87-year old jailed for Holocaust denial in Germany

[MJHolland 12,725]

*cries about thread getting off topic*

*Continues to derail the thread further off topic*

I see you  

Anyways, there does seem to be a clear divide from the European perspectives versus the American perspective, which I for one thing is rather interesting.

The law the woman was jailed under was passed in the wake of WWII when all of Europe was afraid of slipping back into authoritarian forms of government, which is an entirely valid fear after what happened after the first world war.

It's just that it's a very foreign concept for Americans to be told that someone in Europe can he thrown in jail (much less a 87 year old woman) for saying something because it might hurt someone's feelings. Like someone else said, there are plenty of people in the US they think 9/11 was either an inside job or was staged altogether and no one really died, and they're entirely free to believe so.

There's a saying in America that goes along the lines of "I hate what you have to say, but I'll give my life defending your right to say it." It seems like the rest of the world doesn't share the same sentiment.

[Morphine Prince 109,683]

1 minute ago, MJHolland said:

*cries about thread getting off topic*

*Continues to derail the thread further off topic*

I see you  

Fight me.

[Benji 20,113]

9 minutes ago, Morphine Prince said:

It does but honestly the media is called out when it's obvious it's pushing some sort of agenda. As for the perception of others, the only one I see doing that is Fox News most of the time. The other channels just provide regular news.

The people who hold these beliefs against certain groups have been holding them for a long time. In fact, US media is called out now for being too liberal by conservatives while they ignore Fox News. 

Without a law protecting your media though, there's nothing stopping someone investing in all of them and swaying their agendas to align with their own. That still happens all over the globe, even here and it effects what is reported and some minor biased alignments but without a law protecting you, you could very well end up with every news channel becoming a replica of Fox News or worse.

[MJHolland 12,725]

3 minutes ago, Morphine Prince said:

Fight me.

Hehehe, okay 

[lego 44,165]

I don't want to take any sides, but I just have to say one thing - "87yo thrown to jail" gives kind of brutal image, she most likely walked accompanied by cops (not everyone gets handcuffed unless they resist) and the prisons in EU are not like in tv series like Shield or Oz, if you imagine them that way. They are almost like hotels, with warm meals, library, gym, Internet and some can even study politics (like Breivik!) or go home on weekends. So she just got 10 months holiday... kind of.  

[Benji 20,113]

2 minutes ago, MJHolland said:

It's just that it's a very foreign concept for Americans to be told that someone in Europe can he thrown in jail (much less a 87 year old woman) for saying something because it might hurt someone's feelings. Like someone else said, there are plenty of people in the US they think 9/11 was either an inside job or was staged altogether and no one really died, and they're entirely free to believe so.

There's a saying in America that goes along the lines of "I hate what you have to say, but I'll give my life defending your right to say it." It seems like the rest of the world doesn't share the same sentiment.

It's not really about hurting someone's feelings though, I disagree with some of the guys on previous pages thinking that's why the law is there because it isn't. The law is literally there to protect people from discrimination and is actually not hugely common to be taken to this extent, but this woman has a large history of discrimination.

I suppose the best way I can explain it is, imagine if every news outlet began blaming everything on the gays, naturally there would be an increase on homophobic attacks and discrimination, the law is there to prevent that!

People can still easily have controversial views and they can freely express them, the law is just enforced to stop propaganda.

I mean it's illegal to burn a copy of a CD in England but they didn't arrest Betty and her granddaughter for burning a copy of the littler mermaid soundtrack. It's only on large scale bootleggers who burn huge amounts of copies and sell them on that the law would ever go after. It's just there for protection.

[Benji 20,113]

16 minutes ago, Haroon said:

It's "paedophiles" in England, Benji's English

Sorry just wanted to quickly say that, gonna go crawl back under the rock I came from now  

I wasn't even going to acknowledge that. Trying to correct someone's spelling with bastardized English is quite ironic when they're talking about intelligence. 

