David Irving Goes To Prison

VIENNA, Austria (AP) — Right-wing British historian David Irving pleaded guilty Monday to denying the Holocaust and was sentenced to three years in prison, even after conceding he wrongly said there were no Nazi gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp. AP

It goes without saying that this is an utterly reprehensible action, one I might expect to have seen a victorious Nazi Germany commit — a Nazi Germany as portrayed by the Jewish-dominated media at least — rather than the supposedly freedom-loving nations who’ve come to prosper as a result of Nazi Germany’s defeat.

Let’s be clear as to what is being said here: There is no evidence that Jews were systematically or deliberately targeted for destruction. There can’t be, because if there was, we wouldn’t need to throw people in prison for saying otherwise. We would be able to disprove these allegations in open debate. We would be able to do to David Irving what we routinely do to other people who advance unpopular or unsound theories or ideas, advance competing theories and ideas that make more sense or that conform more generally to the facts at hand and let each person decide for themselves which is true and which is nonsense.

Prior to all these arrests of so-called Holocaust deniers, I had no problem with the official version of events in WWII. Now I do. We are obviously being lied to. Moreover, the lie must be a whopper, something of such import that were the truth revealed something of great worth to those in power would be lost as a result. History is written by the victors, we are reminded time and again. So the question now before us is, what lies are present in today’s version of events for that time period and whose interests are being served? Why is it so damned important that we be made to see history in exactly this one way and not any other?

It certainly isn’t to prevent the same mistakes from happening all over again, because they are! Even accepting conventional WWII history as all being true, it is still plain to the naked eye that today’s governments are every bit as brutal as the ones that came before. It is easy to portray Nazi Germany as the epitome of all evil when only one side of the story gets presented, as easy as it is convenient to try to hide from view all manner of evil as performed by our government today.

If it is the lessons one particular version of history teaches that causes us to demand obedience to it, then must it not be demonstrated that we’ve learned from that history, and that those events repugnant to us are not being repeated?

We need to stop killing each other. I think banning what is called “hate speech” has the purpose of stopping or reducing violence, so I can endorse the intent if not the actual mechanism that is being employed here. I note that even with the prohibition against “hate speech” in place, violence is just as prevalent today as it was before the prohibition was put in place; of particular note is the behavior of governments today, esp. that of Israel, the United States and Great Britain. These governments are of note not only because they claim to uphold democratic principles but because you and I likely give these governments support, even if only indirectly, and so we become complicit in the atrocities they commit as a result.

If we are serious about banning speech that can promote violence, that is, if we are willing to abandon those principles which we’ve heretofore held out as what separates western civilization from the rest of the world, then I recommend we look at banning not just one version of history or another but banning history outright.

I say this because when I enumerate the many and varied acts of violence that are inspired by hatred, I find that each example of hatred can lay claim as its root some other example of hatred that had been committed before it. That is, there does not appear to be an original act of hatred from which all other hatred stems. And so it follows that every act of violence is seen as retaliation for some act of violence committed before.

It is the fact of history that allows for this. If we continue recording present-day atrocity as fact, we furnish the fuel through which future atrocity will be justified. And this is greatly complicated by those who seek to use history as a weapon, as appears to be the case today where jewish supremacists seek to impose a version of events that allows them to rationalize, if not outright excuse, the actions of the state of Israel, or drug warriors here in the United States who create out of whole cloth a history of the consequences of drug abuse that allows for the promotion of the idea that the best way to keep drugs out of the hands of our children is actually by letting criminals decide who gets to use drugs.

The wars on drugs and terror are both based on such lies, on such invented history, and the damage inflicted on mankind is simply incalculable. Indeed, it may be irreversible.

So I say, if we are to ban some history, let us ban all of it. More than a few grave injustices will be buried in the process but if it succeeds in preventing future injustice then it is certainly something worth pursuing, isn’t it? If we are going to abandon the principles upon which our society has prospered for all these many years, then let’s at least get something positive in return.

Let’s at least put an end to the violence.

It would be nice if we could apply this line of thinking to religion too. Wars fought over religion are really nothing more than wars fought over competing versions of history. I don’t dispute the existence of God. I just think that God is in front of us, not behind us. And that if we are to ever reach God, it will only be because we’ve finally managed to stop killing each other.

And if we do manage to ban all of history and we do succeed in putting an end to the cycle of violence, let’s do remember to acknowledge the sacrifice of men like Ernst Zundel and David Irving in making it all possible.