I’m all for it. And I’m 100 percent against the trial and conviction of David Irving in Austria. As Oliver Kamm writes today, “The proper policy with regard to malevolent falsehood is to expose it rather than suppress it. That is the task of historians rather than legislators or the judiciary.”
But I’ve also been meaning to record this comment from Kamm about the specious “double standard” argument in regard to the cartoon controversy:
“The reason Holocaust denial is pernicious is not that it is offensive but that it is wrong. It is as wrong as it is possible to get in the making of historical claims. The reason it’s wrong is not that some authority declares it, but that anyone can check it making use of primary and secondary historical sources. Any competent historian will thereby uncover its errors. We reject Holocaust denial because it is an offence against history rather than an offence against our sensibilities.”
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