French teacher killed

coopster_the_1st

kingstongraham said:

Have a word with yourself. You're better than that.

He has been called out before on this forum as he would put the life of a terrorist ahead of the lives of his fellow countrymen.

kingstongraham

Ok, your choice whether you're actually better than that.

rjsterry

coopster_the_1st said:

kingstongraham said:

Have a word with yourself. You're better than that.

He has been called out before on this forum as he would put the life of a terrorist ahead of the lives of his fellow countrymen.

What a crusader for truth you are. Where would this forum be without you?

Pross

coopster_the_1st said:

kingstongraham said:

Have a word with yourself. You're better than that.

He has been called out before on this forum as he would put the life of a terrorist ahead of the lives of his fellow countrymen.

I'm pretty sure it was a different forumite you "called out" previously. You were talking total shite that time too.

david37

rjsterry said:

coopster_the_1st said:

kingstongraham said:

Have a word with yourself. You're better than that.

He has been called out before on this forum as he would put the life of a terrorist ahead of the lives of his fellow countrymen.

What a crusader for truth you are. Where would this forum be without you?

Nicely avoided, but it does look like the sort of thing you’d do.

rjsterry

david37 said:

rjsterry said:

coopster_the_1st said:

kingstongraham said:

Have a word with yourself. You're better than that.

He has been called out before on this forum as he would put the life of a terrorist ahead of the lives of his fellow countrymen.

What a crusader for truth you are. Where would this forum be without you?

Nicely avoided, but it does look like the sort of thing you’d do.

What have I avoided? Some idiot on the internet calling me names? 🙃

rick_chasey

Pross said:

coopster_the_1st said:

kingstongraham said:

Have a word with yourself. You're better than that.

He has been called out before on this forum as he would put the life of a terrorist ahead of the lives of his fellow countrymen.

I'm pretty sure it was a different forumite you "called out" previously. You were talking total shite that time too.

Lol

rick_chasey

What’s odd is everyone on here condemns the terrorists in no uncertain terms. Everyone.

The only disagreement seems to be if you want to pin it the most popular faith in the world or recognise it as a consequence of total mismanagement by local dictators and foreign actors of the Middle East.

It’s a non-thread.

Someone’s used it as his hobby horse to argue, bizarrely that this means you have to lift the ban on holocaust denial, which is telling (as is the lack of horror at this, by the way), but that’s about it.

nickice

nickice said:

rick_chasey said:

‘kin ‘ell. I am never going to respond to you again.

I do fear for your minority students

There is some good news today!

Of course you clearly don't understand the point I'm making but what's new?

How right I was.

TheBigBean

rick_chasey said:

What’s odd is everyone on here condemns the terrorists in no uncertain terms. Everyone.

The only disagreement seems to be if you want to pin it the most popular faith in the world or recognise it as a consequence of total mismanagement by local dictators and foreign actors of the Middle East.

It’s a non-thread.

Someone’s used it as his hobby horse to argue, bizarrely that this means you have to lift the ban on holocaust denial, which is telling (as is the lack of horror at this, by the way), but that’s about it.

I think that's a complete misrepresentation.

rjsterry

rick_chasey said:

What’s odd is everyone on here condemns the terrorists in no uncertain terms. Everyone.

The only disagreement seems to be if you want to pin it the most popular faith in the world or recognise it as a consequence of total mismanagement by local dictators and foreign actors of the Middle East.

It’s a non-thread.

Someone’s used it as his hobby horse to argue, bizarrely that this means you have to lift the ban on holocaust denial, which is telling (as is the lack of horror at this, by the way), but that’s about it.

I think that's wide of the mark. On your second paragraph, I think this is also an oversimplification.

nickice

Anyone who says I don't support holocaust denial because I want to deny the holocaust is very dishonest. I mean I outlined my reasons for it in several posts above. People are always free to disagree but to ascribe other motives without any evidence is just disingenuous behaviour.

It's not the first time that I've seen him do it to me and several other posters.

rick_chasey

Ah so you’re not a holocaust denier?

Funny it took you so long to say it.

