Geert Wilders Can Crash at My Place

Geert Wilders, the right-wing Netherlands politician (right-wing in Amsterdam means something entirely different than it does here…) has been denied entry to the United Kingdom because he made a little movie called “Fitna” that shows the passages terrorists use as the basis for their terror in juxtaposition with images of said terror. The British equivalent of Secretary of State has decided that Wilders is a threat to the public safety of the nation. WILDERS is a threat because his visit might piss off Muslims and THEY might blow shit up. Nothing makes Wilders’ point better than England’s fear of Islamic terrorism during his visit.

It’s shameful. Shameful.

In addition to being eighty-sixed from London today, Wilders, a member of parliament in the Netherlands, has been criminally charged and faces both expulsion from parliament and PRISON TIME for making this film. Apparently, in some places in Europe, it’s a crime to offend people. He’s formally charged with something called “inciting hatred,” whatever that is. Not that Wilders doesn’t go too far sometimes, calling for the banning of the Koran and imams, but people should have a right to believe in any crap they want, I suppose, and they certainly should be free to read whatever they want.

On a friend’s Facebook page a few nights ago, I got into a “discussion” with a total stranger about Wilders and whether his speech in “Fitna” and elsewhere is protected. The other guy seemed to think that there might be cases of political speech that would be unprotected because the words are “hateful” and might “incite violence.”

He brought up the old “you can’t shout fire in a theater” argument, which is not at all analogous, because a) you can shout “fire” if there’s a fire, and b) it’s not political speech. The intent of Wilders’ film “Fitna” is to scare the bejesus out of people, and perhaps rightly. Watch it for yourself. Go. Right now. I’ll wait.

Okay, you’re back. You’ve seen the offensive material. Full of fear-mongering, right? Well, maybe. But it also simply gives you the sections of the Koran terrorists use to justify their atrocities. It’s factual. But it’s offensive to Muslims because Muslims don’t want to be seen in a negative light, and more importantly, they take great offense at anything that exposes Allah’s words for what they really are … imaginary.

I’m out as an atheist. I don’t believe in any sort of hocus-pocus or in invisible people who live in the sky. I’m not quite as intolerant of religion as other atheists I know, but when these friends talk about religion doing more harm than good (this includes not only Islam, but Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and all the other variations) I get what they’re saying. The Muslim community has a right to believe in this crap as much as anyone else, but it seems that the fundamentalism in that community is far more rampant than anywhere else. And when they riot in France, blow up trains in Spain, and kill 3,000 of my countrymen here in the U.S., how can they be pissed when a politician says, “WHOA! HOLD ON THERE!”? Yet, rather than trying to apologize for the crazies within their ranks, they continue to try to foist their religion on the rest of us (and talk about taking over the world). It’s just bad PR.

And they’re winning. Muslims, even some “moderates,” who call for Sharia Law to be the law of the land in England, are actually winning. Today they won a big victory when Geert Wilders, a man who believes in democracy and the rule of law over the terror of fundamentalist religion, was kicked out of England after being invited by a member of England’s House of Lords.

They won because the British pussied out and submitted to fear (the word “Islam” translates to “submission”… how apropos) of the very people Wilders is warning them about. There’s no realistic expectation that the UK thought Wilders would cause trouble. They thought the people who have put a Fatwa on his ass would cause trouble. So instead of dealing with the trouble and standing up for free speech, standing against terror, and welcoming an invited diplomat from a fellow European Union member, they caved to terror.

So while the Brits turned him away, Mr. Wilders can crash at my place any time he needs. I don’t have a big home, but there’s a spare bedroom and I always throw in some kick-ass homemade pancakes in the morning before my guests leave. In fact, that bedroom is always open to anyone with a Fatwa, Jihad or other threat of imminent death by the followers of any invisible man in the sky.