Tim May wrote:

Nonsense. Many preachers and televangelists know they are shucking and jiving their congregations. Indeed so. but I believe the ones that do should be arrested for fraudulent obtaining of funds :)

The First Amendment does not have an exception clause for "knowingly lying." no, but a lot of commercial law does.

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Should a newspaper be prosecuted for publishing a claim that the Sumerian prediction that Nibiru, aka Planet X, will stop the earth from rotating on May 15, 2003? 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 that the scientific community has a few issues with.... Nonsense. They would be in hot water for a number of reasons - probably incitement to riot at least. One thing that *does* occur to me - most of the news sources are not free, at least not here in the uk. I pay to receive even broadcast TV, I pay for satellite downlink - therefore I am paying for a product (truthful reporting) and should be able to sue if that isn't the product I get...

You really believe the Jew propaganda? Yup. I have visited one of the camps, along with the battlefields of ypres (ww1). One of the advantages of being in england instead of the US is that you can make a round trip to these sort of places without having to even stop overnight... Denying the holocaust is pretty pointless. it happened, get over it. The jews got made the scapegoat and whipping post for the economic problems the germans had at the time - which of course the english had done centuries beforehand; given how many times the jews were persecuted its not that suprising they are a bit paranoid as a group now.

The First Amendment does not contain language about how speech "should be accompanied by pretty convincing evidence." This is of course true - but iirc the First Amendment has to be interpreted in the light of the "common law rights" it enshrines, not as a simple one-sentence absolute right; nothing leads me to believe the founders intended the first amendment to be a shield for those who would hide behind it for political or financial gain . . . still, I am not an american.

On Wed, Apr 30, 2003 at 10:40:27AM +0100, David Howe wrote:

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They aren't *knowingly* lieing - that is the point. Church types firmly believe hell exists, and only pestering a omnipotent and omniscient being (who therefore already knows what they Are you sure that all "church types" are in it for the good of their faith? Not one preacher or evangelist, in the history of mankind, has secretly become an athiest but concludes: Hey, this is a pretty good gig; I'm going to lie... Almost certainly. and it would be a major pain to try and separate

at Thursday, May 01, 2003 2:39 PM, Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> was seen to say: them out from the people who actually believe they are acting for the good of their God or Gods.

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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.

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That is borderline. given that the accepted body of fact admits that the Holocaust not only happened, but was pretty much as described by the Jewish lobby, then any claims that it 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 worst excesses of the nazis are increasingly in the past - well over half a century ago now - and there has been no credible evidence presented in that time that the jewish lobby invented or exaggerated anything that happened in those death camps for their own gain. I class the holocaust deniers pretty much the same as the religious fanatics who try to deny evolution - firmly convinced of their own rightness, despite an overwhelming body of evidence disproving their position. Its nice they have firmly held beliefs, but I don't feel any real reason to listen to them, and a big enough body of people trying to force *their* beliefs on me is irksome (cue any of asimov's frequent comments on "ignorance waving the bible") If you are asking if I believe that people should be prosecuted for simply believing this, or even publicly stating this belief then no - it is only when (like with evolution) they try to get their version of events accepted as the "official" version that they should provide proof - if (for example) a history teacher taught his entire class that WW2 was in fact started by the jews and that they turned on the nazis when they saw the war was lost, faking evidence to make it look like, far from being equal partners with the nazis in the war, they were a persecuted minority - then I would expect that teacher to be suspended at the very least, if not prosecuted (hence the evidence - he would be free to present his overwhelmingly persuasive evidence as to the true facts of the war in court)

Declan writes:

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.

The Holocaust has undergone a great deal of evolution over the years. I remember in the post-war years, that Jewish suffering during the war was a taboo subject. The Jews were horribly ashamed of it, and never spoke about it, and the most important thing people would tell their kids when visiting a Jewish family was, "Don't mention the war." The "great holocaust of the Jews" is actually a bit of prophecy from ancient times. Any big famine, flood, earthquake, or other major disaster over the years, which claimed many Jewish victims, was suspected of being this event. When massive attrition of European Jews happened during World War II, the holocaust meme merged with real events, and "The Holocaust" was born, and after many decades of concerted trademark-building now has name recognition right up there with the biggies like "Microsoft" and "Intel." The Holocaust justifies Israel's thuggery, extorts gold from Switzerland, and rationalizes Draconian anti-free speech laws throughout most of Europe. As the constantly varying repository of both true World War II lore, and wild rumors that have not yet been proven completely bogus, the Holocaust is its own operational definition, and tautologically incapable of being "denied." During the early 90's, the Holocaust came under a fairly severe attack by scholars, and was only salvaged by a quick purge of obvious nonsense by the Jewish Community, like soap, lampshades, and gas chambers at Treblenka. The Holocaust demonstrates that people will believe pretty much anything, if you dig up mass graves, and push the bodies around with bulldozers while speaking. And in a world where people are so easily made to believe that Saddam ordered 9/11, and that Al Queda was a Baghdad operation, the belief that 6 million Jews were herded into showers with gas-enabled nozzles naturally follows. It should be noted that even Steven Spielberg, when making the definitive motion picture about the Holocaust, cut himself ample historical waffle room by not showing a single Jew being gassed in a specific identifiable location. He contented himself with showing Jews nervously looking at smoke rising from buildings, being separated into groups, and experiencing anxiety based on rumors they had heard as to whether water would really come out of the shower heads. Regardless of what future historians decide is the truth about how many were gassed, and at which camps, Spielberg's legacy as not having made a fool of himself is assured. The term "Holocaust Denier" is hurled at anyone who questions even the most absurd insigificant detail of the historical record as approved and promulgated by the ADL. Much as the term "anti-Semite" is hurled at anyone who dares to suggest that some people who happen to be Jewish might act collectively in their own enlightened self-interest, or that Israel shouldn't run over peace activists with bulldozers, and then smirk about it later. The Holocaust has had some surprising victories in court, mostly because the Jewish community has spent millions goading and baiting a few high profile individuals who criticized it, and then used anti-semitic remarks deliberately provoked and elicited after whatever adademic work they were targeting was written, to smear the author in court. David Irving comes to mind here. "Holocaust Denier" is the neoconservative catch phrase for those critically examining the historical record and Jewish political meddling, just as "advocating the right of adults to have sex with children" is the catch phrase for all criticism of right wing sex and porn laws, and "Who is more dangerous to world peace, George Bush or Sadam Hussein?" is the catch phrase used to harpoon anyone who criticizes the invasion of Iraq and the Neoconservative World Order. When I hear someone being called a "Holocaust Denier", my reaction is not to think of that person as "loathsome", but rather to ask who is attacking them with an agenda. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

-- On 2 May 2003 at 12:50, David Howe wrote:

I personally think the biggest problem with almost any label of universal disgust (and "Holocaust denier" is almost as good as "pedophile" for this purpose) is that it gets abused as a method to suppress unrelated or marginally related discussion. Holocaust denier is a bad label for someone who (for example) doubts the "skin lampshades" story - they aren't denying the holocaust, they are arguing for the untruth of a selected fact;

Its a perfectly accurate label. We have good evidence for the skin lampshades, and why would anyone raise the issue except to white wash nazism? The people who are posting in this list that recently existent communism is not so bad, also post that capitalism is really terrible. Obviously they want to do it all over again. Similarly the people who deny the skin lampshades, also argue the Jews had it coming. Hitler did not skin them, but he should have. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG PN8qKUghBxq8kC8Ofm+buqaqXvr4t2DwXYCzRvq4 4tphka/yDJT2EcmBjBs1e9RnMSfau/lCHjrRa904e