Letter to The Editor - Dissident views ignored rather than thoughtfully analysed

To The Australian        Paul Monk has offered a sturdy defence both of free speech (as a principle) and the ways in which our political order should be shaped in order to facilitate it ("The rules for civil engagement", 8-9/12). Yes, we should indeed "agree to open contentious subjects up to discussion, not shut them down." Monk does us a service by recommending Nadine Strossen's new book Hate: Why We Should Resist It With Free Speech, Not Censorship. The litmus test for this intellectual idealism is "Holocaust revisionism." At present this subject is usually shirked by otherwise honourable defenders of liberty; but, until the situation changes, decent persons in several nations will continue to be persecuted for expressing their dissident views; and the great service of men such as the late Professor Robert Faurisson will be largely ignored rather than thoughtfully analysed.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic