Be careful what you ask for...

From here:

VIENNA (Reuters) - British historian David Irving was sentenced to three years in prison for denying the Holocaust 17 years ago, an Austrian court ruled on Monday.

He was sentenced by a court of eight lay jurors and three judges in a case based on remarks he made in a 1989 interview and in speeches when he visited Austria, where denying the Nazi genocide on Jews is a crime.

No question that this guy is a dolt. But is being a dolt a crime punishable by imprisonment? When people are imprisoned for speech, it necessarily casts a pall upon a free society.

Freedom includes the freedom to be an idiot, if one so elects. And if what you think happened in Austria could never happen here, think again. And again.


(Filed under First Amendment assaults)