I am paraphrasing here, but there is a saying that if you want to have a monument, you must be solemn - solemn as an ass.
I loved the post below when I got it in my e-mail pile. "Slade" (pseud) is taking on a solemn ass who is heckling him because he has a link to Zundel:
Solemn Heckler:
(We) noticed the link to a pro Ernest Zundel- and Holocaust denial site.
Slade:
That's terrific logic. You will also find links to Canadian government sites, but that does not qualify me as a Canadian nor as a government sympathizer. You will also find references to university archives, but I am neither a professor nor an alumnus of that particular institution.
Even more solemn Heckler:
"So you're telling us that when the sig line of dozens of your posts contains the url of a pro Zundel site, you're not indicating your support for Zundel? You could have fooled me, and I would guess most people who would read your posts, pro or con.
Slade:
I don't know about "most people", but you have clarified your own position. You are telling me that you will support the rights of someone only if you agree with his brand of underwear, his choice in the last federal election, and possibly the color of his skin.
This attitude does not comport with the principles of liberty championed for 200 years on this continent and around the world. The liberty of people is not conditioned upon the popularity of their activities or conformance with the opinions of the Voice in power. It is inalienable. It is "God-given" and cannot be violated by the whim of air-headed fashion or the hammer of an arrogant tyrant.
In the practical world, the survival of liberty is dependent on the broad populace understanding this absolute. Tyrants are powerful only when they have mobs of fools to carry out their tyrannies. When people understand liberty, tyrants cannot rise to power.
What have I told you about Zundel in my sig line? Do I tell you I approve of his choice in wines, his politics, or his opinions of women?
Read:
-------
Look out, Canada, Zundel has a printing press and he knows how to use it!
Use your lawyers and aim for his rights! -------
Is this what they put people in prison for?? http://www.webcom.com/ezundel
That is my sig to which you object.
You want me to write:
Free speech for horticulturalists!
All stamp collectors are Equal!
An injury to one bank president is an injury to all!
You will not understand this, but I will address it to you regardless, because others who read this will understand.
Every person who cooperates in the oppression of individual freedom commits a crime. The purpose for the oppression does not matter, but the most benign is simply disinterest.
Who cares if they miscount the votes for the rival party? As long as we win! Who cares if they enact laws that hurt only gun collectors? I am not a gun collector, so why should I worry? Who cares if they step on Zundel? I don't agree with his view of history, so I know I'm safe.
Pitiful.
The second degree of severity in this crime is entered when the individual approves and assists in the oppression. This is usually because of a self- or tribal interest.
If it helps the blacks/whites/jews/old/young, they got my vote.
Or how about this? My ancestors were always good and never hurt anyone. Any historian that threatens that picture of my people, hurts me and must be stopped.
Or: The Holocaust story is good for my people, yielding special privileges, foreign aid, and unequal hiring practices. Anyone who threatens the Holocaust story has got to be stopped.
This crime of murdering Liberty is worse than many others and it goes on daily, hundreds of thousands a times a day around the nation. When they break into my house and steal my TV, I am momentarily inconvenienced. But when they murder Liberty, they are destroying the very fabric by which people can live peaceably together, and are therefore contributing their little straws to the next conflagration of war to be fought by future generations.
Which is the greater crime?
With that in mind, let us see who is committing the greater crime in Canada? Is it a man who publishes literature for people to study and compare with other literature, free in their leisure to make up their own minds? Or is the group of people who have decided they know already what is the absolute truth and they must prevent everyone else from reading or hearing contrary opinions?
If the iron cage of orthodoxy were scientific or religious, you would have no trouble answering that question. You would tell me that the publisher was probably harmless, even if a bit odd. You might even be persuaded that, since he was being so heavily suppressed by vested interests, his literature just might have validity.
But this subject is different, you say. We already know everything we want to know on the subject, everything that anyone should be allowed to know. Peeking behind the curtain on this subject must be absolutely forbidden, punished with prison, drawn and quartered, burn the books, smash the presses.
OK. Now we know where you stand.
Thus, when you look at my sig, if it disagrees with your politics, you accuse me of sympathizing with mass murder. It is as simple and casual as that for you, because you have sold out all faith in Liberty to gain a tribal advantage. Your intention, of course, is to stigmatize anything I would say, to stuff the ears of potential listeners so that they would never hear or credit anything I have to say. I'll warrant you would not shed a tear to see me in prison, too, if you thought it would benefit your tribe.
And from the looks of things, there are far too many who share your attitude.
Read any public commentary or editorial on the Canadian evisceration of free speech and free press, and somewhere in there will be a funny caveat: The commentator always adds that they do not agree with Zundel, they find his views to be objectionable in the extreme, and they would not dare to be photographed in the same theater line-up with him.
Remarkable. As though, even as they were typing the words, they felt the hot breath of tyranny on their necks, reading over their shoulder, and threatening to do unto them as they have done unto Zundel.
Yes indeed. They may use high-sounding words and reach to ring the highest bells in the tower, but they believe in their guts, just as you do, that liberty is conditional upon holding the RIGHT attitudes, the RIGHT opinions, and staying on the RIGHT side of the powerful.
Sign of the times: Kiss up and stay free.
--Slade
Thought for the Day:
"No man can draw more out of things, books included, than he already knows. A man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access."
(Friedrich Nietzsche)
Back to Table of Contents of the Feb. 1999 ZGrams