The right of fascist to free speech is one of those rare arguments where I strongly agree with both opposing sides.
I think there's a need for liberty of ideas. To take away the right of people to say things we don't like is a denial of their free speech whichever way you cut it. It is certainly possible to despise what someone says and yet defend their right to say it.
Yep, Nazis would like to take away free speech for others. So would most people for one type of opinion or another. Shit, we can still be prosecuted for blasphemous libel in this country! The Christians do take away our free speech, yet I still think they should be allowed to express their ideas.
If we smother certain ideas as too dangerous to express, we create a mystique around them. Surely it is actually safer to allow them to be expressed and then say why we don't like them. I know a lot of people who campaign for 'no platform for the fascists', but wouldn't it be better to have equal access to the platform for fascists and then trust those who hear both sides to make up their mind?
If we don't think people are smart enough to make up their own minds then we are wasting our time trying to promote any kind of compassion at all. Compassion and tolerance that can only be defended by censorship and coercion are actually just repression. Repression you agree with is nicer than repression you dislike, but let's not kid ourselves that it's not repression.
As Orwell said, 'if liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear'.
Jailing people for their ideas doesn't sit right with me at all.
*deep breath*
On the other hand, disproving Holocaust deniers is utterly essential if history is to be passed on accurately and the Holocaust is not to be repeated. Deniers should have their claims held up as publicly as possible and it be shown clearly why they are lying. This has already happened to Irving in one trial. He has no future peddling credible ideas. That's surely all we need for someone with dangerous words.
(on a personal vengeant level, I hope he gets a cell with an 18 stone lifer with a penchant for greaseless buggery, but back to the principle of the thing)
As Hitler said, if the communists had been out on the streets in the early days, the Nazis could never have got their fothold. But because they were all in meetings they gave them opportunity.
I remember dismissing anti-Nazi stuff in the UK in the mid-90s because it was so piddling, it seemed like their best publicity was from the anti-Nazis. Now, as the racsit parties are a real force I wonder if this could've been stopped by some confrontation a few years back.
When people *act* on Nazi ideas they become more dangerous and yep, let's throw everything we've got at them. I'm proud to know people who've gone into fascist marches and put the boot in. It clears the streets of the scum and makes it safer for non-straights, non-europeans and non-whites to be out and about.
But the line blurs. Standing in a street selling racist papers is intimidated. So does that count as spreading ideas or action?
It's easy for me to say they can have their free speech when they're not going to personally impact on me this side of them taking office as the government. But I know people who've forcibly gone and cleared Nazi newspaper sellers from outside football grounds and town centres and been thanked by asians for it. To give the nazis liberty to be there was to deny the liberty of the asians they intimidated. So it becomes a choice of who you want to be intimidated. As always, to do nothing sides with the oppressor.
In summary then, I see really compelling arguments both ways and dunno whether jailing Irving's great or outrageous. Damn this outsized human brain and its ability to hold contradictory ideas.
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