I have nothing but contempt for David Irving. He is the one who sued Deborah Lipstadt for allegedly slandering him. Thankfully, she won her case in a British court of law. Irving was irritated that Lipstadt accused him of holocaust denial even though the evidence overwhelming supported her position. Such a matter could not even be heard in the United States. Our First Amendment rights, thankfully, make it extremely difficult to sue. Not so, in Europe and the United Kingdom. At this very moment, the Austrian government has arrested Irving for denying the holocaust:
“In a statement posted on his website, Mr Irving's supporters said he was arrested while on a one-day visit to Vienna, where they said he had been invited "by courageous students to address an ancient university association".
Despite precautions taken by Mr Irving, he was arrested by police who allegedly learned of his visit "by wiretaps or intercepting emails", the statement alleged.”
You can read the Guardian article here.
A few years ago, the great scholar Bernard Lewis was also prosecuted by French authorities for questioning the genocide of the Armenians. When will this nonsense stop? Governments should not be prosecuting people for uttering stupid statements. All of us are placed in harm’s way when this occurs. The free exchange of ideas can readily handle the likes of a David Irving. This is especially true in our modern era because of the Internet. Furthermore, I am convinced that this is perhaps the number one reason why much of Europe and the British Isles may be doomed. Their citizens are fearful of offending the politically correct bureaucrats who truly run their nations. This has resulted in the growing threat of Islamic nihilism. Let us make sure the same thing doesn’t happen in the United States.
7 comments:
From comments at the Belmont Club:
French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut apologizes after death threats
By Daniel Ben-Simon Last Update: 27/11/2005 01:33
[...]
Thursday, after receiving death threats, the philosopher decided to respond and repent. In an extensive interview in Le Monde yesterday, he said he "despised" the man who appeared in the article (in Le Monde). "He is he and I am I. To my shock, since Wednesday, it appears that he and I share the same name."
Finkielkraut, who went out of his way to praise the immigrants, said his original statements had been an attempt to force the political echelon to take responsibility for what was happening in the poor suburbs. "Integration is our obligation," he said.
Following the apology, lawsuits and police complaints were dropped. But even after his apology, one Jewish organization condemned Finkielkraut, calling him the pyromaniac of the Jewish community.
----
Remember, however, the first ammendment does not apply in our Universities.
My reply:
dfp,
Maybe Larry Summers of Harvard can consul Finkielkraut on the dangers of too much free speech!
---
to which I add:
Alan Dershowitz:
"sounds like the trial of Galileo. In my 41 years at Harvard, I have never experienced a president more open to debate, disagreement, and dialogue than Larry Summers,"
---
"I would like nothing better than to be proved wrong, because I would like nothing better than for these problems to be addressable simply by everybody understanding what they are, and working very hard to address them," he added.
Over and over in the transcript, he made clear that he might be wrong in his theories, and he challenged researchers to study his propositions.
---
He also urged research on "the quality of marginal hires" to the faculty when efforts to diversify are under way. Do these hires, he asked, eventually turn into star professors? Or "plausible compromises" that are not unreasonable additions to the faculty? And "how many of them are what the right-wing critics of all of this suppose represent clear abandonments of quality standards?"
---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/18/education/18harvard.html?hp&ex=1108789200&en=faa0d908394b896d&ei=5094&partner=homepage
---
...Yet lefty commenter Kevin in a later thread berates Horowitz for his Campus Crusade, and me for supporting it!
Ah Dave, that's just the Conventional Wisdom tm.
John
david:
George Bush went to Harvard too.
I am not enthralled by the school but I really don't think it is fair to discount the entire institution because of Galbraith.
Galbraith is a insightful genius compared to the Black Studies Professor that left in a huff when Summers arrived and asked if he might consider writing a scholarly paper from time to time.
(Took too much time away from his Rap Music, so he left.
That's what HE said.
Truth is he COULDN'T write a scholarly paper if he wanted to.)
A majority of Harvard faculty called for Summer's head, I believe, when he dared posit that men and women are not identical.
Horrors!
Great faculty, that.
Galileo Trial Indeed!
david:
I do have to admit that I don't have the same respect for a lot of these schools that I used to.
I would not get a second mortgage to send my kid to one just so some obnoxious communist who teaches midieval basket weaving could also teach my kid to despise me.
Interview w/Thomas Sowell .
Before Blacks were chosen to be stupid:
Here's a nice video interview of Sowell by Fred Barnes.
Tom's looking fit and healthy at 75, ready to do more battle, I'd bet.
Sowell, now 75 years old, was born into poverty in the rural South and raised in Harlem. He was a high school dropout who would eventually graduate Magna Cum Laude from Harvard University, years before affirmative action and the civil rights movement.
Post a Comment