3/30/2008

The free-debate heroes of the Left

A fake crisis has reached its (anti-)climax.

To my own delight, I found a couple of e-mails from the much-appreciated Texan blogger No2Liberals in my inbox the other day. It is interesting that an American is now notifying me on events taking place in my country, on the other side of the Atlantic (even though I must admit I haven't been very active lately). It testifies to the importance of this particular issue preoccupying him, which ought to concern all the peoples of the Free West. I am talking, of course, about Fitna.

My rants should start to get a bit boring by now, but just when you thought things couldn't get worse anymore after my previous account of "Fitna Gate", the liberal elites in this country yet again catch you off guard.

Of all their shameful reactions, those by prime minister Jan-Peter Balkenende are hereby nominated for the 2008 Political Cowards Lifetime Achievement Award. On February 29, Balkenende publicly begged Mr. Wilders to change his mind about a movie of which nobody at that point had caught but a glimpse: "I have told Wilders this: 'Think about what you're doing!' Wilders cannot ignore his responsibility. Terrorists will feel legitimated to commit attacks because of his film."

Let us ignore the fact that a Dutch government leader is now persuading opposition leaders into self-censorship, even though another regional labor politician -- young Muslim apostate Ehsan Jami -- a few days ago actually did give in when the government pressured him not to make a movie depicting Muhammed with a huge erection (on his way to the mosque in order to have sex with nine-year-old Aisha). Let us for a moment focus on the odd line of argument on the part of the Dutch prime minister. For not only is Balkenende deeming Wilders responsible for acts others might commit (but which have yet to occur), he is in fact legitimizing any potential violence on the part of angry Muslims all over the world. In any case, there's no longer such a thing as free will.

Needless to say, this is not the first time Dutch politicians have made foolish statements, but it remains stunning to see how easily they abandon traditions which have marked our free society for hundreds of years, and which are, of course, its cornerstones. It makes me wonder whether our cabinet ever thinks twice before making public statements such as the above. For some reason I am a bit sceptical: when even labor party PvdA recently attempted to have an old -- and hitherto dormant -- law criminalizing blasphemy removed from the Dutch criminal code, the Christian democrat minister of justice, Ernst Hirsch Ballin, in a remarkable countermove suggested to extend the law so as to include other sorts of slander as well. Why not also criminalize harsh criticism of government policies while we're at it? And why not get rid of those annoying elections taking place every couple of years, either?

Even the most liberal of Dutch media, although still rejecting Wilders and Fitna, after the movie's release admitted it wasn't so bad after all, but the government keeps claiming it hadn't overreacted. While erroneously claiming, just after the release, that "The movie has no purpose other than hurting people's feelings," Balkenende stated to be glad he had taken the threats seriously. Hirsch Ballin now says that when Wilders first notified the government on his upcoming movie, its draft script was a lot more extreme than the end result. Wilders heavily denies, and claims he is "being swindled by the justice minister," whom he called a "liar". The Dutch, I'm afraid, will never find out whether the government or Geert Wilders is telling the truth, but judging from the coalition parties' truth-telling histories, I tend to believe the latter.

Jewish anti-Semitism
In the meanwhile, Harry de Winter, of the Een Ander Joods Geluid foundation (EAJG, translatable as "A different Jewish Voice"), placed an advertisement in a national newspaper on March 17, in which he stated: "If Wilders would have said the same about Jews (and the Old Testament) as the nonsense he is now talking about Muslims (and the Qur'an), he would have long been rendered irrelevant and prosecuted for anti-Semitism. ... We Jewish people of all people know best where this kind of discrimination may lead to." Fortunately for Mr. de Winter, Jews also have been radicalizing rapidly in this country, as well as back in Nazi Germany, up to the point of blowing themselves up for the sake of Jewry. I'd almost have thought his argument makes no sense whatsoever.

EAJG, it has to be said, is a club of left-wing Jewish self-haters, who have in the past repeatedly equated Israeli policies with Nazism, and the Gaza Strip with a Nazi concentration camp. Last summer, university professor and columnist Afshin Ellian, who is of Iranian descent, called them "ordinary Holocaust deniers", after they had equated the 2002 Israeli attack on Jenin (in which around fifty Palestinians died) to the SS raid of the Warschau ghetto in 1943 (in which tens of thousands unarmed Jews died).

