Below is a video from Fox News about Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif (a.k.a. Joseph Anthony Davis) and Walli Mujahidh (a.k.a. Frederick Domingue Jr.), who planned a terrorist attack at a military recruiting station in Seattle. Both men are Muslim converts who were radicalized in prison.

Their glorious martyrdom operation was foiled by a government informant in their midst, who strung them along until they were arrested while attempting to purchase machine guns from FBI agents.

Note the protests by Abdul-Latif’s wife, who insists that her husband is a “good Muslim, a perfect Muslim”:

You know, I think she’s absolutely right.

See this article for more details on the case.

“When tolerance becomes a one-way street, it leads to cultural suicide.”

Below the fold is the keynote speech given by Rep. (LTC ret.) Allen West (R-FL) at the ACT! for America dinner gala this past Thursday evening.

As noted by Weasel Zippers, Col. West must be doing something right, because CAIR is already outraged about his “smearing” of Islam. Evidently his little joke about an “Irish Spring” got under their (microscopically thin) skins.

Many thanks to Kitman for YouTubing these three videos:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

The European Union’s lack of military capability has made it somewhat of a joke in recent years. Among the various member states of the EU there are some exceptions — Denmark comes to mind — but, generally speaking, Western Europe lacks the capacity to defend itself without the help of the United States. If the American hegemon were to withdraw or collapse, Europe would become vulnerable to foreign predation long before it could rearm.

Not so Switzerland. The Swiss have a long tradition of muscular self-defense, and are now intent on beefing up the size and strength of their army. Many thanks to JLH for this translation from Politically Incorrect:

Switzerland Upgrades Its Defense
June 19, 2011

The Swiss minister of defense, Ueli Maurer (SVP) has great plans for the future of the Swiss army. In defiance of all European trends to saving, there will again be 100,000 soldiers prepared to defend the country. Maurer would really like to raise the Swiss army from 80,000 to 120,000, but 100,000 will be approved by all parties and pass in parliament. This is a clear reversal from the politics of the 1990s, when the army was reduced. Equipment will also see more investment.

So what’s next? The Swiss Navy? A single aircraft carrier deployed on Lake Lucerne would match the combined naval air capabilities of Britain and France…

The news feed is sparse tonight. One reason is that the Italians seem to be on vacation. It’s also rumored that Fjordman took a nap, which may have impacted our coverage.

The most entertaining story concerns cloned camels in the United Arab Emirates. As Vlad headlines it: “Muslims use cloning technology to cheat at camel racing”.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to Fjordman, TV, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Fjordman was busy while I was gone, and published several more installments in his “Human Accomplishment” series. The third part was posted at Tundra Tabloids; some excerpts are below:

The leading names in medicine are as follows: Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) of France; Hippocrates of Cos (ca. 460-375 BC);Robert Koch (1843-1910) of Germany (Prussia); Galen of Pergamum (ca. AD 129-200); Paracelsus (1493-1541) of Switzerland; Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915) of Germany; René Laennec (1781-1826) of France; Elmer McCollum (1879-1967) of the USA; Alexander Fleming (1881-1955) of Scotland; Ambroise Paré (1510-1590) of France; Emil von Behring (1854-1917) of Germany;Joseph Lister (1827-1912) of England; Kitasato Shibasaburo (1853-1931) of Japan; Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689) of England; the Flemish anatomist Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564); Gerhard Domagk (1895-1964) of Germany; Alexis Carrel (1873-1944) of France; Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) of Austria; John Hunter (1728-1793) of Scotland; and finally Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865) of Hungary.

Hunter and Semmelweis each have a score of 33, the same as Girolamo Fracastoro received. Hippocrates and Galen were founders of Western medicine as a profession although wrong in most of their medical pronouncements. Robert Koch, while less famous, was second only to Pasteur in establishing the germ theory of disease, the greatest revolution in medical history.

Just behind them follow the influential Greco-Roman pharmacologist Pedanius Dioscorides and the English immunologist Edward Jenner at 32 out of 100. Jenner’s work in the 1790s as the discoverer of vaccination for smallpox was so important that he deserves to be mentioned among the top twenty at least as much as Freud, although Freud here was ranked for purely medical contributions and the clinical description of mental illnesses, not for psychoanalysis.

