Round and Round We Go

Andrew Winkler responded to my post about him here. Here is my response.

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Again, I'm quoting from him but not in entirety.

I'm not a historian. The point I have always made is that historians - in fact any person for that matter - should be able to research any part of history and publish his/her results free of fear.

Free of fear from the government and free of fear from lawlessness, yes. Free from repercussion? No.

Having said that, revisionist historians such as Arthur Butz and Ｇermar Ｒudolf have raised a number of arguments - easily understandable even for non-historians - with respect to the official narrative of the Holocaust that create in the eyes of many of their readers a prima facie case for the need of an independent forensic and historical investigaton.

Butz's work is so old that it's actually worthless. As for Rudolf, he was handily refuted by my colleague, Dr. Richard Green, who has a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Stanford and has done postdoctoral research on cyanide. When Dr. Green entered an expert affidavit in Irving v. Lipstadt, Irving withdrew Rudolf's work. What does that say about Rudolf's work?

Sounds like Andrew Mathis is condoning ruining someone's life for exercising his right of free speech. His justification: revisionists 'put forward an extremely insulting point of view'. Going by that logic, many journalists, writers, comedians and other critics of Western politicians, royalties, the Catholic Church, artists and other prominent people, deserved to be ruined, imprisoned etc.

Let me answer with a question: Should Michael Richards face possible ruin for "dropping the N-bomb" and making a lynching joke?

I won't answer except to say that denying the Holocaust is just as insulting.

Or is Andrew Mathis applying different rules for the feeling of Jews and Gentiles?

There mere implication by Winkler here is enough to label him an anti-Semite. First, he assumes I'm Jewish (which I am, of course, but how is he supposed to know that? I didn't say so in my post), and second he supposes that I hold Jews and Gentiles to different standards based on no evidence whatsoever.

Interesting way of 'libertarian' thinking: Andrew Mathis doesn't condone jailings revisionist for exercising their right of free speech in the mentioned 'extremely insulting' manner, but he is okay with ruining them economially and socially. I'm sorry, but that sounds a bit hypocritical to me.

It doesn’t to me, but perhaps that's because I understand that the right to free expression is guaranteed by the government and not the people. We are a nation of laws, and not men.

This is actually a very clever argument: to think that Jews might have resorted to deception in the pursuit of their goals is being anti-Semitic. Now, where did I read the motto 'By way of deception' again?

Ah yes, the widely misquoted motto of the Mossad. Do you believe everything you read?

I apologise for the verbal shortcut. The number 6 million stands though, and the use of gas as the main method of killing too.

Gas accounted for about half of the deaths.

So what you are saying is that if a country starts a war against another country, like the US and the UK did with Iraq, Afghanistan and countless other countries, the inhabitants of those countries, and their allies, are entitled to not only destroy the civilian infrastructure of those countries and US and UK civilians only have to blame themselves if they get killed by the houndreds of thousands, not just as good old colleteral damage but in deliberate attacks against civilians. Interesting line of thought.

It would be interesting if it were correct, but it isn't.

Let's put it in actual terms: The U.S. most certainly trumped up a war against Iraq. Particularly after re-electing George Bush in 2004, do we as Americans have only ourselves to blame if we are subject to further terrorist attacks as a result of this? Well, not only ourselves, but certainly ourselves among others.

But Bush isn't Hitler, so the comparison isn't terribly exact.

That's right. Most Israel critics are Jewish.

Actually, that's not what I said, but it's true.

Ever wondered why? Because they don't get automatically accused of anti-Semitism. And why is being anti-Semitic such a deadly label? Because the Holocaust gave prejudices towards Jews a much worse stigma than let's say prejudices against Arabs.

All of that is true, but let's also consider something: To scrutinize the behavior of one country over all others is to apply a double standard to that country. The double standard is the root of all prejudice. Throw in that you're applying this double standard to a state filled with people who have been vilified throughout history, and you're going to at least appear suspect.

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Oh really? Sounds like you get all your news from the Chosen Media and their 'free' MEMRI translations service, a Mossad joint, who tends to give her 'translations' a certain spin, like they did with Ahminejad's alleged 'wipe off the map' remark.

What's funny about your method of argumentation is not only that it's primarily arguing against strawmen, but also that even when you're correct in your assumption, you're wrong in your facts.

My brother-in-law is a Moroccan Arab Muslim. I asked him once if a MEMRI translation was accurate and he said it most certainly was.

As for "Chosen Media," you're digging your hole deeper, Mr. Winkler.

And as for MEMRI being tied to the Mossad, I've never heard that they were, but as long as they are accurate, I don't see the point. In fact, to suggest that MEMRI's translations must be incorrect because they are tied to the Mossad is a logical fallacy, specifically the genetic fallacy.

The question is not whether there was a final solution or not, and whether Jews were persecuted and even killed or not. What is in question whether the final solution was more than a forced labour and emigration or an extermination programme. In my opion, the vast majority of revisionists honestly believe that there was no plan to kill all European Jews, that there were no gas chambers and that there weren't any way near 6 millions of Jews killed in Nazi custody. Their numbers are more around the 200,000 to 500,000, in line with official concentration camp numbers.

As if the "official" numbers would be accurate. I love this one. "The ICRC reported only 75,000 people died in Auschwitz, so it must be true!" Yes, and I'm quite sure that when the ICRC visited Auschwitz, Commandant Hoess volunteered to show them the gas chambers.

I think it's more of a case of you not knowing or deliberately misrepresenting what revisionism is about.

I think I probably know about "revisionism" better than you.

I leave it up to the readers to decide who is being untruthful in this debate. The whole way organised Jewry is approaching the Holocaust revisionism matter is - not just in my opinion - highly suspicious and only adds to the doubts that people like Butz and Rudolf have already raised with their logically appealing research and arguments.

If the above is intended to imply that I am part of "organized Jewry," then you are wrong. No major Jewish group speaks for me, and I make this quite clear to my audiences.

There was one comment on the thread from an unidentified party. I'll respond to that also:

François Duprat was assassinated in 1978 for distributing the French version of ''Did Six Million Really Die'', by two Jewish commandos which claimed the car-bombing murder: the 'Jewish Remembrance Commando' and the 'Jewish Revolutionary Group.'

Question: Does or does not the murder remain unsolved? Do I need to remind you how many people claim to have committed crimes that they didn't? And why leave out that Duprat was a fascist? (I'm not just winging this, by the way, the guy was in le Front National.) Is it possible he was killed because of his politics by, say, Arabs or Africans, the primary enemies of le Front National?

Dr. Robert Faurisson almost lost his life when a gang calling themselves the ''Sons of Jewish Memory'' attacked him in broad daylight while he was walking his dog. He was saved by a passer-by who interrupted the beatings. Faurisson has had to sustain more than a dozen physical attacks ever since he stated that the homicidal gas chambers were a myth.

Faurisson has indeed been beaten and I don't condone it.

Ernst Zuendel received a pipe bomb via registered mail.

Look at the CHRC transcripts. He sent the bomb to himself.

I could go on an on, but one thing is obvious: Mr. Mathis is either lying or wilfully ignorant.

Nope, neither.

I vaguely remember someone posting as ''Mathis'' (or was it him?) arguing on a forum called Real Open Debate About the Holocaust that there should be ''no freedom for the ennemies of democracy''. Leaving aside the issue of what ''democracy'' really means, I find such Stalinist thinking unfortunately quite typical of a power-obsessed, vengeful and blood-lusting Tribe which I shall not name.

I never made any such remark, first of all.

Second, thanks for the "blood-lusting Tribe" remark. Priceless.

This is your audience, Mr. Winkler? Go figure…