[lbo-talk] Freedom" of fascist speech is an absurdity

Bill Bartlett billbartlett at dodo.com.au
Thu Feb 9 21:30:03 PST 2006


At 8:25 AM -0800 9/2/06, Chris Doss wrote:


>So, Al-Jazeerah is wrong to broadcast bin Laden's
>statements, and the president of Iran (and a big chunk
>of the population of the Muslim world) should be
>locked up?

If they have broadcast racist hate speech. You ought to give particulars of the alleged offense though, so we don't have to guess what you are talking about. These characters talk a lot of rubbish, but a lot of it is irrelevant to the issue.


>Anyway this argument has been shifting around between
>different concepts without distinguishing them. Not
>all Holocaust deniers are racists and/or Nazis (though
>there is a very strong correlation).

I grant you that. Holocaust denial is merely an instance of denying the consequences of racism. Denying the seriousness of the crime. The overlap isn't entirely co-incidental of course, usually they deny the consequences because they want to advocate something of the sort that led to the holocaust, so would like to avoid acknowledging the consequences.


> Not all racist
>speech is incitement to violence. In fact very little
>of it is.

Yeah, sure. Where else is it leading then? I suspect you are a denier too, in the sense that you, like holocaust deniers are denying what racism leads to. I'm not arguing that this is the same as racist hate speech, there's an argument that people like you are merely fools. That's the charitable interpretation, you are kidding yourself. The less charitable interpretation is that you are trying to kid others.


>David Irving publishing a book of pseudo-history (he
>denies he is an anti-Semite, IIRC) is not the same
>thing as somebody saying that Jews are greedy,

Sure, I acknowledge the distinction. See above.


> which
>again is not the same as saying that all Jews must die.

That should be for a court to determine.

Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas



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