What If Someday A Real Pseudogenocide Happens?

[TheReasonator]

I strongly believe the Holocaust happened and that the evidence for it is enough that I can confidently dismiss people who think it didn't happen.

But I'm still against laws against Holocaust denial, not just because it invites a slippery slope against other unpopular speech but because what if a real pseudogenocide were to happen?

What if someone really made up a genocide for some motivation or another in the future but then because of established precedent governments in Europe ban speech saying it didn't happen?

We love to laugh at conspiracy theorists but the fact is conspiracies do happen. I'm not one to just jump into a conspiracy theory and believe in it without some solid evidence, but I do recognize that they don't fall outside the realm of possibility. People used to say the mafia, COINTELPRO, and the Dreyfuss Affair were all just conspiracy theories.

[KZN02]

In my opinion, I believe unsanitary and other health conditions was a holocaust in itself in the concentration camps, but at the very least I know something bad was going down. My dad doesn't believe it due to having read history books from China and the US and noticing the differences between them and that he says the Germans were meticulous in recording details and would have had something on it. My mom meanwhile believes the Holocaust and tells me about the Jewish refugees coming into China.

Of course, in the end, it's a matter of the truth and we need people to give their critique and evidence so we an establish that.

[Osama bin Bambi]

I'm only against anti-Holocaust denial laws because I believe that people have the right to believe whatever they want, especially if those beliefs make them look like utter dumbasses. Actually faking a genocide is pretty fucking difficult.

And I'm pretty sure that deliberately taking people from their homes and placing them in conditions so terrible that there are sure to be some deaths qualifies as "genocide."

[Auggziliary]

I'm confused by this thread. It's pretty hard to fake genocide, like Wykked Wytch said. I mean, it's not like the government could make those anti holocaust denier laws if people didn't want them either.
Why are you asking this?
Also why did you call it "pseudogenocide"?
I mean, it's technically correct and all, but it's giving me a weird vibe. I probably would have just asked "Is it possible to fake genocide" or something.

[TheReasonator]

I'm confused by this thread. It's pretty hard to fake genocide, like Wykked Wytch said. I mean, it's not like the government could make those anti holocaust denier laws if people didn't want them either.
Why are you asking this?
Also why did you call it "pseudogenocide"?
I mean, it's technically correct and all, but it's giving me a weird vibe. I probably would have just asked "Is it possible to fake genocide" or something.

I didn't think about alternate word choices I tend to just go with it as long as the word is technically correct.
People may very well want the laws if they believe it really happened. Let's say in the country of Katumba(not a real country) there is ethnic violence between the Grezi and Hugi people (hypothetical example) but no genocide(no systematic rounding up and killing of people), though it does escalate to civil war. The Hugi people become in charge and the wealthier members of that tribe wanting cause to seize the property of  the Grezi elite fabricate a story about how the Grezi's elite and their militia were involved in genocide against the Hugi people. The international community assumes the genocide really happened because people are afraid if they stop and question it and it turns out that it really did happen then they will look like denialists.

Considering the general outlook and reactions people have to news of genocide it's not beyond the pale that at least for a while people would believe it and it could even wind up covered by denial laws.

[Auggziliary]

I'm confused by this thread. It's pretty hard to fake genocide, like Wykked Wytch said. I mean, it's not like the government could make those anti holocaust denier laws if people didn't want them either.
Why are you asking this?
Also why did you call it "pseudogenocide"?
I mean, it's technically correct and all, but it's giving me a weird vibe. I probably would have just asked "Is it possible to fake genocide" or something.

I didn't think about alternate word choices I tend to just go with it as long as the word is technically correct.
People may very well want the laws if they believe it really happened. Let's say in the country of Katumba(not a real country) there is ethnic violence between the Grezi and Hugi people (hypothetical example) but no genocide(no systematic rounding up and killing of people), though it does escalate to civil war. The Hugi people become in charge and the wealthier members of that tribe wanting cause to seize the property of  the Grezi elite fabricate a story about how the Grezi's elite and their militia were involved in genocide against the Hugi people. The international community assumes the genocide really happened because people are afraid if they stop and question it and it turns out that it really did happen then they will look like denialists.

Considering the general outlook and reactions people have to news of genocide it's not beyond the pale that at least for a while people would believe it and it could even wind up covered by denial laws.

But that would be pretty hard to do. Eventually people are going to want the names of those people and everything.

[TheReasonator]

I'm confused by this thread. It's pretty hard to fake genocide, like Wykked Wytch said. I mean, it's not like the government could make those anti holocaust denier laws if people didn't want them either.
Why are you asking this?
Also why did you call it "pseudogenocide"?
I mean, it's technically correct and all, but it's giving me a weird vibe. I probably would have just asked "Is it possible to fake genocide" or something.

