[ExI] intolerant minds, a different flavor

[painlord2k at libero.it]

Il 27/04/2009 8.03, Lee Corbin ha scritto:

> 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 favour
> preventing free speech in this case?".

Is it really free speech?

Untruthfully screaming "Fire!" or "Bomb!" in a crowded theatre is not 
free speech: it is an unlawful act, not an unlawful speech.
It is an act of "causing alarm".
People alarmed will not think and debate and consider the message, they 
will react to the message without thinking or narrowing their critical 
sense.
The same could be said about someone that tell you that "Mr.X want kill 
you and is out with a gun" when in reality he know it is false; then you 
react against Mr.X and kill him.

In the case of holocaust deniers, they are negating a fact, not stating 
an opinion. It is like negating that a man was killed when there are 
witnesses, the corpse, the killer confession and many records of what 
happened. It is like telling lies in a trial. And becoming accomplices 
of the killer. In the case of Holocaust deniers not to the actual 
killers, but to their agenda.

It is, for sure, a blurred line and very troublesome.

I don't think the Holocaust is something unusual in the long history of 
humanity. Muslims did it often, Europeans did it sometimes as others did 
it. What is different is the application of industrial technology to the 
extermination of a people. But marching people until they die (like 
Turks did) or sending them in Gulags (as did and do the communists) 
accomplish the same results. I would say that forced sterilizing them 
like the Swedes did until a few decades ago to individuals considered 
unfit is not very different.

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

Mirco