This blog entry is prompted by reading Richard Waghorne’s commentary on the imprisonment by Austrian authorities of “holocaust revisionist in chief” David Irving. I’m a big of Richard and I despise Mr. Irving so my biases are now on the table. Having thought about it for a while now, I must agree with the Austrian government’s actions. It’s a very difficult judgement to make when trying to protect a democratic state from subversion through pseudo-historical arguments. Indeed Richard’s own arguments could be turned against him, particularly when he quotes the fascinatingly named Charles Krauthammer:
Call it situational libertarianism: Liberties should be as unlimited as possible — unless and until there arises a real threat to the open society. Neo-Nazis are pathetic losers. Why curtail civil liberties to stop them? But when a real threat — such as jihadism — arises, a liberal democratic society must deploy every resource, including the repressive powers of the state, to deter and defeat those who would abolish liberal democracy.
How can a democratic society discriminate between subversives on the basis of who’s a “loser” and who isn’t. Equally citing US history as a refutation of the slippery slope to governmental totalitarianism is perhaps a mistake. The electoral college system in the US was created almost solely to protect the people from themselves & their own fallibility. The framers of the US constitution viewed popular election as reckless and also recognised the dangers of congress elected presidents. Therefore the compromise was to allow the people to vote for electors who then elected the president. Currently, the US Electoral College includes 538 electors, 535 for the total number of congressional members, and three who represent Washington, D.C., as allowed by the 23rd Amendment. The issue (which affected the Gore v Bush election) is that some states have, arguably, more than their fair share of electors based on the original biases of the founding fathers. It’s therefore possible to, like Gore, get more votes but lose the election. I guess it’s been common for many democracies since the term was created to protect themselves from subversion from within and the gulibility of the electorate. Witness the furore over Michael McDowell’s revelations about Frank Connolly in the Dail. I’m not sure that the actions taken against Irving qualify but I can certainly understand why the Austrian authorities acted that way. It’s a fine line which shouldn’t be over-simplified.