Germany Prosecutes Bishop for Questioning the Holocaust

We have been following the steady decline of free speech in the West (here and here and here) and we have another interesting case on criminal charges for uttering prohibited thoughts. Germany has long made it a crime to deny the holocaust. Now, controversial British clergyman Richard Williamson has started a trial in Germany on Friday for his denial that the Nazis had systematically murdered millions of Jews.

Williamson, 70, was fined 12,000 euros (16,000 dollars) for comments made on a television interview during a 2008 visit to Germany. In the interview, he alleged that the Nazi gas chambers are a myth and “only 200,000 to 300,000 Jews” had been killed by the Nazis.

He caused a controversy for Pope Benedict XVI, who repealed his excommunication of Williamson.

There is no question that Germany has tried through this law to prevent the resurgence of Nazi propaganda and lies. However, the best way to fight fascism is to allow free speech, not to censor prohibited thoughts and utterances. In this case, Williamson says that he was assured that his interview would only run in Sweden, which allows free speech on the issue. Despite our personal revulsion with such accounts, it is important for civil libertarians to stand with free speech. This trial should not be over the historical fact but free speech. Williamson has a right to speak his mind as to his view of history while the rest of us have a right to denounce those views.

For the full story, click here

117 thoughts on “Germany Prosecutes Bishop for Questioning the Holocaust”

  1. Slart:

    I provided a link to the text of the law at the Prevent Genocide website in a post on this thread @ April 22, 2010, 12:07 am. This posting format at this wonderful website (and I appreciate it so much) is very cumbersome and I don’t fault you for missing it. I’m not crabbing about it, I’m just saying it is cumbersome.

    You only assert that genocide has not occurred, but the fact that white Americans, who were once nearly 90 percent of the population, never voted to become a minority in their own country and are quickly becoming a minority against their will tends to prove my case, not yours.

    Your position is laughable in the face of these numbers and no rational person would say an upheaval has not occurred.

    If Americans chose not to have many children it still doesn’t justify going behind their backs and making them a minority race in the country they inherited by people who look the same as they are in their historical paintings and artifacts.

    The thing would have been to encourage them to have more children and continue with our PAST SUCCESSFUL IMMIGRATION POLICY of focusing on immigrant pools from groups who share our heritage: those from western lands. As opposed to sneaking behind their backs and letting in groups from other cultures and people who don’t embrace our traditions or even resemble us.

    Multiculturalism EXPLAINS the violence in Rwanda, Burundi, Iraq, Kosovo and every other place in the world which is not heavily uni-cultural.

    You are clueless if you think that Hispanics, the Chinese, or Blacks are not mightily proud of their races. And you are clueless if you think they don’t want their particular race to be exalted. Only whites are not permitted to think such things!

    I’m not against non-white immigration, but I’m for “patriotic immigration” (as they say at Vdare online which is not a white supremacist organization). And I am for preserving our traditional immigration pattern favoring western peoples. That pattern created the greatest nation in history. The same nation non-whites are trying to become a part of.

    As the motto of this website states: “the thing itself speaks”.

    The genocide isn’t just speaking, it is screaming and you are deaf.

    You write:

    “Why don’t you try and open your mind and work with all the rest of your fellow Americans (white, black, brown, yellow and red)”

    It is a tad late to appeal to cooperation AFTER the genocide occurs because the people you want me to cooperate with are the product of it. This is like asking me to cooperate with my kidnappers.

    How big of you.

    The debate to reduce the white population in America to minority status was never had.

    Talk about a lack of cooperation!

  2. Byron,

    Yup. And in a very real sense the diversity added by immigrants is perhaps the most uniquely American thing of all…

  3. Slarti:

    The children of successful immigrants are Americans in all but their names and maybe a few customs that hold over from the old country based on the guilt the parents lay on them.

    Illegal immigrants do put a burden on services but they also help by less expensive labor. So I would guess that in the aggregate they are probably more than pulling their weight. I get my lawn cut for 75 bucks but the cheapest I can get a company to do it is about $170. Multiply that by the millions of people who need their lawn cut or construction labor or restaurant labor and it is pretty easy to see that they pay their way for the most part.

    Tootie needs to take some remedial economics classes.

  4. Tootie posted:

    Slart: Why didn’t you post the text of the Law? Did you have to obfuscate with a Wikipedia summary?

    Posting a summary (from a disclosed source with a link to the actual law) that says exactly the same thing is hardly obfuscation. (I do not think that word means what you think it means – unless you are just continuing your despicable right wing tactic of trying to baselessly smear your opponent…)

    Here is an excerpt from the actual Law: [But you don’t provide a link to were you got this…]

    Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means ANY [my emphasis] of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

    (a) Killing members of the group;
    (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
    (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
    (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
    (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

    [This is exactly what I posted, but without the enumeration from (a) to (e). That’s so misleading…]

    Article III: The following acts shall be punishable:

    (a) Genocide;
    (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
    (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
    (d) Attempt to commit genocide;
    (e) Complicity in genocide.

    [Since your alleged genocide doesn’t meet the definition, this is pretty much irrelevant.]

    From the website called Prevent Genocide:

    “Genocidal acts need not kill or cause the death of members of a group. Causing serious bodily or mental harm, prevention of births and transfer of children are acts of genocide when committed as part of a policy to destroy a group’s existence.”

    And

    “Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to destroy a group includes the deliberate deprivation of resources needed for the group’s physical survival, such as clean water, food, clothing, shelter or medical services…”

    [Again, since there was no genocide by the definition above, this is irrelevant, too.]

    Americans of European descent are not able to have more children because they cannot afford them seeing that they are paying for the education, food stamps, and medical care of illegal foreign invaders and THEIR many children.

    Americans of European descent may CHOOSE to have fewer children for various reasons, but that doesn’t mean they are UNABLE to have more children. One of the ironies of narrow-minded bigots like yourself is that one of the biggest drivers of higher birth rates amongst the poor (of which a higher proportion are people of color than in the general population) is your opposition to education and access to birth control and abortion (middle class people tend to have knowledge of and access to these services). Kind of hoist on you own petard again, huh?

    Your repeated use of the term ‘illegal foreign invaders’ is interesting – if you are referring to illegal immigrants, I haven’t seen specific statistics, but the cost of their education, food stamps and medical care just isn’t that big of a percentage of the total budget for those programs – remember any children born to illegal aliens in the US are just as much citizens (and by operation of the same principle) as the natural-born child of two citizens (by the Wong Kim Ark decision of the SCOTUS). You may argue that this should be changed, but that’s what the Constitution says now. The child of illegal immigrants born on US soil has all the rights, privileges and responsibilities of a US citizen (and is eligible to be elected president – just in case birtherism is another intellectually vacuous fallacy you subscribe to).

    Americans of European descent cannot afford to send their own children to college while the children of foreign invaders go to school and are not charged out of state tuition. This impacts a lifetime of earnings benefiting those who are not even Americans.

    Are you suggesting that there is an epidemic of illegal immigrants enrolling in our state universities? Do you have any evidence for this ludicrous claim? I seriously doubt you can make any sort of case that tuition at state universities is too high because of illegal aliens paying in-state fees.

    American parents lose their job opportunities to foreign invaders (and work visa programs geared to benefit corporations and universities) and cannot take good care of their own children because of it. The health and opportunities of their own children are compromised.

    For someone living in a country built on the hard work of immigrants you sure have a lot of bile directed at immigrants. Unless you can claim Native American blood or you’re just talking about illegal immigrants (who don’t, for instance, have work visas) you’re just making a bunch of factually incorrect, narrow-minded, bigoted assertions in an attempt to justify your racist attitudes.

    And, finally, by allowing a monopoly of LEGAL immigrants from one particular ethnic group not traditional to our civilization, that group (which also reproduces at a higher rate than the native born Americans of European descent) would soon outvote the posterity of our European ancestors (like me) and vote to continue to flood the nation with their own ethnic group thereby totally replacing a race, culture, and civilization AND making them pay for it to boot.

    Wow, you are really one messed up racist twit. The strength of America is the common culture that we have built that is a melange of the diverse melting pot that is the alloy which makes this country great – new immigrants. The cultural backgrounds of newcomers don’t REPLACE American culture, they IMPROVE American culture. American culture may have started off as a virtual copy of European culture, but it’s changed enormously in the last 200 years and that adaptability is what has made us strong.

    They receive the plunder being stripped through taxation by the wealthier older Americans they are replacing.

