How does it necessarily amount to hate speech? One could deny the holocaust, for example, because one is a solipsist and believes that no humans apart from one exist. Since every other human, and by corollary the jews, are solely a figment of one's imagination, no one was ever killed, which means as a corollary there was no holocaust.
You asked "How does it necessarily amount to hate speech?" In it i attempt to answer that question.
The rest of your post really does not bear much more addressing other than that "holocaust denial" has a range of forms, and what you described does not fall under it.
I'm saying that the scenario you proposed does not fall under the laws (particularly of my own country) that govern restrictions regarding holocaust denial. Feel free to peruse them to see if you agree with me on that:
Solipsism is a very good argument, well done. Now try to work out why one culture would want to have its history forced upon another, by the State, and you will have covered the spectrum in just a few steps ..
Now you're just making stuff up. How is saying "Hitler didn't specifically target Jews" hate speech? I used to think it was just dumb, but now I'm not so sure any more.
Obviously it's not thoughtcrime, but it's illegal to even discuss it, not only to publish books about it.
> How is saying "Hitler didn't specifically target Jews" hate speech?
Simply put, because it is functionally identical to saying "the victims were liars on a humongous scale", with all effects that will have on an audience.
It is not equivalent. Holocaust victims have described things that actually happened to them or their families, they are claiming things as historic fact. It is absolutely possible, and very cruel, to call them liars. Scientists advocating the theory of evolution are 100% aware that it is a theory. The word itself includes an understanding and acknowledgement of it not being fact, but a theory. Unless you try to claim them believing in their theory is a lie, you cannot call them liars, since they are not proposing facts.
Further, you ignore the part about the effects it has on the audience. Making other people believe that jews and other holocaust victims have successfully perpetrated a lie about "their race" across decades, makes them more likely to be radicalized and thus more likely to lash out against "others". Do note how in Germany even today fire-bombings against residences of foreigners and particularly refugees occur particularly in the german regions with higher-than-average occurences of neo nazis.
> Holocaust victims have described things that actually happened to them or their families, they are claiming things as historic fact. It is absolutely possible, and very cruel, to call them liars.
Ok, let's use a different example then. It's not illegal to say that Stalin was a good man than never harmed anyone, even though it's incredibly wrong (Stalin killed possibly even more people than Hitler), and equally disrespectful (assuming that at least some of the Stalin's victims or their relatives survived). Why the difference?
> Scientists advocating the theory of evolution are 100% aware that it is a theory
Wow. I wouldn't think that as someone who objects denying the holocaust would use exactly the most stupid argument used by those who deny evolution.
It's called a theory not because scientists don't think evolution is a fact, but because it's an explanation of how things happen. Evolution is a fact, to the same extent that gravity is a fact (i.e. the prediction than an apple will fall down if your release it) - it might be wrong e.g. if we live in the Matrix, but then all of the reality is "wrong". Even with gravity, you have gravity (things fall) and the theory of gravity (a longer explanation why things fall).
Edit: I'm not sure what you're asking with "Paragraph?"... Do you mean "Source?"?
Because even if there are "Stalin deniers", their numbers are not remotely large enough to have an appreciable effect.
> Evolution
I disagree, but am happy to agree to disagree. Regardless of whom of us is correct on that count, there remains the fact that denial of the theory of evolution is unlikely to successfully radicalize an appreciable amount of people.
> Edit: I'm not sure what you're asking with "Paragraph?"... Do you mean "Source?"?
Yes, which paragraph of law forbids discussion of denial of holocaust?
Just to be clear, you disagree with a fact that follows from very simple assumptions just by applying a few very simple steps of logical reasoning, yet you accept as dogmatic (i.e. authorative) truth a historical (i.e. unrepeatable and illogical) fact that you never witnessed yourself and that many people claim is false? Interesting.
Edit: Or, maybe you don't disagree that evolution is happening, just that it happened (i.e. that the current species were created by evolution)? I guess that's the other option, which would be less inconsistent with logic.
> Regardless of whom of us is correct on that count, there remains the fact that denial of the theory of evolution is unlikely to successfully radicalize an appreciable amount of people.
Well, given that holocaust denial is legal in the US, I think it's pretty safe to say that it's a fact that it's unlikely to successfully radicalize an appreciable amount of people.
> Yes, which paragraph of law forbids discussion of denial of holocaust?
I don't know, but why don't you check Wikipedia (a more raliable source) instead of relying on me (a completely unreliable, potentially lying, source)?
No, you did not understand, but i frankly do not care to discuss the finer points of the scientific process here.
> Well, given that holocaust denial is legal in the US, I think it's pretty safe to say that it's a fact that it's unlikely to successfully radicalize an appreciable amount of people.
In the US? Unlikely, i agree.
In Germany? It is still actively doing so. Source: I have german ex neo nazis among my acquaintances, by way of living in the same town; and an active german neo nazi in my extended family.
> why don't you
You made the claim. I doubt it. I leave it up to the claimant to invest the time to support it.
> No, you did not understand, but i frankly do not care to discuss the finer points of the scientific process here.
Fair enough. But I'm interested in that, so if you happen to know of any resources (blog posts, articles, ...) that discuss this, I'd be happy to read them.
Obviously it's just as despicable to say that the Gulags never happened.
It's not much of an issue though in Germany / Europe, no one's really claiming that, probably since it wouldn't feed into any popular / populist narratives.
> Obviously it's just as despicable to say that the Gulags never happened.
Obviously. But the latter is not illegal.
> It's not much of an issue though in Germany / Europe, no one's really claiming that, probably since it wouldn't feed into any popular / populist narratives.
This argument contains an implicit assumption that the situation would be worse if holocaust denial was legal. Is there any data to support this claim (e.g. from the time or countries where holocaust denial isn't legal)? If not, I seriously doubt this claim - right now, it appears that Germany has a serious, possibly growing, problem with neo-nazis, while it's illegal. On the other hand, plenty of European countries and the US have little problems with neo-nazis, despite it being legal (they have other racial/white-supremacist problems, but they rarely seem against Jews, unless I'm very mistaken). So it would seem that that implicit assumption completely made up.
Look. It is clear you have few insights into how the neo nazi psyche works, since you're not directly in contact with them and nobody has explicitly explained it to you. This does however not mean that nobody knows.
Germany has a lot of problems with neo nazis because we still have actual nazis or direct descendants of those around and have a history directly tied to nazis. Neo nazis become such by way of being tought, as children, skewed views of history and accepting them as fact. Oftentimes they'll even promptly and disgustedly drop their affiliations when they become educated of historical realities, however many of them are living in circumstances (that's why they mostly occur in the poor parts of germany) where educating oneself is a luxury or maybe even looked down upon.
It is not an assumption, but a sad reality that even with all the social programs germany has, it would make the situation much worse if ideas like holocaust denial could be spread unchecked.
How is it hate speech? Are there people who would start killing Jews if they discovered it didn't really happen? Serious question, maybe Germany has people who are ready to commit violence but are held back by the thought that the holocaust probably happened? I can't think of the chain of causation from saying "It didn't happen" to someone killing someone else.
The closest I can find on Wikipedia's definition of hate speech is "...disparages ... a protected individual or group." Who is that group? Is it "people who believe the holocaust happened"? Surely belief in an arbitrary claim doesn't count for defining a "protected individual or group". Is the group Jews? How does it harm Jews?
Genocide denial is extremely insulting to the victims and the survivors.
Jews have been murdered in europe for centuries as a vent for fear and political impotence.
We've had enough. The fact that the germany that produced so much culture and science was the culprit of the last genocide in western europe is an absolute horror on so many scales.
Yes, the horrors went on elsewhere but the only way for us as a species to move ahead of our bloodspattered history is to take a stand against fear and brutalism. whitewashing history is a dangerous thing because it gives the signal that political leadership could have a way to escape history's judgement.
In essence, it's a matter of accountability that we must uphold vigorously.
Holocaust victims can't feel insulted because they're dead. Survivors can but they're few in number and will soon be extinct. Are you sure these are the main groups of people who would be hurt by legalized holocaust denial? I find that hard to believe, especially since we allow denial of most other large scale killings - even those bigger than the holocaust.
Survivors are few and will soon be extinct, but what about their children and grandchildren, who kept hearing their stories and were raised feeling their trauma and terror?
If you publish it, it's libel. There's a difference between "so-and-so is an asshole" (not a fact, haha), and "so-and-so committed a crime" (a fact). Whether it's a civil or criminal matter depends on the jurisdiction. The UN is against criminalizing defamation because it limits freedom of expression.
> Can you clarify why insulting someone with "rapist" is outlawed?
In case the second link did not lead you to the correct section:
Section 186
Defamation
Whosoever asserts or disseminates a fact related to another person
which may defame him or negatively affect public opinion about him,
shall, unless this fact can be proven to be true, be liable to
imprisonment not exceeding one year or a fine and, if the offence
was committed publicly or through the dissemination of written
materials (section 11(3)), to imprisonment not exceeding two years
or a fine.
> So? So is calling people "rapists" (without proof or conviction), but we don't outlaw it.
Falsely calling someone a rapist is unlawful and subjects the person doing it to legal consequences many places (including most jurisdictions in the US); where the burden of proof is on demonstrating the truth or falsity of the statement, whether and in what circumstances a good-faith mistake of fact will excuse the offense, etc., vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but it is certainly not a matter on which it is some widely accepted principal that people are free to make false claims without consequence.
Hm... plenty of men have been publicly accused of rape by women (Duke lacrosse case, the Mattress Girl, Rolling Stone "Rape on Campus", to list a few). I don't recall any legal repercussions for those women. I'm guessing that's because it's really hard to prove they're lying (even though in many cases there is very obvious evidence that they were), but this fact doesn't really support your claim that calling someone a rapist ever results in legal consequences (let alone criminal consequences).
Damaging untruths are widely punished, either as civil offenses, criminal offenses, or both, in the US and elsewhere; countries differ in details of where the burden of proof lies in truth/untruth of harmful statements, what the standard of proof required is, what degree and kind of harms are covered, and whether and how those kind of rules vary for different categories of harmful statements.
In general, these punishments reflect the common belief that infliction of harm without consent of the harmed is improper, and warrants either punishment or compensation or both.
And, anyway, ostracism is a punishment (historically viewed as a fairly severe one.)
Holocaust denial is banned because it amounts to hate speech. Creationism is dumb, but not hate speech.
Also, there is no thoughtcrime.