why? Because by banning discussion of the topic, they make racist, conspiratorial fools like David Duke look reasonable, even civic-minded. From his website:
The main theme of the Holocaust Conference is that there must be freedom of speech on this subject as on all others. Free speech, inquiry and debate is the only way to learn the truth on any issue. Many Western governments have imprisoned many academics for simply expressing their historical opinions on the Holocaust....See? Duke is simply asking for the right to speak freely, and may the best idea win. How can you disagree with him? You can't; he's right. And by banning him you give him the opportunity not only to indulge his paranoid fantasies ("Look! Look! I'm being repressed!") but to cloak himself in the language of light and freedom.First, freedom of speech is a vital human right. It is the cornerstone of all other rights, because without freedom of speech no one has to the right to even freely know and learn of the abrogation of other rights affecting human freedom and survival. That is why the American founding fathers put freedom of speech, press and religion as the first and highest of the Bill of Rights.
Second, freedom of speech and debate are absolutely vital for the truth to prevail. If one side of any controversial issue can suppress the voice of opposition, we cannot arrive at the certainty of any truth. If academics and citizens can be career and monetarily blackmailed; if they can be threatened with firings, loss of income, or imprisonment from simply sincerely pursuing an historical inquiry and publishing it, how can the truth be fairly arrived at?
Article comments
1 - E.d'Aubignosc
When I first read about David Duke, I couldn't believe what I was reading. So I decided to meet him personally and see for myself.
This was 7 years ago. David Duke has been a good friend ever since. We talk about twice a week and meet now and then.
The media that call him a racist and KKK leader, are the same media that made up the weapons of mass destruction... They serve the people in power and their policies. It's so much easier to call someone a "hater", a "racist"... than to address the issues he/she raises.
Now let me put things strait. David was a Nazi when he was a teenager, he was KKK leader in his early 20s and now he is close to 60! He has had nothing to do with the KKK for the last 30 years. He is a white nationalist and an American patriot who thinks that races are different and that a multiracial society can't work. (When I look at how things work racially coherent countries like Denmark and look at multiracial hellholes like Louisiana, I don't see how he could be wrong). He also believes in free speech and in self determination for all peoples, including whites. That is why he opposed the Zionist control of western media. That do not mean that he hates black, other colored people or Jews.
In his book, David mentions facts which in his eyes contradict the always changing official version of the holocaust. He never claimed to be an expert!
You may agree or completely disagree with him. But you should get the facts first and not parrot the garbage from the controlled media.
2 - Jill Henry
David Duke believes that all racial families have a right to endure and to control their own culture, Jew or Gentile.
What sort of person would have trouble with that, unless they equate genocide with goodness?
3 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
I have to wonder, and I'll aim my questions at E. d'Aubignosic, why, if David Duke was such an American patriot, he was in Teheran hobnobbing with a government that wants to shove Shia religion down America's throat. He wants that badly to meet the Mahdi, perhaps?
I also have to wonder why he makes such a big stink over whether gas chambers existed in concentration camps or not. He is not a Jew. He did not lose relatives to Hitler's death machine. What is it his damned business? Why should it matter what happened to some yids 65 years ago? It's not his problem. It's ours.
Unless, he has never really abandoned the Nazi philosophy of designating Jews as a Gegenrasse, and doing anything possible to eliminate them?
That would explain a lot. Whatever else he is, he is not a stupid man. He knows when to keep his trap shut.
4 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
I managed to pick up David Duke on Zionism from CNN. I don't know if this link that I provided will get you there, but it got me there.
I found it amusing that Duke characterized the entire American media as "Zionist controlled", including his interviewers at CNN, a company which is part of a media conglomerate that is owned in large part by the Saudis. His believability really suffers when he makes such assertions. I would have thought him to be more intelligent than that.
5 - E.d'Aubignosc
to: Ruvy in Jerusalem
I never heard that Iran wanted to shove their religion down America's throat.
Western nations have to endure and even sponsor Israeli policies in the middle east. As soon as someone questions our backing of Israel, he is being told he owe it to them because of the holocaust. And as soon as a historian questions the holocaust, he goes to jail, at least in most European countries. This is totalitarian and that's what David Duke opposes.
Ruvy, I'm sure you pay taxes in you country. So do I. However, there is one difference, your taxes go to Israel because it's your country, some of my taxes also go to Israel and Jewish lobbies because of the holocaust (even if neither me nor France, my country, have anything to do with it). Now if historians could cast some doubt on the official version of history, Israel will get less of my taxes, you'd have to pay more of your taxes and American GI wouldn't wage illegal wars on behalf Israel! When your prime minister lobbies European governments to comden revisionist, it's more about making money than promoting free speech.
I have a lot of sympathy for all patriots, including Jewish patriots. But if you want a country, fight for it, don't blackmail other nations to do it for you and pay you for that privilege!
6 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
"I never heard that Iran wanted to shove their religion down America's throat."
Dude, you better wake up. Brew up some of that good "Community Coffee," the strong stuff they drink down in NO, and have a cup. Then sit yourself in front of a computer screen and do some searches.
1. Mahdi - Ahmadinejad
2. Shia Redemption
3. The Temple Mount - Shia
4. Saturday People - Sunday People
5. Al Wahhab - killing non-Moslems.
If you get really curious about this, check out what I've written myself here at Blogcritics Magazine. There is this article about Ahmadinjad's efforts to rebuild a Persian Empire. You can also check out my article on the Iranian missile threat to Israel.
Then there are those wars that your soldiers get sent to fight in the Middle East, allegedly to protect us.
Your country represents the imperial power of a civilization that thinks all too highly of itself, very much like the Greeks and the Romans of 2,200 years ago. But the realities are addressed by this piece I wrote when first coming to Blocritics Magazine last November on Hanukkah. It is our side of the story and gives you a very clear perspective of the realities of this country that you think exploits yours.
By the way, just so you have it straight in your head, so far as I am concerned, you can take all of you troops out of the Middle East and take your money and your "aid" and get the hell out. We do not need it or you. A Jewish government would gladly do what your government can't acomplish here. Unfortunately, the bought out traitors (bougfht out by your government) who run this country can't piss in their own pants without permission from some flunky in DC. The Israeli cabinet, a good part of its top brass, its high court of "justice" and just about all of the parliament deserve to be shot in the head for treason. And they can take the ass-kissers in AIPAC to the grave with them. Tell that to your friend David Duke the next time you see him.
7 - Zedd
E.d'Aubignosc
Has your bud Davis Duke ever explained to you why he remains in the United States of America and doesn't move to a white country like Denmark so that all of his problems will be solved?
I mean since the U.S. is not a white country and all... you know the whole Native American thing...
The issue is that if millions of white Americans moved to Denmark, there would be strife! The issue is not race (whatever that is... boy how backwars I cant believe I'm typing this stuff). The issue is culture... a clash of cultures. Offcourse in the US there are other factors that are influenced by historical events.