It’s got f@ck all to do with the topic so I have no idea why you would bring it up.

nickice

rick_chasey said:

‘kin ‘ell. I am never going to respond to you again.

I do fear for your minority students

nickice

rick_chasey said:

Ah so you’re not a holocaust denier?

Funny it took you so long to say it.

It’s got f@ck all to do with the topic so I have no idea why you would bring it up.

He's at it again now. Apparently because I haven't explicitly stated that I don't deny the holocaust (though even the least generous reading of my posts would show you I think holocaust deniers are stupid) that means I'm hiding my true motives.

I already told you why I brought it up. Read my posts. It is, I admit, sometimes fun to see you be exposed as the liar that you are.

rick_chasey

nickice said:

rick_chasey said:

‘kin ‘ell. I am never going to respond to you again.

I do fear for your minority students

I dont engage with holocaust deniers whatsoever

nickice

rick_chasey said:

nickice said:

rick_chasey said:

‘kin ‘ell. I am never going to respond to you again.

I do fear for your minority students

I dont engage with holocaust deniers whatsoever

You're making a fool out of yourself here for everyone to see. Please keep going.

david37

rick_chasey said:

nickice said:

rick_chasey said:

‘kin ‘ell. I am never going to respond to you again.

I do fear for your minority students

I dont engage with holocaust deniers whatsoever

you're being offensive here Rick. or is it irony that I'm missing?

rjsterry

rick_chasey said:

nickice said:

rick_chasey said:

‘kin ‘ell. I am never going to respond to you again.

I do fear for your minority students

I dont engage with holocaust deniers whatsoever

Noted. Unless I've missed something that shouldn't be an issue then.

rick_chasey

nickice said:

DeVlaeminck said:

nickice said:

DeVlaeminck said:

I don't know if it's absurd to legislate against full Islamic covering. It conflicts with the "good" that is the right to wear what you want but the ideology behind women wearing full cover is oppressive and incompatible with liberal Western values. In a way it's similar to balancing free speech against the harm that holocaust denial does. The difference of course is that holocaust deniers are rarely (never?) Jewish whereas women are "choosing" the oppressive ideology in the case of fundamental religion.

There aren't really any rights to balance against in either case.

By banning religious dress, you're not protecting the rights of the général public. People might not like it but we have no right to demand people not do things we don't like.

Similarly, with holocaust denial, it's not really clear what legal rights we're protecting by banning it.

Well one example might be if Holocaust denial was part of a strategy of legitimising national socialist ideology. If that was a tiny minority of cranks we might think that we accept that to protect freedom of speech but if it began to gain traction we might think banning it to defend liberal democracy is worth it. Yes you may argue banning free speech is in itself non democratic but sometimes you need to give something up for a greater gain.

I understand that argument that they're essentially going to use democracy against itself and abolish it if voted in (similar to Islamists actually). But if we start going down that road, there will be a lot of banned movements and opinions.

On a practical level, banning holocaust denial doesn't make people less antisemitic. It's education that does that. Similarly, Weimar Germany had fairly modern hate-speech laws and all it did was give senior Nazis publicity and made them look like martyrs to their followers. David Irving is a modern example of this.

I can't really see any good arguments for having holocaust denial as a crime and not cartoons of Mohammed. Both are highly offensive to a certain group and, although one is a denial of a fact, there are lots of other awful events in history that it's legal to deny. In fact, that's a very good reason not have holocaust denial laws. I'm not an idiot and I know it'd be political suicide to repeal them but there is an air of hypocrisy about the whole thing.

Right let’s do this properly rather in between naps on painkillers.

So I misread that you brought the topic up as it looks like devlsmink did.

But this bit here: I can't really see any good arguments for having holocaust denial as a crime and not cartoons of Mohammed.

Which you wrote.

Now, i read that to be conflating two very different issues, in order to show why holocaust denial isn’t all that bad.

I saw it for this reason.

The context of holocaust denial laws need to be taken into account. They tend to exist in western nations where locals were to varying degrees complicit in the holocaust.

So it was considered appropriate given the scale of barbarism and their recognition of it that to not allow anyone to fail to recognise that - to deny the holocaust.

It’s different in nations who experienced Nazi occupation and not all English speakers appreciate this.

