[ExI] intolerant minds, a different flavor

[Lee Corbin]

To this day an amazing number of people refuse to
admit that the Holocaust took place, or at least
find reason to suggest that it never took place
on a massive scale.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial

The list (taken from there) is pretty amazing:

     * Mahmoud Ahmadinejad[114][115][116]
     * Mahmoud Abbas (Abbas' Moscow PHd involved denial, he has since largely retracted his position).[117]
     * Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi[68]
     * Mohammed Mahdi Akef
     * Harry Elmer Barnes[118]
     * Arthur R. Butz
     * Thies Christophersen
     * Doug Collins
     * Günter Deckert
     * Léon Degrelle
     * David Duke
     * François Duprat
     * Robert Faurisson
     * Bobby Fischer
     * Roger Garaudy	

     * Hutton Gibson
     * Jürgen Graf
     * Nick Griffin
     * Richard E. Harwood (see Richard Verrall)
     * Michael Hoffman II
     * Gerd Honsik
     * David Irving
     * James Keegstra
     * Fred A. Leuchter
     * Norman Lowell
     * Horst Mahler
     * Carlo Mattogno
     * Carl O. Nordling
     * Konstantinos Plevris
     * Roeland Raes
     * Siegfried Verbeke

     * Dariusz Ratajczak
     * Ahmed Rami
     * Paul Rassinier
     * Otto-Ernst Remer
     * Michele Renouf
     * Manfred Roeder
     * Germar Rudolf
     * Bernhard Schaub
     * Israel Shamir
     * Gerald L. K. Smith
     * Wilhelm Stäglich
     * Fredrick Töben
     * John Tyndall[119]
     * Richard Verrall
     * Udo Walendy
     * Richard Williamson
     * Ernst Zündel
     * R. J. Rushdoony

Now reading through most of those names, certain obvious
correlations are clear. It seems to me that ideological
predisposition is *the* explanation for holocaust denial
in every case---except among some who simply hate Jews.

True, there were no gas chambers or extermination camps
on German soil, in other words, at Belsen or Dachau or
Buchenwald;  there were no Jews made into soap;  the
"confession" of Rudolf Hoess, commandant of Auschwitz,
was extracted by force and contains his claim to have
killed more Jews than was "humanly" possible. At least,
so Christopher Hitchens says (who I suppose has looked
into it).

But to deny that more than 5M people were systematically
killed on racial/ethnic grounds? or that the killing was
"carried out at extermination camps using tools of mass
murder, such as gas chambers"? That's , of course, sheer
fantasy.

But I understand why some people think this (as I said):
predisposed ideological commitment.

What I do not understand is why their extreme opposites,
those who would persecute holocaust deniers, i.e.,
persecute people for merely SAYING that it never took
place, go so far as to make it actually illegal just
to SAY something.

So some of our German colleagues were visiting us, and
at lunch I asked, "Can you explain why you favor
preventing free speech in this case?".

Just ventured to explain, the most adamant and articulate
of them---a highly intelligent but comparatively rigid and
doctrinaire systems analyst---and basically, he denied it.
He professed that technically, it is *not* illegal:
"You'll just be sued," he said, adding "and you'll lose".

This is not correct. Not only Germany, but Poland,
Portugal, Romania, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium,
Czech Republic, France and several others have made
it explicitly *illegal*:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial#Laws_against_Holocaust_denial

Our German colleagues were all in favor of those laws:
"people should not be allowed to say these things
that cause others so much suffering" basically, was
the jist.

Is this not an alien mentality to everyone here?

Can anyone suggest an hypothesis that will explain
what is going on in otherwise sensible and tolerant
minds?

Lee