At 06:30 PM 5/1/2003 +0100, David Howe wrote:
Nope. but they should be prosecuted if they front-page splash it as
"earth doomed, we have two weeks to live, there is no hope" and fail to mention that it is a religious prediction Prosecuted? Put in prison? What the hell are you thinking? That it is no different from shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre - which appears to be the standard example in this sort of discussion.
First, it's "falsely shouting fire," and second, I wonder how you would draw a distinction between a newspaper saying that, someone saying that on this list, and someone saying it in a public park. Imprison all of 'em?
You're a bit of a censorial twit, aren't you? If you chose to see it that way, yes. Enough holocaust deniers have tried to duke it out in court and lost that I am more than a bit sceptical about yet another one. The deeds of the nazis were so dark the term "war crime" was almost invented to deal with them - certainly the hague court was - and the nazis are such an obvious black reference point that almost anyone seems clean by comparison.
The problem is that if you create a rule that can be used to imprison the Holocaust deniers (a loathsome sort, I agree), it can be used to jail those who challenge the conventional orthodoxy, even if they believe they're right. More to the point, even if they *are* right. -Declan