Political correctness gone mad in Austria and at Harvard!

This is the constrained admission of an acclaimed historian and author of 30 books who made a veritable fortune peddling revisionist nonsense about the Holocaust – including his infamous charge to fellow historians to help put an end to the Jews’ “gas chambers fairy tale”. But, alas, his Saul of Tarsus conversion – on the way to court – did not work. Because, on Monday, a jury in Vienna, Austria convicted controversial British historian David Irving of the dubious crime of “denying the Holocaust”.

Many countries have laws that make it a more serious offense to commit a crime motivated by hate (eg. “hate crimes” like the gay bashing of Mathew Shepard). But, in addition to Austria, a number of countries – including Germany, France, Belgium, Czech Republic Switzerland and Israel – have a law that makes it a crime if a person merely denies that the Holocaust is an historical fact (which puts an entirely new perspective on “hate speech“). Of course, I can appreciate the zealousness amongst Austrians to appear more Jewish than the Jews in this regard. After all, their compatriot’s collaborated with the Nazis in perpetrating the Holocaust; and, that Adolf Hitler was born in Austria must be a truly embarrassing historical fact!

Nonetheless, these laws put an untenable chill on freedom of speech – attaching as they do an Orwellian peril to personal liberty. For example, I can understand imposing civil penalties – such as the fine that was assessed against Irving by a German court in 1992 for saying the Auschwitz gas chambers were a hoax. Indeed, it seems eminently more sensible (and just) to create a civil cause of action whereby Irving could be sued – until his dying day – by anyone who claims his views inflict extreme emotional distress.

But throwing Irving in jail (for three years no less) smacks of a politically-correct abuse of the criminal justice system. Why not burn his books too, like the Nazis might have done? This is an egregious act of state oppression – even if it’s intended to quiet this “active Holocaust denier [and] anti-Semitic racist”: Which is how British High Court Judge Charles Gray pilloried Irving in rendering a decision against him in 2000, when Irving had the unmitigated gall to sue Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt for libel after she dismissed his Holocaust denials as the pandering of an unconscionable academic dilettante for crass profit….

NOTE: It’s too bad his diplomatic immunity protects him, because it would be a terrific coup to lure Irving’s fellow Holocaust denier Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Austria, let him go off on one of his now familiar anti-Semitic rants and then cuff him!

Even though his sentence was not nearly as harsh, I lament the fact that Harvard President Larry Summers has suffered an equally untenable fate for daring to exercise his freedom of speech. Yesterday he announced that he has been effectively forced out of his coveted position by a coven of rabid feminists who never forgave him for daring to challenge their academic agenda and feminist dogma.

In this previous article on his unforgivable politically incorrect crime, I wrote that Summers:

“…launched (what turned out to be) an intellectual nuclear bomb at a conference on the poor representation of women and blacks in science and engineering. He suggested that the presence of so few women in these fields is due to their biological and gender limitations. And, that these natural limitations are compounded by the unwillingness of women to make the same sacrifices as men to advance their careers.”

But, upon hearing Summers’ “shocking” hypothesis, these purportedly liberal and open-minded female professors left the conference in hysterics and launched their mutinous counterattack against him. And, despite his immediate expression of regret for any unwitting emotional distress he may have inflicted on their intellect, the die was cast and his fate consummated yesterday….

David Irving, Holocaust denier, Larry Summers, Harvard University