American Paradox

'Jewish Academic says that Holocaust Denier Should Go Free'

So this British historian is sitting in an Austrian jail, possibly for a ten-year sentence, for giving speeches wherein he denied the existence of the Holocaust. What's interesting to me is not this case, which is just a sad reminder of the existence of Holocaust deniers and their ilk, but rather the draconian punishments of several European countries for what are, in essence, thought crimes.

Currently, at least nine European countries including Austria and Germany punish the thought/speech crime of denying the Holocaust. In Austria, it can net you a ten year sentence in jail. Why?

I am not suggesting that these fanatics are correct to deny the tragedy of World War II and Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. I am just saying that if you believe in free speech at all, you have to allow them to speak, unless they are willfully inciting incipient violence with their speeches, at a rally where people are wielding pitchforks or rifles. But that is not the case with an elderly professor questioning the accepted wisdom of nearly every intelligent person in the Western world. He might be stupid, he might be utterly wrong, and he might have immoral intentions, but those alone, apart from some criminal act, does not warrant imprisonment.