Is This Churchill's England?

"When Alice fell down a rabbit hole and embarked on her adventures in Wonderland, she discovered a thoroughly surreal environment in which the White Queen was able to advise the Mad Hatter that ... 'quite often subjects are punished before they commit a crime, rather than after, and sometimes do not even commit it all.' Welcome to Wonderland, Mr. Wilders, where Holland's sober lawmakers appear intent on out-fantasizing Lewis Carroll on acid. The fact that they are hell-bent on subjecting Geert Wilders [GW] to a criminal prosecution is more than just absurd. it is insane. Totally, utterly and mind-bendingly insane. .. But the 2009 version of [GW] is not intent on taking over a foreign land. Today, he is simply defending his own land against a new generation of foreign destroyers, pillagers and rapists. And for this he is smeared as a criminal by his very own countrymen. It is a very curious state of affairs when a man can be indicted for detailing the revolting behavior of a third party group, but this, in effect, is just what has happened. ... He allows them to harvest villification all by themselves. A photo opportunity inciting a variety of hatreds is the Achillies heel of many imams, who view such behavior as a mere exercise in Islamic public relations. But when these images are combined with the hate-filled words of the Koran, then Islam manages to indict Islam via a magnificent lack of self-awareness. ... What the Dutch authorities (in cahoots with EU authorities) are doing is ensuring the selective editing of free speech. I say selective, because under existing criminal legislation most Mosques throughout Europe should need a conveyor belt to shuttle the new imams through the front door as the manacled ex-imams, convicted not only of sedition but also the incitement of hatred against Jews, Christians, women and homosexuals, are shuttled out through the back ... Can one compare Churchill and Nazism with Wilders and Islamism? Liberals would probably disagree, but liberals need a few basic lessons in reality. Islam is at war with Europe. Right now. Today. ... The idea that fellow Europeans, indeed fellow Dutchmen, have deliberately imported and protected an alien and totally unassimiable culture whose core ideology is the antithesis of the liberal democracy that is Holland, would have Alice in need of Prozac rather than a nice cup of tea, such is the manifest insanity of it all", Baron Bodissey (BB), 9 February 2009, link: http://gatesofvienna,blogspot.com/2009/02/wilders-in-wonderland.html.

"[GW] is an unlikely free-speech symbol, as the Dutch lawmaker wants to ban the Quran. And Britain is an unlikely country to suppress free speech, but police Thursday detained Mr. Wilders at Heathrow Airport to stop him from speaking at Parliament. ... In truth, the government is selective in opposing extremism, for example, allowing Ibrahim Moussawi, a chief spokesman for the Iran-financed Islamic terrorist group Hezbollah, to enter the country last May and address meetings organized by the 'Stop the War Coalition.' ... Nobody really thinks [GW's] presence will incite attacks on Muslims. Rather, the unspoken fear is that his visit will spark riots by Muslims", Editorial at the WSJ, 14 February 2009.

"Twenty years ago, Andres Serrano put a plastic crucifix in a glass of urine, photographed it and called it art. ... Also 20 years ago: On Valentine's Day 1989, the Ayatollah Khomeni issued a fatwa against Salmon Rushdie, condemning him to death for supposedly blaspheming Islam in his novel, 'The Satanic Verses.' ... [GW] is being prosecuted for hate speech in his native Holland, where he faces up to 16 months in prison if convicted. His alleged crime involves making a short film, called 'Fitna,' which draws a straight line betwen Quaranic verses and acts of Islamic terror. ... As for the Rushdie affair, after some initial hesitation most of the liberal intelligensia on both sides of the Atlantic rallied to his cause. True, there were some dissenters: Jimmy Carter called the 'Satanic Verses' a 'direct insult to those millions of Muslims who sacred beliefs have been violated'. ... For liberals, the issue is straightforward. If routine mockery of Christianity and abuse of its symbols, both in the U.S. and Europe is protected speech, why shouldn't the same standard be applied to the mockery of Islam? ... But a defense of Mr. Wilders is made a lot easier if one can point to the vivid difference between a civilization that protects, even celebrates (and funds!), its cultural provocateurs, and a civilization that seeks their murder. This is no small point", Bret Stephens (BS) at the WSJ, 17 February 2009.

Uassimilable, how dare you? Does anyone remember Europe's 1989 reaction to Khomeni's fatwa against Salmon Rushdie (SR)? Disgusting.

Since when does GW want to ban the Koran? He wants to expose the Koran! This is not Churchill's England, but a sick caricature.

I agree with BS. As many Moslems act, they may be right. The world is becoming a scene out of an old Western, the scene where the guy in the white hat says, "This town ain't big enough for the both of us". Similarly, Islam and: Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Atheism, etc.. Apparently BS does remember the SR incident. Jimmy Carter is some piece of work. His accomplishments in office: high inflation, exiting the Shah and pushing anti-Semitism.