Here’s the relevant text from the post at LGF:
Yes, it’s a disgrace. Geert Wilders has the same right to free speech as anyone else, and the government of Britain is demonstrating once again that they’ve completely lost their way in a maze of multicultural contradictions.
However, Wilders himself does not deserve to be called an icon of free speech, since he explicitly wants to ban the Koran and make Islam illegal in Europe; in other words, he wants to take away other people’s freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and that is simply wrong. Book banning is what totalitarians do, not believers in free speech.
Also note that Wilders has recently announced he plans to form an alliance with the neofascist Belgian party Vlaams Belang.
So while I denounce Britain’s decision, I can’t support Wilders either while he maintains these positions and associations. Britain is wrong, and Wilders is also wrong. It’s a bad situation all around.
There’s more on the same topic in the comments to the post.
It’s important to point out the context for this controversy: Geert Wilders does not simply want to ban the Koran, he believes that the Koran is no less dangerous than Mein Kampf, which is banned under Dutch law. To be consistent under the law, a book as full of incitement to violence as the Koran should be banned as well.
Mr. Bostom marshals all the facts to demonstrate his point:
Over in the Lost Land of the Mendacious Very Little Green Craven One, and His Mindless Minions, there is a predictably distorted “discussion” of yesterday’s banning of Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders from Britain, where Wilders was slated to show his film Fitna at the House of Lords.- - - - - - - - -
Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer have informed discussions on the subject of Wilders’ banning.
As I had noted in a blog on the subject of Wilders, Churchill and the Koran,
Wilders, like Churchill ( who wrote that Mein Kampf was “…the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless, but pregnant with its message”), compared the Koran to Mein Kampf, and called it hate speech according to the Dutch Penal Code. And as in the case of the Calcutta Koran Petition from the early 1980s in India, Wilders, like his Hindu predecessors was fed up with Muslim abuse of similar Indian laws…, and simply saying if one bans hate speech, in accord with existing Dutch Law, then the Koran is hate speech. But the Mendacious Little Green Craven One and His Mindless Minions, are too blind and stupid and agenda driven to see, let alone acknowledge this. Here is an extract from a speech Wilders gave last year on the subject…
Go over to Andy’s blog to read the excerpts and his additional material, including extracts from his discussion of the Calcutta Koran Petition, “which illustrate how it is the abuse of hate speech laws by Muslims seeking to impose Sharia mandates on non-Muslim majorities that is the source of the problem.”
16 comments:
I'm covered in glass fibre right now and very itchy, so anything that puts a needle in biovating blowhards is improving my mood quite nicely. Heeh heeh!
Chuckles the Dancing Clown is a flaming idiot, he has long ago driven off anyone with a whit of intelligence from his travelling circus, and now he is being a free speech hypocrite.
And in other news, water is wet and the sky is blue.
Yep, Charlie would argue that day is night if he thought that it would net him more commenter's. He would also argue that poisons like strychnine and cyanide should be made available to peeps who are curious about their effects. he thinks that all freedoms are equally valuable and necessary to all societies.
What still gets to me is the inability of these people to really understand that they're dealing with different cultures. The irony of dismissing people who do understand this point as "fascists" - because they understand that their own culture is threatened by another - seems to escape them. Fascism was at its heart the destruction of existing culture in the name of progress.
I peeked at the thread, and the old "ethno-nationalism" saw is up as well. We europeans are dismissed as "tribal" for wanting to defend our culture, which is intimately linked to our ethnicity. The same attitude lies behind the European Union, which has the stated aim of removing traditional national boundaries and distinctions in the name of ever closer union...
To compare the robustly defended national culture to the inbred tribes of the middle-east is rather like pointing at a fort and a latrine and saying they're the same thing. After all, they both have walls...
Oh, I forgot, I was going to add that whilst I am a great admirer of American values and ideals (many of which are in fact English values ideals, having crystallised here in the aftermath of the civil war) I resent the demands from some (Sharmuta in particular) that we adopt those values as our own. Even at the heights of the British Empire we didn't demand that people adopt our norms. We educated people about them and we presented those norms as desirable but we didn't force more than a patina of conformity, banning a few of the more egregious ideas (like suttee or some african tribal practices like FGM) whilst leaving the underlying culture intact. These "Americans" in name only apparently lack understanding of the norms they demand we adopt, otherwise they would be making no such demands.
Archonix--
The ignorance re history that prevails in this country is appalling.
People may get into genealogy, digging for their very own personal "roots" but finding information on great-great grandma doesn't lead to curiosity regarding the period which shaped their ancestors’ lives.
