Figure skating, infidelity and the Holocaust

It's rather disconcerting when the right thing happens for the wrong reasons. For example, hearing¹ that this figure skater in the Ladies' Event at the Winter Olympics last night was not yet sixteen reminded Zara of a recent incident involving a man sent to prison for conducting an online affair with a young girl for two years that resulted in his imprisonment for sexual conduct with a minor - she was 15 when they finally met and got physical. His defence was that she had never told him her age and, in person, he could not tell she was underage (she no more looked fifteen than Galina Efremenko does).

It transpires that he was married and was, in fact, being unfaithful to his wife during the whole sordid matter. Our laws do not allow for imprisonment for infidelity to a spouse, but it's rather satisfying to me that, as a consequence of this rather shaky verdict, he is being sent to prison and, indirectly, being punished for cheating on his wife.

That's worrying, because my outrage at the length of his term (15 years - totally out of keeping with the transgression, a knee-jerk response to the whiff of paedophilia) should not in any way be ameliorated by other circumstances. And yet, a little part of my heart glows warmly at his downfall.

Which brings us to David Irving's imprisonment for flouting Austrian law. This article captures that dissonant feeling nicely but fails to take it further; that the satisfied feeling at his imprisonment should ring alarm bells far and wide. Sure, we don't like what he says, or the fact that he says it to neo-Nazis, or that he has been seen to be supportive of the far-right agenda to discount the Holocaust as propaganda. So let's not buy his book, or attend his seminars or pay attention to his interviews. Legal recourse just seems too much like pouring petrol on a spark; a good way to start a conflagration.

¹It turns out that the commentator made a mistake in calculating her age, and I perpetuated it by not checking his maths. It makes no difference to the thrust of the argument.