So, that is usually why those laws exist and because of that unique context - I need not remind you that the scale of suffering and evil of the holocaust still dwarfs more or less everything else - that is specific to those nations.

As a result, the lifting of any ban would be seen as a remarkable victory for far right holocaust deniers who would claim victory for their own false claims. It would also remove that level of recognition of the role the occupied player on it described above.

Now, banning cartoons of Muhammed is not very popular at all. The context of those debate very different and is caught up in various contemporary issues that broadly form part of a wider discussion around multiculturalism and how best to encourage integration, mixed up with various levels of Islamophobia, both of which are heavily impacted by intentional Muslim terrorists, right?

Now, my issue here is that your statement comparing the freedom to depict Muhammed in cartoons (which has become a rallying point for liberals across the continent) with the freedom to deny the holocaust.

To do that is to really miss out on the context of what the holocaust is and why those laws exist, and I believe in doing so you are making the removal of holocaust denial laws more appealing.

In the context of France which is the context you brought this up in, I find that remarkable.

That also plays into various tropes of behaviour I have seen when I studied the far right, where the far right conflates their behaviour (eg holocaust denial) with more reasonable or popular behaviour (eg drawing religious figures) to garner tacit support for their cause or at least trivialise their view.

So maybe you didn’t mean it that way, but you ought to know that the logic in your line there mirrors that of far right people who are trying to make their abhorrent views more popular.

So given you views often marry up with stuff on that end of the spectrum, I put 2 & 2 together. Maybe unfairly, maybe not.

david37

why is Rick so obsessed with Right wing?????

DeVlaeminck

rick_chasey said:

nickice said:

DeVlaeminck said:

nickice said:

DeVlaeminck said:

I don't know if it's absurd to legislate against full Islamic covering. It conflicts with the "good" that is the right to wear what you want but the ideology behind women wearing full cover is oppressive and incompatible with liberal Western values. In a way it's similar to balancing free speech against the harm that holocaust denial does. The difference of course is that holocaust deniers are rarely (never?) Jewish whereas women are "choosing" the oppressive ideology in the case of fundamental religion.

There aren't really any rights to balance against in either case.

By banning religious dress, you're not protecting the rights of the général public. People might not like it but we have no right to demand people not do things we don't like.

Similarly, with holocaust denial, it's not really clear what legal rights we're protecting by banning it.

Well one example might be if Holocaust denial was part of a strategy of legitimising national socialist ideology. If that was a tiny minority of cranks we might think that we accept that to protect freedom of speech but if it began to gain traction we might think banning it to defend liberal democracy is worth it. Yes you may argue banning free speech is in itself non democratic but sometimes you need to give something up for a greater gain.

I understand that argument that they're essentially going to use democracy against itself and abolish it if voted in (similar to Islamists actually). But if we start going down that road, there will be a lot of banned movements and opinions.

On a practical level, banning holocaust denial doesn't make people less antisemitic. It's education that does that. Similarly, Weimar Germany had fairly modern hate-speech laws and all it did was give senior Nazis publicity and made them look like martyrs to their followers. David Irving is a modern example of this.

I can't really see any good arguments for having holocaust denial as a crime and not cartoons of Mohammed. Both are highly offensive to a certain group and, although one is a denial of a fact, there are lots of other awful events in history that it's legal to deny. In fact, that's a very good reason not have holocaust denial laws. I'm not an idiot and I know it'd be political suicide to repeal them but there is an air of hypocrisy about the whole thing.

Right let’s do this properly rather in between naps on painkillers.

So I misread that you brought the topic up as it looks like devlsmink did.

But this bit here: I can't really see any good arguments for having holocaust denial as a crime and not cartoons of Mohammed.

Which you wrote.

Now, i read that to be conflating two very different issues, in order to show why holocaust denial isn’t all that bad.

I saw it for this reason.

The context of holocaust denial laws need to be taken into account. They tend to exist in western nations where locals were to varying degrees complicit in the holocaust.

So it was considered appropriate given the scale of barbarism and their recognition of it that to not allow anyone to fail to recognise that - to deny the holocaust.

