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National NewsConservative News
Testing Free Speech
By SuppressedNews
Posted on: November 16, 2005
According to the Chicago media a German scientist by the name of Germar Rudolf has been deported from the US to Germany for speech crimes. (See article here.)
Rudolph is a chemist and a graduate of Bonn University in Germany. What got him into trouble was his use of his chemical expertise in an attempt to prove that the gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp were not what they purported to be. He says that the chemical analysis he made of samples taken from the brick on the interior of the chamber showed no traces of the residue that would be expected to be present if, as is commonly understood, cyanide gas was the agent of death used.
Now it happens that Germany has in place what is called “Holocaust denial legislation,” which makes it a crime to question the accuracy of Holocaust history. By publishing the results of his chemical experiment Rudolph ran afoul of this law. He was convicted and sentenced to prison in Germany. He fled to the United States where he lived with his US wife and child until his recent deportation.
Let us narrow the focus. Let us stipulate that Rudolph is 100 percent wrong in his analysis, that he is a quack scientist despite his apparently strong credentials, and, further, that he is malevolent in his motives.
Now we are left with the one salient issue in this story. It is not the fate of this one individual. It is this: Is the United States going to be a partner in enforcing the anti-free speech laws of another country?
Yes, the publication of Rudolph’s paper was intensely offensive to many people in Germany and elsewhere. But this is one of the situations, of course, in which free speech is tested. We would not need our First Amendment if people restricted themselves to only pleasant, non-controversial things. It’s only when the rogue comes to town and begins to babble that we can measure the reality of free speech. In Germany, apparently, free speech is not real.
There is irony here. We deport this man because he has committed a speech crime, while we allow limitless illegal aliens to live here as long as they please. Moreover, denying the Holocaust is a crime, but denying the existence of God is perfectly legal, or even chic.
[Subsequent to the publication of this note a related incident has occurred. British historian David Irving has been arrested in Austria on charges similar to those made against Rudolph in Germany. Details are here.]
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