Lamprecht wrote:I do not think that drawing cartoons of Muhammad should be banned, but if someone is going to talk about "Freedom of Speech" it is easier to make the argment that such cartoons should be banned than "Holocaust" research.
Mostly, drawing these pictures is just a matter of trying to be offensive for its own sake, it's not much of a political or ideological statement. Advocating research into a historical event - along with sharing political ideas - is what the USA Founding Fathers meant when they said "Freedom of Speech and Expression." They weren't talking about speech
which is obscene solely for the purpose of being obscene.
Here's a page on this topic:
Obscenity and the First Amendmenthttps://courses2.cit.cornell.edu/social ... ndment.htm
In 1973, in Miller v. California (413 U.S. 15), the Supreme Court wrote the following for factfinders attempting to determine if a given material were obscene:
"The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be:
(a) whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value."
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I hear your argument and actually find it conclusive. Historiographic, scientific research pertaining to the validity of Holocaust claims is in a completely different ball-park than drawings of an obscene nature relating to a supposed prophet of hundreds of years ago.
They may have some entertainment value, perhaps even being artistic, but any scientific value may be absent, plain and simple. The main objective seems to be provocation here, provocation to sell a magazine. So the primary aim is actually commercial.
Revisionist literature may be provocative to many, even the majority of people brought up in Holocaust belief, but it is essentially aiming to further knowledge about a certain era in order to challenge present prejudices or to contribute to a more realistic historiography.
It either formulates hypothesis and argues for conclusion or presents previously rather unknown facts, perhaps it refutes certain claims as well.
Holocaust enforcers won't see it that way. Or they see it, but don't want to admit it, of course.
They claim that the goal of "Holocaust Denial" is primarily political in the sense that it would bring Adolf Hitler back to power again. This btw. a rather interesting notion, because it implies that this would be their best argument against National Socialism. It also reveals that their aim of pushing the Holocaust and persecuting Revisionists is basically of a political nature and that their interest in correct historiography is secondary at best. The more historically educated of the Holocaust enforcers will of course try to be as precise as possible with their attempt at proving their point, since they need the appearance of the Holocaust being supported by "serious historians". But in the end it's all part of innuendo. No extermination plan, no proof of homicidal gas chambers and no body count that is remotely close to six million. The figure they must admit, is symbolic at best.
In the trials against Revisionists it was argued that they publish material "denying the Holocaust" for ulterior motives:
- Inciting hate against Jews.
- Rehabilitating Adolf Hitler and the "Nazis".
- Violating the dignity of the dead.
- Accusing witnesses of lying in a libellous manner.
- Forging history
- Publishing pseudo-scientific materials.
That's really some effort being spent to shut up researchers and publishers supposedly because they are wrong on history. Why couldn't they simply do some research in Auschwitz and prove the homicidal purpose of the morgues they allege were gas chambers? The German government had the resources and found the 'experts' to minimise the victim figures of the bombing of Dresden. Why not do the same with Auschwitz or any other concentration camp they allege were an extermination centre.
"Applying contemporary community standards" is also an argument of note. That's how public platforms were purged from Holocaust Revisionist materials, videos, podcasts etc. Of course they play the hate card in all those cases, but isn't the promotion of an alleged genocide on a repetitive basis itself hate propaganda?
That propaganda relating to "Nazi atrocities" aimed at a political purpose was admitted American experts shortly after 1945 already.
During the first months of the occupation, the
Psychological Warfare Branch of the United States Army, being charged with the control of public information in Germany, undertook a campaign through Radio Luxembourg, the controlled German-language press, and special posters and pamphlets to acquaint the German people with the extent and nature of concentration- camp atrocities. The development of a
sense of collective responsibility was considered a prerequisite to any
long-term education of the German people. Later, editorial comment drew a distinction between those legally guilty of having directly committed atrocities and those morally responsible for
having allowed National Socialism to come into being and for having tolerated its crimes.
https://archive.org/details/MorrisJanow ... Atrocities
Actually, this summarizes Holocausting pretty well. It however seems that this issue was dropped during the 1950s, when Germany was rebuilding itself. One can of course speculate about the reasons here. It flamed up again in the 1960s after the show trials of 'Eichmann' and Auschwitz camp stuff in Frankfurt. It was pushed more during the late 1970s with the release of the Soap Opera "Holocaust" by various Television Stations internationally. Those that say that this is an organised campaign by Jewish organisations and others are of course "conspiracy theorists". It seems there is more to that theory than just wild hypothesizing.