It’s different in nations who experienced Nazi occupation and not all English speakers appreciate this.

So, that is usually why those laws exist and because of that unique context - I need not remind you that the scale of suffering and evil of the holocaust still dwarfs more or less everything else - that is specific to those nations.

As a result, the lifting of any ban would be seen as a remarkable victory for far right holocaust deniers who would claim victory for their own false claims. It would also remove that level of recognition of the role the occupied player on it described above.

Now, banning cartoons of Muhammed is not very popular at all. The context of those debate very different and is caught up in various contemporary issues that broadly form part of a wider discussion around multiculturalism and how best to encourage integration, mixed up with various levels of Islamophobia, both of which are heavily impacted by intentional Muslim terrorists, right?

Now, my issue here is that your statement comparing the freedom to depict Muhammed in cartoons (which has become a rallying point for liberals across the continent) with the freedom to deny the holocaust.

To do that is to really miss out on the context of what the holocaust is and why those laws exist, and I believe in doing so you are making the removal of holocaust denial laws more appealing.

In the context of France which is the context you brought this up in, I find that remarkable.

That also plays into various tropes of behaviour I have seen when I studied the far right, where the far right conflates their behaviour (eg holocaust denial) with more reasonable or popular behaviour (eg drawing religious figures) to garner tacit support for their cause or at least trivialise their view.

So maybe you didn’t mean it that way, but you ought to know that the logic in your line there mirrors that of far right people who are trying to make their abhorrent views more popular.

So given you views often marry up with stuff on that end of the spectrum, I put 2 & 2 together. Maybe unfairly, maybe not.

No I didn't bring the topic up Rick.

Neither Just to make it clear have I said I favour or disfavour holocaust denial laws I've simply said that there are arguments both for and against them which have to be weighed against each other and ultimately the balance may depends on the context of the society at the time. IF such HD arguments are gaining traction then there is more of an argument FOR holocaust denial laws - if HD is seen as the preserve of a few cranks then it might be that the arguments for freedom of speech win out.

rjsterry

DeVlaeminck said:

rick_chasey said:

nickice said:

DeVlaeminck said:

nickice said:

DeVlaeminck said:

I don't know if it's absurd to legislate against full Islamic covering. It conflicts with the "good" that is the right to wear what you want but the ideology behind women wearing full cover is oppressive and incompatible with liberal Western values. In a way it's similar to balancing free speech against the harm that holocaust denial does. The difference of course is that holocaust deniers are rarely (never?) Jewish whereas women are "choosing" the oppressive ideology in the case of fundamental religion.

There aren't really any rights to balance against in either case.

By banning religious dress, you're not protecting the rights of the général public. People might not like it but we have no right to demand people not do things we don't like.

Similarly, with holocaust denial, it's not really clear what legal rights we're protecting by banning it.

Well one example might be if Holocaust denial was part of a strategy of legitimising national socialist ideology. If that was a tiny minority of cranks we might think that we accept that to protect freedom of speech but if it began to gain traction we might think banning it to defend liberal democracy is worth it. Yes you may argue banning free speech is in itself non democratic but sometimes you need to give something up for a greater gain.

I understand that argument that they're essentially going to use democracy against itself and abolish it if voted in (similar to Islamists actually). But if we start going down that road, there will be a lot of banned movements and opinions.

On a practical level, banning holocaust denial doesn't make people less antisemitic. It's education that does that. Similarly, Weimar Germany had fairly modern hate-speech laws and all it did was give senior Nazis publicity and made them look like martyrs to their followers. David Irving is a modern example of this.

I can't really see any good arguments for having holocaust denial as a crime and not cartoons of Mohammed. Both are highly offensive to a certain group and, although one is a denial of a fact, there are lots of other awful events in history that it's legal to deny. In fact, that's a very good reason not have holocaust denial laws. I'm not an idiot and I know it'd be political suicide to repeal them but there is an air of hypocrisy about the whole thing.

Right let’s do this properly rather in between naps on painkillers.

So I misread that you brought the topic up as it looks like devlsmink did.

But this bit here: I can't really see any good arguments for having holocaust denial as a crime and not cartoons of Mohammed.

