Where are the Goalposts?

[Archie]

Spinning off my reply to the comment below since it's far afield of the original topic.

[...]
You replied but you did not meaningfully address it.

"When has the victorious side ever been prosecuted?" Uh, this is a problem revisionists have been pointing out for decades. That Nuremberg was victor's justice and was hypocritical and biased. This is Revisionism 101 stuff.

Are you new here?

So what if Nuremberg was hypocritical and biased? I'll admit this is indeed circumstantial evidence for the conspiracy you believe in, but it is exceedingly weak circumstantial evidence. To me it's like saying you should believe the Holocaust happened because the Nazis were anti semitic. Maybe that's enough for some people, but there are dumb revisionists too.

My gut reaction to this (and several of BA's comments prior to this) was one of amazement. It is odd to see a Holocaust promoter abandoning what has traditionally been vigorously defended territory and to suggest it is of no consequence.

I think the major source of disagreement here can be resolved by addressing a simple question: Where are the goalposts?

My position has always been that in terms of the Holocaust debate, the goalposts are exactly where the Holocaust mainstream has decided to place them. And the Holocaust mainstream has set a very demanding standard for themselves in suggesting that the Holocaust has been factually proven with 100% confidence. They say the proof is so overwhelming that no debate can ever be permitted over the inherent historicity of it. And no one is allowed to question their interpretation of the evidence or present counterevidence.

I am holding Holocaust promoters to this 100% certainty standard until Lipstadt and company concede otherwise.

Under the 100% certainty standard, if revisionists are able to create even a small chance of doubt, say 1%, this would be of some significance as it would open the door to further debate which they are unwilling to have.

Let's look at the classic revisionists points about Nuremberg in light of the 100% certainty standard.

-It is claimed that the Holocaust is proved with absolute, 100% certainty. This conclusion is said to be inerrant and infallible.
-Suppose we ask WHEN these facts were established with certainty. The traditional answer would have to be that it was at Nuremberg (and similar trials). This is where the precedent was established.
-If Nuremberg was one-sided and propagandistic and its conclusions are highly vulnerable to critique, this calls everything into question.

From the traditional point of view, the Nuremberg critique is a crucial point because it 1) establishes reasonable doubt about the precedent (which opens the door to further debate), 2) it materially erodes the original evidentiary basis for the Holocaust, 3) it even explains to an extent the question of how such a legend could have taken hold. Does it absolutely disprove the Holocaust by itself? No, because you would still need to evaluate the claims, some of which could in theory have some real basis even if the trials were a frame-up.

Back to bombsaway's argument. Because the "100% certainty" standard is completely impossible to defend intellectually, people like bombsaway don't even try. He knows he would be laughed out of the room if he did that around here. They know that if they want to engage with revisionists and have a chance of convincing anyone they will need to bring more than "just trust me." Notice however that what bombsaway attempts to do here is a near complete inversion of the mainstream's standard. Instead of him recognizing the onus of proving the Holocaust with 100% certainty, he demands 100% certainty of revisionists, and he dismisses any point that does not, in isolation, 100% disprove the Holocaust. Again, this is absurd given the position of Holocaust mainstream.

If revisionists are able to establish any material doubt, even something modest like 5%, this would imo demand a major public and academic controversy. Needless to say, I think revisionists have gone far, far beyond that, and it has only gone unacknowledged for political reasons.

[bombsaway]

Which historians have said that there is 100% certainty that the Holocaust happened? Where is this coming from?

No I don't demand 100% certainty, or evidence that suggests that. What I said was that the evidence you've provided was weak, the "victor's justice" circumstantial evidence is weak, which I don't think you contend with. Himmler's speeches are much stronger evidence than that.

I think that what I would argue, and this is a more productive line to go down in my opinion, is that there is no reason to believe the revisionist narrative is more accurate than the orthodox one. The 5% probability of revisionism being correct is a huge reach, I would put the probability at something like 1 out of a million or a billion.