This time, Ellian called de Winter's advertisement "a nice example of the demagogy some Germans in the 1930s mastered very well," and referred to EAJG's members as "postmodern Holocaust deniers". Instead of using counterarguments to respond to these polemical statements, EAJG decided to write a letter to Elsevier, the weekly magazine publishing Ellian's columns and blogs, in which it requested that Ellian be removed from his position as columnist.

This is the Left's definition of free debate: if we can't beat them, we attempt to silence them. In the process, freedom of speech is being endangered mortally, while the moderate Muslims in this country are neither helped nor committed to our liberal-democratic values.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dag Mark,

De schallende ouverture van Harry de Winter (het zal wel geen Wagner geweest zijn) om Afshin Ellian bij de Rijksuniverstiteit gedesavoueerd te krijgen herinnert eerder aan de Duitse jaren dertig dan de muziekclip (Mooi Grieg in deze magische beeldenstroom te zien) van Geert Wilders.
Ik bedoel natuurlijk vanaf het beruchte jaar 1933, toen politieke dwarsliggers en joden van de universiteiten werden verwijderd, en op massabijeenkomsten tot haat opgeroepen werd.

Ach, de Dam was natuurlijk niet zo massaal als Harry de Winter graag wilde.

filantroop

R. Hartman said...

Hi Mark,

Two comments:
1) While being on opposite sides, Wilders and Balkenende have one thing in common: they lay responsibility for violence not with the usurpers, but elswhere.
While Balkenende blames (and legitimises!) muslim violence on Wilders, Wilders blames muslim violence on the Koran. Both are wrong.

Wilders is not responsible for the actions of others, as you correctly note, but the Koran is not either. Books don't kill people, even guns don't kill people. People kill other people, and the killers have to be assigned full responsibility for their actions.

Criminals are criminals, no matter how they try to legitimize their crime. But the main issue of the current collectivist leftist society is that nobody is held responsible for his or her own actions anymore.

Muslim killings are legitimised by their 'faith' and Muslim rioting is legitimised by claiming 'invocation', as a result of which criminals are being excused by our governments.

This is no different from the bailout of irresponsible borrowers and lenders by central banks, where responsible people are now footing the bill of government bailout of the irresponsible.

This is why I keep hammering on individual freedom, and why society needs to be viewed as a group of individuals, as opposed to viewing the individual as member of a group. This is a vast difference, as the latter view ignores the individual rights of those that act responsibly.


2)"...it remains stunning to see how easily they abandon traditions which have marked our free society..."
What traditions would that be? The exact identical actions of the Dutch and English governments in the 1930's? Where both Chamberlain and Colijn (and his successor) appeased German fascism as no threat to our freedom?

Where Nazi-introduced regulations like TV and Radio fees were kept in place and enforced in Gestapo style until these fees were turned into regular taxation at the end of teh 1990s?

Where socialist inventions like subsidising childbirth were kept in place and paid for by taxing (i.e. extorting) everybody? Where the principle of only paying for the services you actually use was abandoned?

No, even after our 'liberation' at the end of WWII, Dutch governemnt has kept a number of Nazi-induced oppressign regulations in place, only to start going farther downhill when Joop den Uyl came into power and started the rise of the socialists. The likes of Harry de Winter are all fascists, that have no respect for other people's freedom, while portraying their not-too-intelligent selves as the utter source of wisdom and righteousness.

The little controverse about HdW's advertisement and its aftermath proves this point exactly: HdW claims a lie, he's exposed by Ellian and instead of conquering Ellian's analisys, he seeks Ellian's exclusion from society. The fascists have no arguments, so they have to revert to force, every time again.

no2liberals said...

Hello Mark,
Yes, Fitna was a threshold moment for dhimmis, like Balkenende, and for the Religion of the Perpetually Offended. It was a simple compare and contrast film, which only served to remind some of us what we have learned about the koran, and hopefully caused some that don't pay attention, to at least examine more closely, how violent the koran actually is, and how the so-called radicals justify their actions. For the record, there are 109 verses in the koran and hadith, that encourage and promote violence against those who don't subscribe to every word in Ol'Moh's pathetic tome.
As for getting into a discussion of how politics and PC have evolved in Holland, I will leave it to you and your countrymen to dissect that topic. We have our hands full dealing with the starry-eyed groupies of the Presidential candidate, whose middle name must not be mentioned, Senator B-HO.
He has a Laundry List of Lies, and we are busy trying to wake some people from their catatonic state.
I would like to say, however, that a country that allows radical imams to tell the majority of the children in said country, that they are dogs if they don't practice islam, and that the same country allows homosexuals to perform sex acts in public parks, is either headed for disaster, or is already there.