    This makes a nice sound bite for your hate-mongering, but it bears absolutely no resemblance to the truth.

    If this isn’t genocide, I don’t know what is.

    Then we both agree – you don’t know what genocide is.

    If this was happening in Africa and a government was taking a black nation and replacing half of its population with white people through laws and immigration, the world would be outraged. Harvard would withdraw its investments. Hollywood stars would pontificate on David Letterman. And Democrats would launch a relentless media crusade against those evil whites in Africa. There would be bumper stickers and t-shirts decrying the genocide. We’d never hear the end of it.

    You know, I don’t care what color the people who come to this country are – within a generation or two they are Americans – Americans with a flavor of the ‘old country’ to be sure, but that just makes them more interesting – like a foreign accent. The truly ironic thing is that your type of bigotry is the most un-American ideology that I can think of.

    But genocide is happening to white people in America, so it is no big deal.

    There is no genocide of ‘white people’ here. Why don’t you try and open your mind and work with all the rest of your fellow Americans (white, black, brown, yellow and red) to make this country a better place like every generation of immigrants before us has done. The sad fact is that your narrow-minded bigotry only serves to make America a little less than it would otherwise be.

  5. Buddha:

    You wrote:

    “According to projects from the field of genetics (you know, one of those pesky sciences you so despise) one day there will be no more natural blonds (recessive trait that is being bred out by non-blond intermarriage) and everyone will look vaguely Chinese (because there are simply more of them to screw than any other population)…

    …You’ll note all of this will transpire without “genocide” but rather occurs by mechanism of a long chain of orgasms and pregnancies – both good things in most people’s book last time I checked.”

    My response:

    What does the natural development of the human race and skin color that have to do with the subject of intentionally destroying a racial, ethnic or religious group, and our civilization?

    NOTHING: N O T H I N G

    Then you write:

    Skin color? What’s so damned important about preserving that white skin…”

    My response: It is as least as important as preserving brown skin or making America brown, is it not? Clearly it is, because that is what you want to continue to happen by the force of law instead of the operation of love.

    If there is no value in keeping America mostly white then you cannot at the same time say skin color doesn’t matter, since you don’t want it to stay that way. You cannot have it both ways, though you do seem to be trying. If skin color doesn’t matter to you then you cannot therefore object to America staying mostly white, because you say it doesn’t matter. You argument is somewhat circular.

    And it is at this point of the argument where I always wish to bring you or anyone else I discuss this with, because it is at this point of the conversation where rational and fair-minded people should begin to see my point or at least stop calling me a racist.

    Since all skin color matters (or else it doesn’t and then it is okay to keep America mostly white, which you don’t want), then the only way to determine whether or not what is happening to us is “just” and “righteous”, is through the law, customs, tradition, and the promises made to the American people at the time BEFORE the ethnic, racial, and religious change began.

    And at that time the American people did not agree to eliminate their genetic, ethnic, cultural, and religious makeup. They did not ask their representatives to eliminate anything about their civilization including skin color. And now we are at the point where it looks like much of it is being eliminated.

    The government was given no authority to do this, and that is what the issue turns on, especially for you since you allege that skin color doesn’t matter (or it does and you are against white skin color).

  6. mespo: Well, you can stoop to all the communist tactics you want then. Have at it.

  7. Slart: Why didn’t you post the text of the Law? Did you have to obfuscate with a Wikipedia summary?

    Here is an excerpt from the actual Law:

    Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means ANY [my emphasis] of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

    (a) Killing members of the group;
    (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
    (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
    (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
    (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

    Article III: The following acts shall be punishable:

    (a) Genocide;
    (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
    (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
    (d) Attempt to commit genocide;
    (e) Complicity in genocide.

    From the website called Prevent Genocide:

    “Genocidal acts need not kill or cause the death of members of a group. Causing serious bodily or mental harm, prevention of births and transfer of children are acts of genocide when committed as part of a policy to destroy a group’s existence.”

    And

    “Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to destroy a group includes the deliberate deprivation of resources needed for the group’s physical survival, such as clean water, food, clothing, shelter or medical services…”

    Americans of European descent are not able to have more children because they cannot afford them seeing that they are paying for the education, food stamps, and medical care of illegal foreign invaders and THEIR many children.

