Dear Ingrid:
That was great news from the UK: the English will not kowtow to demands for an Auschwitz-Lüge type law. The stand taken by Brittan, Howard et al is quite courageous.
In the "Zundelsite" letter of 23.5.96 I liked Zündel's remark that there was no "Politburo" among Revisionists to decree what and what not can be said. Quite right!
In response to your May 25 letter, let me say that I think it does our cause an awful lot of good to emphasize that revisionism is not about how to "whitewash" Hitler. It cannot have this as an aim, and ideally there should be no political agenda at all (very difficult, I know), while where political bias has existed among Revisionists, let us recall that it has also occurred on the left.
Why should we hesitate to point out that Paul Rassinier, the father of Revisionism, was left-wing, as was (and still is as far as I know) P. Guillaume, founder of "La Vieille Taupe" and publisher of Faurisson, Serge Thion and numerous other pioneering revisionists?
Regarding the Internet, there are determined people who want to have legislation to control it. In response to an article in yesterday's Sunday Independent I wrote the following letter. Let us see if it gets published!"
Here is the second letter:
The Editor
THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT
FAX 011 834 7520.
2.6.1996
Dear Sir,
"The debate on censoring the Internet" in today's Sunday Independent (June 2) makes the observation that the Internet's censorship "seems inevitable", "the question is how", while by means of the Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS) parents could "protect their children from Holocaust revisionism".
Since the only other thing that seems to need blocking is the lowest form of smut, one must assume that the former is at least as bad as the latter. Nevertheless, since the arguments of holocaust revisionism can be highly intricate and technical, I doubt whether any "child" would have the intellectual maturity to digest even what is being stated.
Far better would be to "protect" adults, especially if they are intelligent, since they are capable of following the line of thought and so more liable to be taken in by this "pseudo-history", as it has been called.
Furthermore, since PICS could be periodically updated as "a tool that some governments are sure to use to suppress information", there would be no need to depend on "self-censorship", which is not very reliable anyway.
In any case, I fail to see how "the advantage of the PICS system is that it does not limit what people write on the Internet, only what they read" and that "free speech is protected at the cost of self- censorship".
Does the article not make it clear that "software [...] would screen material by criteria set by [...] a government"?
Do I need a "system" to turn the TV off if I don't wish to watch a program? Is it free speech if I am allowed whatever I like, seal it in a bottle and cast it adrift?"
Have yourself a sunny California weekend - with a loved one if you can!
Thought for the Day:
"Nothing makes you more tolerant of a neighbor's noisy party than being there."
(Franklin P. Jones)