Holocaust denial - do I care

With the film Denial on, a discussion of Holocaust denial next Sunday, and incidents of Holocaust denial, and a very interesting, well attended talk by the MP, Chris Bishop on his Honours paper on the legal aspect of Holocaust denial last night, Holocaust denial is the topic of the day. I found my letter to the Editor of the New Zealand Herald about David Irving's proposed visit to New Zealand in 2004, and David Irving's comments on it. I still stand by my letter, and I am proud to be associated by Irving with my much more famous namesake, Stephen Sedley. But now I wonder whether we should care about Holocaust denial. In the age of Trump, fake news is all around us, and spreading it through Facebook and Twitter is so easy and unstoppable. So what does it matter if some people believe that Elvis is still alive, the moon landing was faked, the destruction of the two towers on 9/11 was an inside job. David Irving said in his comments on my letter that he gave a talk to a small audience in Lower Hutt on his previous visit and no one was hurt, no one was killed. He didn't say what the purpose of his visit was, or who financed it, but clearly not many people noticed it and no harm was done. But then David Irving is just a shoddy historian with an oversized ego. Only his followers take him seriously. He doesn't matter, because he has no power. Joseph Goebbels on the other hand, an even greater liar, had great power, and his lies caused unspeakable harm. I am happy to completely ignore the Holocaust deniers of the lunatic fringe as long as they exercise no power. I would not argue or debate with them, I would treat them as complete meshugas and would lose no sleep over their utterances. It is so easy to ring up the radio station and say that the world's ills are caused by the Jews, put it on the Internet and swamp your lies with lots of 'likes' to advanced them on the search engine. As long as they do no harm, don't hurt people, I treat them as they deserve, put them on the box marked 'crazies'.