Which you wrote.

Now, i read that to be conflating two very different issues, in order to show why holocaust denial isn’t all that bad.

I saw it for this reason.

The context of holocaust denial laws need to be taken into account. They tend to exist in western nations where locals were to varying degrees complicit in the holocaust.

So it was considered appropriate given the scale of barbarism and their recognition of it that to not allow anyone to fail to recognise that - to deny the holocaust.

It’s different in nations who experienced Nazi occupation and not all English speakers appreciate this.

So, that is usually why those laws exist and because of that unique context - I need not remind you that the scale of suffering and evil of the holocaust still dwarfs more or less everything else - that is specific to those nations.

As a result, the lifting of any ban would be seen as a remarkable victory for far right holocaust deniers who would claim victory for their own false claims. It would also remove that level of recognition of the role the occupied player on it described above.

Now, banning cartoons of Muhammed is not very popular at all. The context of those debate very different and is caught up in various contemporary issues that broadly form part of a wider discussion around multiculturalism and how best to encourage integration, mixed up with various levels of Islamophobia, both of which are heavily impacted by intentional Muslim terrorists, right?

Now, my issue here is that your statement comparing the freedom to depict Muhammed in cartoons (which has become a rallying point for liberals across the continent) with the freedom to deny the holocaust.

To do that is to really miss out on the context of what the holocaust is and why those laws exist, and I believe in doing so you are making the removal of holocaust denial laws more appealing.

In the context of France which is the context you brought this up in, I find that remarkable.

That also plays into various tropes of behaviour I have seen when I studied the far right, where the far right conflates their behaviour (eg holocaust denial) with more reasonable or popular behaviour (eg drawing religious figures) to garner tacit support for their cause or at least trivialise their view.

So maybe you didn’t mean it that way, but you ought to know that the logic in your line there mirrors that of far right people who are trying to make their abhorrent views more popular.

So given you views often marry up with stuff on that end of the spectrum, I put 2 & 2 together. Maybe unfairly, maybe not.

No I didn't bring the topic up Rick.

Neither Just to make it clear have I said I favour or disfavour holocaust denial laws I've simply said that there are arguments both for and against them which have to be weighed against each other and ultimately the balance may depends on the context of the society at the time. IF such HD arguments are gaining traction then there is more of an argument FOR holocaust denial laws - if HD is seen as the preserve of a few cranks then it might be that the arguments for freedom of speech win out.

I think Rick's post was addressed to Nick. Agreed that - as with most things - either course of action has undesirable side effects.

rjsterry

david37 said:

why is Rick so obsessed with Right wing?????

Says the man who makes baseless claims that I support terrorism 😏

nickice

rick_chasey said:

nickice said:

DeVlaeminck said:

nickice said:

DeVlaeminck said:

I don't know if it's absurd to legislate against full Islamic covering. It conflicts with the "good" that is the right to wear what you want but the ideology behind women wearing full cover is oppressive and incompatible with liberal Western values. In a way it's similar to balancing free speech against the harm that holocaust denial does. The difference of course is that holocaust deniers are rarely (never?) Jewish whereas women are "choosing" the oppressive ideology in the case of fundamental religion.

There aren't really any rights to balance against in either case.

By banning religious dress, you're not protecting the rights of the général public. People might not like it but we have no right to demand people not do things we don't like.

Similarly, with holocaust denial, it's not really clear what legal rights we're protecting by banning it.

Well one example might be if Holocaust denial was part of a strategy of legitimising national socialist ideology. If that was a tiny minority of cranks we might think that we accept that to protect freedom of speech but if it began to gain traction we might think banning it to defend liberal democracy is worth it. Yes you may argue banning free speech is in itself non democratic but sometimes you need to give something up for a greater gain.

I understand that argument that they're essentially going to use democracy against itself and abolish it if voted in (similar to Islamists actually). But if we start going down that road, there will be a lot of banned movements and opinions.

On a practical level, banning holocaust denial doesn't make people less antisemitic. It's education that does that. Similarly, Weimar Germany had fairly modern hate-speech laws and all it did was give senior Nazis publicity and made them look like martyrs to their followers. David Irving is a modern example of this.