---

I'm totes joking........ lowkey(ish), but I'm joking 

[Benji 20,113]

4 minutes ago, lego said:

I don't want to take any sides, but I just have to say one thing - "87yo thrown to jail" gives kind of brutal image, she most likely walked accompanied by cops (not everyone gets handcuffed unless they resist) and the prisons in EU are not like in tv series like Shield or Oz, if you imagine them that way. They are almost like hotels, with warm meals, library, gym, Internet and some can even study politics (like Breivik!) or go home on weekends. So she just got 10 months holiday... kind of.  

Shhhh... let them believe she's spending hard time with murderers and is getting shanked with a toothbrush as we speak instead of probably being in a low-security prison knitting with the inmates whilst discussing the news... It's funny 

[killerk 0]

7 minutes ago, Benji said:

This is a hugely grey area however.

The law isn't about the government controlling the media, it's actually the opposite. When there aren't laws in place to uphold a standard of reporting, the government could easily assume control of the media and have only their agenda broadcasted. When there is a law protecting it's people from biased media and discrimination, the government (formed / voted in by the people and our house of lords) would have to agree on destroying the law to allow them to assume full control, which would never happen as it goes against all of the party's interests.

Even if in some bizarre universe they did manage to remove the law, it's not a dictatorship and within a few years, a new vote would happen and a new parliament would be in place.

The difficulty lies in what you call a 'standard of reporting'. This is an arbitrarily determined line dividing the beliefs which are ok to report and the ones which are not. The lawmakers and the courts are determining where that line lies, and there is no fixed standard at all about where that line should be drawn - there is no clear distinction between acceptable beliefs and unacceptable ones, it is an untenable position to assume that such a line can ever be drawn. There is a great deal of philosophy on the subject, essentially about what conduct can and cannot be justifiably criminalized, if you google 'the harm principle'.  

Where there are no laws saying what can be broadcast and what cannot, then it is a free for all. Organisations with money can gain more clout, but they cannot stop other people reporting conflicting stories or going against them. They cannot imprison those who broadcast different beliefs. And in the modern age with the internet, social media and all the other public forums it is unrealistic to suggest that they can control what people believe, even though they can of course influence it.

This is a system that works far better in the long run, is far more resistant to outside influence and propaganda, and (i personally believe) affords people the dignity of believing whatever they want to in their own heads.

[Benji 20,113]

1 minute ago, killerk said:

The difficulty lies in what you call a 'standard of reporting'. This is an arbitrarily determined line dividing the beliefs which are ok to report and the ones which are not. The lawmakers and the courts are determining where that line lies, and there is no fixed standard at all about where that line should be drawn - there is no clear distinction between acceptable beliefs and unacceptable ones, it is an untenable position to assume that such a line can ever be drawn. There is a great deal of philosophy on the subject, essentially about what conduct can and cannot be justifiably criminalized, if you google 'the harm principle'.  

Where there are no laws saying what can be broadcast and what cannot, then it is a free for all. Organisations with money can gain more clout, but they cannot stop other people reporting conflicting stories or going against them. They cannot imprison those who broadcast different beliefs. And in the modern age with the internet, social media and all the other public forums it is unrealistic to suggest that they can control what people believe, even though they can of course influence it.

This is a system that works far better in the long run, is far more resistant to outside influence and propaganda, and (i personally believe) affords people the dignity of believing whatever they want to in their own heads.

I don't think you have first hand experience with this form of unbiased reporting though. It does not mean that someone can't have an opinion and express it, it simply stops hugely influential people passing off their opinion as fact. That's where this line is.

There's a tonne of opinions and biased views on our news however it can't be reported as fact. It stops false news being reported, the anchor or guests can still share their opinions, no matter how biased but they can't outright state something false as true. They can theorise it. You could easily say that you believe the Holocaust didn't happen (here in the UK) if you're talking about your theory instead of expressing it as a fact.

