7 ms·

>> He tried to convince the world that the crime didn't actually happen and even worse tried to convince the world that the dead were actors and other nonsense.

>> He tried to convince the world that the crime didn't actually happen and even worse tried to convince the world that the dead were actors and other nonsense. I'm a Jewish grandson of Holocaust survivors. I'm also American. I'm pretty happy our country has not adopted laws against holocaust denial in the way Germany or Canada have. I appreciate the thought behind those laws. But I appreciate freedom of speech more. And I do have faith that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and that truth will prevail over lies. On the other hand, but not in contradiction, I'm also a huge fan of the American system of Tort Law. It's the discovery and enforcement mechanism of a free country. I think in this case, the system is working exactly as intended. No one is jailing Jones for his speech. But he can be held responsible for the damage that resulted from it, in a way that will dissuade others from profiting off of similar attempts to rewrite history.

busyant 4y ago
i hope you're correct, but i suspect that swiss bank accounts, shell corporations, clever accountants and "gifting" money to friends and family will say otherwise.
- ggm 4y ago
  Those Swiss bankers are equally indiscriminate. They allowed a minority of wealthy refugees to hide value and allowed Nazism to hide expropriated goods and money, stolen from those self same wealthy refugee's less savvy compatriots, and continue to hide this wealth alongside the more quotidian tax avoiders and druglords and arms dealers. What I find fascinating is that even after panama papers the banking system is reluctant to really tackle the problem. We learn more from whistle-blower and (possibly law breaching) seizure of strong boxes, than we do from Swiss banks voluntarily. They really only love money. Social justice is nothing. Swiss neutrality is an enabler of bad things, in finance.
bandyaboot 4y ago
The opposing, though not necessarily contradictory cliche is of course some variation of “a lie makes it around the world before the truth is out of bed”. That’s the problem, there’s plenty of situations where the lie has done it’s damage long before the truth can achieve much beyond the academic.
- wernercd 4y ago
  and it's still more important to have free speech because who decides "truth" and "lie"... and what happens when those in power switch and the other side decides. Want Biden or Obama to have some power? Are you going to be okay with Bush or Trump gets that power?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - krapp 4y ago
    Political parties and Presidents don't decide what truth is and what lies are in the United States, or other free countries.
    - adamredwoods 4y ago
      Yes they can. They cannot enforce their decisions directly. They can certainly influence, and perhaps even form alliances that propagate those decisions. With those alliances, some decisions can be made into law.
      - krapp 4y ago
        If they can't enforce their decisions, they're not really making decisions. GP was implying that regulating speech meant "truth" and "lies" would depend entirely on which political party happened to be in power at the time. But we already live in a society in which speech is regulated, and that doesn't happen. Trump tried as hard as he could, but every lie he spouted was still pushed against, much to his dismay. He convinced people who already bought into the party line, but no one else was forced into accepting or spreading his point of view. Freedom of speech still exists where debate, conflict and truth discovery can still occur. Regulating speech mediates free speech, but doesn't have to eliminate it. The marketplace of ideas can accept that some ideas are not worth keeping.
        johnmosermd 4y ago
gerdesj 4y ago
"I'm a Jewish grandson of Holocaust survivors. I'm also American." Fair enough. My Jewish roots (int al) are rather more convoluted than yours. "I'm pretty happy our country has not adopted laws against holocaust denial in the way Germany or Canada have." Both of my parents were soldiers and I grew up in West Germany and the UK in the 1970s-1990s (on and off, here and there!) Tort is to do with contract law. Be American as much as you can - and I will stand in your corner for that too. However there is some history here and Jones was riffing and profiteering on an event that was nominally genocide and he described it as such. Please don't mistake free speech for hate and spite.
- UIUC_06 4y ago
  > Please don't mistake free speech for hate and spite if you'd put this some other way, I'd be down with it. However, people who say "hate speech is not free speech" are just plain wrong. Yes, it is.
bumblebritches5 4y ago
sleepybrett 4y ago
They might jail him for perjury though...
nineplay 4y ago
> And I do have faith that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and that truth will prevail over lies. I wish I had that faith but I think the Holocaust stands as a pretty big counter-argument. I'm genuinely curious about your faith, do you think that something could have been done in Germany in the 30s which would have preserved free speech and prevented the Holocaust?
- adventured 4y ago
  The KKK was thoroughly defeated as a power in the US thanks entirely to the US system of freedom of speech; the KKK had a very large, potent base at one time. They were not outlawed as a group, sunlight-as-disinfectant overwhelmingly won out (and no, the US still having a small number of KKK members with next to zero political power isn't a good counter point). It was the ability to tightly regulate and limit speech that assisted the Nazis in coming to power and implementing totalitarianism in Germany. It's extremely obvious that Trump (his government, his admin) not being able to control the media, control speech, was a really good thing. And that's true whether it's a terrible Republican or terrible Democrat, or any other terrible politician, that is in power. If you give them one big lever of speech control to start from, they'll expand that control, you can count on that.
  - MrMan 4y ago
    I know very wealthy people in the south who are giving a lot of money to militias. does that count?
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > The KKK was thoroughly defeated as a power in the US thanks entirely to the US system of freedom of speech; the KKK had a very large, potent base at one time. They were not outlawed as a group, sunlight-as-disinfectant overwhelmingly won out While the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 didn't, you are correct, outlaw the Klan as a group, it did authorize a whole lot of measures—including authorizing federal military force and suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, and new federal civil and criminal causes of action—to combat their actions and those of similar groups, and those authorities were liberally used in suppressing them. Describing the successful strategy as “sunlight as disinfectant” rather than massive application of force is... not grounded in fact.
golemiprague 4y ago
[dead]
adamredwoods 4y ago
Meh... I always look back to this case when anyone talks about free speech. It's a tough pill to swallow here in the US. I would be more than angry, and emotionally scarred, if anyone picketed near a family member's funeral. https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/facts-and-case-summary-snyder-v-phelps https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-a...
jjeaff 4y ago
It should be noted that this defamation case is not a simple case of denying a reality thus causing trauma to the victims. Jones called out some of these parents by name, put their photos and the photos of their children on his show. Then he did nothing while his audience harassed and threatened these parents for years. Some having to move multiple times and hire private security guards because of Jone's show. He continued defaming these parents on his show even up to the morning of one of the last days of this recent trial saying that the mother was "slow" and being manipulated by the government. In my opinion, this whole ordeal is pretty close to being deserving of a criminal trial because his speech has incited violence and harassment again and again on these parents.
AdamJacobMuller 4y ago
Every time I've had the misfortune to speak with actual Nazis, the first, and commonly the loudest talking point they make in support of their beliefs is that, if what they are saying is fake and is so easily debunkable, why do people feel the need to censor them? The argument is obviously wrong, for a number of reasons, but I wouldn't mind denying them that talking point.
- spiralx 4y ago
  Why do libel and slander laws exist when someone can just debunk any lies told about them? And then the next lie, and the next one, and so on... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaPgDQkmqqM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaPgDQkmqqM

busyant 4y ago

i hope you're correct, but i suspect that swiss bank accounts, shell corporations, clever accountants and "gifting" money to friends and family will say otherwise.

ggm 4y ago
Those Swiss bankers are equally indiscriminate. They allowed a minority of wealthy refugees to hide value and allowed Nazism to hide expropriated goods and money, stolen from those self same wealthy refugee's less savvy compatriots, and continue to hide this wealth alongside the more quotidian tax avoiders and druglords and arms dealers. What I find fascinating is that even after panama papers the banking system is reluctant to really tackle the problem. We learn more from whistle-blower and (possibly law breaching) seizure of strong boxes, than we do from Swiss banks voluntarily. They really only love money. Social justice is nothing. Swiss neutrality is an enabler of bad things, in finance.

bandyaboot 4y ago

The opposing, though not necessarily contradictory cliche is of course some variation of “a lie makes it around the world before the truth is out of bed”. That’s the problem, there’s plenty of situations where the lie has done it’s damage long before the truth can achieve much beyond the academic.

wernercd 4y ago
and it's still more important to have free speech because who decides "truth" and "lie"... and what happens when those in power switch and the other side decides. Want Biden or Obama to have some power? Are you going to be okay with Bush or Trump gets that power?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- krapp 4y ago
  Political parties and Presidents don't decide what truth is and what lies are in the United States, or other free countries.
  - adamredwoods 4y ago
    Yes they can. They cannot enforce their decisions directly. They can certainly influence, and perhaps even form alliances that propagate those decisions. With those alliances, some decisions can be made into law.
    - krapp 4y ago
      If they can't enforce their decisions, they're not really making decisions. GP was implying that regulating speech meant "truth" and "lies" would depend entirely on which political party happened to be in power at the time. But we already live in a society in which speech is regulated, and that doesn't happen. Trump tried as hard as he could, but every lie he spouted was still pushed against, much to his dismay. He convinced people who already bought into the party line, but no one else was forced into accepting or spreading his point of view. Freedom of speech still exists where debate, conflict and truth discovery can still occur. Regulating speech mediates free speech, but doesn't have to eliminate it. The marketplace of ideas can accept that some ideas are not worth keeping.
      - johnmosermd 4y ago

