Geert Wilders upcoming trial

Randall Parker is promoting Geert Wilders day:

Geert Wilders is on trial this week in the Netherlands for using his basic right to free speech (said right not recognized in the Netherlands) to advocate against the Islamization of the Netherlands. It occurs to me we should choose a day when all bloggers who support a basic right to free speech ought to write posts protesting the prosecution for Geert Wilders.

Since Wilders is on trial this week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I propose Thursday October 7 as the day to write posts excoriating the Dutch government for this unjustified and unfair prosecution of Geert Wilders.

If you are going to do this then write a post immediately that alerts your readers and other bloggers that you will be doing this. Also, tell me in the comments of this post along with a link to your blog. Also, send emails to blogger friends who are likely to be sympathetic to this idea.

According to the Washington Post:

Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders is going on trial Monday for alleged hate speech, even as his popularity and influence in the Netherlands are near all time highs.

Prosecutors say Wilders incited hatred against Muslims with remarks comparing Islam to Naziism and by calling for a ban on the Quran. Wilders argues he has a right to freedom of speech and his remarks were within the bounds of the law.

If convicted, he faces up to a year in prison. He could keep his seat in parliament.

It’s only a historical coincidence that the United States left supports free speech. It goes back to the Eisenhower years when the government went after communist sympathizers. The left learned to like free speech back then because free speech benefited the communists, and it has now become such a big part of the U.S. message that they forgot the reason for it. This apparently never happened in Europe.

Comments

[Black Death]

From the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union:

Article 11
Freedom of expression and information
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions
and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless
of frontiers.
2. The freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected.

....

Guess that doesn't apply in the Netherlands.

[icr]

"The left learned to like free speech back then because free speech benefited the communists, and it has now become such a big part of the U.S. message that they forgot the reason for it. This apparently never happened in Europe."

Kind of like the way the right has forgotten that it was anti-interventionist before the Cold War. Before then it was lefties like Wilson and FDR who were crazed with blood lust. The followers of Rothbard believe that a trio of ex-(or"ex")CIA agents (Buckley, Burnham and Kendall) successfully remade the American right by using the new National Review to purge the anti-interventionists.

[Peter A]

"The left learned to like free speech back then because free speech benefited the communists,"

You may want to go back and relearn your history. Start with Thomas Paine, then read Thoreau, and then Twain. The American left has always had a free speech fetish.

[sabril]

"Guess that doesn't apply in the Netherlands."

Maybe not, but if he's imprisoned it will only increase his popularity. I only hope that the Dutch authorities are foolish enough to send him to jail.

[I_Affe]

You were mentioned in The Atlantic Wire today:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/Dutch-Politician-to-Be-Tried-for-Anti-Islam-Hate-Speech-5260\

First your NYT article appearance and now this. HS is the most respectable HBD blogger out there.

[JJE]

In what world was Thomas Paine a leftist?

[lil mike]

"It’s only a historical coincidence that the United States left supports free speech. It goes back to the Eisenhower years when the government went after communist sympathizers. The left learned to like free speech back then because free speech benefited the communists, and it has now become such a big part of the U.S. message that they forgot the reason for it."

Not only have they forgotten the reason for it, they've forgotten that they even support free speech. I got an loadful when I wrote a piece about the Citizens United decision. The angry invective I got for supporting the 1st Amendment from so called "liberals" was quite eye opening. I think Susan Sonntag said (although I can't source it), that the Soviet Union didn't need free speech, they already had achieved socialism.

So free speech is more of a tactic than a right for those folks.

[Rachel Corrie]

"The American left has always had a free speech fetish."

Not anymore.

[John]

The left supports free speech? Then why is it for campaign finance restrict--I mean reform, speech codes on campus, attacking Fox News, banning cigarette advertising, the censures of James Watson and Larry Summers...

In my lifetime, the only important attacks on free speech/press that have come from the right have been anti-pornography laws.

[1389AD]

If any of your readers have not yet viewed Geert Wilders' Fitna, The Movie, it is available here: http://1389blog.com/2010/10/04/geert-wilders-trial-postponed/

[Peter A]

"In what world was Thomas Paine a leftist?"

It's called "reality". Go read his books. The man despised Christianity, wanted a guaranteed minimum income for all, and called for an estate tax to fund a universal old age pension. He believed that property owners should pay non-property owners a tax for the "right" to hold private property. Paine was hated by conservatives at the time. He was a far more radical thinker than Obama. Paine was also an early proponent of "diversity" - he was very impressed by Iroquois society and was one of the first Americans to publicly denounce slavery.

[Sidwell Jones]

He was a far more radical thinker than Obama. Paine was also an early proponent of "diversity" -

Obama is not a radical. And he doesn't dig on diversity either. Just letting you know...

[SFG]

The followers of Rothbard believe that a trio of ex-(or"ex")CIA agents (Buckley, Burnham and Kendall) successfully remade the American right by using the new National Review to purge the anti-interventionists.

I would totally believe that. The CIA supported moderate left groups in Latin America, why not manipulate the right at home? My only question is, why go pro-Israel? I always thought the CIA was mostly old-money WASPs, not Jews.

The left and free speech: Probably it's one of those things they fight over. Even now you can find leftists who don't like speech codes. Campaign finance reform is usually directed at corporations, who liberals (and I) don't consider 'people'.

[Randall Parker]

HS, Thanks.

Baron Bodissey has a great post at Gates Of Vienna about how some Dutch politicians in the outgoing government plotted to go after Wilders with a criminal charge. Worth a read.
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2010/10/legality-does-not-guarantee-legitimacy.html

[Peter A]

"My only question is, why go pro-Israel?"

The US didn't really go "pro Israel" until 1967, well after Buckley purged the isolationists. Even after that old line Republicans like Nixon and George HW Bush preferred their Arab friends to the Israelis - until fairly recently being pro Israel was the liberal/Dem position. Interventionism abroad does not have to mean being pro Israel, it's really about supporting American hegemony over the globe. There are plenty of interventionists who think Israel is our Achilles' heel.

[icr]

My only question is, why go pro-Israel? I always thought the CIA was mostly old-money WASPs, not Jews.

National Review wasn't always pro-Israel:
http://sanseverything.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/when-conservatives-loved-the-palestinians/
(...)
On November 19th, 1956, Leo Strauss wrote a letter to Willmoore Kendall complaining that National Review (the flagship conservative magazine Kendall helped found) was too anti-Israel. Strauss was particularly irritated by an article by that ran in November 17th, 1956 issue that contained this astonishing sentence: “Even the Jews, themselves the victims of the most notorious racial discrimination of modern times, did not hesitate to create the first racist state in modern history.” (Apparently National Review didn’t believe that Jim Crow America, not to say Hitler’s Germany, constituted a racist state.)

James Burnham, the most important and influential foreign policy analyst at National Review, was very critical of Israel, constantly berating the state for inflaming Arab passions by mistreating Palestinian refugees and its internal Arab population. As Burnham wrote in the July 28, 1970 issue of National Review, “The United States cannot base a successful long-term Mideast policy on support of Israel.”
(...)

[Mike]

Hi, just added at post a post on Wilders at:

http://nzconservative.wordpress.com/

cheers