Platt said to All:
Dutch politician Geert Wilders is being tried for "hate speech." He is charged
with inciting hatred against Muslims. If convicted he faces up to one year in
prison. It will be interesting to see if intellect wins this battle to be free
of social control. If not, who will be next to be silenced by the lower level?
dmb says:
That's not how I see it. Wilders is not all that different from the far-right
politicians in this country and I'm not at all surprised that Platt would take
his side. Birds of a feather flock together, especially right-winged birds.
Like those who oppose the so-called "ground-zero mosque" and the preacher who
had to be talked out of his public Koran burning party, they're not really
interested in defending free speech. Quite the opposite. In an effort to
protect their own culture and religion, they're showing no respect for the
other guy's rights. And of course if you invoke a principle to protect your own
view but dismiss it when it comes time to protect the other guy's view, then
your stance is unprincipled. Then the idea is not a principle at all. It's just
a convenient excuse and a rather meaningless form of self-flattery. One way to
test just about any principle is to simply put the shoe on the other foot and
talk a little walk.
Have you heard about the leftist muslim politician from Vermont? He says the
bible is a fascist book and compares it to Mein Kampf. He says that
Christianity is "the ideology of a retarded culture" and wants the good book
banned. He held a bible-burning party to commemorate the Salem witch trials
last year. Naturally, there is a small percentage of far-left nut cases who
listen to this guy and take it upon themselves to act. You probably heard about
that 19 year-old who's on trial for beating a christian cab driver simply for
being a christian. Of course people like Michele Malkin and Rush Limbaugh are
calling for his head. They want to put him on trial for inciting hatred against
Christians. No, you haven't heard about this guy from Vermont because he's pure
fiction. Or rather, he's an inversion of a composite of the real thing....
>From the September 10, 2010 edition of the Christian Science Monitor:
ParisAs the world focuses on Florida pastor Terry Jones, a September 11 event
in New York City will include a surprisingly successful European politician who
has spent his career defaming Islam, and who has produced a film that features
a Quran in flames.
Geert Wilders, head of The Netherlands “Freedom Party,” will speak Saturday at
a “rally of remembrance” that includes congressional candidates from New York
and North Carolina, a taped message from former United Nations Ambassador John
Bolton, and support from radio talk host Rush Limbaugh.
Mr. Wilders is widely known in Europe for a platform to ban the Quran, along
with new mosques, and Muslim immigrants – and for his incendiary speeches. He
calls Islam “the ideology of a retarded culture” and likens the Quran to “Mein
Kampf.”
dmb continues:
As I see it, the right to free speech is supposed to prevent this kind of
tribalism, this kind of religious hostility. This intellectual principle is
supposed to protect freedom of expression but this freedom is not served when
it's used to muzzle the expression of others. As William James puts it, a
pluralistic society like ours is supposed to tolerate anything that is not
itself intolerant. Wilders seems to be a bigot-provacatuer. He uses what even
the law recognizes as "fighting words", and I don't just mean when he's talking
to his poker buddies. And our right wingers just love him for it. This kind of
us-vs-them mentality is not intellectual or principled and it's not about
freedom. It's about defending white supremacy and christian dominance in an
increasingly multicultural world. It's part of larger pattern of reactionary
paranoia. It is the social level's immune system overheating, acting out
against perceived threats.
Everybody knows that people are likely to get hurt if you shout "Fire!" in a
crowded theater. If you shout "food fight!" in a crowded cafeteria, everybody
knows that people are likely to make a mess. And so it's not at all a stretch
for me to believe that inciting hatred is a real act, one that's very likely to
cause real harm to real people. There is a wide array of crimes that can be
committed with nothing more than speech. Inciting a riot and perjury spring to
mind. Slander and treason are punishable by law. One can be convicted for
conspiracy to commit a crime, even if the crime itself was never carried out.
To make these things illegal does no harm to the principle of free speech, none
whatsoever. Neither does the law against inciting hate. Tolerance is not served
by tolerating intolerance. Free speech, Mein Ass.
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