I can't really see any good arguments for having holocaust denial as a crime and not cartoons of Mohammed. Both are highly offensive to a certain group and, although one is a denial of a fact, there are lots of other awful events in history that it's legal to deny. In fact, that's a very good reason not have holocaust denial laws. I'm not an idiot and I know it'd be political suicide to repeal them but there is an air of hypocrisy about the whole thing.

Right let’s do this properly rather in between naps on painkillers.

So I misread that you brought the topic up as it looks like devlsmink did.

But this bit here: I can't really see any good arguments for having holocaust denial as a crime and not cartoons of Mohammed.

Which you wrote.

Now, i read that to be conflating two very different issues, in order to show why holocaust denial isn’t all that bad.

I saw it for this reason.

The context of holocaust denial laws need to be taken into account. They tend to exist in western nations where locals were to varying degrees complicit in the holocaust.

So it was considered appropriate given the scale of barbarism and their recognition of it that to not allow anyone to fail to recognise that - to deny the holocaust.

It’s different in nations who experienced Nazi occupation and not all English speakers appreciate this.

So, that is usually why those laws exist and because of that unique context - I need not remind you that the scale of suffering and evil of the holocaust still dwarfs more or less everything else - that is specific to those nations.

As a result, the lifting of any ban would be seen as a remarkable victory for far right holocaust deniers who would claim victory for their own false claims. It would also remove that level of recognition of the role the occupied player on it described above.

Now, banning cartoons of Muhammed is not very popular at all. The context of those debate very different and is caught up in various contemporary issues that broadly form part of a wider discussion around multiculturalism and how best to encourage integration, mixed up with various levels of Islamophobia, both of which are heavily impacted by intentional Muslim terrorists, right?

Now, my issue here is that your statement comparing the freedom to depict Muhammed in cartoons (which has become a rallying point for liberals across the continent) with the freedom to deny the holocaust.

To do that is to really miss out on the context of what the holocaust is and why those laws exist, and I believe in doing so you are making the removal of holocaust denial laws more appealing.

In the context of France which is the context you brought this up in, I find that remarkable.

That also plays into various tropes of behaviour I have seen when I studied the far right, where the far right conflates their behaviour (eg holocaust denial) with more reasonable or popular behaviour (eg drawing religious figures) to garner tacit support for their cause or at least trivialise their view.

So maybe you didn’t mean it that way, but you ought to know that the logic in your line there mirrors that of far right people who are trying to make their abhorrent views more popular.

So given you views often marry up with stuff on that end of the spectrum, I put 2 & 2 together. Maybe unfairly, maybe not.

You will see my rebuttals to all these arguments above. I'm not about to continually repeat them. You may not debate 'holocaust deniers' but I don't debate those who act in bad faith which you do and have above.

rick_chasey

Thought you might say that.

Anyway for those who felt I was being a bit full on now you can see my workings.

(And since you declared you weren’t a holocaust denier I figured it was worth giving you the workings - hence the response)

I still think on balance you probably do play the false equivalence game and use the same tactics around free speech to make space for more nefarious views.

rick_chasey

DeVlaeminck said:

rick_chasey said:

nickice said:

DeVlaeminck said:

nickice said:

DeVlaeminck said:

I don't know if it's absurd to legislate against full Islamic covering. It conflicts with the "good" that is the right to wear what you want but the ideology behind women wearing full cover is oppressive and incompatible with liberal Western values. In a way it's similar to balancing free speech against the harm that holocaust denial does. The difference of course is that holocaust deniers are rarely (never?) Jewish whereas women are "choosing" the oppressive ideology in the case of fundamental religion.

There aren't really any rights to balance against in either case.

By banning religious dress, you're not protecting the rights of the général public. People might not like it but we have no right to demand people not do things we don't like.

Similarly, with holocaust denial, it's not really clear what legal rights we're protecting by banning it.

Well one example might be if Holocaust denial was part of a strategy of legitimising national socialist ideology. If that was a tiny minority of cranks we might think that we accept that to protect freedom of speech but if it began to gain traction we might think banning it to defend liberal democracy is worth it. Yes you may argue banning free speech is in itself non democratic but sometimes you need to give something up for a greater gain.