    Americans of European descent cannot afford to send their own children to college while the children of foreign invaders go to school and are not charged out of state tuition. This impacts a lifetime of earnings benefiting those who are not even Americans.

    American parents lose their job opportunities to foreign invaders (and work visa programs geared to benefit corporations and universities) and cannot take good care of their own children because of it. The health and opportunities of their own children are compromised.

    And, finally, by allowing a monopoly of LEGAL immigrants from one particular ethnic group not traditional to our civilization, that group (which also reproduces at a higher rate than the native born Americans of European descent) would soon outvote the posterity of our European ancestors (like me) and vote to continue to flood the nation with their own ethnic group thereby totally replacing a race, culture, and civilization AND making them pay for it to boot. They receive the plunder being stripped through taxation by the wealthier older Americans they are replacing.

    If this isn’t genocide, I don’t know what is.

    If this was happening in Africa and a government was taking a black nation and replacing half of its population with white people through laws and immigration, the world would be outraged. Harvard would withdraw its investments. Hollywood stars would pontificate on David Letterman. And Democrats would launch a relentless media crusade against those evil whites in Africa. There would be bumper stickers and t-shirts decrying the genocide. We’d never hear the end of it.

    But genocide is happening to white people in America, so it is no big deal.

  8. tootie:

    “I don’t know why you want to defend the guy who thinks a thirteen year old is capable of being a hooker instead of a victim. This alone is bad enough of Vidal.”

    **************

    No one is supporting Gore Vidal’s insensitive comments. I simply will not stoop to the neo-con tactic of tarring him with words and sentiments he never expressed. It’s really about integrity – a quality that neo-cons seem totally bereft of, and with no hopes of attainment. True indictments are more compelling than the fabricated ones, made simply because you don’t like the man’s politics. When you stop seeing the world as “us against them” you might actually evolve from your tribalism. The truth is it’s just “us” – no mythical god and no unimpeachable iron age ideology and no distinction between our mutual interest in human happiness.

  9. mespo: You mention parties as if this is something with balloons, clowns, and presents. Vidal isn’t clear at all about the girl and the exact situation. And he should have not made a comment about it because he exposed himself as a fool.

    I reckon he isn’t clear or forthcoming about the situation because he has a lot to hide himself or simply doesn’t know anything about it.

    He says a horrible thing like “young hooker” (which implies a young girl was there for sex). Such comments makes everything else he says subject to doubt because if a girl is a hooker, a party is probably an orgy.

    I don’t know why you want to defend the guy who thinks a thirteen year old is capable of being a hooker instead of a victim. This alone is bad enough of Vidal.

    This whole back and forth is like trying to humanize the conduct of Marque de Sade by talking about how nice the table settings were at his banquets.

  10. Tootie said:

    When the American people were last inquired of regarding this self-determination in relation to who they would become as a nation, a heritage, and a posterity, they were promised by government officials that the 1965 Immigration Act would NOT change the ethic makeup of the American people. This understanding between the people and government was never revised.

    This statement is some really pathetic racism when you consider that most Americans are the descendants of immigrants and deeply ironic when you consider that all of the Native American tribes were the victims of genocide by the US government (pretty much exclusively white at the time). Every American should be deeply ashamed of the attitudes that you espouse. Small-minded bigots like you are really embarrassing to our country.

    Tootie said:

    There is no example in recorded history, that I know of, where the people of a major civilization eliminated themselves and replaced its own people with another population.

    The implicit assumption in this statement that people of color (specifically immigrants of color) aren’t American is yet another example of your racism.

  11. Buddha,

    I first shaved my head when my mother was having surgery for ovarian cancer (she’s since passed) and I decided that I liked the look (and the low-maintenance thing – no more bed-head!). Plus it gave me more canvas to have painted at basketball games (check out my Facebook profile photo for an example). I wear a goatee so the Lex Luthor comparison isn’t as strong if you actually meet me (I always think of Lex as clean-shaven) – by the ‘South Park’ convention, maybe I’m Lex’s good twin from the Star Trek alternate universe of ‘Mirror Mirror’. In any case, I’m flattered by the comparison to someone smart enough to be a worthy opponent of Superman. The Caddyshack reference was smoothly done. I usually use that reference when I tell people that Cal Ripken Jr. said I had a good handshake…

  12. tootie:

    You quoted Vidal about the Polansky crime and then wrote:

    “In the middle of all what? Sex with children? What did they do, trade them around?”

