None so blind as those who will not see

[debgeisler]

My first reaction on reading this story at the BBC online was: Send him to Iran.

British historian David Irving is being expelled from Austria and returning to the UK after his early release from prison for denying the Holocaust.

He has been banned from returning to Austria and will be escorted to Vienna's airport by police.

Granted, Irving claims that his views of the Holocaust have changed. And granted, throwing him in jail was probably someone's bright idea of how to make the controversial law an international cause celebre.

As a First Amendment-ista, I find myself quite conflicted about this case. Tossing someone in prison because they wrote something you don't like just really peeves me. But defending everyone's rights equally often means that we defend those we despise.

That doesn't mean I have to like their opinion. But there's that line, so frequently misattributed to Voltaire or Jefferson:

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

If it's not a liberty for all, it's not a liberty.

(Nonetheless, I still have the same hair-triggered rage when hearing Holocaust deniers...rage I control. Barely.)

Comments

[frandowdsofa.livejournal.com]

I got very confused when I saw the headline "Holocaust denier to be released early", and thought they were talking about a pair of tights ...

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Yep. Agreed all around.

And, as Cally Soukup first brought to my attention over on rasff, the line is Beatrice Hall's. Or , to be more precise, Evelyn Beatrice Hall, writing under the pseudonym of Stephen G. Tallentyre, apparently as a paraphrase of Voltaire's attitudes. This per Wikiquote and other online sources, as you probably know, but I pop in with it for the nod to Cally. I love learning stuff from my friends.

Okay, I love learning stuff period. And I love my friends even when I'm not learning stuff from them. And, yes, I'm babbling now.

More later, no doubt!

[madfilkentist]

Exactly right. May Irving fade into obscurity now.

[thirdworld.livejournal.com]

I agree. I guess Austria and Germany have more profound reasons for the law, because it is a national embarrassment. It is odd how the countries who logically would most want the holocaust denied refuse to, and yet all those crackpots can't wrap their minds around this.

For myself, there is no family on my mother's side to speak of. My maternal grandfather came from a large family spread all over Europe, and after the war he went to find survivors. Through years of searching he only ever found one cousin. It's hard to stomach holocaust denial when the truth of it is right there in the small size of my family.

[thirdworld.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I was not clear. My maternal grandmother too. He searched for both families. They fled Poland before the invasion, having seen it -- and the related persecution -- coming. they refused to teach my mother Polish because they felt the Poles were just as antisemitic. They were right.

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

You're going to explain that this is a British thing, right? The tights comment? ('cuz now *I* am confused.)

[frandowdsofa.livejournal.com]

Oops, sorry - pantyhose? stockings? what's the word you use for measuring how fine the weave is?

Under 10 denier is seriously sheer, over 40 is opaque and thick.

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

Ahhh. I tend to buy sheer hose from one company only, so I never saw the "denier" rating before...or, at least, not to notice it. Thank you. :-)

[frandowdsofa.livejournal.com]

Most hosiery packs over here have the denier number printed on them, so you can tell what's what. I didn't realise that it's an official measurement, but apparently "it is a unit of measure for the linear mass density of fibers. Denier is defined as the mass in grams per 9 000 meters.

One can distinguish between Filament and Total denier. Both are defined as above but the first only relates to a single filament of fiber (also commonly known as Denier per Filament or D.P.F) whereas the second relates to an agglomeration of filaments.

The following relationship applies to straight, uniform filaments:

D.P.F. = TotalDenier / QuantityofUniformFilaments
The denier system of measurement is used on two and single filament fibers. Some common calculations are as follows:

1 denier = 1 gram per 9 000 meters
= 0.05 grams per 450 meters (1/20th of above)

This unit of measure is not in the International System of Units: dtex should be used instead." according to Wikipedia.

Learn a new thing every day, that's what my grandma used to say!

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

Learn a new thing every day, that's what my grandma used to say!

And now both of us have. Thank you.

(Now I'll think "deny-er" instead...although one could argue that denier is a measure of thickness...or thick-headedness...)