Geert Wilders’ Speech Hits the Spot
Geert Wilders’ speech in London:
…we should defend the right to freedom of speech. With all our strength. With all our might. Free speech is the most important of our many liberties. Free speech is the cornerstone of our modern societies. Freedom of speech is the breath of our democracy, without freedom of speech our way of life our freedom will be gone.
Why can’t any of our leaders show the same spirit?
The BNP and Freedom of Speech
Tim Black, at Spiked, deplores the state-enforced changes to the BNP constitution:
By threatening a political organisation with civil legal proceedings unless it changed its constitution – a constitution which reflected that group’s beliefs – the state is effectively deciding the nature of opposition in the political sphere, what views can be tolerated, and what views can’t.
That the object of state-enforced configuration is the BNP ought not to detract from what is a serious affront to democracy. Yes, the BNP holds obnoxious views, and yes, its membership and employment policy was repellent – but freedom of speech, and its accompaniment, the freedom to associate with those whom one agrees with, ought not to be negotiable. Just because in this case it’s the freedom to hold racist opinions, and to associate with those who hold similarly abhorrent views, it does not mean that fundamental democratic principles should just be abandoned.
Geert Wilders Trial
National Review Online on the significance of the Geert Wilders trial, a subject about which the British media seems notably reticent (with the distinguished exception of Douglas Murray.)