I understand that argument that they're essentially going to use democracy against itself and abolish it if voted in (similar to Islamists actually). But if we start going down that road, there will be a lot of banned movements and opinions.

On a practical level, banning holocaust denial doesn't make people less antisemitic. It's education that does that. Similarly, Weimar Germany had fairly modern hate-speech laws and all it did was give senior Nazis publicity and made them look like martyrs to their followers. David Irving is a modern example of this.

I can't really see any good arguments for having holocaust denial as a crime and not cartoons of Mohammed. Both are highly offensive to a certain group and, although one is a denial of a fact, there are lots of other awful events in history that it's legal to deny. In fact, that's a very good reason not have holocaust denial laws. I'm not an idiot and I know it'd be political suicide to repeal them but there is an air of hypocrisy about the whole thing.

Right let’s do this properly rather in between naps on painkillers.

So I misread that you brought the topic up as it looks like devlsmink did.

But this bit here: I can't really see any good arguments for having holocaust denial as a crime and not cartoons of Mohammed.

Which you wrote.

Now, i read that to be conflating two very different issues, in order to show why holocaust denial isn’t all that bad.

I saw it for this reason.

The context of holocaust denial laws need to be taken into account. They tend to exist in western nations where locals were to varying degrees complicit in the holocaust.

So it was considered appropriate given the scale of barbarism and their recognition of it that to not allow anyone to fail to recognise that - to deny the holocaust.

It’s different in nations who experienced Nazi occupation and not all English speakers appreciate this.

So, that is usually why those laws exist and because of that unique context - I need not remind you that the scale of suffering and evil of the holocaust still dwarfs more or less everything else - that is specific to those nations.

As a result, the lifting of any ban would be seen as a remarkable victory for far right holocaust deniers who would claim victory for their own false claims. It would also remove that level of recognition of the role the occupied player on it described above.

Now, banning cartoons of Muhammed is not very popular at all. The context of those debate very different and is caught up in various contemporary issues that broadly form part of a wider discussion around multiculturalism and how best to encourage integration, mixed up with various levels of Islamophobia, both of which are heavily impacted by intentional Muslim terrorists, right?

Now, my issue here is that your statement comparing the freedom to depict Muhammed in cartoons (which has become a rallying point for liberals across the continent) with the freedom to deny the holocaust.

To do that is to really miss out on the context of what the holocaust is and why those laws exist, and I believe in doing so you are making the removal of holocaust denial laws more appealing.

In the context of France which is the context you brought this up in, I find that remarkable.

That also plays into various tropes of behaviour I have seen when I studied the far right, where the far right conflates their behaviour (eg holocaust denial) with more reasonable or popular behaviour (eg drawing religious figures) to garner tacit support for their cause or at least trivialise their view.

So maybe you didn’t mean it that way, but you ought to know that the logic in your line there mirrors that of far right people who are trying to make their abhorrent views more popular.

So given you views often marry up with stuff on that end of the spectrum, I put 2 & 2 together. Maybe unfairly, maybe not.

No I didn't bring the topic up Rick.

Neither Just to make it clear have I said I favour or disfavour holocaust denial laws I've simply said that there are arguments both for and against them which have to be weighed against each other and ultimately the balance may depends on the context of the society at the time. IF such HD arguments are gaining traction then there is more of an argument FOR holocaust denial laws - if HD is seen as the preserve of a few cranks then it might be that the arguments for freedom of speech win out.

Sure wasn’t aimed at you DV.

People ought to be aware that the far right are using the free speech argument to free up space for their views to be heard.

That’s partly why Muslim terrorist attacks are manna from heaven to far right people - even more when they’re attacking free speech too. (You can even read the reports of neo-nazi forums where they celebrate them for that reason).

I’m generally fairly pro free speech legally, though I have noted some posters on here, I think Short, conflating being hounded off Twitter with speech being banned.

That’s why I’m hot on the issue as I believe deeply in free speech but I do not want to be driving the free speech bus with a bunch of far right nutters on it.

DeVlaeminck

Ok fine.