Some other notable names in medicine are Thomas Addison, Leopold Auenbrugger, Thomas Beddoes, Claude Bernard, Herman Boerhaave, Daniel Bovet, Josef Breuer, Richard Bright, Frank Macfarlane Burnet, Joseph Caventou and Pierre Joseph Pelletier, Aulus Cornelius Celsus, Jean-Martin Charcot, Harvey Cushing, Pierre Fauchard, Werner Forssmann, William Halsted, Sahachiro Hata, Friedrich Henle, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Edwin Klebs, Friedrich Loeffler, Richard Lower, Patrick Manson, Giovanni Battista Morgagni, Philippe Pinel, Walter Reed, Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (Rhazes), Howard Taylor Ricketts, Ronald Ross, Pierre Roux, Santorio Santorio and Thomas Clifford Allbutt, John Snow, Max Theiler, Rudolf Virchow, Selman Waksman, Thomas Willis and William Withering.

Alexandre Yersin was a Swiss-born French physician and bacteriologist and one of the discoverers of the plague bacillus believed to have caused the Black Death in Eurasia in the 1300s, now called Yersinia pestis in his honor. He is given the lowest possible rating of 1 out of 100 in biology and is not mentioned at all in medicine, although the Japanese co-discoverer Kitasato Shibasaburo receives a very high ranking. This represents a rather strange omission.

Read the rest at Tundra Tabloids.

Previously: Art, Music and Literature and Physics, Astronomy, Mathematics, Chemistry and Biology.

I spent Thursday and part of Friday at the ACT! for America National Conference and Legislative Briefing in Washington D.C. I missed the Wednesday night cruise on the Potomac — I got out of here too late to make it in time. But on Thursday I attended the legislative briefing at the Capitol and the luncheon that followed it at the Capitol Hill Club, at which Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff was one of the speakers. She and I had to miss some of the later conference sessions back at the hotel, since we were fortunate enough to book a meeting with Congressman Allen West in his office that afternoon. That evening was the dinner gala, at which Col. West was the keynote speaker.

Friday morning saw two excellent presentations by Cliff Kincaid and Andy Bostom. I had read many of Mr. Kincaid’s writings in the past, but never had the opportunity to meet him until yesterday. Andy is already a friend, of course, and well-known to most Gates of Vienna readers.

My original plan was to write up the conference in a single post, but there was too much material; the result would be long and unwieldy. So I’ll break it up into several bite-size pieces, each covering a portion of the events.

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As the late Root Boy Slim once sang: “I used to be from D.C., but they don’t want no more of me.”

I lived in the Washington area when I was young, residing at various times in the suburbs on both sides of the Potomac while commuting to work in D.C. itself. I didn’t like the place at the time, and it never grew on me. After five years of commuter hell I made a sensible career decision to relocate to rural Virginia, which is where I was born, and take up a vocation of poverty and privation as a landscape artist.

Every time I return to the area, I remember all too well why I left. The city’s suburbs have continued to expand, and now extend about thirty miles farther to the south and west than they did when I was a kid. The roads are more clogged and congested, much more of the landscape has been paved over, and the inner suburbs are now so culturally enriched that they seem more like Addis Ababa or Nogales than an American city.

So, all in all, I’m glad I got out. Being a lot wealthier wouldn’t have made living there worth it.

The greatest difference is in downtown Washington itself. Physically speaking, it hasn’t changed all that much in thirty-five years. There are more concrete-and-glass monstrosities housing the lobbying warrens on J, K, and L Streets, and the one-way system is even more baffling than it used to be. But from a superficial viewpoint, the city doesn’t look all that different.

Yet there is something creepy about the place. Back during the run-up to Desert Storm — which is now more than twenty years ago — I took the future Baron on a tour of the monuments and museums along the Mall. Everyone was terrified of a terrorist attack during the preparations for the war in Iraq, and it was the middle of winter, so most of the tourists had vanished from downtown Washington. I figured that it would be an ideal time to drive up there and take in the (mostly free) sights in Our Nation’s Capital.

