Foxy, Danielle, Bugsy,

What is the point of trying to debate Holocaust deniers?

I mean that seriously.

What do you imagine you will achieve by debating Jack the sad?

Holocaust deniers will always have some baloney website that, in what passes for their minds, trumps any amount of scholarly evidence you care to introduce.

May I suggest that you devote your time to something more intellectually stimulating like reading the phone book?

I once made the mistake of asking a Holocaust denier how it would be even possible to fake all the archival evidence. I pointed out that it would cost billions of dollars and involve thousands of people to get it right.

Just one type face that did not match the type faces used by the SS or the Wehrmacht would give the game away.

Just one of the thousands of people employed to type up all those documents blabbing to the media with a few sample documents and a credible story of how it was done would blow the whole thing wide open. Papers like the Guardian or the Independent would be all over the story. It would be the scoop of the century.

I pointed out that:

--Nobody in their right minds would spend the billions of dollars it would take to create all those forgeries.

--Given the number of people that would have had to be involved it would be impossible to keep it a secret.

His reply:

You Jews have ways of doing it.

I guess the game is up. "We Jews" have supernatural powers. We can conjure whole archives into existence.

stevenlmeyer I can understand your frustration. However, we who respect freedom of speech do so understanding the possibility of its abuse and understand that to set up a system which censors the abuse greater enhances the risks to those who respect truth as much as the lairs and hoaxers.

Regarding your confrontation with your denier re

“His reply:

You Jews have ways of doing it.”

My suggestion is keep up the challenge, whack the ball back into his side of the court. Ask him “what ways?” .

The only way a denier “wins” is by exhausting the will of those who believe in honesty

and the only way he loses is by you exposing him as a liar.

Freedom of speech allows us to defend what we see as truth and honesty. No one ever promised us it would be a light thing to carry, only that the alternative is a far more onerous a burden to endure.

Col,

As I have made plain many times, Holocaust deniers have every right to say whatever they like. Laws against Holocaust denial are worse than Holocaust denial itself. Freedom of speech must prevail or we are all lost.

But that does not mean I have to fall into the trap of debating Holocaust deniers. There is no more point in debating a Holocaust denier than there is in debating a virus. Both are equally impervious to reason.

Hence while I regard the phenomenon of Holocaust denial as interesting, I find Holocaust deniers themselves boring. They're all alike in their in their obsessions. When you've seen one you've seen them all.

Steven

I am just amazed that this thread has gone on for as long as it has.

Of course schools should teach all there is to teach about 20th century history - even the sceptical position, why it is completely incorrect and the agenda that drives it; we need to teach our children how to think. That way bigots like Jack won't even get the time of day in future. All his 'evidence' comes from white supremist organisations - I had a look, then I took a shower.

Regards

Steven,

You are completely correct about Holocaust deniers and their fellow travellers who claim a world conspiracy by Jews. When pointed out that the world's population is over 6.5 billion and the population of Jews worldwide is 13 million, they still cring to their conspiracy theories. Jews indeed must have superman powers.

I agree that debating one on one, or even against several is quite pointless, and the best thing is to walk away

However, in other situations, I am entirely at one with Col Rouge: "to whack the ball back into his side of the court"; indeed take the fight right into his territory.

This is an open forum. Anyone who wishes can join OLO. Some may be quite ignorant about the Holocaust, indeed Stalin's and Mao's purges, and wander onto particular threads. Unless those charlatans denying or diminishing such horrors are challenged, shown up for what they are, those less knowledgeable may go away with completely erroneous ideas. We owe it not only to history, but also to those who died.

As Col Rouge stated so aptly: "No one ever promised us it would be a light thing to carry, only that the alternative is a far more onerous a burden to endure."

This can also be personally painful.

Fractelle,

YOU are BRILLIANT.

Teaching children about those with certain agendas, their tools, and aims.

Not only teaching children historical facts, but also giving them to knowledge to identify
such groups and their methods.

Members of such groups, as White Supremists, would also have been school children. By naivete, environment, or by predisposition, they were vulnerable to its teachings. Teaching school children about them would be to lessen, hopefully, the membership of
such detestable groups.

Fractelle, A brilliant idea!