Anonymous said...

Hello,
We present our site

www.islam-documents.org

(which is the improvment of the other islam-documents.com, based in Tunisia).

There is thousands of texts (around 15 000) about the origins of islam, with a critical, humanist, and scientist view (and even ironical). It is now the bigger "sourcebook" on that subject, with often unpublished documents: Muhammad biographies (SIRA), the main books of traditions (HADITH) , muslim chronicles (TABARI...), companions biographies (TABAQAT), quranic verses, quranic commentaries (TAFSIR).

A new version is now available, improved and corrected: around 3500 pages. We are working for a new version published every year.

All is in french. so sorry. but you need to read it to understand muslim thinking and acts.


Bye. Take care.



PS: just dare to do the same in english!!!

Jim Baxter said...

Socialism's self-chosen disability.....

Deterministic systems, ideological symbols of abdication
by man from his natural role as earth's Choicemaker,
inevitably degenerate into collectivism; the negation of
singularity, they become a conglomerate plural-based
system of measuring human value. Blunting an awareness
of diversity, blurring alternatives, and limiting the
selective creative process, they are self-relegated to
a passive and circular regression.

Tampering with man's selective nature endangers his
survival for it would render him impotent and obsolete
by denying the tools of variety, individuality,
perception, criteria, selectivity, and progress.
Coercive attempts produce revulsion, for such acts
are contrary to an indeterminate nature and nature's
indeterminate off-spring, man the Choicemaker.

Until the oppressors discover that wisdom only just
begins with a respectful acknowledgment of The Creator,
The Creation, and The Choicemaker, they will be ever
learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth.
The rejection of Creator-initiated standards relegates
the mind of man to its own primitive, empirical, and
delimited devices. It is thus that the human intellect
cannot ascend and function at any level higher than the
criteria by which it perceives and measures values.

Additionally, such rejection of transcendent criteria
self-denies man the vision and foresight essential to
decision-making for survival and progression. He is left,
instead, with the redundant wreckage of expensive hind-
sight, including human institutions characterized by
averages, mediocrity, and regression.

Humanism, mired in the circular and mundane egocentric
predicament, is ill-equipped to produce transcendent
criteria. Evidenced by those who do not perceive
superiority and thus find themselves beset by the shifting
winds of the carnal-ego; i.e., moods, feelings, desires,
appetites, etc., the mind becomes subordinate: a mere
device for excuse-making and rationalizing self-justifica-
tion.

The carnal-ego rejects criteria and self-discipline for such
instruments are tools of the mind and the attitude. The
appetites of the flesh have no need of standards for at the
point of contention standards are perceived as alien, re-
strictive, and inhibiting. Yet, the very survival of our
physical nature itself depends upon a maintained sover-
eignty of the mind and of the spirit.

It remained, therefore, to the initiative of a personal
and living Creator to traverse the human horizon and
fill the vast void of human ignorance with an intelli-
gent and definitive faith. Man is thus afforded the
prime tool of the intellect - a Transcendent Standard
by which he may measure values in experience, anticipate
results, and make enlightened and visionary choices.

Only the unique and superior God-man Person can deserved-
ly displace the ego-person from his predicament and free
the individual to measure values and choose in a more
excellent way. That sublime Person was indicated in the
words of the prophet Amos, "...said the Lord, Behold,
I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel."
Y'shua Mashiyach Jesus said, "If I be lifted up I will
draw all men unto myself."

As long as some choose to abdicate their personal reality
and submit to the delusions of humanism, determinism, and
collectivism, just so long will they be subject and re-
acting only, to be tossed by every impulse emanating from
others. Those who abdicate such reality may, in perfect
justice, find themselves weighed in the balances of their
own choosing.

"No one is smarter than their criteria."

Jim Baxter
semper fidelis
- from "2010 AD: The Season of Generation-Choicemaker"
http://www.choicemaker.net/

Jim Baxter said...

Consider:
The missing element in every human 'solution'
is an accurate definition of the creature.

The way we define 'human' determines our view of self,
others, relationships, institutions, life, and future. Many
problems in human experience are the result of false
and inaccurate definitions of humankind premised
in man-made religions and humanistic philosophies.