gerdesj 4y ago

"I'm a Jewish grandson of Holocaust survivors. I'm also American." Fair enough. My Jewish roots (int al) are rather more convoluted than yours. "I'm pretty happy our country has not adopted laws against holocaust denial in the way Germany or Canada have." Both of my parents were soldiers and I grew up in West Germany and the UK in the 1970s-1990s (on and off, here and there!) Tort is to do with contract law. Be American as much as you can - and I will stand in your corner for that too. However there is some history here and Jones was riffing and profiteering on an event that was nominally genocide and he described it as such. Please don't mistake free speech for hate and spite.

UIUC_06 4y ago
> Please don't mistake free speech for hate and spite if you'd put this some other way, I'd be down with it. However, people who say "hate speech is not free speech" are just plain wrong. Yes, it is.

bumblebritches5 4y ago

sleepybrett 4y ago

They might jail him for perjury though...

nineplay 4y ago

> And I do have faith that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and that truth will prevail over lies. I wish I had that faith but I think the Holocaust stands as a pretty big counter-argument. I'm genuinely curious about your faith, do you think that something could have been done in Germany in the 30s which would have preserved free speech and prevented the Holocaust?

adventured 4y ago
The KKK was thoroughly defeated as a power in the US thanks entirely to the US system of freedom of speech; the KKK had a very large, potent base at one time. They were not outlawed as a group, sunlight-as-disinfectant overwhelmingly won out (and no, the US still having a small number of KKK members with next to zero political power isn't a good counter point). It was the ability to tightly regulate and limit speech that assisted the Nazis in coming to power and implementing totalitarianism in Germany. It's extremely obvious that Trump (his government, his admin) not being able to control the media, control speech, was a really good thing. And that's true whether it's a terrible Republican or terrible Democrat, or any other terrible politician, that is in power. If you give them one big lever of speech control to start from, they'll expand that control, you can count on that.
- MrMan 4y ago
  I know very wealthy people in the south who are giving a lot of money to militias. does that count?
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > The KKK was thoroughly defeated as a power in the US thanks entirely to the US system of freedom of speech; the KKK had a very large, potent base at one time. They were not outlawed as a group, sunlight-as-disinfectant overwhelmingly won out While the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 didn't, you are correct, outlaw the Klan as a group, it did authorize a whole lot of measures—including authorizing federal military force and suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, and new federal civil and criminal causes of action—to combat their actions and those of similar groups, and those authorities were liberally used in suppressing them. Describing the successful strategy as “sunlight as disinfectant” rather than massive application of force is... not grounded in fact.

golemiprague 4y ago

[dead]

adamredwoods 4y ago

Meh... I always look back to this case when anyone talks about free speech. It's a tough pill to swallow here in the US. I would be more than angry, and emotionally scarred, if anyone picketed near a family member's funeral. https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/facts-and-case-summary-snyder-v-phelps https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-a...

jjeaff 4y ago

It should be noted that this defamation case is not a simple case of denying a reality thus causing trauma to the victims. Jones called out some of these parents by name, put their photos and the photos of their children on his show. Then he did nothing while his audience harassed and threatened these parents for years. Some having to move multiple times and hire private security guards because of Jone's show. He continued defaming these parents on his show even up to the morning of one of the last days of this recent trial saying that the mother was "slow" and being manipulated by the government. In my opinion, this whole ordeal is pretty close to being deserving of a criminal trial because his speech has incited violence and harassment again and again on these parents.

AdamJacobMuller 4y ago

Every time I've had the misfortune to speak with actual Nazis, the first, and commonly the loudest talking point they make in support of their beliefs is that, if what they are saying is fake and is so easily debunkable, why do people feel the need to censor them? The argument is obviously wrong, for a number of reasons, but I wouldn't mind denying them that talking point.

spiralx 4y ago
Why do libel and slander laws exist when someone can just debunk any lies told about them? And then the next lie, and the next one, and so on... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaPgDQkmqqM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaPgDQkmqqM