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Freedom of speech on trial

Geert Wilders is on trial today for telling it like it is with his film ‘Fitna’.

If you are a blogger, read up on the subject and get out the support. Europe may not have Freedom of Speech with teeth in it, but perhaps you can provide that poor benighted continent with implants.

21 comments to Freedom of speech on trial

  • JadedLibertarian

    The Torygraph reports it as:

    “Geert Wilders trial suspended after he attacks judge ”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/netherlands/8041998/Geert-Wilders-trial-suspended-after-he-attacks-judge.html

    Surely that should be the other way around? The judge attacked him, completely violating their stance as an impartial arbiter.

    How would it be if judges were allowed to start trials by gazing into the dock with a wicked grin on their faces and say “Ready for some justice you criminal f***er!”?

    When will the establishment recognise that free speech only protects unpopular speech? Any other kind doesn’t need protecting.

    All this “Free speech within limits” is a load of crap.

  • Chuck6134

    As its up we’ve (the States) have become in so many ways, at least this is one road not yet a highway for government PC police

  • Richard Garner

    Jaded Libertarian wrote

    All this “Free speech within limits” is a load of crap

    Quite. Limited “free speech” is limited speech, not free speech.

  • Derek Buxton

    But this is “justice” Napoleonic style. The EU does not believe in free speech and it is doubtful about the UK.

  • llamas

    Anthony wrote:

    ‘While he should not be prosecuted, he should not be championed either . . .’

    followed by a link that suggests that some of Wilders’s ideas are less-than-attractive.

    No offence, but when are you Europeans going to assimilate the idea that the content of his ideas is simply immaterial?

    He should be championed precisely because his ideas are controversial, unpleasant, unpopular or offensive. To say otherwise is to say exactly what those who are attempting to pass judgement on him are saying – that some ideas are more-worthy of our support and protection than other ideas.

    So he wants to ban a book, or books? Sure, these are ideas that offend the conventional Enlightenment view. But his ideas and his opinions are no more and no less deserving of our protection than any other – no matter how much we may, personally, dislike them.

    The only cure for free speech we dislike is more free speech – not banning. Nothing is more telling about the value of another’s ideas than when he seeks to have the power of the state applied to silence those who disagree with him. This is true for Wilders, but it is just as true for those who have now actually sought to have the state punish him for expressing his ideas.

    The Dutch government is bowing to a mixture of EU-style political correctness and fear for the reactions of its large Muslim immigrant population – which, in the final reduction, amount to the same thing.. The mob has now taken over the administration of Dutch jurisprudence, without so much as a single rock or punch being thrown. The former cradle of the Enlightenment, the home of Erasmus, is sinking back into the Dark Ages. Ze moesten zich schamen.

    llater,

    llamas

  • Anthony, I agree with your points (and indeed have raised them myself about the regrettable side of Wilders), however if one only supports libertarian politicians as opposed to politicians with at least some shared views, one is condemned to be addressing a very small audience. Compared to, say, David Cameron, I would regard Wilders as Lysander Spooner reborn… no, not really but I’m sure you get the drift.

    In the Netherlands, Mein Kampf is illegal and thus *within that context* it is deeply inconsistent that the Koran is also no illegal.

    Yes, I know, I know, Mein Kampf should also not be illegal as the state has no business deciding what people can read, but the fact is it *IS* illegal… and therefore the Koran should also be… the only logical alternative is the one we both *really* want, i.e. neither should be.

    Likewise if you cannot walk down the street in Leeuwarden with a Nazi armband on because it indicates support for a totalitarian political system, you should also not be allowed to walk down the street in a burqua… because it indicates support for a totalitarian political system.

    Yes, Wilders may not be our ‘dream candidate’ but the thing about battles is that you often do not get to choose where you fight them.

  • No offence, but when are you Europeans going to assimilate the idea that the content of his ideas is simply immaterial?

    But I am offended. I see no evidence that Anthony is European. Indeed I strongly suspect he is British.

  • RW

    “No pressure, mijnheer Wilders”.

  • llamas

    Our always-generous host wrote:

    ‘In the Netherlands, Mein Kampf is illegal and thus *within that context* it is deeply inconsistent that the Koran is also no illegal. ‘

    This riffs on the Telegraph article which also states baldly that Mein Kampf is ‘illegal’ in the Netheralnds.

    But it is not so. The book is not explicitly banned. The restored Dutch government siezed the copyright after WW2 and refuses to allow new publications. But is is not explicitly illegal to own, sell or buy existing copies and indeed, I have seen such volumes offered for sale in used bookshops in the Netherlands (they may also be found online from such dealers), many in the pre-war and wartime Dutch translations.

    Selling or displaying a copy might attract a criminal charge of ‘inciting hatred” (a typically-vague formulation that is the answer to any censor’s prayer) but there’s no explicit law against doing so.

    llater,

    llamas

  • The poor fellow is doomed. He’s speaking the truth, and that’s the one thing above all that must be suppressed.

  • Dyspeptic Curmudgeon

    “perhaps you can provide that poor benighted continent with implants.

    Unfortunately, I am not close enough to implant my shoe into the arse of the ‘judge’. Unfortunately, I also can predict that one day that judge will get his surprise: even though he will have displayed his dhimmitude, that will not protect him.

    Better yet, of course, if that were to happen tomorrow. The saying is that a new conservative is a recently mugged liberal! Or maybe he just will get the snot beaten out of him and it will be ‘self-defence’ of Nederlanders present right of free speech.

    I cannot be sanguine that this will not end in a sanguinary mess.

  • Selling or displaying a copy might attract a criminal charge of ‘inciting hatred” (a typically-vague formulation that is the answer to any censor’s prayer) but there’s no explicit law against doing so.

    Thank you for making my point for me. Shame about the rest of the comment.

  • Laird

    “It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.” — Voltaire

  • Perry, I’ll respond to your comment on my blog where you left the same comment. I hope you don’t mind 🙂

    Llamas, you are of course right that we must support his right to free speech even though we disagree with what he has to say (and strongly disagree). However, those of us who support true free speech are limited in number and short on time and energy. There are numerous battles to fight on this front. I therefore think that it is appropriate to pick our battles. Given that there are other instances where freedom of speech is being eroded, we should not spend our time fighting this one when the victim is himself not an advocate of free speech.

    True it might be morally better (look we support even the rights of those we disagree with) but it is politically worse. It does less to further our aims than campaigning about other instances and may even be counter-active. That is the point I am trying to make.

  • The fact that Wilders seeks statist solutions to the Islamist problem isn’t a reason to condemn him; 99% or more of our fellow citizens think exactly the same way. If we are purists, we’ll defend nobody in a situation like this because they aren’t libertarians. Hardly anyone is a libertarian. Even libertarians can’t agree; I as a minarchist have been accused a number of times of suffering Stockholm Syndrome and the like for not following the one true path of anarchism.

    I don’t think banning the Koran would be useful or practical. I don’t think banning state control of the copyright of Mein Kampf is useful or practical either. But the bottom line is, Wilders is being openly persecuted for speaking his mind, and if as libertarians-in-general we care about anything we really ought to care about that. A great deal.

  • Paul Marks

    Yes Jaded Libertarian.

    The Daily Telegraph not only lied – it told the exact opposite of the truth. For the judge attacked Wilders – not Wilders the judge.

    The bias of this “court” is obvious.

    As for “ban the Koran” – this simply stating the point that under Dutch law a book so filled with hatred and incitements to violence should be banned, other books are not allowed to be published. So either allow those books to be published – or ban the Koran.

    What Wilders is saying (although the establishment pretend not to understand) is “do not play favourates”.

    The attitude of the “liberal” establishment (of crawling to Islam) is based on their hatred of traditional Western civilization – and their doctrine of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.

    Islam is the enemy of the West – the “liberal” establishment hate the West, therefore they see Islam as a friend and ally.

    Eventually (most likely too late) they will understand their error.

  • Verity

    “… It does less to further our aims …).

    And what are “our” aims, Anthony?

  • Verity

    Paul Marks, exactly! And they must be forced to “understand their error” sooner, although this will not happen under the loathesome current “leadership” in Britain, rather than later.

    I think David Cameron’s string pullers are so hungry for power and privilege they don’t see that the road map leads over the cliff. Cameron himself is so greedy for a seat at the top table in the malignanty of Brussels that he doesn’t care. I see he greeted his wife and new daughter, YET AGAIN, this time getting off the train in wherever they are holding their conference. Why would a wife, with her familiar vapid smile, and tiny new-born be brought along to this event, I wonder and why would it be featured I wonder?

    I noticed the wife didn’t seem to have any luggage. Perhaps this was being attended to by others? The same “others” whose help was not required when Cameron and Nick Clegg, two of the richest men in Britain, got together and tried comically – an Oliver and Hardy moment! – to knock an Ikea flatpak cot together for the new kid?

    Could this be the same Cameron and wife who had the baby unexpectedly (yeah; right) somewhere in the country and the baby had to sleep overnight in a drawer? Is there a punchline to this joke, or is this all we’re getting? More astutely, was this intended to cue people to say, “Oh, that was like Great Auntie Sarah when she had Aunt Susan! They had to put her in a drawer, too!”

    Ah, the memories …

    Patronising gits.

  • Jackthesmilingblack

    When the truth is no defence, then it’s justice that’s on trial.
    But I’ll still be blogging when you gentlemen in England have been closed down and put to bed.
    Jack, Japan Alps

  • Paul Marks

    One thing I should have done (and failed to do) is to complain about to the Daily Telegraph about there reverse-of-the-truth headline.

    Complaining to the BBC is pointless (they are funded by a special tax), and complaining to an openly leftist publication (like the British “Guardian” newspaper or the Amerian Time magazine) is also pointless – as the people who buy them expect (and want) them to be lying leftist rags (that did not use to be the case with “Time” but the customers it has left are leftists).

    However, lots of complaints to the Daily Telegraph might have an effect – because they depend on conservative people buying the newspaper.