Love the Mill quote and could not agree more with the sentiments. The foundation for western ideals of freedom of expression is weakend when we selectively apply them...

Posted by: turtleherd at March 3, 2006 01:48 AM | Permalink to this comment

"We" are not selectively applying them. The Austrians are. Their country, their rules.

Posted by: Zathras at March 3, 2006 05:03 PM | Permalink to this comment

Good point Z. Perhaps this is an example of "us" being painted with the same broad brush that "we" often apply to "them." Rarely, if ever, helpful or useful.

Posted by: Eric Martin at March 3, 2006 05:09 PM | Permalink to this comment

Our editorial response to Irving:
People can be punished for lying, for inciting to violence, for libel, for slander, but punishment for being wrong or being stupid is wrong and stupid. The response for those who are wrong or stupid is to have it pointed out in public.

Posted by: sbw at March 3, 2006 07:55 PM | Permalink to this comment

1. As societies recover from totalitarianism, is it sensible to give the former totalitarians every liberty to bring the former tyranny back into power? Should, for example, Cambodia have no restrictions on the Khmer Rouge? If, by some miracle, the USSR had shackled off the CPSU in 1953, would restrictions on people pushing for the return of Stalinism have been out of place? Does the United States, even now, allow the Taliban and the Iraqi Ba'ath parties to operate unfettered?

2. If Germany were to lift its restrictions on Nazi symbols, it would be a matter of hours before swastikas reappeared in certain quarters. They would be raised by a tiny and insignificant number of people, but the images would be transmitted around the world. The version of the story told around the globe would not be, "look what a mature and secure democracy Germany has become that it can allow those nuts to do what they want," it would be something quite different. What government would bear these real costs for no gain at all? And for the absolutists in attendance here, what can you do to change the storyline from "look at all those Nazis still in Germany" to "what a mature democracy"?

Posted by: Doug at March 3, 2006 08:41 PM | Permalink to this comment

Great article. About time someone brought Austria to task for its conviction of Irving.

Posted by: Carl_Goss at March 4, 2006 04:15 PM | Permalink to this comment

I think it is certainly Austria's right to impose restrictions on public expressions that it deems harmful to the country. The rest of the world may disagree, but why should Austria really care?
In any case, few of us would have given this a second thought if not for the Mohammed cartoons and the apparent dilemma created by the Irving conviction.
It is obvious to me, a non-muslim Asian living in the US, that since 9/11 the governments and media in the west have created an environment that is conduicive to poking fun at anything Islamic. The fact that Judaism, Christianity and Islam have a lot in common is hardly ever recognized by the media.
Our governments and their in-bed media have created this monster image of Islam and Muslims, and we must now live with it. Those of us who have lived in other multicultural societies see the obvious hypocrisy and are not at all surprised by all this.

Posted by: Lee_Berty at March 5, 2006 10:31 PM | Permalink to this comment

I always got the impression that Irving was more of a revisionist than an all-out denier. After all, alleging that poles rebuilt and amended the gas chambers was just one among many facts he contested, but this one proved radioactive.
He might have known that, but he was and is utterly tactless. And the more he got criticized, the more angry and provocative he became.

That said, he wrote some good history books, as such eminences as John Keegan and Gordan Craig have attested. He uses copious documentation, so he presumably could be addressed on the facts here too.

Whatever the case, there is no excuse for jailing an historian for being a tactless, abrasive pain in the ass. And the cartoon thing just serves to bring that into bold relief.

If sacred rights weren't an issue, I'd suggest locking him up with Dershowitz, in for a new version of "No Exit."

Posted by: Skip at March 6, 2006 07:13 PM | Permalink to this comment

Mr Singer:

You are are refresment in the hypocritical world we live in. The issue of whether one belives in what Irving says or not, is besidess the point. It is outrageous to have someone jailed because he does not agree with something.!!! When a writer has the publishing of his books prevented due to pressure, bookstores carrying his books are firebombed, being attcked in public, universities inviting him withdrawing their invitation due to pressure, etc. This reminds me of the nazi times in Austria and Germany. I don't care if that writer/historian is comunist, nazi, libertarian or whatever.
David Irving should be freed immediately and nobody should prevent him from having his books published, hold his talks, etc.
For Shame, for shame on all the countries having laws prohibiting statement denying the holocaust or WHATEVER ELSE !!

Posted by: Ed at March 11, 2006 07:22 PM | Permalink to this comment

Singer's polemic on free speech is just what one would expect from the foggy bottom of the provincial American academic elite. Speech does not exist in a vacuum, and the fragile Austrian democracy, as Germany which has been a unified democratic country for little more than a decade, needs to protect itself against a resurgence of fascism, which is by no means unthinkable. What is extremely unlikely in Princeton, New Jersey, can happen very quickly in Germany or Austria. In 1928, the Nazi party garnered 2.5% of the vote. By 1934 Hitler was chancellor of Germany. Let's be urbane enough not to smugly impose our values on other nations.

Posted by: Jackson Straw at March 15, 2006 06:45 PM | Permalink to this comment

Singer's polemic on free speech is just what one would expect from the foggy bottom of the provincial American academic elite. Speech does not exist in a vacuum, and the fragile Austrian democracy, as Germany which has been a unified democratic country for little more than a decade, needs to protect itself against a resurgence of fascism, which is by no means unthinkable. What is extremely unlikely in Princeton, New Jersey, can happen very quickly in Germany or Austria. In 1928, the Nazi party garnered 2.5% of the vote. By 1934 Hitler was chancellor of Germany. Let's be urbane enough not to smugly impose our values on other nations.

Posted by: Stanley Wertheim at March 15, 2006 06:45 PM | Permalink to this comment

Singer's polemic on free speech is just what one would expect from the foggy bottom of the provincial American academic elite. Speech does not exist in a vacuum, and the fragile Austrian democracy, as Germany which has been a unified democratic country for little more than a decade, needs to protect itself against a resurgence of fascism, which is by no means unthinkable. What is extremely unlikely in Princeton, New Jersey, can happen very quickly in Germany or Austria. In 1928, the Nazi party garnered 2.5% of the vote. By 1934 Hitler was chancellor of Germany. Let's be urbane enough not to smugly impose our values on other nations.

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