    You now say:

    “In the middle of all what? “What” refers directly back to the statement of the young hooker.”

    Vidal’s statement was clarified in the interview YOU referred us to when the interviewer asked, “What do you mean?” after his statement. He then explained he was familiar with the parties and was concerned about the evolving story and the perceived antisemitism. You neo-cons really must learn to read to comprehend and enlighten instead of simply to attack.

  13. Slarti,

    Bald is low maintenance if you’ve got the right head for it. I’d consider it if I thought I could pull it off. As evidenced, I have a peculiar shaped brain which ergo necessitates and peculiar shaped head unsuited for the bald look. Besides – whenever you tell someone you’re a scientist and you’re bald, a fairly large number of Western respondents will think of “Lex Luthor”. So you got that going for you. Which is nice. 😀

  14. Tootie,

    Just to try and anticipate your objection, no one is preventing the birth of white people – people of one group choosing to have fewer children (or having fewer children due to better access to and knowledge of contraception) does not constitute genocide, although I suspect that it may be an example of you being hoisted on your own petard.

    Buddha,

    I’m bald (by choice), but I never goose step… 😉

  15. Tootles,

    According to projects from the field of genetics (you know, one of those pesky sciences you so despise) one day there will be no more natural blonds (recessive trait that is being bred out by non-blond intermarriage) and everyone will look vaguely Chinese (because there are simply more of them to screw than any other population). You’ll note all of this will transpire without “genocide” but rather occurs by mechanism of a long chain of orgasms and pregnancies – both good things in most people’s book last time I checked.

    Skin color? What’s so damned important about preserving that white skin, Tootie? You running with the goose stepper skin head crowd too?

  16. Tootie,

    I didn’t answer your charge of genocide because it was in a comment addressed to Byron and I thought it was so stupid that no one would agree with you. Since you asked, Wikipedia has this to say about genocide:

    Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.[1]
    While a precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG). Article 2 of this convention defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”[2] Because of the insistence of Joseph Stalin, this definition of genocide under international law does not include political groups.[3][4]

    So, since no one is killing white people, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of white people in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent the births of white people or forcibly transferring white children to another group and not only are none of these things being done, certainly no one is even trying to do them with the intent to destroy them, your charge of genocide is ludicrous. And as for your accusing me of propaganda – that’s a classic right wing tactic (right out of Karl Rove’s playbook): try to smear your opponent with your own sins. It’s too bad you suck at it.

  17. Tootie:

    You are sort of sounding racist. What is the problem if the human race is changed into a single race? we are all the same species afterall. too many of us forget that “small” point.

    Rock on o queen of the commune.

  18. Fartblast gets mad at me and stomps around like a two-year old because I don’t give examples for the claims I make and yet I think I made a very good, basic case, providing evidence that indeed, according to International Law, genocide of whites (and protestants and people of European descent) has occurred in the United States.

    What evidence did Fartblast offer to support her claim that genocide hasn’t happened?

    It went something like this: “white genocide isn’t happening just because I said so”.

    (psst…that is what lefties call “science”)

  19. Slart: Stop propagandizing, please.

    And if it annoys you that I don’t defend the things I say, I’ll make sure to do more of it.

    Or less of it, as the case may be.

  20. Oh, and Byron (again),

    God (I think you brought him up first) disbursed the peoples of the world and sent them packing in different directions (though confusion of languages) at Babel.

    He also created many varieties of birds and other creatures.

    This is called diversity. And God said it was good.

    If whites are zapped from the human race (as you seemed to gleefully anticipate), the race of man will be less diverse. This is exactly the opposite of what liberals are always whining about. Their clarion call is diversity, diversity, diversity! But the result of their faux diversity is LESS diversity in the end.

    And finally, in the Book of Revelation, it is written that before the throne of God the human race will be represented as:

    “… a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands;” NASB

    In other words when the children of God are finally gathered together with Christ, they will STILL be seen as the distinct (diverse) members of the human race he intentionally created.

    As it is written:

    “He made from one man [Adam] every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation…”NASB

    I like how the King James says it:

    “And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation…”

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