‘Genocide denial laws will shut down debate’

[Cort Haus]

Right. What about ethnic Albanian Fyromians. Should it be punishable to deny that they are Illyrians?

[Barnabas]

Since the origin of the albanian langauge is a mystery, then the possibility exists that their language descends from illyrian, so they shouldnt be punished methinks.

From wiki

"Albanian was proven to be an Indo-European language in 1854 by the German philologist Franz Bopp. The Albanian language is its own independent branch of the Indo-European language family with no living close relatives (even though there are many dialects of Albanian, many distant and remote). There is no scholarly consensus over its origin. Some scholars maintain that it derives from the Illyrian language while others claim that it derives from Daco-Thracian (Illyrian and Daco-Thracian, however, might have been closely related languages; see Thraco-Illyrian).
"

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
The citizens of Fyrom are macedonians, and Alexander the Great belonged to the same ethnic group as them.

Of course he did. He certainly wasn't a member of the same ethnic group as the FOPOGs.

[Proteus_MST]

Genocide denial laws are often justified.

After all there are still people around who ry to influence others into believing the holocaust didn´t exist and there are still people who don´t read a lot and aren´t bright enough and therefore believe such people every word they say.

But every good thing can go too far.
In germany you can even get problems if you have a (very popular among the left) sticker where a person throws a swastika into a garbage bin. If you wear it you might get problems in germany (as a lot of punks experienced) as it doesn´t count that the meaning of the sticker is clearly anti nazi, but only that the sticker shows a swastika.

[Ninot]

Originally posted by MOBIUS
...I like holocaust...

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST
Genocide denial laws are often justified.

After all there are still people around who ry to influence others into believing the holocaust didn´t exist and there are still people who don´t read a lot and aren´t bright enough and therefore believe such people every word they say.

So what you are saying is that the people are too thick, stupid and contemptible for free speech and The Leader should get to say what is true and what is not.

Presumably the weak, disgusting masses are not worthy of democracy either.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
So what you are saying is that the people are too thick, stupid and contemptible for free speech and The Leader should get to say what is true and what is not.

Presumably the weak, disgusting masses are not worthy of democracy either.

With regards to certain things which can be used for hate speech I really think so.
I don´t trust in the intelligence of the masses, therefore I´m not for totally unrestricted freedom of speech.
Therefore for things like propaganda that supports the genocide of other races it´s IMHO O.K. that they are forbidden.

Just to say for example:
Even if 95% of all people in a society are intelligent enough not to be influenced by certain propaganda, it might enough if a part of the remaining 5 %, influenced by this propaganda, plan a terror attack and are successful with it (thereby killing hundreds of people)

[Arrian]

You're not going to stop that small percentage of ignorant, violent *******s by outlawing thinking or saying something, IMO. That cancels out the supposed positive effect of such laws, leaving only the bad.

-Arrian

[Wernazuma III]

Just to say for example:
Even if 95% of all people in a society are intelligent enough not to be influenced by certain propaganda, it might enough if a part of the remaining 5 %, influenced by this propaganda, plan a terror attack and are successful with it (thereby killing hundreds of people)

Nothing can stop these loons. Those 5% exist even though there's a legal ban on holocaust denial.
Even without a ban on holocaust denial, police and "Verfassungsschutz" (constitution's guards) would still monitor extremist groups and plotting a bomb attack or something would still be illegal.

[Proteus_MST]

AT least if you assume that the 5 % of the people would have gotten violent even without the propaganda.

As far as my observations go the leaders of Neonazi groups normally are intelligent enough to know that holocaust happened, but they do their propaganda because they want power.
And those that are influenced by it normally aren´t people who hate other races from the beginning on, but often just people who have no perspective (as they live in regions with high unemployment and/or weren´t good enough in school) and therefore really like to believe if someone comes and says that it is just the foreigners who take the jobs away from germans and that every german is much more worth than the foreigners.
And soon they find themselves in a social network where they are more and more radicalized (and find it more and more difficult to get away from the group).

IMHO the process is similar to a lot of cults, for example scientology.

Although I don´t know if it helps if such propaganda is forbidden, I believe that if for example every bookstore could freely sell books about the superiority of the Arian race or with nazi propaganda in it (because of unrestricted free speech) we would have a lot more neonazis than we have nowadays.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST
Genocide denial laws are often justified.

After all there are still people around who ry to influence others into believing the holocaust didn´t exist and there are still people who don´t read a lot and aren´t bright enough and therefore believe such people every word they say.

There are also people who try to influence others into believing communism is good and there are still people who don't read a lot and aren't bright enough and therefore believe such people in every word they say!

We should therefore ban communist speech .

[Imran Siddiqui]

I believe that if for example every bookstore could freely sell books about the superiority of the Arian race or with nazi propaganda in it (because of unrestricted free speech) we would have a lot more neonazis than we have nowadays.

They can in the US, and as far as I can see, we don't seem to have a neo-nazi problem.

[Proteus_MST]

But, if I remember correctly, you still had a racism problem, even during the 60s of the 20th century, especially in more rural areas of the states (don´t know how it deveoped afterwards, though)

[Arrian]

Banning something often makes it more attractive.

We had a good thread on the Confed battle flag a while back. Symbol of lotsa stuff to lotsa people - much of it bad. Ban it? No way. That would make it even worse.

-Arrian

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
They can in the US, and as far as I can see, we don't seem to have a neo-nazi problem.

Well, this argument is void, you didn't have Hitler or the Nazis in power in the first place, right?
We don't need to think about banning other extremist stuff simply because we don't have that problem, but historically we do have a Nazi-problem, so this is an issue.

Proteus is right in one thing: You'd be surprised how Nazi-speak still somehow lingers in the background. Few embrace Nazism openly, most surely aren't even aware that they actually still use some Nazi terms or have opinions that clearly are a legacy of the time (and be really offended if you tell them), yet all this can be activated to a certain extent by demagogues.

Where I disagree with Proteus is: these demagogues are actively working, people fall for their paroles, notwithstanding the ban. The dumber ones will come in conflict with the law, the smarter ones will care about their words and acts more.
Should we ever again face a mad extreme-right dictatorship, they won't just simply build upon National Socialism - that's over. It would come in another disguise (and of course show good understanding for what the Nazis did). No holocaust denial ban can ever change that.