Freedom to Lie

Ok, first of all, alert readers may notice that it’s been more than a week since my last post. I’ve been house-sitting, away from my computer, and sick with a cold.

As you can see, I subscribe to the shotgun approach to excuses, but coincidentally, they all happen to be true. Onwards:

David Duke made an appearance on CNN a week ago, explaining how Iran is all about free speech because it doesn’t arrest people for denying the Holocaust. (link) (That it arrests people for criticizing the government doesn’t seem to bother Duke at all.)

I think it’s kind of funny that he goes on about this freedom issue, when the U.S. does allow freedom of speech on the Holocaust issue. I mean, he doesn’t have to go to Iran and buddy up to the nasties there in order to deny the Holocaust.

But it is true that in parts of Europe, you can go to jail for expressing the wrong opinion on the Holocaust. I’ve commented before on how uneasy that makes me feel, and I agree that there’s probably something wrong with it. But Duke is being ridiculous to imply that we therefore need a conference in Iran.

Of course, when asked directly whether he believes that the Holocaust happened, he avoids answering by giving a well-worn denier’s stock phrase, and Blitzer doesn’t press the question. I’ve seen this so many times that it’s as familiar as any movie dialog I’ve memorized:

“Do you deny the Holocaust?”

Stock phrase #1: “I think people should be allowed to talk about it.” [As if people aren’t.]

Stock phrase #2: “I don’t think whether it happened should affect whether Israel gets away with brutality.” [As if people ever bring up the Holocaust to justify treatment of people in the Occupied Territories.]

From David Irving to Ahmadinejad to Duke, these answers keep popping up when asked what they believe. (Irving actually did deny, then denied denying, then re-denied.)

Take it seriously, or not so much?

So part of me just wants to shoot down the stock phrases as being beside the point, and part of me wants to ignore them to avoid legitimizing them. Most people agree that we should be able to talk about stuff, and most people agree that whether it happened shouldn’t mean that Israel can be bad. But what does that have to do with whether you think it happened?

I commented a while back on how Spiegel argued with Ahmadinejad, and I thought they should have just asked questions. Ahmadinejad, and those like him, are no slouches. They got to the world stage because they know what they’re doing, and most reporters are out of their league in taking them on.

So now, CNN interviews Duke, and does exactly what I think is right. Blitzer just asks questions. Provocative questions, yes, but he doesn’t argue with him about facts, and he doesn’t take the bait to answer Duke’s questions back at him. So am I happy with this result?

Not exactly. When I read the comments on youtube, I find that a lot of people thought it was a debate anyway, and that Duke “won.” Now, I won’t take this too seriously, because the most vocal people are the ones who’ve already read Duke’s literature and are on his side. But it does make me wonder whether giving the guy a platform (rather than a serious debate, or a black hole) is the right thing to do.

This isn’t a new question, of course. When people deny what’s hugely evident (that a virus causes AIDS, that the Holocaust happened, that the earth goes around the sun), do we ignore them, argue with them, or try to silence them?

Today, no one can be silenced, so that’s out the window as a practical matter. If we ignore them, they may gain a following, no matter how idiotic their claims. So I guess that leaves arguing with them.

So, does arguing with them equal legitimizing their points?

If a historian attacks, point by point, each of a denier’s claims, does that mean that the press can characterize it as a debate? Will the press say that there are two competing theories about whether the Holocaust happened, who did it, and how extensive it was?

Should Blitzer just ask questions, let Duke defend himself, then move on to the next story? After all, he’s the press, shouldn’t he be even-handed? Hell no.

The press needs to deliver the facts. The facts are that David Duke says X, but also that the mountains of evidence, photos, eyewitness accounts, and German documents say Y. There’s no reason that the press has to give even coverage to two differing statements, when the statements themselves are backed up, or not, by other evidence.

This is true for evolution, global warming, or any other issue of the day. If 900 scientists say one thing and 22 say another, then they can report that exact fact. If the 900 were published in relevant peer-reviewed journals while the 22 work in unrelated fields and haven’t published anything, report that as well.

This is also true for simple political fact. The press doesn’t need to simply report the claims that politicians make. They can investigate those claims. Oh, hey, turns out he didn’t vote that way after all.

David Duke gets it wrong. Surprise.

So, in keeping with the idea that we should take Duke seriously enough to argue with him, here’s where I think he’s full of crap:

He says that the press in the US is run by Zionists, and therefore no one gets to see the truth. Blitzer points out that Duke was invited to the show. Duh.

Duke’s response is that he’s invited in order to attack him. But out of the gate, Blitzer just asks questions, while Duke actually calls Blitzer a “Zionist agent,” an “Israeli agent,” and says that he’s not honest. Who’s attacking who here? Why would the Zionists let that get on the air?

[By the way, Duke also says, “you can’t handle the truth,” which is pretty hilarious.]

Anyway, how is it that the right-wing can complain of liberal bias in the media, the left-wing complains of conservative bias in the media, and Duke can complain that it’s all Zionists? If CNN is Zionist and FOX is Zionist, then what exactly is the Zionist position?

Meanwhile, all the non-Jews in the government are controlled by the Jews, who are controlled by Israel. Yet we have a more or less divided congress, and a fairly divided country.

Holocaust-wise, Duke’s stock answer is that we’ll never know whether it happened unless people are allowed to talk about it. Then he mentions that in parts of Europe, people are jailed for denying.

But people do talk about it. David Irving is in jail in Austria, but before that, he denied for years in England, Australia, the US, and other places. Hell, he even brought a law suit against an Emory professor for calling him a denier (which he lost, since, you know, he’s a denier).

People were allowed to talk about it in the 40’s and 50’s as well. It’s just that it was ridiculous to pretend it didn’t happen because of all the evidence.

The people who deny the Holocaust (like Irving), or who pretend that they’re only questioning it (like Duke and Ahmadinejad) seem to always be the same people who have lots of other nasty ideas about Jews and Israel. For some reason, the people questioning the Holocaust never turn out to have mainstream ideas on Jews and Israel. I wonder why that is.

For some reason, they always can be counted on to hate Israel, believe in some sort of Zionist conspiracy or control of everything, and to make snide comments about Jews.

[Mind you, there are non anti-Semites who have problems with Israel. The point is that Holocaust-deniers ALWAYS hate Israel. If it were a legitimate historical debate, there’d be deniers on both sides of the Israel issue.]

Ok, so I guess that’s it. Long post, but that’s what you get for complaining that I was late.