AHC: Holocaust denial illegal in US.

Okay true.

Though back to the argument of Holocaust denial being made illegal, the only way you can do that is classifying it as hate speech.

Except that hate speech (unless it takes the form of advocacy of violence directed to "inciting or producing imminent lawless action and [which] is likely to incite or produce such action" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio) is itself protected by the First Amendment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matal_v._Tam

Admittedly, one can imagine a Supreme Court with a different jurisprudence in which hate speech--including Holocaust denial, which usually takes the form of claiming that "the Jews" or "the Zionists" have created a "myth" of the Holocaust--could be punished as "group libel." Indeed, Beauharnais v. Illinois https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/343/250/ has never been formally overruled. But it is pretty clear that it has long since been effectively overruled.
 
Yes, of course there are reasonable restrictions. But they must be narrowly defined and talored to be the least intrusive means possible to uphold a vital public responsibility (for example, Incitement to Imminent Violence is restrictable under those test). The onis of proof is on the side attempting to impose the restriction to prove they meet the four requirements: you do not simply get to declare by Fiat that some restriction protects the general welfare in some nebulious and unproven way. A blanket ban on discussion about the efficacy of historical facts do not meet that standard by any stretch of the imagination, unless you're somehow suggesting people are going to start engaging in violence merely because they hear an arguement that such violence haven't occurred before.

Holocaust Denial does not equal Holocaust advocacy. If you want to ban the later, that's way easier.

Isn't Holocaust Denial basically whitewashing what the Third Reich did?

If someone said holocaust did not exist because he had uncovered fresh evidence that satisified rigorious academic standard in good faith nd he does publish it in an academically acceptable manner, that's holocaust studies.

This is the 1st time I heard the term "Holocaust Advocacy". What do you mean?
 
Isn't Holocaust Denial basically whitewashing what the Third Reich did?

If someone said holocaust did not exist because he had uncovered fresh evidence that satisified rigorious academic standard in good faith nd he does publish it in an academically acceptable manner, that's holocaust studies.

This is the 1st time I heard the term "Holocaust Advocacy". What do you mean?

We might be getting into semantics in that case. However, the grey area in which skepticism sufficient for the research into the topic would have to fall on the "not banned" end of the line, and finding the exact line is difficult.

Basically, saying the Holocaust was a good/justified thing that ought to have happened. Advocating for it. That's a different kettle of fish.
 
I wish this was done in reality. Be nice to not hear crazy white supremacists in real life bitch about it being "not real" and "fake".
I've noticed a strange form of collusion between them and radical Islamist apologist types on the Holocaust. They either agree that it was a hoax, or that what happened was totally awesome, or some mixture of both.

Sort of a historical version of Rod Dreher's Law of Merited Impossibility.
 
The first amendment exists to protect unpopular views. Holocaust denial is wrong and ignorant of the facts, on top of thankfully being unpopular. The Nazis were meticulous record keepers when it came to their genocide campaign. However, restrictions on it would not end well for the spirit and substance of first amendment speech protections.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
If Freedom of Speech were to cover distortions of fact, then wouldn't perjury, false advertisement, fraud, and lying while under oath not be crimes?

Freedom of Speech has its limits, and Holocaust denial should be one of them. Your opinion ends where physical reality begins: you can believe whatever you want, but not believing something doesn't make that something stop existing. If that were true, then cancer wouldn't a problem. Saying the Holocaust never happened doesn't make Auschwitz disappear overnight.
If the First Amendment didn’t protect blatant distortions of physical fact it wouldn’t protect religions either. Lying is not the same as lying under oath or committing fraud. False advertisement has to meet very specific criteria.
 
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