Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

So, this so-called historian has pleaded guilty to an Austrian court to denying that the Holocaust ever happened.

While this man is guilty of completely ignoring historical facts and disgracing his profession........ should it really be a criminal offense? There's something vaguely Orwellian about that.

He's dumb, and as much as I think dumb should be illegal sometimes, it isn't.

I think this is kinda bad in terms of free speech, plus it give the anti-semites more reason to hate Jews. You can just hear them spoutin' something like "The Jew conspiracy is so powerful that they have people who disagree with them jailed!"
Geez.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

It's in Austria, and I suppose they're a bit more touchy about it over there than they would be in a country that was never controlled by the Nazis like England or the U.S., but it does seem a bit much to prosecute someone over it. I read the guy could get ten years in jail for this, and it seems a bit much to me.

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beep beep I'm a Jeep

He's dumb, alright. How can you deny a histoic event happening? That's like saying 9/11 never happened. It's complete arrogance.

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He should certainly be called out in some way for saying this, considering he's a historian and not just any typical figure. Some uneducated people might actually *gasp* take his word for it that the Holocaust never happened! But yeah, actually being prosecuted over it is going a bit far.

What a *bleep*ing idiot. The gas chambers at Auschwitz are a hoax. I'll take him to the crematoriums at Dachau. I'd like to see him deny the Holocaust while his skin is burning off.

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He's a moron, but he's not a criminal.

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How could anybody think that???

is this guys last name Butz?

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No, it's David Irving.

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Germany's a little over the top about its anti-Nazism, so it doesn't surprise me that Austria is a bit, too. To this day you can't legally get a copy of Wolfenstein 3D in Germany. I thought I heard that Return to Castle Wolfenstein, released about 9 years later, was released uncensored in Germany, but apparently not; all Nazi symbolism was removed, with the only hint of a connection being a character named Heinrich Hoeller (a pun on Heinrich Himmler: Himmel = Heaven, Hoelle = Hell).

I know, it may seem I'm trivializing this by bringing up a video game, but I think if a country would ban a clearly anti-Nazi game just because it has Nazi symbolism in it (come on, a game where your goal is to kill Nazis, how much more anti-Nazi can you get?), it doesn't surprise me that a country would have such an extreme reaction to somebody denying the Holocaust.

I'm guessing laws like that are designed to keep it from happening again, but I really doubt the Holocaust is going to happen again just because of some crackpot saying it never happened. Holocaust denial is not a new phenomenon, but I don't think Neo-Nazis today have any more power than they did, say, a decade ago, and I don't think suppression of Nazi or Nazi-like ideas has anything to do with that. In the 1930s, the German public wanted to hear what Hitler was saying. Today, they don't. As long as they don't, the Holocaust will never happen again, it's that simple.

So, I do think such a harsh punishment is excessive because I think such people, whether "historians" or not, are relatively harmless. But it's all part of the post-Holocaust mindset, so I don't think the officials are going to change their mind...

- Kef

I will say something from this one book, Thinner by Stephen King.
An a**hole is someone who is staring facts directly in the face, and completely ignores it." It may not be exact, but that is what I want to say.

How could you deny an event like the Holocaust? It's stupid, and why would you deny it?

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No, I lied. I'm never going to have a good sig. So just forget about it.

Well, technically, I've never actually seen proof of the Halocaust. I was never there to see what happened, so, I don't REALLY know it happened.
[/devil's advocate]
Of course, using that logic, only the things that happen around me in the course of my day actually happened. Everything else is just a big lie.

I'm pretty sure the Halocaust happened, though.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

I have pictures of Dachau if anyone doubts the existance of the Holocaust.

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Warning: Graphic picture.

Yep. Never happened.

I wonder. Given all the photos taken of the holocaust and its effects, what has David Irving had to say about them? "They were faked?" "German actors pretended to lie dead or purposely starved themseves to appear dead or emaciated?"

It's like the "Moon landing conspiracy" except far more sad ...

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Occam's Razor is perhaps the best argument. When all factors are considered, the far simpler theory is that it happened, not that it didn't.

- Kef

Can someone answer the question of why anyone would want to deny the Holocaust?

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No, I lied. I'm never going to have a good sig. So just forget about it.

Wishful thinking and/or Nazi beliefs. The latter in the majority of cases.

"Some people are just really stupid" is my short and sweet answer.

The long answer is "the halocaust created a stigma on the German people. Some people think that they can remove the stigma by pretending the Halocaust never happened"...

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Irving's been sentenced to three years yesterday. I thought ":eek:" when I heard that - I didn't know that you could go to prison for it, just fined or cautioned.

I still don't know what to think about all this. Of course, I've no sympathy for Irving, and I don't care how long he's imprisoned. But I do think that this level of nannyism is so degrading, and too much of it goes on in Europe (well, it probably happens in America too, but I'll talk about what I know).

Our lawmakers don't see us as rational thinking people - to them, we're a rabble waiting to be brainwashed by the next anti-Messiah. Sometimes, I wonder if they have a point - but we must have learnt something from the past, right? Surely?

And I think Furrykef is right too - this law is about Austria trying to save face and look like they're doing something. Another bad basis for any law.

I think this goes a bit far... Granted, the man is crazy, and it's quite horrible to deny the halocaust never happened, but his career is pretty much over. When you're in a scientific field, it seems that one should be more careful about what they say.
I think his being laughed out of the scientific community would be punishment enough. Jail for stupidity just sets a dangerous precedent.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Yeah, that's exactly it - and another powerful weapon against your average crackpot propagandist....... media ridicule.

To misquote Yoda, "to a dark place this line of thought takes us". We can't lock people up for being morons, no matter how much we disagree with them. For example, I would LOVE to repeatedly punch Michael Moore in the face wearing knuckledusters after he said "there is no terrorist threat", but I'm not gonna, partially because all that fat would absorb the worst of the pummeling, but also, because I'm a firm believer in freedom of speech. To quote Voltaire, "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

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Sorry to burst your bubble, but Voltaire didn't say that. A lot of people do believe it's something he would have said, though, as it's consistent with his philosophy. In fact, it was originally used as a summation of Voltaire's beliefs, but it was still not something he actually said.

- Kef

Obviously, he's being jailed so that he doesn't spread the truth!

[/verbal irony]

Honestly, I can't feel at all sorry for this guy. You can't go around denying the largest attempted genocide of the 20th century in a country that doesn't boast a 1st Amendment.

Of course, I don't see jail as a solution to it, but it rarely solves anything anyways. He should just be smacked across the head with a big pipe, until he admits his fault .