I didn't think about alternate word choices I tend to just go with it as long as the word is technically correct.
People may very well want the laws if they believe it really happened. Let's say in the country of Katumba(not a real country) there is ethnic violence between the Grezi and Hugi people (hypothetical example) but no genocide(no systematic rounding up and killing of people), though it does escalate to civil war. The Hugi people become in charge and the wealthier members of that tribe wanting cause to seize the property of  the Grezi elite fabricate a story about how the Grezi's elite and their militia were involved in genocide against the Hugi people. The international community assumes the genocide really happened because people are afraid if they stop and question it and it turns out that it really did happen then they will look like denialists.

Considering the general outlook and reactions people have to news of genocide it's not beyond the pale that at least for a while people would believe it and it could even wind up covered by denial laws.

But that would be pretty hard to do. Eventually people are going to want the names of those people and everything.

So make some people up. Add thousands, maybe millions of people who never existed to the country's central database.

At some point it would probably be revealed. Some whistleblower or some contradictory data. But at first people would likely believe the whole thing and react strongly to anyone disagreeing.

[Jack Mann]

I don't think a pseudogenocide is a likely enough scenario to strongly consider.  That said, I do disagree with laws against holocaust denial.  I'm against pretty much all laws that abrogate freedom of speech (outside of specific exceptions such as defamation, incitement to crime, or causing panic).  I think that the best solution for dealing with asshats who deny the holocaust is a more-speech solution.  Whenever they talk, you talk back.  You explain why they're asshats to everyone who might otherwise listen to them.  It's the same solution I use for most kinds of hate speech (except where it falls into one of the preexisting exceptions).

[Distind]

I was going to chime in with it being unlikely, then I remembered the 'stop the white genocdie' videos.

[Fpqxz]

I'm only against anti-Holocaust denial laws because I believe that people have the right to believe whatever they want, especially if those beliefs make them look like utter dumbasses. Actually faking a genocide is pretty fucking difficult.

And I'm pretty sure that deliberately taking people from their homes and placing them in conditions so terrible that there are sure to be some deaths qualifies as "genocide."

Agreed on all counts, but there is one more facet of the debate to consider here.  Most of the countries with holocaust denial laws were directly affected by the Holocaust, and they wish to acknowledge that as a matter of official policy.  Secondly, most of these countries have civil law (as opposed to common law) legal systems, which means that their views on liberty are a bit more narrowly-defined than what we in the English-speaking world are accustomed to.

I have very mixed feelings about these laws as well, as I abhor Holocaust denial and its proponents.  However, I think free speech is a more important value, but I'm speaking as an American rather than as a European.

[MadCatTLX]

Doesn't the KONY 2012 thing close to a "psuedogenocide"? The whole premise for the guy getting all those donations was an African warlord who used child soldiers(but so did the other side in the conflict), the problem being, he was exiled 6 or so years ago and is thought to have died not long after that, right? While that's not a genocide per-se, it is semi-faking a humanitarian crisis for personal gain

*Note: I don't know much about the KONY 2012 thing to be honest, other than the basics and that the guy who started it was caught screaming and masturbating on a street corner.

[Sigma]

European here.

I think Fpqxz is right. We are not as big on free speech as you Americans are. Your free speech is probably the most important thing in your community, your system is built upon it.  We are less for letting everyone speak their mind, and more for protecting the people. An example :
Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, art.1, pas.1 :
„Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar. Sie zu achten und zu schützen ist Verpflichtung aller staatlichen Gewalt.“
Rough translation : "A humans dignity is untouchable. The government is obligated to respect and protect it."

Therefore, if something goes against the dignity of a human, it can be stopped. Hatespeech is outlawed here in Germany. While there are obvious drawbacks, there are also positive points. No Westboro Baptist Church, for example.
That doesn't mean that the government controls everything we say. Most of the time it's cautious with that, because of that whole Hitler thing. But the Holocaust is an exception.
As long as I can remember, I've been told what horrible crimes against humanity have transpired during the reign of Hitler and that we should do everything possible to stop it from happening again. During my schooltime we got different sources from that time, and we visited the concentration camp in Neuengamme. I also talked with my grandmother, who grew up during that time. Her whole life she said that she didn't know about the Holocaust, but when she was very ill and we thought she would die, she told me that the people had a very good picture of what was happening, but the media just said that the Jews were evil. And as she said : If you are told something for a long time by almost everyone, you start to believe it.

So, you may ask yourself what I want to say with this incoherent babble, so let me summarize it : I've been growing up learning of the horrible things that can grow from hate. Therefore, for me, protecting dignity is more important that absolute free speech. Therefore I'm in favor of laws against Holocaust denial.

