Should there be limitations on the Freedom of Speech?

I recently ran into a discussion with someone about whether or not the denial of the holocaust is an opinion and should be protected by the freedom of speech. Background were the recent events of the arrest warrant against Horst Mahler, a german former Red Army Fraction terrorist presently a neo-nazi, for incitement of the masses and holocaust denial. While one might argue it is everyones right to hold such opinion it is yet illegal in a lot of European countries.

Reasons
Now if you ask yourself why there are such laws in place you should look at the history of jewish prosecution, as well as other minorities. I think many people need to understand that the holocaust did not start with the internment of these groups, it really started with creating fear and xenophobia against them by german nationalists. Blaming them for economic depression after the first World War, for the loss of territory and so on. It began with denying them normal services or access to public goods and stores and continued with writing hateful messages on jewish stores and violent attacks on synagogues. The rest of the story should be well known but I want to emphasise what the early stages of this genocide looked like. It already began with hateful speech and excluding people from society and this can be seen in the early stages of other genocides as well.

Paradox of Tolerance
Freedom of speech is obviously a lot about tolerance, tolerating other opinions and ideas without censoring them in any way. The question is: Should you really tolerate intolerant people? What right does someone intolerant have to be tolerated, when your opinion is not just an opinion but even denying something that definitely happened and therefor hurting people that suffered the most from the consequences of intolerance.

Karl Popper defined the paradox in 1945:
Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.

The idea of having unlimited tolerance means also tolerating those who are intolerant and that is the real danger. If you start tolerating absurd and irrational intolerant ideas and opinions you might at the end be the victim of your own believe. That is why there have to be some sort of limits to the freedom of speech.

Consequences of Intolerance
You will find my examples for intolerant ideas and opinions these days and we should carefully think about how much attention we want to ascribe to them. Consider if we, even though we do not share their ideas at all, really have to defend the freedom of speech in such cases over the possible negative consequences for tolerance itself. I want to give three examples to make my case.

1. Birther Movement With the beginning of the Obama administration a conspiracy theory started to grow about Obama not being born in the U.S. having its peak most likely with Donald Trump questioning Obama about his birth certificate in 2011. While all evidence (even his birth certificates) showed he was born in the U.S. people would believe he was actually born in Kenya. How much of a free opinion is this whole idea?
   In Germany for example there is a clear limitation when you attack the integrity of someone else with your speech. The law states that if there is some kind of malicious gossip and defamation, without any proven facts, simply based on your personal believe that it is true you can be prosecuted. Freedom of speech finds limits where you attack the integrity and freedom of someone else when you dismiss facts and take advantage of your apparent freedom to defame someone else. Obama tried to make it look more like a bad joke and did not take it very serious at that time. Yet imagine someone would have said the same thing about Donald Trump, we can be sure he would sue him the same minute. The ones trying to take advantage of tolerance are always the ones who will show the most intolerance if they are being attacked somehow.

2. Sandy Hook Elementary Schoon Shooting Conspiracy Radio show host Alex Jones promoted the theory that the school shooting, in which 20 children and 6 school staff members died, never happened. That it was orchestrated by the government to be able to implement stricter gun laws. This has multiple consequences: Jones is someone with a not unimportant number of followers who will most likely agree on such dangerous ideas. An idea that defames the families that lost their children during this tragic event and everyone that was involved helping those families to get somehow back to their old lives. Should such an idea really be protected where facts clash with denial rather than opinion. Is an opinion an opinion or an idea an idea or is it simply denial? I think we really need to differentiate between those. One is dangerous as it only promotes intolerance and xenophobia and one can bring debate and progress.

3. Ayaan Hirsi Ali & Islam Hirsi Ali, a former dutch politician now living in the U.S., has quite a life story if you find the time to look read up on it. She has been a muslim for many years until she became an atheist in 2002 because of several pieces of literature she red in the Netherlands, where she requested political asylum 1992. She is now a vocal critic of Islam criticising many practices within the religion, especially the treatment of women. This is definitely something honorable and should always be protected as tolerant free speech. What is troublesome are some other things she has said, such as characterising islam as the "new fascism", calling it a cult of death, saying Islam must be defeated and that the problem are not a few "rotten apples" in the islamic community but it is "the entire basket". I do not want to understate that there are definitely problems within these communities and the religion that are a real threat to Human Rights but you have to look at the consequences of saying such things. If someone compares a religion, in which one quarter of our world population believes in, to fascism, do you create more hate and division between civilisations, or more harmony and peace? I do not want to say that it is all easy and I have all the solutions, but what I do know is that this kind of language only creates more divide.

Conclusion
Freedom of speech is one of the most, if not, the most important rights that many countries have. No one should legally change that quickly or without caution, limitations need to be as objective as they can. Maybe we simply need to reform our (legal) language to tackle these kind of problems. Making a clear difference between what tolerance, opinion, intolerance and denial is. If it can be or already was the initiation of violence and substantial harm in other forms.
Do we really have to credit everyones ideas, not matter how far from reality they are, the right of the freedom of speech? Can we advocate freedom of speech if we limit it ourself? It is necessary to consider for yourself if there are limits for freedom of speech and where they are. I also want to mention that I am not trying to say that hate speech and similar will always lead to a bloody conflicts, this is definitely not my intention. What we need to do is carefully choose our wording, do not disparage someone just because he has different ideals than you do. Yet acknowledging that there can only be tolerance if we do not take intolerance on board.
If you liked my blog post and want to add your opinions and ideas, I am happy to have a healthy debate on these issues with you!