[Church 849]

1 hour ago, Born To Slay said:

Fair enough, it just read a little coldly but I'm sure that wasn't the intent

I didn't mean to sound cold & apologize if I did

[Qualle1 1,385]

2 hours ago, Morphine Prince said:

Disappointed in you guys turning this discussion into a nationalist one. I thought you were all more mature. 

Guess the true feelings came out, eh? 

Say this to your US-American gang...

 

[Melech 9,900]

6 hours ago, Evan Peters said:

this would've been clever had you known proper english.

whops

3 hours ago, Church said:

Your grandmom needs thicker skin. Period. The old lady is being jailed because of her beliefs and it's not right or warranted by any means at all. Thankfully, most people share my feelings about it. 

She survived the Holocaust. 4 of her 5 siblings died. She saw 2 of them dying in front of her. Her father being killed. And the rest of the family. Only her mother and one sister survived. Tell her again to grow a thicker skin. 

[Melech 9,900]

1 hour ago, RubberHeartt said:

Are you stupid? It's pedophiles by the way. They are directly hurting someone in the sense that the more they trade child ****ography, the more child ****ography will be made, hurting children along the way. Meanwhile, a belief is just a belief. Jailing someone for their personal belief is as stupid as jailing Shonda Rhimes for pretty much saying Gaga's Oscar performance sucked. That is her personal belief/opinion.

because saying gagas performance sucked and denying the murder of over 6 million people is completely the same.

[killerk 0]

3 minutes ago, Benji said:

I don't think you have first hand experience with this form of unbiased reporting though. It does not mean that someone can't have an opinion and express it, it simply stops hugely influential people passing off their opinion as fact. That's where this line is.

There's a tonne of opinions and biased views on our news however it can't be reported as fact. It stops false news being reported, the anchor or guests can still share their opinions, no matter how biased but they can't outright state something false as true. They can theorise it. You could easily say that you believe the Holocaust didn't happen (here in the UK) if you're talking about your theory instead of expressing it as a fact.

I'm from the UK, and we have no laws whatsoever which make it unlawful to publish 'false' material as true. Defamation is a different law based on different principles which may often have that effect - but it is characterized in line with the harm principle as dividing those publications which cause direct, unjustified harm to the reputation of another individual or company, and those which do not cause direct harm. Only those which have caused harm will then be subject to the justification test and must be proven 'true' by the publisher if they are to defend against the action brought against them.

The point being that defamation only impacts upon a very small subset of all free speech - that which is capable of causing direct harm to someone else or their reputation. It is only that particular speech which must satisfy the test of justification, of being correct. I am free to say I don't believe in God, I don't believe in evolution, I dont think the UK existed before 1900, I think dinosaurs are a myth perpetrated by crazy scientists. I am free to publish all these beliefs, and to do so as fact - There is no god, there were no dinosaurs, evolution is a lie. It is only in those very small circumstances where what I'm saying will directly harm the reputation of another that my words have any kind of regulation or scrutiny. The law imposing itself upon my freedom of speech must be justified before it can be allowed to do so - with only the flimsy grounding based on my 'false' or 'immoral' but ultimately harmless statement, a law cannot restrict my freedom and autonomy. Such is the case because we respect human dignity and the freedom to choose for ourselves our own lives, so long as we do not cause undue harm to those around us.

A control on publications based on what is true or false is untenable because there are so many situations where the truth is subjective or it is downright impossible to distinguish between a truth and a belief. It is also unjustified if you take personal freedom and autonomy with any degree of seriousness, as it is only open to the law to restrict your freedoms where that restriction is justified as preventing a greater harm. Once you allow the true/false test to escape the boundaries of words capable of causing damage to a person or reputation, then where does it end? Do not forget that everything posted online, on twitter, on facebook could be subjected to these tests, and it would be a sad day indeed if we had no freedom to say or do anything that could be found to be false, regardless of the limited effect of our words.   

I think I'm rambling at this point and need to go to bed. Thanks for the discussion though, it was very interesting