I was right — we parked at a meter right next to the Washington Monument, and there was hardly anybody there except a few cops. There was almost no line waiting to ride to the top of the monument, where we braved the cold wind to look out over the city. Next we went to the Lincoln Memorial, had a quick look at the Capitol, visited the dinosaurs at the Smithsonian, saw the Air and Space Museum, and checked out the Botanical Gardens.

Even though we were in the midst of a terrorist scare, there were no metal detectors, no security barriers, no bag searches — it was still like the old days.

When I was a kid, you could just walk up the stairs into the Capitol. Any visitor could. But no more — those days are gone forever. The East Front has been ruined with the new underground visitors’ center through which everyone is funneled, and it’s just like the airport down there: long lines snaking out into the weather, X-rays, take your jacket off, bag searches, no liquids allowed — you all know the drill.

Walk down the nearby streets and notice how many of them are closed off. There are Jersey barriers and raised steel plates that only lower if you have the right card or the guard approves your car. A guy with a mirror on a pole looks at the underside of each vehicle when it enters the parking garage. As far as I could tell, every building housing federal functionaries maintains this level of security.

And then there are the police. They are everywhere. Capitol Police, Park Police, Metro Police, D.C. city police, and armed federal officers of various sorts whose agency designations weren’t familiar to me.

This is supposedly a free country, but our national capital looks like a police state.

All this security is designed to protect federal employees and elected officials, and preserve the infrastructure they require inside their hives. Businesses aren’t kept safe by these measures. Ordinary citizens aren’t being guarded by all those armed police. Heck, ordinary citizens are the ones whose scrota are being palpated at the checkpoints.

Yesterday morning I drove down Wisconsin Avenue, which is outside most of the Federal behemoth, so that things look more normal there — businesses, hotels, residences, open sidewalks. And then I passed a building behind a big iron fence with spikes at the top that turned outwards. There was a raised steel plate with a card reader at the entrance. Must be a federal building, I thought. And, sure enough, when I rounded the corner, there was the sign: “National Commission for Strategic Revenue Enhancement” or some such.

It seems that the Department of Homeland Security has turned every single federal structure into a steel-ringed fortress bristling with the latest high-tech security. If you were wondering where all your tax dollars are being spent, this is one of the worthy causes you are so generously funding.

The place gives me the willies. It doesn’t feel like our government works for us anymore. And we don’t even work for it — we’re all just potential terrorists and petty nuisances who have to empty our wallets for Uncle Sam, but otherwise must stay out of the way.

I was relieved to get out of there. When I passed the last strip malls and townhouses and rolled out into the Virginia countryside, I felt a great weight lift from my shoulders.

This is a refreshing change from all the usual PC cant about Islam. It’s good to see a frank acknowledgement from local Israeli officials of the threat posed by the presence of Muslims within the borders of Israel.

Not on only did the Beersheba municipality state that an active mosque in a Jewish city is a threat to its security, but the mayor even referred to Muslim prayers as “incitement”.

Here’s a report from the International Middle East Media Center:

Mosque in Beersheba to Remain an Islamic Museum

The Beersheba Municipality has rejected a petition by the Bedouin Muslims of the Negev to pray in the old mosque of Beersheba.

The Baseiso mosque was built in 1906 by the Ottoman Empire and served as a mosque until 1950. At that time, the Israelis decided to convert the mosque into a Museum for Islamic and Israeli culture.

The High Court of Justice rejected a petition by the Negev’s Muslim Committee and the Bedouin Rights Protection Foundation to convert the museum into a mosque for local Muslims to use it for prayer.

The Municipality stated that, “an active mosque in the heart of a Jewish city is unthinkable.” They also claimed that converting the museum back into a mosque for public prayer would threaten the city’s security.

Beersheba Mayor Rubik Danilovich stated that, “the city views Muslim prayer as an element of incitement.”

There remains no active center for the five thousand Muslims remaining in Beersheba, which compels them to pray on the street, in other public places, or not at all.

Since 1948, the population of Beersheba is mostly Jewish with no significant Arab population.

