The Fading Concept of Free Speech
An Austrian court recently sentenced David Irving to three years in prison. His crime was violating a 1992 statute that applies to anyone who “denies, grossly plays down, approves or tries to excuse the National Socialist genocide or other National Socialist crimes against humanity in a print publication, in broadcast or other media.” State prosecutor Michael Klackl called Mr. Irving “a dangerous falsifier of history,” and his statements an “abuse of freedom of speech.”
This is a modern Rorschach test: You’ll see what you want to see.
To some there is no evil greater than the Holocaust, so no punishment is too severe for those who would minimize it. I suspect that the Simon Wiesenthal Center is somewhere near that view, as one would expect.
To some, David Irving deserves punishment because he has evil thoughts. This is the modern utopian syllogism that leads to hate-crime laws and campus speech codes: “People have evil thoughts. To make the world better, we need to stop them from having evil thoughts. So let’s punish all the people with evil thoughts, to discourage them from thinking that way, and thereby make the world a better place.”
Some who find this verdict upsetting have had a taste of liberal utopia, and don’t like it. Perhaps they’ve seen the reality of campus speech codes or hate-crime laws, and have realized that the quest to perfect mankind twists the souls of those who pursue it. Xrlq says it nicely: “It sure is nice to know that Austria, like its neighbor to the north, loves tolerance and democracy so much it throws people in prison for not appreciating them enough.”
Some wits might wonder about the kind of world that the authors of this Austrian statute hope to create: With what other historical events do they hope to criminalize inaccuracy? Note that Mr. Irving recanted his Holocaust denial at trial, claiming to have discovered new evidence and changed his mind after giving the speech for which he was convicted. With this crime, ignorance is apparently no defense. Perhaps this will motivate schoolchildren to study extra-hard for their history exams: Too low of a grade could produce a criminal investigation. And it raises some interesting questions about historical research: What’s the point of studying any area in which the government has established an official history? Either you confirm what people already think they know, or you risk going to prison.
What worries me is that the very idea of free speech is breaking apart in the West, as government officials talk freely of the “irresponsible” use of free speech, and as a European court brushes aside Mr. Irving’s “right to be wrong” defense. Hate-crime laws are common now in Europe, Canada, and Australia, and they are creeping into US law as well.
At the same time, US liberals loudly complain about how the War on Terror has supposedly brought our country to the brink of a Dark Night of Fascism. Consider this story about a seventh-grader who wrote an essay about “doing violence to President Bush and various corporate executives.” The school called the police, and the police called the Secret Service to confirm that this was nothing more than a childish flight of fancy. No one was arrested, no charges were filed, and the student was not sentenced to three years in prison. But the ACLU still criticized those involved for—wait for it—“criminalizing student thought.”
So that’s where we are today: If the police ask a seventh grader if he really intends to kill Pres. Bush, then that’s “criminalizing student thought,” even though no one is charged with a crime. If a crackpot historian claims that the Holocaust didn’t happen, but then recants, then that really is a crime, and he goes to prison for three years. Fortunately, it’s not (yet) a crime to have evil thoughts in the US—unless you commit another crime, in which case you can usually also effectively be charged with the extra thought-crime of hate.
At least we still have something kinda resembling free speech in this country. For now.
Edit: William F. Buckley, Jr. has an article on the David Irving case here.