Another Reason I'm Proud to be an American

And very glad not to be an Austrian.  This from the Yahoo News, hat tip to the Volokh Conspiracy:

Right-wing British historian David Irving, who once famously said that Adolf Hitler knew nothing about the systematic slaughter of 6 million Jews, has been arrested in Austria on a warrant accusing him of denying the Holocaust.

Irving, 67, was detained Nov. 11 in the southern province of Styria on a warrant issued in 1989 under Austrian laws making Holocaust denial a crime, police Maj. Rudolf Gollia, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said Thursday.

. . . Irving remained in custody Thursday at a prison in Graz, 120 miles south of Vienna, the Austria Press Agency reported, although that could not be confirmed.

If formally charged, tried and convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison, said Otto Schneider of the public prosecutor's office.

Its one thing to point out, as I am doing now, that Holocaust deniers are to legitimate historiography what astrologers are to astronomy, except that astrologers may be as nice as they are silly, while Holocaust deniers are invariably black of heart and twisted in mind.  In 1988 I was invited to an international conference on the Holocaust held in Oxford England where I delivered a paper supported the philosopher Emil Fachenheim's view of the radical evil of the Holocaust.  I confess that I have not read Mr. Irving's work and do not plan to.  Judging from what I do know of it, his ideas are as offensive as any that I could think of. 

But it is appalling that someone could be threatened with 20 years in the slammer for expressing ideas that are offensive to the state.  Freedom to think and to speak one's mind necessarily includes the freedom to think and express bad thoughts.  And such men as Irving do us a service, if only to remind us of how wrong it is possible to go. 

I flatter myself that such could not happen in the U.S.  Be assured of one thing: a Supreme Court consisting of Antonin Scalia and eight Scalia clones would strike down any such law in a heartbeat.  God bless America.