Why Does Europe Not Understand Free Speech?

Fresh on the heels of Europe’s spineless apologizing over the Danish cartoons, I read of a case where a fringe British historian named David Irving has been sentenced to three years in jail for denying the Holocaust. It’s a crime in Austria to deny the Holocaust.

I’m literally speechless. The way to deal with a Holocaust denier is not by sending them to jail. As disgusting as it is that someone would advocate such opinions, they ought to have the right to do so. Freedom of speech is the most fundamental of democratical ideals. Without it, a democracy is a sham.

We had a German teacher in high school (I never had classes with her) that was Holocaust denier herself. From what I understand, as a little girl, she was a German living in Poland under bad conditions, when the German’s marched through “liberating” her. It very well may have bettered her circumstances. Because of these fond memories, she refused to give any validity to the Holocaust. I’m not sure of all the ins and outs that went on at my high school, but she began to be express her opinions more frequently and more forcibly. It was well known that she cut out references to the Holocaust in books in her classroom, and that students could provoke an angry outburst from her by asking Holocaust questions. She was an older women, and when she retired, the rumor was that she’d been forced out. Retire early or we’ll let you go.

That’s how speech should work. Freedom of speech does not mean that your speech lacks consequences. This lady should not have been put on trial and sentenced to jail. Rather society should simply reject her message. If she’s hired to teach German and is advocating beliefs that are not supported by History, there’s going to be repercussions in her dealings with society.

The same should be true for David Irving. If he’s a historian that believes the Holocaust is a myth, his success at being a Historian and sharing his ideas with others should be abysmal. The fact that crazy people will eat his message up is not something you fix with a law. There again, society should set a strong selective pressure (to borrow the evolutionary analogy) against such ideas.