Daily Dose of Irony

Alright, I admit that hypocrites are an easy target, but this particular brand of hypocrite gets my dander up more than most.

Ernst Zündel, it seems, has finally been tried and sentenced to the maximum (5 years) in Germany for Holocaust Denial. And here's what the Canadian Jewish Congress has to say about it:

"I think that they've given a strong message . . . to the world, that I believe will bring a tremendous amount of comfort to Holocaust survivors," said Bernie Farber, chief executive officer of the Canadian Jewish Congress.

Oh, for cryin' out loud! This man didn't perpetrate the Holocaust, Farber you moron! How can it possibly bring comfort to anyone to know that someone was given actual jail time for voicing his political opinions?

I fucking hate these people. The whole bleeding lesson of World War II, kids, is that governments shouldn't have the ability to arbitrarily cart off people they don't like or don't agree with. Instigating a Holocaust is an actual crime. If you can produce some evidence that Zündel actually hurt any Jews by, oh, say, imprisoning them or cremating them or performing horrific experiments on them (without consent), then I'll happily sign a petition to put him away for a lot longer than five years in the butt-rapinist place you can find. But if the best you can do is say that he published books you don't like, then fuck off already.

"I think a lot of us can take a very deep breath and move on to other things - other than thinking of Ernst Zundel anymore," Farber said in a telephone interview with The Canadian Press.

You could have done that even before he got arrested! There is nothing on God's Green Earth that made you pay attention to Zündel any more yesterday than you do today. It's a choice that you made to invest this much energy into this thing here.

I will never ever ever understand how people who have been victims of arbitrary opinion censorship themselves can then turn around and do the same to others.

Now, let me say a couple of things.

First - I'm sure Zündel isn't a very nice guy, and I'm not trying to defend his opinions. I'm just saying that a right to free speech isn't a right to free speech if you're only ever allowed to say things that aren't on the prohibited list.

Second - Germany is not a free country and cannot claim to be so long as it continues this crap. I know, because I've heard it many more times than I care to count from Germans, that they think Holocaust Denial Laws are some way to atone for their past. What the whole situation in fact proves is that Germany hasn't learned a damn thing from its past. All the terrible things that happened in the 30s happened because of this kind of thinking - the kind of thinking that allows a majority to strip a minority of its rights arbitrarily and with no rational public interest justification given. The most ridiculous part of the Wikipedia article linked is this part:

Once the certificate was upheld and Zundel was determined to be a national security risk he was deported to Germany and tried in the state court of Mannheim on outstanding charges of incitement for Holocaust denial dating from the early 1990s.

I love it! He's been under charges of incitement since the 90s, apparently just for publishing stuff. Tell me true, how many crimes has Zündel "incited?" Name even one hate crime that wouldn't have happened had Ernst Zündel never been born?

Third, and probably most importantly - Canada needs to do some thinking about why it sent him to Germany in the first place. Now, granted, it was pretty dumb of Zündel to stay in Canada after having twice been denied citizenship. He should have gone somewhere that would have accepted him, relieved him of the terrible burden of his German citizenship, and thus prevented this whole shady ordeal. But fine - I guess you don't get to be a professional Holocaust Denier by having a stellar IQ. Nevertheless, it's galling that Canada regularly accepts any number of Islamofascist radicals and has no problem letting them preach their hate, but somehow when Germany calls wanting to make an example of Zündel they forget themselves and happily oblige? I need hardly point out, I hope, that Zündel isn't actually dangerous to anyone!

It bugs me more than a bit that so many Jews behave the way this Farber guy does. There are any number of Jewish organizations that go scouring the press for unfavorable opinions of them and denouncing virtually any Jew who doesn't toe the party line as a "self-hating" Jew. The whole setup is fascist. And yet, Zündel is behind bars and they're not. How 'bout we try this one on for size? NOBODY goes to prison for OPINIONS. We only arrest people for violating the rights of others. Eh? Eh? How 'bout it?