Human is earth's Choicemaker. Psalm 25:12 He is by
nature and nature's God a creature of Choice - and of
Criteria. Psalm 119:30,173 His unique and definitive
characteristic is, and of Right ought to be, the natural
foundation of his environments, institutions, and re-
spectful relations to his fellow-man. Thus, he is orien-
ted to a Freedom whose roots are in the Order of the
universe. selah

Human is earth's Choicemaker. The sublime and
significant act of choosing is, itself, the Archimedean
fulcrum upon which man levers and redirects the
forces of cause and effect to an elected level of qual-
ity and diversity. Further, it orients him toward a
natural environmental opportunity, freedom, and
bestows earth's title, The Choicemaker, on his
singular and plural brow.

That human institution which is structured on the
principle, "...all men are endowed by their Creator with
...Liberty...," is a system with its roots in the natural
Order of the universe. The opponents of such a system are
necessarily engaged in a losing contest with nature and
nature's God. Biblical principles are still today the
foundation under Western Civilization and the American
way of life. To the advent of a new season we commend the
present generation and the "multitudes in the valley of
decision."

Let us proclaim it. Behold!
2010 AD: The Season of Generation-Choicemaker Joel 3:14 KJV

"No one is smarter than their criteria." selah jfb

Jim Baxter said...

CONTEMPORARY COMMENTS
"I should think that if there is one thing that man has
learned about himself it is that he is a creature of
choice." Richard M. Weaver

"Man is a being capable of subduing his emotions and
impulses; he can rationalize his behavior. He arranges
his wishes into a scale, he chooses; in short, he acts.
What distinguishes man from beasts is precisely that he
adjusts his behavior deliberately." Ludwig von Mises

"To make any sense of the idea of morality, it must be
presumed that the human being is responsible for his
actions and responsibility cannot be understood apart
from the presumption of freedom of choice."
John Chamberlain

"The advocate of liberty believes that it is complementary
of the orderly laws of cause and effect, of probability
and of chance, of which man is not completely informed.
It is complementary of them because it rests in part upon
the faith that each individual is endowed by his Creator
with the power of individual choice."
Wendell J. Brown

"These examples demonstrate a basic truth -- that human
dignity is embodied in the free choice of individuals."
Condoleeza Rice

"Our Founding Fathers believed that we live in an ordered
universe. They believed themselves to be a part of the
universal order of things. Stated another way, they
believed in God. They believed that every man must find
his own place in a world where a place has been made for
him. They sought independence for their nation but, more
importantly, they sought freedom for individuals to think
and act for themselves. They established a republic
dedicated to one purpose above all others - the preserva-
tion of individual liberty..." Ralph W. Husted

"We have the gift of an inner liberty so far-reaching
that we can choose either to accept or reject the God
who gave it to us, and it would seem to follow that the
Author of a liberty so radical wills that we should be
equally free in our relationships with other men.
Spiritual liberty logically demands conditions of outer
and social freedom for its completion." Edmund A. Opitz

"Above all I see an ability to choose the better from the
worse that has made possible life's progress."
Charles Lindbergh

"Freedom is the Right to Choose, the Right to create for
oneself the alternatives of Choice. Without the possibil-
ity of Choice, and the exercise of Choice, a man is not
a man but a member, an instrument, a thing."
Thomas Jefferson

Jim Baxxter said...

THE QUESTION AND THE ANSWER
Q: "What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son
of man that You visit him?" Psalm 8:4
A: "I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against
you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing
and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and
your descendants may live." Deuteronomy 30:19

Q: "Lord, what is man, that You take knowledge of him?
Or the son of man, that you are mindful of him?" Psalm
144:3
A: "And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose
for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the
gods which your fathers served that were on the other
side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose
land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will
serve the Lord." Joshua 24:15

Q: "What is man, that he could be pure? And he who is
born of a woman, that he could be righteous?" Job 15:14
A: "Who is the man that fears the Lord? Him shall He
teach in the way he chooses." Psalm 25:12

Q: "What is man, that You should magnify him, that You
should set Your heart on him?" Job 7:17
A: "Do not envy the oppressor and choose none of his
ways." Proverbs 3:31

Q: "What is man that You are mindful of him, or the son
of man that You take care of him?" Hebrews 2:6
A: "I have chosen the way of truth; your judgments I have
laid before me." Psalm 119:30 "Let Your hand become my
help, for I have chosen Your precepts."Psalm 119:173

References:
Genesis 3:3,6 Deuteronomy 11:26-28; 30:19 Job 5:23
Isaiah 7:14-15; 13:12; 61:1 Amos 7:8 Joel 3:14
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

DEDICATION

Sir Isaac Newton
The greatest scientist in human history
a Bible-Believing Christian
an authority on the Bible's Book of Daniel
committed to individual value
and individual liberty

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