[Itachirumon]

*Note: I don't know much about the KONY 2012 thing to be honest, other than the basics and that the guy who started it was caught screaming and masturbating on a street corner.

That was "Jackin' it in San Diego" - and don't you forget it.

[mellenORL]

In my opinion, I believe unsanitary and other health conditions was a holocaust in itself in the concentration camps, but at the very least I know something bad was going down. My dad doesn't believe it due to having read history books from China and the US and noticing the differences between them and that he says the Germans were meticulous in recording details and would have had something on it. My mom meanwhile believes the Holocaust and tells me about the Jewish refugees coming into China.

Of course, in the end, it's a matter of the truth and we need people to give their critique and evidence so we an establish that.

I'm sure your dad is a normally intelligent guy, but he did not delve very deep, or he would have come across the fact that the Nazis were in fact - yes - zealous accountants of every detail of the MILLIONS of people they arrested and killed.

The main reason being to prevent pilfering by soldiers, camp guards, and kapos, and to plan logistics in salvaging monetary value from all that huge mass of goods and materials (gold teeth alone came out to be tons, in total!)

All prisoners' personal effects of any value were sorted, counted, weighed and sold. When people were arrested their homes were stripped of all valuables, which were carefully documented and processed with paper trails for the same reason. The Nazis' war money was to a significant extent wrung out of the lives of their own condemned citizens. Those same prisoners were also a drain on food resources, and so were starved and worked to death, and later, as the war dragged on, the prisoners were killed at the fastest rate that could be managed to save resources and complete their "sacred" goal of ridding Europe of Jews and others the Nazis wanted gone forever. The concentrtion camps eventually numbered in the thousands, and the camp system of extermination through slave labor and deprivation had been employed by the Nazis for almost 10 years by wars' end.

The prisoner asset and salvage accounting files were found all over after the war, filled hundreds of traincars, and were used to prosecute war criminals at the Nuremburg War Crime Tribunals. The Nazis own greed and paranoid attention to detail over valuables was compelling testimony to having in fact commited genocide. The Nazi hierarchy were quite proud of the Holocaust.

[TheReasonator]

European here.

I think Fpqxz is right. We are not as big on free speech as you Americans are. Your free speech is probably the most important thing in your community, your system is built upon it.  We are less for letting everyone speak their mind, and more for protecting the people. An example :
Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, art.1, pas.1 :
„Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar. Sie zu achten und zu schützen ist Verpflichtung aller staatlichen Gewalt.“
Rough translation : "A humans dignity is untouchable. The government is obligated to respect and protect it."

Therefore, if something goes against the dignity of a human, it can be stopped.

But what is dignity? It's a somewhat intangible concept what makes one person feel indignity won't necessarily make everyone else feel it, even if most people take something as indignity one person may be undisturbed by it. In some cases where most people feel their dignity has been disrespected it may be socially optimal for them all to just shrug it off instead, it's just that they're not choosing to do so and so it may be better for the government to nudge people into not making too big of a deal over something. Wouldn't it be safer to specify standards of what constitutes "dignity" directly into the law rather than leaving it to interpretation.
"Speech" is a lot more concrete.

In Germany prostitution is legal. Some people think that prostitution goes against human dignity. I'm not saying dignity shouldn't be considered in making laws at all but the law itself should specify the ways in which it is being considered. Just saying "dignity" which is a very abstract human concept leaves a great deal to one's own (and so to future generations who may or may not have the same ideas) interpretation.

Granted, maybe there's a whole wealth of legal opinions and philosophies (I know Germany is famous for philosophy) on human dignity so that when that was written it was more concrete than it would appear to me just as things in our Constitution you would find vague probably seem a lot more solid to us(at least those of us who study constitutional law) based off of what the Founding Fathers said. Are there any texts in particular that are drawn off of in order to interpret the "human dignity" clause?

Hatespeech is outlawed here in Germany. While there are obvious drawbacks, there are also positive points. No Westboro Baptist Church, for example.

Haven't hate speech laws been used at times against left-wing organizations making critiques about white power saying this is racist to white people even though they're just criticizing the racial biases among the elite. They've been used against people using the swastika in a sarcastic way or as a way of putting down Nazis (I heard there was a bust at an anti-fascist organization that had pictured the swastika being thrown away).

And then what if someone honestly denies the Holocaust but is honestly not hateful or prejudice against anyone? A person could believe in holocaust denial but put the entire blame just on the allied powers and hold the Jews harmless for 'making it up'. A person might be motivated to believe this because they don't want to believe humanity could really do such a thing. That doesn't show hate, but it does show a naive view of human nature.