[TlsMS93]

They claim that the Holocaust is the best-documented event in history, yet they don't relinquish their rebuttals to revisionists' questioning of gaps that they consider mere circumstantial chance, as if evidence about Aktion 1005 were unimportant—after all, an alcoholic with little experience in cremation confessed everything—or where did they get the necessary material to cremate almost 2 million people in isolated camps in rural Poland? Suffice it to say that women's fat was used as fuel, or that we have no proof of how much wood would have been needed, therefore we cannot prove it didn't happen.

We shouldn't allow exterminationists to impose their conditions here, accepting the issue of having to prove that the Holocaust didn't happen instead of simply refuting the so-called overwhelming evidence they claim to have, which is the natural course of any debate.

[bombsaway]

They claim that the Holocaust is the best-documented event in history,

Who is "they"? The historical establishment?

More accurate would be, best documented genocide in history

[TlsMS93]

More accurate would be, best documented genocide in history

Oh, when you look into what these documents are, they need to educate us on what they really mean; only they have the codification of what they signify.

[bombsaway]

Which genocide would you say is better evidenced?

[Trebb]

Which genocide would you say is better evidenced?

Dresden.

[Archie]

Which historians have said that there is 100% certainty that the Holocaust happened? Where is this coming from?

No I don't demand 100% certainty, or evidence that suggests that. What I said was that the evidence you've provided was weak, the "victor's justice" circumstantial evidence is weak, which I don't think you contend with. Himmler's speeches are much stronger evidence than that.

I think that what I would argue, and this is a more productive line to go down in my opinion, is that there is no reason to believe the revisionist narrative is more accurate than the orthodox one. The 5% probability of revisionism being correct is a huge reach, I would put the probability at something like 1 out of a million or a billion.

Are you seriously going to deny this? You are unbelievable.

On what grounds could legally mandatory belief in the Holocaust be justified unless it were certain that revisionists were wrong?

You requesting a quote is extreme bad faith, but since I have one handy ... here's Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust, preface.

"The deniers have painted my refusal to debate them and my resistance to the publication of Holocaust denial ads in campus newspapers as a reflection of my lack of tolerance for the First Amendment and my opposition to free intellectual inquiry."

"However, their claim that the Holocaust is treated as a sacrosanct subject that is not open to debate is ludicrous. There is little about the Holocaust that is not debated and discussed. Among the questions continually being debated in any conference or class on the Holocaust are:

... Could Jews have resisted the Nazis more forcefully? ...

There is a categorical difference between debating these types of questions and debating the very fact of the Holocaust."

"We will debate much about it but not whether it happened. That would be the equivalent of the scholar of ancient Rome debating whether the Roman empire ever existed or the French historian proving that there really was a French Revolution."

She says not believing in the Holocaust is on par with believing that Rome doesn't exist. She also has often made comparisons to flat earth, i.e., the Holocaust in her mind is supposedly as well established as core findings in the natural sciences.

And from chapter one,

I explained repeatedly that I would not participate in a debate with a Holocaust denier. The existence of the Holocaust was not a matter of debate.

All such statements presuppose absolute certainty in the position.

You yourself say you are 99.9999-99.9999999% confident, so how then are going to deny that your side claims absolute or very, very near absolute certainty?

[Archie]

No I don't demand 100% certainty, or evidence that suggests that. What I said was that the evidence you've provided was weak, the "victor's justice" circumstantial evidence is weak, which I don't think you contend with. Himmler's speeches are much stronger evidence than that.

Of all the people I have ever discussed things with online, and I mean on any topic, I have had by far the most miscommunications with you. Your capacity for distortion is unmatched.

I argued in the OP why the critiques of Nuremberg were extremely good points.

[bombsaway]

Which genocide would you say is better evidenced?

Dresden.

I think the case isn't so strong, because even posters here (who are definitely not anglophiles) were doubting, even after I showed evidence

[bombsaway]

Which historians have said that there is 100% certainty that the Holocaust happened? Where is this coming from?

No I don't demand 100% certainty, or evidence that suggests that. What I said was that the evidence you've provided was weak, the "victor's justice" circumstantial evidence is weak, which I don't think you contend with. Himmler's speeches are much stronger evidence than that.

