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Can I say that slavery in the U.S. never happened? Well, I could say it, but I'd be an idiot. Oh wait, maybe I need to define "slavery in the U.S." because of course no one will understand what I mean if I don't do that.
But here's the rub: Can one say that slavery in the US was not a bad thing? Fifty million African
Americans are immeasurably better off today than they would have been had their ancestors been left in
Africa, and not brought away in chains. That is a legitimate argument which is not patently false on its face and that cannot be unanimously dismissed as having zero merit, nor should it be denied its place in the dialog, and raising that philosophical point should not require me to avow that I am not motivated by a pro-slavery sentiment or agenda.
Similarly, there may well be a cogent argument that the Holocaust was a good thing, but to even propose to have the discussion is a criminal act in many countries. Dialog has been closed, while voices that contradict orthodoxy remain to be heard.
If he were in a university in Germany or Austria NOW? Could he do? And what would the responses be to that? Just curious.
Sure.
A historian could also conduct research doubting that a man has ever walked on the moon, that George Washington ever lived, or that the Earth is actually a sphere (or even an oblate spheroid).
And such a historian would probably be mocked, ridiculed, sneered at, and see his career suffer. That's what happens when people suggest that something which has been documented many times over, from every conceivable direction and angle, is not so.
Which is why you want to talk about two countries (Austria and Germany) with very high levels of freedom of speech (typically placing in the top 20 amongs nations, or top 10%), but you're not starting threads about countries that allow far less free speech. China? Russia? Iran? Cuba? Dozens of other countries? They ban virtually all speech to protect the tyranny of the leadership. Austria and Germany? They have a past strongly associated with ... well, with the Holocaust ... so they ban the denial of the well-established fact that it occurred.
Yet it is those two countries, with a very limited and small exception to freedom of speech, and not dozens of other countries that harshly suppress all manner of speech, about which you're ... 'concerned'?
And it's all because you're such a lover of freedom of speech ...
But here's the rub: Can one say that slavery in the US was not a bad thing? Fifty million African
Americans are immeasurably better off today than they would have been had their ancestors been left in
Africa, and not brought away in chains.
1) If there had been no African tribal losses to slavery, a completely different set of people would have been born in Africa, not the same people who were born in America, only now born in Africa. It isn't as though there still would have been a Colin Powell, only Colin Powell in Africa.
2) If we agree that today's African Americans were fortunate to have wound up Americans, there is no one we can identify deserving of credit for this. It was certainly not the intention nor motivation of the slavers to spawn free and happy black citizens in the 20th century. Those taken into slavery were never given any sort of choice to be long range altruists. The slavers didn't present them with the argument "If you let us enslave you and your descendants for a few hundred years, eventually their descendants will achieve full citizenship in an advanced technological society."
So, the benefit you list as ameliorating the wickedness of slavery, was entirely an accident of history. I do not see how this accident in any manner rehabilitates the institution.
The proper test would be to ask if those potential slaves in Africa had been given a choice, and they had the benefit of knowing there would be a golden future for 21st Century African Americans, would they have gone voluntarily into slavery?
Suppose you were the 18th Century slaver making a speech to African tribe members, trying to persuade them what a long range good thing slavery would be. What sorts of things would you be saying to convince them?
Similarly, there may well be a cogent argument that the Holocaust was a good thing,
Sorry, but there simply isn't a "cogent argument" that the Holocaust was a good thing unless you are willing to throw away several centuries of ethics.
Maybe the problem is this jejune belief that there are two sides to every story when the reality is there aren't. Somethings are just wrong and there simply is no other way to treat it. The Holocaust was wrong by every standard that humanity holds dear, in fact even the Nazi's knew that it was wrong as evidenced by their failed attempts to hide their acts.
As for your other postulation which I have neither the patience to acknowledge, one can indulge in all sorts of counterfactual arguments but history as the physics of time travel tell us the paradoxes are far to unpredictable to make an valuable evaluation of "what if." As a result we are only left with what is.
Salient to the specific question, it is my understanding that in Germany, it is illegal to even publicly state the opinion that further research could shed some doubt on the legitimacy or authenticity of the data that is currently held to be absolute.
................
Criminalizing doubt is hardly an avenue to enlightenment.
The Germans don't need to be enlightened, they need to be controlled. To their credit they evidently well understand this about themselves now. Making Holocaust denial illegal would be improper in The United States though, we have different rules here. And a different history of course.
Which is why you want to talk about two countries (Austria and Germany) with very high levels of freedom of speech (typically placing in the top 20 amongs nations, or top 10%), but you're not starting threads about countries that allow far less free speech. China? Russia? Iran? Cuba? Dozens of other countries? They ban virtually all speech to protect the tyranny of the leadership. Austria and Germany? They have a past strongly associated with ... well, with the Holocaust ... so they ban the denial of the well-established fact that it occurred.
Yet it is those two countries, with a very limited and small exception to freedom of speech, and not dozens of other countries that harshly suppress all manner of speech, about which you're ... 'concerned'?
And it's all because you're such a lover of freedom of speech ...
I personally find it ironic that a democracy such as Germany would limit freedom of speech in a manner that would have fit right in with the actions of the very regime (the Third Reich) that they restrict freedom of speech (and, therefore, inquiry) about.
You do understand, don't you, the difference between saying "I am a holocaust denier" and saying "I defend the right of holocaust deniers to express their view".
I can't say better, you phrased it in easy way. I think there are a lot of people who are not against the Holocaust, they are just against the persecution on the deniers of the Holocaust.
Sorry, but there simply isn't a "cogent argument" that the Holocaust was a good thing unless you are willing to throw away several centuries of ethics.
There may not be any cogent argument apparent today, but history has not yet played out. Supposing the Israelis nuke Iran over an unsupportable pretext, and forge an economic empire that colonizes much of the world. Hitler's effort to rid the world of them would then be seen as praiseworthy as well as prophetic. And a fair inquiry into Hitler's motives by historians in 2013 might have shed light on circumstances that might have enabled world opinion to avert a future "holocaust" at the hands of the Israelis. But because that fair inquiry was subverted, the very access to a possible truth remains closed which might otherwise have saved civilization. Would that, in some not impossible future, be a cogent argument?
Nobody objected to throwing away several centuries of ethics when it was time to bomb Hiroshima, because there was a "cogent argument" that it was a good thing. Nobody asked King Leopold, Hitler's next door neighbor, about centuries of ethics in the Congo.
Is there a "cogent argument" that Europeans were right to destroy the culture of the indigenous people of the Americas and make the land safe for your Master Race, because it happens to be yours, and therefore superior? Exactly how does that make you better than Hitler?
So far, this is the only argument I am hearing: "People of my comfort-zone ethic are right, and those who disagree with me are idiots and/or criminals. They must be silenced by force, to keep me from feeling uncomfortable."
A simple question requiring a yes or no statement. Are you a supporter of Israel's right to exist or are you a supporter of the destruction of the Jewish state?
Although I don't see a relation between your question and mine, I'll answer you.
By all means, I'm with Israel right in existence, they have the right to have a state, and I wish they had a secular state not a religious one, and I see the palestinian people have the same right to have their won state or at least to live fairly and respectfully with Israelites on the same land, but unfortunately, no religious state able to offer such a respect to Gentiles.
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