Freedom of Speech in Europe? Hmmm.....

The recent conviction of David Irving in Austria under their Holocaust denial laws is somewhat unsettling.

Not out of respect for David Irving, but rather for the sake of free speech.

Freedom of speech is about being able to tell the truth. Whether or not Irving was telling the truth (and the evidence is clear that HE IS LYING), there can be no laws specifically banning a topic of discussion. The Austrian law is too specific. If there are to be laws that infringe on freedom of speech, they need to be general: lying and deceiving people is wrong. It's clear that Irving was manipulating history and facts. This is wrong. But it is no more wrong than a priest defrauding his flock with the story of Jesus. Or Imams stirring up hatred against Danish cartoonists.

What was it that Voltaire said... "I disagree profoundly what you say, but I would defend with my life your right to say it."

I don't think he was talking about lies.

However, there comes a small practical matter if this is our criteria on free speech. There are plenty of examples of history ACTUALLY being false, and people being told to say things that are patently untrue: the Inquisition, Galileo, etc, even though the accused knew it to be true in the first place. How are we to deal with this? It's difficult. Our criteria implies that you can know whether a person is telling the truth a priori. Which is what torturers do. So then, we have to expand our acceptance of free speech and let people say whatever they want, and clean it up afterwards. By means of a law which punishes people for lying and intentionally deceiving. But not for a specific infraction against a specific piece of history. It must be general.