Hat tip: TV.

Pat Condell discusses the degradation of women that is built into the ideology of Islam, and the silence of the feminists on this issue:

Hat tip: Kitman.

I got home fairly late this evening, and it took me six hours to go through all the email and the skype. I had to fudge the time stamp on this post to push it back into Friday…

As many of you know by now, I spent the last two days at the ACT for America conference and legislative briefing in Washington D.C. I’ll have more to say tomorrow about that excellent event.

Two major items of welcome news came in while I was gone: Geert Wilders was acquitted on all counts, and CAIR lost its tax-exempt status. Yesterday was definitely a good news day.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to Fjordman, heroyalwhyness, JD, Nilk, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal published Geert Wilders’ reflections on his victory in court. Mr. Wilders’ thesis was a robust defense of “hurtful speech”.

A number of people sent us the link to the essay but the whole of it is behind their subscription firewall…and a subscription we have not got. Yeah, I could’ve “taken the borry” of someone else’s password, but I’d like to see them stay in business, soo…*

Imagine my surprise when I googled it this morning (hoping it had aged out) only to find the WSJ was giving out a “FREE PASS”…I don’t know if it will work for others, but I got to read the whole thing via this search string: Wilders: In Defense of ‘Hurtful’ Speech WSJ. Access also permits you to view the comments.

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In Defense of ‘Hurtful’ Speech

I was tried for a thought crime despite being an elected politician and the leader of the third-largest party in the Dutch parliament.

By GEERT WILDERS

Yesterday was a beautiful day for freedom of speech in the Netherlands. An Amsterdam court acquitted me of all charges of hate speech after a legal ordeal that lasted almost two years. The Dutch people learned that political debate has not been stifled in their country. They learned they are still allowed to speak critically about Islam, and that resistance against Islamization is not a crime.

I was brought to trial despite being an elected politician and the leader of the third-largest party in the Dutch parliament. I was not prosecuted for anything I did, but for what I said. My view on Islam is that it is not so much a religion as a totalitarian political ideology with religious elements. While there are many moderate Muslims, Islam’s political ideology is radical and has global ambitions. I expressed these views in newspaper interviews, op-ed articles, and in my 2008 documentary, “Fitna.”

I was dragged to court by leftist and Islamic organizations that were bent not only on silencing me but on stifling public debate.

Mr. Wilders then quotes chapter and verse of the penal code which permitted his enemies to attempt this, and he then explains his motive [my emphasis and my bullet points -D]:

I was dragged to court for

• statements that I made as a politician and,
• which were meant to stimulate public debate in a country where public debate has stagnated for decades.
• Dutch political parties see themselves as guardians of a sterile status quo.
• I want our problems to be discussed.
• I believe that politicians have a public trust to further debates about important issues.
• I firmly believe that every public debate holds the prospect of enlightenment.

Hmmm…unfortunately, when one’s interlocutor is a progressive, the debate rules regarding civility are often sacrificed on “the ends justify the means” bloody altar, as anyone who has left an encounter covered with spittle can tell you. Not every public debate is worth the time it takes to argue with someone who long ago foreclosed on further thought in favor of how he “feels”.

Wilders cites the reasons his persecution was permitted:

My views represent those of a growing number of Dutch voters, who have flocked to the Party for Freedom, or PVV. The PVV is the fastest-growing party in the country, expanding from one seat in the 150-seat House of Representatives in 2004, to nine seats in 2006 and 24 seats in 2010. My party’s views, however, are so uncommon in the Netherlands that they are considered blasphemous by powerful elites who fear and resent discussion.

Not only do they “fear and resent” discussion, such enemies will do all in their power to pre-empt and prevent any such dialogue in the first place.

That’s why I was taken to court, even though the public prosecutor saw no reason to prosecute me…

[…]

The Netherlands is one of the few countries in the world where a court can force the public prosecutor to prosecute someone.

Here in the U.S., the boundaries between law enforcement, prosecution, judicial oversight (and even civic ruling bodies) are beginning to crumble…

We saw that clearly in Dearborn, when a man was arrested and prosecuted pre-emptively, before he’d actually done anything. At the time (in April of this year), Patterico said:

…Pastor Jones is in jail tonight. As you might recall from previous posts, he wished to protest outside a mosque in Dearborn, Michigan. The city attempted to impose a “peace bond” on him charging him for anticipated security expenses. As I have stated in a prior post, that is flat-out unconstitutional, because it would vary according to how controversial the speech would be and thus would be a content-based restriction. So they went to a jury trial and then this happened–

… a Dearborn jury sided with prosecutors, ruling that Terry Jones and Wayne Sapp would breach the peace if they rallied at the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn.

[…]

Prosecutors asked Judge Mark Somers for $45,000 bond. Somers then set bond at $1 each for the two pastors

They refused to pay. And Somers ordered them remanded to jail…

And there you have the perfect storm of police, prosecutors, citizen juries, and judges all aligned and willing to violate citizen rights based on their own judgment regarding what might – possibly, perhaps, maybe – could happen. In everyday rhetoric that’s called “mind reading”. When various bureaucracies of the state coordinate such efforts, we’re living in a Kafkaesque world.

According our laws (as currently written) there were violations along each step of the way to this travesty. Meanwhile, Muslims in Dearborn could believe they’d “won” when all that was really proved beyond a reasonable doubt is the sad fact their neighbors believe them to be a priori nutcases who can’t control themselves. Maybe they can get CAIR or the ACLU to sue the jury?

Mr. Wilders mentions some of his fellow-warriors in Europe:

Though I am obviously relieved by yesterday’s decision, my thoughts go to people such as Danish journalist Lars Hedegaard, Austrian human rights activist Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff and others who have recently been convicted for criticizing Islam. They have not been as fortunate. In far too many Western countries, it is still impossible to have a debate about the nature of Islam.

Include America in that list. We’re a bigger place and we’re louder and lawfare goes on under the radar all over the place. And the MSM is utterly without testicular fortitude, as a commenter on the WSJ thread pointed out:

When a Muslim assassin almost succeeded in murdering cartoonist Kurt Westergaard in January of 2010, CBS News sent a reporter to interview him after police arrived at his home and saved him (and his granddaughter) from the Somali national hoping to get retribution for Westergaard’s 2005 cartoon of “Muhammad with a Bomb in his Turban”.

Here is their video report on the aftermath of the attack. Watch how courageously one of the largest broadcast news organizations on the planet showed their solidarity with Mr. Westergaard when he offered to show them (and their cameras) a copy of the infamous cartoon:

The commenter continues:

… in the fall of 2005, when rioting broke out in various Muslim communities around the world over Westergaard’s sacrilege, most of the major news media in Europe stood with Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten and published the cartoon. Here in the United States, the world’s last remaining super-power, not one of our major broadcast media showed the cartoon as part of their coverage (and I looked for it at each one of the big 3). They didn’t even offer an explanation for why they weren’t showing it, they just silently ignored it…

Neither commenter nor the MSM anchorette mentions the long, long gap between publication of the cartoons and the “outrage” demos many months later. In fact, when ordinary Muslims yawned and turned the page, some Danish imam had to take the cartoons(along with additional stuff he made up) and go on an Outrage Tour in order to manufacture all that deadly drama. That irresponsible human being got his fellow Muslims killed, but hey, it was all in a good cause.

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It’s doubtful our politicans are any better than the ones Mr. Wilders has had to stand against. “Sterile debate” in spades. A commenter, Hesperado, mentioned the other day that he couldn’t find a conservative pol who consistently fought back against Islam, anti-Semitism, and fascist thought (that’s a paraphrase of his idea). The only one I could think of at the time was our own former Congressman whose views on Islam got him booted out of office after many years of honorable service. We got a Soros-sponsored Obamabot in his place.

Remember the fellow in New Jersey guy who was fired from his state job for burning the Koran on his day off and in another state [he was at Ground Zero on 9/11/10 when he set fire to a few pages]. To add insult to injury, his own Governor Christie weighed in with a “guilty” verdict. So much for free speech in New Jersey.

The guy got his job back, but it cost New Jersey plenty to settle, and I don’t doubt that Christie’s attack was partly to blame for the terms of the settlement:

“The ACLU filed suit on Fenton’s behalf, and the deal was brokered before the case went to trial. The state also agreed to reimburse the ACLU for a $25,000 legal tab.” (That is in addition to the “$25,000 for pain and suffering” to be paid to the transit worker, Derek Fenton, and to the back pay that Fenton would be getting.)

Way to go, Governor Christie, you enriched the ACLU but at least you pleased your large Muslim constituency. [Considering this source, the numbers are probably overblown, but that’s an outdated interview so reality has probably caught up with the rhetoric]. At least the governor proved he’s not interested in running for higher office. It’s good to have that clear.

Contrary to our commenter’s remark (and my assent), there may be some younger politicians coming up through the ranks after all. I mean freshman Congressmen who are willing to say it all. We know Congressman Allen West’s constituency has a large Jewish contingent, so that base is covered. And he’s outspoken against Sharia law, so he’s solid there. Since he’s a black man, I don’t think we need to check him on his anti-Nazi creds. Lt. Col. West has had a head start on preparing his credentials regarding these issues; as time goes on, others will step forward.

In the final analysis, as Geert Wilders points out, the strength of our community depends on the freedom we feel to “enter our convictions in the open lists to win or lose” (he was quoting Judge Learned Hand, a true judicial philosopher whose stint on the Supreme Court gave him a powerful podium for free speech ).

Thus does Dutch leader and politician Wilders make his own plea for a European Free Speech Amendment.

He also vows to continue to speak.

*Yes, I know they’re part of the MSM, and I know they have warts galore, but we need a national press and each of us has to choose at least one. Lists of the Journal’s sins are off-topic. They published Wilder’s essay for heaven’s sake.

The video, below the fold, is a conversation between Wilders and Ezra Levant following the former’s acquittal. In sum, Mr. Wilders says hate speech laws have to go. To which I will add, “Amen”, though not nearly as fervently as does the battle-tried Mr. Levant.

The following quote is excerpted from the Youtube notes put up by user sdamatt, who posted the video:

…in his closing statement, Wilders said that his controversial statements against Islam were protected by the right to free speech. Wilders said he believed the process of Islamization presents a threat to Europe and that it is his right and duty to warn the public about it.

If he had been convicted, Wilders could have faced up to one year in jail or a fine of up to €7,600 ($10,865). At the peak of the controversy over his statements, Wilders was once even banned from entering the United Kingdom.

[…]

Wilders’ comments sparked a massive debate on the integration of Muslims in Europe that has helped fuel other populist movements around the continent. In Germany , politician Thilo Sarrazin wrote a bestselling book warning that Muslim immigrants were dumbing down the country.

Meanwhile, don’t forget the OIC is certain that the phenomenon known as Geert Wilders is due solely to those naughty Swiss who voted to ban minarets (no I don’t have the link anymore. Look for their 2009 summary. It’s a pdf and a real slog).

OIC officials continue to harass the Swiss government. They are sure the Swiss could simply void that referendum if they wanted. It appears that the OIC is not ready for prime time when it comes to a full grasp of the elements of democracy. We may have a chasm here that no amount of explaining will bridge.

Mr. Levant’s “Victory Conversation” with Wilders is below the fold…

Notice the tone of both voices. Very happy warriors indeed.

Hat Tip: Steen

According to H. Neuman, Geert Wilders is a free man!

[And according to new reports, he’s gonna keep on walking, right into a candystore]

*** UPDATE***

A few readers have emailed with further stories, plus a reminder or two:

Mark Steyn, on NRO, says in part:

“On the edge of legal acceptability,” eh? As for the latter part – “the broad context of a political and social debate” – the genius “jurists” are effectively conceding what I said when this racket got going – that the Dutch state was attempting to criminalize the political platform of a popular opposition party. That’s the sort of thing free societies should leave to Mubarak & Co, and even then, you can only get away with it for a while before people draw the obvious conclusion.

Nevertheless, as in all these cases, the process is the punishment. The intent is to make it more and more difficult for apostates of the multiculti state to broaden the terms of political discourse. Very few Europeans would have had the stomach to go through what Wilders did – and the British Government’s refusal to permit a Dutch Member of Parliament to land at Heathrow testifies to how easily the craven squishes of the broader political culture fall into line.

And at the end the awkward fact remains: Geert Wilders lives under 24-hour armed guard because of explicit death threats made against him by the killer of Theo van Gogh and by other Muslims. Yet he’s the one who gets puts on trial.

That’s the Netherlands, 2011.

The Netherlands has been like that centuries before 2011. Our favorite Dutch historian, Arthur Legger, has been outing the Dutch elites for years. He has suggested repeatedly that we return to the truth of what the Dutch really did — or tried to do – to Spinoza. They might have succeeded but Spinoza had the last laugh: he died before they could kill him.

Legger says (in 2008) that his friends from other countries were asking what was going on:

How is it possible that so many Dutch politicians favour censorship and lawsuits, and that leading men of opinion openly and repeatedly compare Wilders to Goebbels and Hitler? How is this possible with your tradition of Spinoza?”

“How” indeed. As Mr. Legger has said reiterated to those willing to listen [my emphasis below – D], Dutch freedoms are limited to those the state considers ‘safe’:

The public comparison of a well known individual with Hitler, Mussolini or Mussert (leading Dutch Nazi collaborator) and the removing of the social safety net belongs to an ingrained Dutch tradition, well known to the Dutch. If you’re judged too harmful to the Dutch State, Culture and/or its Business (and these three are highly intertwined), the ruthless reflex sets in and it’s game over – including, sometimes, death. Recently the world was able to witness this flaw in our character: Pim Fortuyn, “fascist” adversary of the Left and winner of the elections, was murdered in 2002; Theo van Gogh, “racist” mocker of muslims, jews and the Left, was murdered in 2004; Ayaan Hirsi Ali, “heretic” critic of the Left and of islam, was effectively banished in 2006.

As I remember the story, she realized that her university studies in the Netherlands hadn’t included any knowledge of Dutch history, of what the state authorities do to people like her. That is, they simply leave the miscreants alone and unprotected and ignorant of Dutch history:

Tellingly, all four of them, if you include Wilders, used ‘Spinoza’ as their buzz word – it was his Enlightenment ideals against those of the attackers of western freedom. Fortuyn, Hirsi Ali and Wilders mainly opposed orthodox islam, Van Gogh mainly wrote against the naive fool who hands his freedom over out of laziness and decadence.

[…]

…state terrorism [is] sanctioned by Dutch mentality: ‘if you stick out your head too often, we’ll chop it off’. Also, the Dutch Constitution’s Article 7 on the Freedom of Expression was not written with John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty in mind. Mill preached total freedom of speech because “even a raving madman might say something sound”. In Holland this position is only defended by some philosophers of the University of Amsterdam. Philosophy professor Pieter Pekelharing (University of Amsterdam) is a bit of a loner when he states that: “Geert Wilders is an intolerant fool who nevertheless has every right to say stupid things. Also, we cannot rule out the remote possibility that he is right on the dangers of Islam” (The Volkskrant, 15 March 2008).

Indeed. The “remote possibility” that Wilders may be right is surely staring this man in the face every time he visits a Moroccan enclave after dark. Oops. You mean he doesn’t do that? If Mr. Wilders says “stupid things” then surely the tolerant wise man, Professor Pieter Pekelharing, is brave enough to visit a no-go zone and prove Wilders’ assessments of the dangers of Islam-in-your-face is just talk?

Back to the politically incorrect and inconvenient truth about Dutch history from Mr. Legger:

Mill’s ideas on liberty were never fully incorporated into the Dutch rule of law because the reshuffling of power that took place in 1848, and which in the following decades led to our present parliamentary system, was mainly intended to check and balance a despotic and incompetent king – and had very little to do with a democratic revolution. The constitution handed power exclusively to a very small group of high-brow, male ‘haves’, who were allowed to vote and sit in Parliament because they paid a high amount of taxes (and where of good social standing).