I think that what I would argue, and this is a more productive line to go down in my opinion, is that there is no reason to believe the revisionist narrative is more accurate than the orthodox one. The 5% probability of revisionism being correct is a huge reach, I would put the probability at something like 1 out of a million or a billion.

Are you seriously going to deny this? You are unbelievable.

On what grounds could legally mandatory belief in the Holocaust be justified unless it were certain that revisionists were wrong?

You requesting a quote is extreme bad faith, but since I have one handy ... here's Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust, preface.

"The deniers have painted my refusal to debate them and my resistance to the publication of Holocaust denial ads in campus newspapers as a reflection of my lack of tolerance for the First Amendment and my opposition to free intellectual inquiry."

"However, their claim that the Holocaust is treated as a sacrosanct subject that is not open to debate is ludicrous. There is little about the Holocaust that is not debated and discussed. Among the questions continually being debated in any conference or class on the Holocaust are:

... Could Jews have resisted the Nazis more forcefully? ...

There is a categorical difference between debating these types of questions and debating the very fact of the Holocaust."

"We will debate much about it but not whether it happened. That would be the equivalent of the scholar of ancient Rome debating whether the Roman empire ever existed or the French historian proving that there really was a French Revolution."

She says not believing in the Holocaust is on par with believing that Rome doesn't exist. She also has often made comparisons to flat earth, i.e., the Holocaust in her mind is supposedly as well established as core findings in the natural sciences.

And from chapter one,

I explained repeatedly that I would not participate in a debate with a Holocaust denier. The existence of the Holocaust was not a matter of debate.

All such statements presuppose absolute certainty in the position.

You yourself say you are 99.9999-99.9999999% confident, so how then are going to deny that your side claims absolute or very, very near absolute certainty?

I think the "mandatory" belief you are talking about wouldn't be justified even if it was 100% certain. In principle it's wrong to force people to believe things (which btw Lipstadt doesn't think is correct - I disagree with her a lot, but she doesn't think you should be silenced, she just thinks that you're harmful and very bad at history) . I think yes, orthodoxy claims near certainty or virtual certainty. I myself have virtual certainty about it. That's different than absolute certainty though, which I don't even have about the existence of the universe. I think it's as established as core findings in science etc, that's just my opinion. So I guess the goal posts haven't moved.

The argument I was responding to re Nuremberg was the 'victor's justice' angle, that the Allies were biased and hypocritical. You think this is strong evidence for a conspiracy to fabricate testimonies, documents? Really? Powers being biased and hypocritical is a constant throughout history, only the naive would assume otherwise. Was the Versailles treaty (which pinned the blame for the war on Germany in a major way) unhypocritical and just? It's quite obvious that the Allies could have been biased and hypocritical and Nazi Germany still done the Holocaust, which is why I think this argument is pitifully weak. Of course you have a million other arguments about Nuremberg, but I wasn't responding to those.

[bombsaway]

Maybe I can ask this interesting question though for revisionists, which I find interesting at least

What is your level of certainty about the following statement being false

more than 100,000 Jewish civilians were gassed to death

[Callafangers]

What is your level of certainty about the following statement being false

more than 100,000 Jewish civilians were gassed to death

I'll answer it, but I'd like you to also answer:

1. What is the relative importance of high-quality physical/forensic evidence in a murder investigation?
2. What is the credibility of an ideologically-aligned (anti-Nazi) group with a stark reputation for false atrocity propaganda?
3. When the sources from questions (1) and (2) conflict, which takes precedent?

[bombsaway]

1. very important
2. the credibility is compromised, particularly in the case of the USSR
3. the forensic

[Wahrheitssucher]

Which historians have said that there is 100% certainty that the Holocaust happened?
…The 5% probability of revisionism being correct [i.e. that ‘the holocaust’ didn’t happen] is a huge reach,
I would put the probability at something like 1 out of a million or a billion.

He is still trying to present the argument as being whether ‘the holocaust’ “happened” or not.
Exactly as the dimwitted deceiver calling himself ‘confused jew’ also repeatedly attempted to do.

And curiously you are all permitting him to do that.

It’s a strawman, false dichotomy.