In 1989, he made a speech in which he denied that the Nazis actually executed 6 million Jews, claiming instead that most of those who died in the camps died of disease. The Austrian law under which he was convicted makes it a crime to “diminish, deny, or justify the holocaust.”

On Monday, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in prison.

Certainly, it is understandable that the governments of Austria (home nation to Hitler, source of eternal shame) and Germany (and we all know about that) would be super-sensitive to offensive speech regarding the Holocaust, but for those of us in democratic republics, there’s something disturbing about the existence of a law that essentially criminalizes bad scholarship and rank stupidity (after observing some of the offerings on late-night infomercials, one might think half the American economy might be felled by such laws!)

All kidding aside, though, it will seem a bit paradoxical if the Western press continues to consider the “cartoon riots” an overreaction to blasphemous expression in the form of drawings and asks no questions as to whether it is a bit of an officially sanctioned overreaction to jail someone for believing culturally blasphemous things.

One of the few things I agree with the ACLU on is that the best way to counter offensive speech is with more speech.

In the free marketplace of ideas, there will always be some that are obnoxious, insipid, or simply downright repulsive. Nonetheless, regulating such speech as Austria has done moves a society down a road that I doubt Americans will ever be willing to go. Already, there are those (among them the US Supreme Court) who object to the regulation even of sexual imagery involving children, arguing that so long as it is a fictional depiction, it cannot be criminalized. Surely a society that protects images of child pornography could never censor mere ignorant speech. Could it?

Yet, at the same time, the content regulation promised by such laws are deeply attractive to certain elements of American social liberalism. “Hate speech” laws, while generally requiring an offense to a particular party—as opposed to merely an expression of an obnoxious theory—come close to the same kind of censorship most liberals are usually against. Liberals are usually libertarian on speech. Right up until you hit one of their "hot buttons"--like sexism, racism, or homophobia.

As far back as 1944, Justice Frankfurter maintained that, “one of the prerogatives of American citizenship is the right to criticize public men and measures--and that means not only informed and responsible criticism but the freedom to speak foolishly and without moderation.”

Ironically, in the Baumgartner case, the speech in question was also pro-Nazi, but at a far more dangerous time for a naturalized citizen to be enamored of the ideology. In this case, in Austria, we have an alleged historian with a somewhat goofy interpretation of the historical facts of the results of that same ideology.

Could twenty-first century Americans fall so in love with the notion of “tolerance” and become so fearful of offending anyone that we begin the short march toward a censorship that, ironically, mirrors that of the very regime it never wants to see again?

Should we?

Discuss.