There are many examples of our adamant ignorance, but given the word limit on comments, here are just three of the more egregious instances:
First, our deep ignorance re the effects of the "Spanish Flu" on American families and towns. That epidemic is a black hole, often skipped entirely in some cultural accounts of the 20th century.
Here's a snip from the wiki:
The global mortality rate from the 1918/1919 pandemic is not known, but is estimated at 2.5 to 5% of the human population, with 20% or more of the world population suffering from the disease…
Influenza may have killed as many as 25 million in its first 25 weeks (in contrast, AIDS killed 25 million in its first 25 years)[citation needed]. Older estimates say…20–50 million people; current estimates [claim] 50 million to 100 million people worldwide…
One account described the social chaos in Philadelphia. People stole coffins for their own dead, dumping the previous cadaver onto the sidewalk.
The wiki lists some famous victims, including Max Weber. It wasn’t 100% fatal: some notable survivors (people who recovered from the ‘flu) were David Lloyd George, Walt Disney, FDR and the Queen of Denmark.
___
A second (and recurring) facet of American history steadfastly ignored is the periods of religious "Great Awakenings":
The cycle of Great Awakenings appears unique to the USA, although the Great Awakenings influenced and were influenced by religious thought from throughout the world. This could be because the USA is home to many different denominations and sects, while remaining largely Protestant. The lack of a single dominant faith or state-sanctioned religion means new ideas can be spread without people having to slowly reform existing institutions from within, or allow pressures to build up until the existing institutions are violently overthrown…
The dates:
First (c. 1730–1770)
Second (c. 1790–1840)
Third (c. 1850–1900)
Fourth (c. 1960–1980)
A serious discussion of religion is just one of those topics on the loooong verboten list at Chazzer's place; the Great Awakenings would not be a topic of conversation there except in the most pejorative of terms...
______
Three, a reader emailed us that his son’s history class was discussing the Russia revolution and origin of the phrase “the Reds”. When his son mentioned “the Whites”, the class – including the teacher (o, dear God) – thought he was racist. He had to do research to prove his point about White Russians.
Maroons! We’re surrounded by maroons!
Is Charles Johnson aware that Yisrael Beiteinu are an ethnic nationalist party? They will probably be in government soon. He'll have to pretend they don't exist and hope no one notices his inconsistency.
Archonix: I peeked at the thread, and the old "ethno-nationalism" saw is up as well. We europeans are dismissed as "tribal" for wanting to defend our culture, which is intimately linked to our ethnicity.
Far be it from me to point out how Islam employs far more brutal and violent tactics in order to preserve or defend its own "tribal" "ethnicity" or "ethno-nationalism".
Those who wish to argue about Islam not being a "nationality" can go whistle. Shari'a law's inability to discriminate between or separate church and state make Islam into a national political force wherever it rears its ugly little head. The epoxy-like bonds between Islam and "tribal" behavior need not even enter into discussion.
What is really fascinating is that all you anti-jihad folks, who have been screaming about freedom of expression, see absolutely no irony in trying to ban the worlds second largest religion as illegal. When a politician such a level as Wilders goes in for banning a book, one must assume that he also supports a state-apparatus capable of enforcing such a ban. It means transforming the Netherlands into a thought-police state. It generalizes a huge part of the population, and follows the same pattern of thinking as anti-semitism (the others as a homogenous mass, etc). None of you seem capable of understanding that what you seek in response to your fears of islam is the return of a police-state.
"It means transforming the Netherlands into a thought-police state."
That's already the case anyway.
"It generalizes a huge part of the population,"
Well yes. What would you think of people who thought Mein Kampf was a holy book? Brigitte Gabriel says: "The moderate Muslims at this point are truly irrelevant. I grew up in the Paris of the Middle East, and because we refused to read the writing on the wall, we lost our country to Hezbollah and the radicals who are now controlling it." But you're right, generalising huge populations is tantamount to bigotry and prohibited by liberal culture... and so.. so.. we will will continue the current state of affairs, we will watch the Trojan horse slowly spread. We will be this way right up until Western Europe gets it's own Bosnia. And then the collapse of Yugoslavia will repeat itself. And the fnord's and the CJ's will be there to blame it on Nazism.
Think before you call us Nazis fnord and watch this video.
fnord: What is really fascinating is that all you anti-jihad folks, who have been screaming about freedom of expression, see absolutely no irony in trying to ban the worlds second largest religion as illegal.
Please pay close attention to the following. I'll try to speak very slowly for your benefit.
CJ: However, Wilders himself does not deserve to be called an icon of free speech, since he explicitly wants to ban the Koran and make Islam illegal in Europe; in other words, he wants to take away other people’s freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and that is simply wrong.
Head Lizard in Charge makes a couple of faulty assumptions.
