{"id":145,"date":"2006-12-24T09:46:39","date_gmt":"2006-12-24T14:46:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/weeklyrob.dreamhosters.com\/?p=145"},"modified":"2006-12-24T09:46:39","modified_gmt":"2006-12-24T14:46:39","slug":"freedom-to-lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/?p=145","title":{"rendered":"Freedom to Lie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ok, first of all, alert readers may notice that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been more than a week since my last post. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been house-sitting, away from my computer, and sick with a cold.<\/p>\n

As you can see, I subscribe to the shotgun approach to excuses, but coincidentally, they all happen to be true. Onwards:<\/p>\n

David Duke made an appearance on CNN a week ago, explaining how Iran is all about free speech because it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t arrest people for denying the Holocaust. (<\/span>link<\/a>) (That it <\/span>arrests people<\/a> for criticizing the government doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to bother Duke at all.)<\/span><\/p>\n

I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to go to Iran and buddy up to the nasties there in order to deny the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

But it is true that in parts of Europe, you can go to jail for expressing the wrong opinion on the Holocaust. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve <\/span>commented before<\/a> on how uneasy that makes me feel, and I agree that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probably something wrong with it. But Duke is being ridiculous to imply that we therefore need a conference in Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, when asked directly whether he believes that the Holocaust happened, he avoids answering by giving a well-worn denier\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stock phrase, and Blitzer doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t press the question. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen this so many times that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s as familiar as any movie dialog I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve memorized:<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Do you deny the Holocaust?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Stock phrase #1: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think people should be allowed to talk about it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d [As if people aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t.]<\/p>\n

Stock phrase #2: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think whether it happened should affect whether Israel gets away with brutality.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d [As if people ever bring up the Holocaust to justify treatment of people in the Occupied Territories.]<\/p>\n

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.)<\/p>\n

Take it seriously, or not so much?<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean that Israel can be bad. But what does that have to do with whether you think it happened?<\/p>\n

I <\/span>commented a while back<\/a> 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re doing, and most reporters are out of their league in taking them on.<\/span><\/p>\n

So now, CNN interviews Duke, and does exactly what I think is right. Blitzer just asks questions. Provocative questions, yes, but he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t argue with him about facts, and he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take the bait to answer Duke\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s questions back at him. So am I happy with this result?<\/p>\n

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 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153won.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Now, I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take this too seriously, because the most vocal people are the ones who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve already read Duke\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n

This isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a new question, of course. When people deny what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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?<\/p>\n

Today, no one can be silenced, so that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n

So, does arguing with them equal legitimizing their points?<\/p>\n

If a historian attacks, point by point, each of a denier\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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?<\/p>\n

Should Blitzer just ask questions, let Duke defend himself, then move on to the next story? After all, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the press, shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t he be even-handed? Hell no.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t published anything, report that as well.<\/p>\n

This is also true for simple political fact. The press doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need to simply report the claims that politicians make. They can investigate those claims. Oh, hey, turns out he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t vote that way after all.<\/p>\n

David Duke gets it wrong. Surprise.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So, in keeping with the idea that we should take Duke seriously enough to argue with him, here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where I think he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s full of crap:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Duke\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s response is that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s invited in order to attack him. But out of the gate, Blitzer just asks questions, while Duke actually calls Blitzer a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Zionist agent,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Israeli agent,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and says that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not honest. Who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attacking who here? Why would the Zionists let that get on the air?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[By the way, Duke also says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t handle the truth,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which is pretty hilarious.]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all Zionists? If CNN is Zionist and FOX is Zionist, then what exactly is the Zionist position?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Holocaust-wise, Duke\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stock answer is that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll 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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/span>brought a law suit against an Emory professor<\/a> for calling him a denier (which he lost, since, you know, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a denier). <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

People were allowed to talk about it in the 40\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and 50\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s as well. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just that it was ridiculous to pretend it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t happen because of all the evidence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The people who deny the Holocaust (like Irving), or who pretend that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re 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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be deniers on both sides of the Israel issue.]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ok, so I guess that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s it. Long post, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what you get for complaining that I was late.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ok, first of all, alert readers may notice that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been more than a week since my last post. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9,14,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humanity","category-law","category-politics","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}