British government tramples on speech freedom -- again.

Tony Blair set England on a very totalitarian path. He was the George Bush of the UK, except he was more coherent. But the Labour Party government, under Gordon Brown has continued to push what can best be described as policies with a fascistic contempt for human liberty and privacy.

That vile government has once again shown its contempt for freedom. Recently Lord Malcolm Pearson, of the House of Lords, invited Dutch MP Geert Wilders to address a private meeting of members of parliament. He asked him to show his short film Fitna, and to explain why he produced it. (The film is below if you are interested.)



Wilders is an odd bird in politics. He has some libertarian streaks but some authoritarian streaks as well. But such a mixture doesn’t normally bother people -- such contradictions are common among politicians But Wilder has been an outspoken critic of the terrorist tendencies he believes are inherent in Islam.

Here Wilders is both right and wrong at the same time. These tendencies are inherent in a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam -- just as fundamentalist Christianity is inherently anti-liberty. Where Wilders is wrong is the assumption that to be Muslim is to be a fundamentalist Muslim. There are decent Christians and there are fundamentalists. There are decent Muslims and there are fundamentalists. Wilders doesn’t seem to acknowledge that much. However, in his defense again, the percentage of Muslims worldwide, who are fundamentalists, is much higher than the percentage of Christians inflicted with that anachronistic mentality.

The fascistic Left, however, tends to ignore any threat from Islamists while concentrating on the threat from Christianists. This is true even in countries, like the UK, where the Christianists hardly exist and where violently inclined Islamists are being recruited daily in some very radical mosques. Not only do such Islamists exist in the UK, recruited by these mosques, but they have bombed sites in the country and murdered people. This is not a theoretical threat.

But the radical Islamists still live happily in the UK. Many of them are receiving state support from Gordon Brown’s welfare state. Their leaders get public welfare due to their large family sizes. Meanwhile they openly preach to the members that good Muslims should go out and kill gay people. Gordon Brown and his cronies apparently have no problem with that.

But Mr. Wilders, because of the film we have attached, is a different matter.

After Wilders was first invited to meet with members of Parliament a Muslim member of parliament, Lord Nazir Ahmed, Labour, threatened to bring 10,000 Muslims to parliament to protest. This sort of threat is more than a threat to hold protest signs. Inherent in such a threat is the much heighted risk that Islamist extremists, who are a dime a dozen in the UK, will do something more violent and deadly than protest.

After Ahmed issued his threats Pearson backed down. Ahmed immediately started crowing that this was great victory for Islam. Pearson decided to reissue his invitation to Wilders to explain his position.

At this point Gordon Brown’s authoritarian tendencies burst through the debate and settled it. Quite simply the Brown government issued an order saying that Mr. Wilders will be banned from entering the country entirely because his views are insulting to the thugs who call Islam their religion.

If anything Islamists have proven Wilders to be more correct than wrong. His life has been repeatedly threatened by Muslims living in Holland and he is recluse living with around-the-clock protection. Also remember that when Dutch MP Theo van Gogh criticized Islam he was murdered on the streets of Amsterdam by an Islamist who was living off the Dutch welfare state.

Brown’s government is quite willing to suppress those who peacefully challenge the role of Islam in promoting violence and terrorism. But when a television documentary looked at the hate messages preached inside British mosques on a regular basis the police, instead of investigating the pro-terrorist side, investigated the broadcasters who made the film. Apparently speaking out against hate groups is considered “hate speech” while actually calling for killing people, as was done in the mosques, is ignored. Midlands police publicly said the documentary was false -- an accusation that was later ruled false and the police paid out $200,000 compensation for libel.

As a point of comparison it should be noted that Islamist clerics who preach violence and hate regularly live in Britain. Wilders, an elected official who doesn’t advocate terrorism or killing, is banned from entering the country. Brown’s government will shower Islamists with all sorts of benefits and payments while Mr. Wilders is not allowed to enter at his how expense.

You have to look at the Orwellian language used in the letter that Mr. Wilders received to understand precisely how mentally twisted the Labour government of the UK is. Wilders was told that his views “threaten community harmony and therefore public security.” The “harmony” that is threatened is that violently inclined Islamists may carry out the terrorism that they preach. This form of “hate speech” is not of concern to Brown, responding to this hate speech, however is banned. Maybe Wilders goes overboard, maybe not.

Hate speech laws are double-edged swords and cases like this prove it. These laws are enforced in blatantly discriminatory ways. So-called “hate speech” laws are the justification for keeping out a critic of Islamist extremism.

Islamist mosques told people: “We are not going to be like animals... or to be like the homosexuals. God save us from that, you understand? We have to take the judgment, the judgment is to kill them.” The same cleric told followers that Muslims who “gets out of Islam, he doesn’t want any more. What are we going to do? We kill him, kill, kill.”

Hate speech laws will be used selectively, they always are. They are political tools available to governments to harass opponents. Gordon Brown’s Labour government has actively tried to win the Muslim vote in the UK so criticism of Islam is prosecuted. But hate speech by Islamists tends to get ignored.