In denial

[Clive]

A reader’s thoughts on David Irving and his cohorts:

One of the things that’s usually not discussed in Holocaust denial debates is the role that arguments made in bad faith play. Deniers aren’t simply people who disagree, who are exploring other ideas, or even people who are a little unhinged, but who believe what they’re saying. They’re very often people who forge documents, create deliberately misleading transcripts, suppress evidence, and so on.

This is not, in itself, a compelling argument for the Holocaust denial laws, and I would never support such laws here in America. But I think it’s an important bit of context for the discussion. The debate is usually framed as being about people who sincerely hold a goofy view for some reason. But I don’t think they believe a lot of it themselves — I don’t think it’s possible to design and implement a fraud without really understanding that it is a fraud.

Libel laws are restrictions on free speech that we live with because they only apply to lies. The Holocaust denial laws don’t specifically restrict themselves to people who are lying, but in practice, that’s the way they’re usually applied.