The “solution of 1848” decidedly did two things: the King’s power was curbed and the growing unrest of the elite (“we pay taxes, but we have no say”) was eased. Whatever happened later on – the first political parties after the 1880s, men’s general vote in 1917, women’s vote in 1919, and so on- was never the intention. On the contrary the constitution was intended to curb freedom, and we are now stuck with it, mentally and legally.

The will could be found to free ourselves if the faculties of Reason and Discernment hadn’t atrophied over the years. In the West we have come to love these “curbs” on freedom. Kiss your shackles.

One has only to look at the treatment of poor Gregorius Nekshot to know the Dutch fear of those who stick their necks out…so to speak. In fact, this man’s nom de plume is brilliant:

…With “Gregorius” he refers to Pope Gregory IX, who instituted the Papal Inquisition, and “Nekschot” means literally “shot in the neck,” a method used, according to the cartoonist, by “fascists and communists to get rid of their opponents.”

By coincidence Nekshot appeared with Mark Steyn when they both received the Sappho Prize in Denmark. The former wore a burka to the event since he is still at risk from the Islamothugs in Europe.

But never mind. Mr. Nekshot is so obviously dangerous that it took ten policemen to haul him away for hours and hours of “questioning”. Maybe they thought his cartoonist’s pen was loaded? Maybe they’ve watched too many SWAT-team movies?

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Europe News has a post up about Wilders’ appearance after the decision:

[…]

A short while [after his acquittal], Mr Wilders emerged to speak to a throng of more than 50 journalists, many from foreign news organisations. Mr Wilders was visibly relieved. He is a tall man, but he stood even taller as he spoke of his victory.

“I am very pleased and happy. Its not just a victory for me, but for freedom of expression in Holland …. A great burden has been lifted off me.

He concluded his remarks with the Dutch equivalent of “I’m as happy as a kid in a candy store.”

This report also includes some plans his enemies – known as “the injured parties” – have to drag this through the EU. They’ve gone as far as they can in the Netherlands, but we’ll have to see what the Euroweenies can create out of these spurious charges. They have lots of money and too much time on their hands.

Mr. Wilders will continue to need support in this ongoing lawfare war. Given the deep pockets of those determined to destroy him, that means practical support like funding from those of us who stand behind him.

But meanwhile, back in Holland, even as Mr. Wilders savors his victory Arthur Legger nudges us about the reality of Dutch democracy:

…our heritage is not Spinoza and his professed freedom. Our heritage is Providence, propaganda and social control: the one who deviates will not go unpunished.

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Let’s take it from the top, one more time:

According to H. Neuman, Geert Wilders is a free man!

Acquittal for Wilders

The court of Amsterdam has Geert Wilders acquitted on all charges.

The court acquitted Wilders of group-insults. According to the court it was sufficiently shown that Wilders statements were addressing islam as a religion, not to individual muslims nor as a group.

The court also acquitted Wilders of inciting hatred or discrimination.He made his statements as politician. Some of his statements were,according to the court, course and on the edge of what is legally allowed, but not punishable.

The court specifically talked about the movie Fitna. The movie has,according to the court, offensive, shocking passages, but the PVV leader remained within the boundaries of the law. Therefore, also full acquittal also on this charge. [my emphasis – D]

Is everybody happy or what??

As the prosecutor himself said back in May, Geert Wilders did not incite hatred.

So the judges, perhaps, had no choice? I wonder what scared them off?

Tonight’s news feed is brief because I’m away from home. It consists of material that came in before I left, most of it due to Fjordman, who is indefatigable these days with news tips.

Normal service will resume in a few days.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to AC, Fjordman, Gaia, JL, Steen, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

I just had to get out of this place for a while…

I’ll be away from my computer for a few days. While I’m gone, readers are welcome to argue with each other here (politely!), or down at the corner over a cup of tea and some hummus at Walid’s Authentic Middle Eastern Bar and Grill.

Dymphna will be holding the fort while I’m gone. I’ve scheduled an abbreviated news feed for tonight, but no more after that until I get back.

By the way, don’t let Walid slip you any of that “special” kebab. I’ve heard some ugly rumors about what he puts in it…