There's more wonderful editorial wisdom from Canada's new daily paper, the intellectually highly competitive National Post:
National Post: (January 4, 1999)
Is all of this censorship really necessary to stem the spread of hate in our society? American experience suggests it is not. In the last decade, American courts have struck down numerous university speech codes and municipal ordinances that enforced the strictures of political correctness.
In the United States, people are now equally free to burn flags and crosses (though few choose to burn either). This does not mean Americans are less hostile to hate mongering than Canadians. It simply means they embrace free speech, the marketplace of ideas, and the belief that evil ideas are more likely to flourish under censorship and suppression than when exposed to the light of day.
Unfortunately, in Canada, which is already a society saturated in public conformity, the trend is in the direction of more censorship. A November report indicates federal justice officials are contemplating a legislative proposal to expand Canada's hate speech laws.
The putative statute would explicitly prohibit hate mongering on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, and disability; police would be empowered to seize computer hard drives they suspect contain hate material. Moreover -- and this is a potentially sinister provision -- accused hate mongers would no longer be permitted to invoke truth as a defence in certain situations.
It is not hard to imagine the authoritarian and illiberal purposes to which such legislation could be put."
Well, we don't have to guess. There is empirical evidence about ". . . the authoritarian and illiberal purposes to which such legislation could be put."
German statistics on ThoughtCrimes prosecution look as follows:
1994: 2,083 cases
1995: 1,601 cases
1996: 5,635 cases (the year the cyberwar around the
Zundelsite broke out when Germany
tried to block our Mission Statement
with black "cyber ink" - and when that
didn't work, blocked 1,500 Webcom
sites by electronically barring access
to ***all*** Webcom sites from Germany!)
1997: 7,888 cases
****That is a total of 17,207 cases!*** in four years that we know about And this in a self-styled "democracy"!
(Source: Vierteljahreshefte für freie Geschichtsforschung, December 1998, p. 304. Also on-line at http://www.vho.org/VffG.html )
And I have received word that on November 23, 1998, a 40-year-old Japanese citizen, on a business trip to Berlin Germany, was arrested on accusations of having sent Revisionist material to German embassies, universities, politicians and people in public offices, disputing the "6 million" figure.
I haven't seen anything yet about that in the papers. Have you? I am curious if this story showed up in Japan.
Ingrid
Thought for the Day:
"Better make up your mind. Either adopt the silence of the cowardly scum that knows truth is out to get them, or subject your poor selves to confrontation with your worst nightmares come true. Yes, dear Virginia, the "Holocaust" is a lie. And what a lie it is! It's a lie for revenge, for money, for power; it's the mother of all lying hoaxes, and the much feared power of Truth doesn't need any wretched charter to live on. The moment of no return is long passed and the liars have better get used to remain silent and hope for forgiveness."
(ASMarques, in a post to the "history/what-if" newsgroup)