Re: Free speech is a two way street. (#72001)
by Bradley Smith on March 5, 2008 at 12:19 PM

You have it dead wrong. Intellectual freedom is either there for everyone, or it's not there. It's either there everywhere, all the time, or it's not there. The issue today is not that Irving brought a flawed libel action against Lipstadt in the past. And it is not a matter of how much money the Holocaust Industry fronted Lipstadt with, or how much she has "suffered."

Intellectual freedom is not a two-way street. It's a one-way street. It promises the same thing to those going in your direction that it promises those going in my direction. All this talk about Irving's character, how much money was spent, and Lipstadt's "suffering," is the commonplace routine of those who believe in intellectual freedom for themselves always, and for others sometimes.

David Irving deserves the protection of free speech laws for exactly the reasons that Deborah Lipstadt deserves them, and you deserve them. That's what is implicit in the ideal, and has been for the last 25-plus centuries.