What's good for the goose . . . (and then somehow the gander winds up in jail)
My supreme irony alarm has been ringing in my head all day: EU citizens are clamoring to support Danish newpapers' right to publish idolatrous pictures of the Muslims' prophet on the one hand . . .
. . . and jailing historians for extremist views about the Holocaust on the other. (See also my post below.)
Ahhh . . . the delicious inconsistency of the Left, for whom "tolerance" means that we must all be tolerant of the things that please them. And that is all.
Update to this post:
David Irving has just been sentenced to 3 years in an Austrian prison, according to the International Herald Tribune.
Holy. Crap.
posted by Tanner | 2/20/2006 08:23:00 PM
3 Comments:
Jacob,
You seem angry. I must say that I completely understand - I would be too if I thought I were addressing a Nazi sympathizer.
And here’s the part where I say: neither I nor any libertarian I know are Nazi sympathizers. On the contrary, every libertarian worth the name is as virulently anti-fascist as he is against socialism. An (enormously) disproportionate number of today’s prominent libertarian thinkers are Jews, and almost every shred of our political philosophy is diametrically opposed to fascism in any of its incarnations.
And since you bring it up, let me assure you that I am on the order of 1,000 times more appalled at the notion of Arab women stoned to death for adultery. To say nothing of all the other similarly bad events that, as you properly point out "occur on a daily basis."
If I haven’t given those issues adequate attention, all I can say is: give me some time. I usually keep pretty busy with things not blog-related, so it’s hard to address all the injustice in the world. (But let me refer you to the entirety of the rest of my blog, which I devote almost solely to dealing with a lot of that other stuff, most of it much more important than Irving’s case.)
As for the civil suit of Lipschutz, what can I say? I have no idea what the details of the trial were. I don’t think it was even a blip on most anybody’s radar. Suits for libel happen all the time, and when they are lodged by nutcases (I’m referring to Irving now) against rational people who have the audacity to call the nutcases what they actually are, none of us should be surprised that the nutcases lose. But if a court throwing out a baseless suit is a “victory” for free speech, then so be it. I applaud the court’s decision as well.
Anyway, thanks for stopping by the blog. Seriously. I’m glad you took the time to comment, and I hope I’ve cleared up my stance for you.
Ahhh . . . that Jacob Roth.
It's all clear to me now.
To be honest, I think that had I known everything you know about this Irving character, I'd have spent more of my post saying what a bum he is . . . and then adding maybe a line or two at the end about why he shouldn't be in jail.
Anyway thanks for the insight there, J.R.
Hello! ;)
heh... what unbalanced comments!
what do you suppose about it?
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