The Tease of Things I Don't Need

Criminalization instead of confrontation?
(or Who's denying what?)

I've been aware that it's been illegal to publicly make a Nazi salute in Germany for decades, and I understand that such moves are part of an ongoing international apology for the Third Reich and their way of telling the world they'd never allow it to take root there again. Fair enough, though I'm a great believer that any measure to simply suppress something is doomed to failure. It only lends it a mystique that will, in time, bring it adherents.

So, I suppose you can understand where I stand on the three year conviction of a Holocaust denier.

The conviction and sentencing of British historian David Irving for the crime of denying the Holocaust is only going to lend him and his views the same mystique that every crank who's been suppressed by authority, all of whom want to paint themselves as a modern day Galileo, bring the Truth that "they" don't want people to know. It doesn't matter that he's been moved to publicly renounce his views -- Galileo did the same thing in order to save his skin, but it didn't really change what he believed.