Am I even Allowed to ask this Question?
This article is not about whether the holocaust happened or not – and no, I am not going to take a position on the matter. Now – think about this… Even writing that sentence I can feel a distinct, real pressure on me to do exactly that – it is not subtle, and it is forcing me to be very careful indeed about what I write here. I am very aware that others have questioned the veracity of what has become known as the holocaust. Perhaps most famous is the historian David Irving, about whom a film was released in 2016 (‘Denial’). I am also aware that this film was widely lauded in mainstream media outlets – and yet its basic honesty in the presentation of the actual facts of the case has been questioned (to my satisfaction this questioning did not come from Nazis, settle down SJWs!). These are the same mainstream media outlets that proclaim Hilary Clinton is not a liar or a world-class criminal, muh Russia, and that ‘pizzagate’ was debunked (please do send me the link where that happened!). I leave this to the diligent reader to explore at their own discretion.
Political artist David Dees found himself in hot water for examining, in his art, whether the historical evidence that the systematic murder of millions in gas chambers had occurred at all as described in our textbooks. ‘Holocaust denial’ is illegal in 17 countries, leaving individuals who question the ‘official’ narratives open to fines and even imprisonment. Dees reports that he found himself ‘gangstalked’ and harassed whilst living in Europe, and he was eventually told that it was the ‘holocaust info’ he was exposing that was causing his issues… “stop, then they will go away … continue, they will make things much worse…”. Eventually, in 2012, back in the US, Dees attempted to include two pages illustrating forensic evidence that challenge the ‘official Zionist narrative’ as he describes it. As the book went to the printer he reports another series of harassment events flaring up, so much so that he had the printer cut page 98 out of all the printed copies of his ‘Volume 2’ collection. He later re-included the missing pages as a loose insert. (The Art of David Dees, Volume 2, 2016)
Now, again, I do not have to take a strong position on the issue of ‘holocaust denial’. Why should I take a position on something that I do not understand or have enough facts about? It is an open question for me, and emotional attacks on me, or anyone, for that matter, decide nothing. I would argue there are far too many people in this world who take strong positions on things they know nothing about all the time, and cause absolute mayhem. I can point this out as fundamental fact: virtually nobody is alive now who can bear direct witness to what occurred in those foul places at that terrible time. I was not there – neither were you. We are completely reliant on the balance, accuracy and fairness of the written histories we have inherited. The evidence I have seen directly tells me that World War 2 saw millions and millions of people displaced, traumatised for life, maimed, and yes, murdered. I consider it well established that Jews were significantly selected for perverse and grotesque mistreatment by the Nazi German state. So were many other groups – including Slavs, Romani, Homosexuals, and the Disabled. The evidence for all of this is overwhelming. The evidence is also overwhelming that the Allied forces also committed diabolical atrocities. Cities full of civilians were firestormed across Germany and Europe. Two entire Japanese cities, containing non-combatant women, and children, were evaporated by nuclear hell. If these latter actions are permitted by the Geneva Convention, it would appear an utterly worthless rag by any sane reckoning. I do not recall any Nuremburg equivalents resulting in Allied Command hangings. From the victors perspective it seems these incalculably savage murders of the undeniably innocent were perfectly justified.
My point is this: history is written by the ‘winners’ – though given that we are still living with the real consequences of the generations of traumatised people that this period bequeathed, understanding anyone as a ‘winner’ from that hellish time is a considerable stretch. Because we know, for a fact, that history is written by the winners, and the stories that are selected and pushed on us are chosen for a reason and become ‘sanctioned’ history, we must tread very carefully concerning what we may blithely accept as ‘incontrovertible fact’.
It may well be that the Holocaust occurred much as reported – but there is a real issue here, a massive RED FLAG; when merely questioning ‘official narratives’ results in harassment, abuse, ad-hominin attack, social ostracism, and even physical attack and imprisonment. The excuse that is often paraded out defending this kind of violence, sometimes state sponsored (for that is what it is, regardless of which ‘side’ you may take), is that it is absolutely necessary to stamp out this kind of thinking, speaking – EXPRESSION – because if we don’t, we run the risk of history repeating itself, of comfort being given to the perpetrators and supporters of such evil…
Astute observers will here notice the similarity between these kinds of arguments, and those offered by SJWs and Antifa in their efforts to close down the free speech of anyone who opposes their platforms. And clearly for them I must be a fascist, because I certainly do not support their platforms. I am, for real, a committed anti-fascist; I don’t believe they know what a fascist is, given their explicit support for such modern fascist equivalents (think fascismo blend of State, Corporate and Elite Power) as Clinton, et al! This is indeed tremendously important and dangerous ground. Free speech is sacrosanct, a fundamental principle of liberty, and civilisation, and many who claim to be bastions and defenders of such civilisation, right now, are practically its most vitriolic opponents. Those who would shut down speech, thoughts, questioning – on any subject whatsoever – are no different, at all, from the Nazi book burners of the 1930s. The motivation is precisely the same: a Nazi does not think themselves a ‘bad guy’ – the Nazi thinks that those who don’t agree are wrong, and fools, and likely dangerous enemies. Same with the Communist, Socialist, Christian, Moslem, Capitalist, Republican, Democrat … pick your authoritarian flavour …
When conflict between beliefs arises, we can take two paths – we can shine light on beliefs, examine, discuss, assess, utilise the full range of human intelligence…
… Or we can shut out the light. Rely on stifled ignorance to save us.