Firstly, Wilders' desire to ban the Qu'ran stems from his wish to see an equal application of the law that also bans Mein Kampf.
Secondly, taken in proper context, seeking a ban upon Islam is not a violatoin of "freedom of religion" because ISLAM IS NOT A RELIGION.
The equation is quite clear:
In order for a "religion" to be a religion, it must agree to and abide by the Separation of Church and State. Within Islam, THERE IS NO SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE.
Not only is there no separation but well meaning Muslims who seek to establish such a division are summarily KILLED by pious Muslims who will not for one moment endure such a notion.
If there is no Separation of Church and State within a given "religion", then it is not a "religion" but a political ideology.
NO "RELIGION" CAN MAINTAIN POLITICAL ASPIRATIONS AND STILL MERIT DESCRIPTION AS A "RELIGION".
Ergo, banning Islam is an effort to legally estop its doctrine of sedition and violent overthrow of all non-Islamic nations. This entire argument has NOTHING to do with freedom of religion.
CJ: Book banning is what totalitarians do, not believers in free speech.
As in: No Bibles in Saudi Arabia?. Effing priceless!
Zenster,
"In order for a "religion" to be a religion, it must agree to and abide by the Separation of Church and State. Within Islam, THERE IS NO SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE."
I hate to disagree with you but whether or not the practioners of a religion conform to Thomas Jefferson's unique and inspired political arrangement - the "wall of separation" between Church and State - has no bearing on what constitutes a religion.
Catholicism largely fails this litmus test. The railing against "liberty of conscience" (i.e. the intellectual freedom to become an atheist or an agnostic) by numerous Popes down the ages, though not so much nowadays, was often enforced by State power.
The rationale being (I think) that allowing a person to come under the influence of atheistic ideas would have been considered akin to allowing a person to walk out on a ledge and throw themself off it rather than pull them back to safety.
I also disagree that Islam is not a religion but I understand the objection: it's both less and more than a religion. It's an ongoing imperial project, among other things. The political aspects of Islam have been smuggled into the West under the principle of religious toleration.
While we're on the subject of religion - there's a part in Deuteronomy that is stuck in my mind, wherein the Israelites are enslaved and their children are taken from them with lots of weeping and screaming.
Potentially this could happen to you or me (it's becoming increasingly likely) if Islam continues to enjoy its free rein in the West but try explaining that to some little green dupe.
islam o' phobe: Catholicism largely fails this litmus test. The railing against "liberty of conscience" (i.e. the intellectual freedom to become an atheist or an agnostic) by numerous Popes down the ages, though not so much nowadays, was often enforced by State power.
Zero argument. The Catholic Church was Christianity's most dedicated attempt at imposing theocracy upon Western civilization and it very nearly succeeded.
To Christianity's great credit, it has largely abandoned such triumphalist ambitions in favor of voluntary recruitment based upon the more benevolent teachings of its principal visionary.
A few hundred years of age difference notwithstanding, in no way has Islam foresaken any such prospects. In fact, its entire framework and recent reconstruction continues to pursue the exact opposite path of more moderate Christian offices.
None of this erases Catholicism's sordid past. After all, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition ... er, to be forgotten entirely. Still, by and large, Christianity seems to have learned its lesson while Islam, from all indications, remains far from understanding the least notion regarding any Separation of Church and State.
Zenster,
What about the Orthodox Church in Russia? That's an official state church and there are a set of laws protecting it and magnifying its influence on Russian life.
I don't think there's anything particularly sordid about having a State church. It's just a different political arrangement which is out of fashion in the present age.
But it could be easily arranged if it were what the laity in a country overwhelmingly wanted. Clearly though most people do not want that.
islam o' phobe: I don't think there's anything particularly sordid about having a State church.
I do. A State church puts one foot on a very slippery slope that ends in theocracy.
Another vivid example of the woes fomented by having a State church is the European model. There, ALL churches must receive state funding because ONE most popular church does (per your own example).
This has led to mandatory State funding of mosque construction, the building of Islamic schools with tax money and halal meals served at State schools as well.
It is my firm belief that rigid separation of church and State is one of the reasons why America is so great. This perception is only further reinforced in light of Europe's growing problems and the total stagnation of Muslim theocracies.
But it could be easily arranged if it were what the laity in a country overwhelmingly wanted.
That is the Islamic model and I have already opined on it.
To address another important point of yours:
islam o' phobe: ... the "wall of separation" between Church and State - has no bearing on what constitutes a religion.
Perhaps not in strict definitive terms but it represents a great place to start when determining the extent a religious body seeks to influence political outcomes.
If there is one lesson to be taken away from Islam is it that:
RELIGION AND POLITICS DO NOT MIX.
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