Independent of what people believe of him or his defense of Faurisson's freedom of speech one thing is clear, they have both been the target of extremely aggressive smearing campaigns by Israel.
I would defend the right to freedom of speech of people who believe the earth is flat, that does not mean “I support the flat-earth movement”
Ultimately that leads to Popper's Paradox of Tolerance.[1] Do you defend the absolute freedoms of those whose goal is to destroy that freedom, along with you and many others with it? If yes, how do you stop them from accomplishing their goals? If no, where do you draw the line? (To be clear, I consider these critical but ultimately rhetorical questions with no obvious good answers.)
Chomsky had long publicly criticized Nazism, and totalitarianism more generally, but his commitment to freedom of speech led him to defend the right of French historian Robert Faurisson to advocate a position widely characterized as Holocaust denial.
Without Chomsky's knowledge, his plea for Faurisson's freedom of speech was published as the preface to the latter's 1980 book Mémoire en défense contre ceux qui m'accusent de falsifier l'histoire.
Chomsky was widely condemned for defending Faurisson, and France's mainstream press accused Chomsky of being a Holocaust denier himself, refusing to publish his rebuttals to their accusations.
And how do you know they are real? Because historians have been free to dig around and publish arguments and rebuttals and evidence. Not because anyone by decree or force declared it to be so.
he didn't support that cause. he radically supported free speech.
if someone has him discuss the paradox of (in)tolerance I'd appreciate links or pointers
ps: I come from a country with limits ob the freedom of speech and I defend those limits. I'm just saying Chomsky in contrast held freedom of speech as an absolute, even for anger and hate inciting lies.
And the ACLU "supported" the Nazi movement in Skokie. Do you have any evidence that Chomsky himself denies the holocaust, or are you just slinging shit?
Who's the bigger problem, the idiot yelling fire in the crowded movie theater, or the morally superior intellectual supporting their right to do so? I'm not so sure.