The only reason a ‘belief system’ can drive the holder to want to shut out the light of investigation and scrutiny, is insecurity. For the Nazi, the books must be burned because alternative views are dangerous, wrong, unclean – a threat to the Nazi mindset. This is correct of course; Nazi ideas are very poor and easily destroyed by plentiful superior ideas. This is no different from the Antifa activist attempting to shut down the alleged Nazi, using, irony of ironies, Nazi tactics (it’s okay; they’re the good guys…). What is of course a threat to all these ‘convinced activists’ is the cold, hard unforgiving light of factual truth. Otherwise – why fear the light? Good guys who fear the light, and demand we draw the curtains – again the irony, it never occurs to them…
So this article is not an assertion that the ‘holocaust’ never happened. It is a defence of the only things that can actually, really, prevent any conceivable ‘holocaust’ from ever happening – real commitment to freedom of speech, thought and expression. It is only distorting and obfuscating the facts of our humanity, identity and fundamental experience that permit the arising of shallow and superficial ‘us-and-them’ dichotomies. These sit at the heart of all human atrocities, wherever and whenever they occur.
It is sometimes argued that free speech has limits, that it must be curtailed when ‘harm’ is done to others by that speech. SJWs often refer to it as ‘hate speech’. There is a superficial attractiveness in this idea, which is why I believe it hoodwinks so many well-intentioned people. But a little examination of what a ‘Right’ is quickly reveals the fundamental flaw in this kind of double-think.
Nobody is arguing, not here anyway, that people are free to say things which are clearly criminal by natural law – for example, direct incitement to murder or maim other people. Such incitement must be clear to be criminal – it cannot just be the wishy-washy ‘they hate my group and ideas and if they are allowed to speak their mind then eventually muh holocaust …’ Equally, hurt feelings are not ‘harm’ in this important sense. Removing someone’s fundamental rights, such as expression, is a serious business – it is far more serious than ‘hurt feelings’, which are actually an individual intuitive guide to personal identity, maturity and growth, and have zilch to do with the organisation of society at large, and so cannot/should not be subject of legislation. Please stop projecting your immaturity on to the rest of us, snowflakes...
Here is the bottom line regarding Rights: all Rights imply reciprocal Obligations/Duties. My right to free speech is perfectly justified as long as I respect everyone else’s right to (and will protect) exactly the same thing. If I undermine your rights, I undermine my own justification for holding the same rights. That is the point – they are universal, we are all human. If I say you have no right to life, by pure self-consistency I am saying that I have no right to life myself, because that right rests on my humanity and your humanity (not what I or you do after that fact, so-called identity) – it is rooted in what is fundamental and identical between us. I’ll give a simple example:
If I tell other people that you should be killed because I think you are dangerous, I am fundamentally contradicting my own right to free expression (as well as my right to life of course). Why? Because to kill you would remove your freedom of expression, and I cannot consistently argue that I hold a right that you do not have, given that the right is rooted in something identical between us – our common humanity. That makes my ‘speech’ in that instance criminal and therefore not protected as a right. I have surrendered the protection of that right through my self-contradictory attack on you, and the full weight of natural law can be brought upon me, to ‘shut me up’ in this instance, and protect you and your rights. This is the real power of applying Rights, and thinking in terms of them.
And this, incidentally, is why we all have a deep intuition that it is only by ‘dehumanising’ those we oppose that we can begin to behave in this way, and begin demanding those others ‘rights’ be curtailed when we ourselves are exercising that same right we would deny others. Our hypocrisy is hidden by creating monsters of others. Sounds rather Nazi doesn’t it.
That is blatantly what SJWs do – they demand the removing of the rights of others and exempt themselves from the same rules, because they think they are special, correct, on the side of good – and nobody else’s rights count; just like the Nazi book-burners. The only way that the SJW in this instance can remain intellectually consistent is to deny the common humanity (hence right-holding) of those they oppose. This of course they often slip, without subtlety, into doing – that is what motivates ad hominin attack and name-calling. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what rights are. Far from demanding that their opponents rights be curtailed, a self-consistent SJW should demand that those ‘Nazis’ must have their freedom of speech protected. Antifa, if they are actually anti-fascist, should be forming protective rings around marching Nazis – otherwise they are just self-contradictory muddled liars, and have no credibility whatsoever. They miss this, and become the very thing they profess to oppose and despise. No wonder there is so much evidence of self-loathing (and loathing of others) in people at such immature levels, when viewed from outside that ‘group’ anyway.
And this is what the obscene and ignorant ‘laws’ against ‘holocaust denial’ completely disregard. Such laws are a travesty of understanding, of human rights, of the fundamental importance of freedom of expression – they are Nazi laws. And how do Nazi laws like this make us safer from the re-emergence of a despotic, totalitarian state that will slaughter innocents by the million? Well, obviously they don’t, they are the seed of precisely that: they close down conversation rather than opening it up, and only when conversation is closed down can stupidity, bigotry and blunt ignorance thrive again. Whatever actually happened, during World War 2, millions of human beings were maimed and slaughtered by other human beings. History must always be open to revision, sacred ‘truths’ must always be challenged, in the open, honestly and thoroughly. Holocaust deniers, right or wrong, are doing us all a favour; they are reminding us how easily we can slip, individually and collectively, into such madness again. If those who argue that the incineration of Dresden, Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not crimes are not holocaust deniers, what are they? Such people, in nations where these stupid laws currently exist, should be in prison. The holocaust denier’s right to freely express their opinion should be protected by us all. Protecting rights is not really about protecting those you agree with – it is about protecting those you utterly, vociferously, oppose. Those who would shut them down, whether the majority of the population or a tiny influential minority, should always be exposed for what they actually are: authoritarians, who deny the fundamental importance of individual, sacrosanct, human rights. Nazis if you will – in the guise of trying to destroy Nazis: Projected self-loathing in action on the global stage.
Love to deniers, believers, and the open alike. Db
