One Thing Jimmy Carter Got Right

Let's face it, when the old son-of-a-gun is right, he's right. Back in 1980, Carter's speech at the Democratic convention contained this undeniable truth: the former commander of the Atropos and the Hotspur would, indeed, have been a good president.

If I was at that convention I would be cheering too.

Iranium

Iranium

Dutch White Guilt has another run-around with Geert Wilders

If you ever thought there was something compulsive about the modern left, as if they were trapped in a cultic thinking that just knows it can't be wrong, the Dutch plaintiffs and politicians who seemingly can't let go of their persecution of Geert Wilders, are back in court today to support your intuition, notwithstanding the utter farce of their earlier courtroom miscarriages of justice.

The International Free Press Society - Canada writes:

From the beginning, the plaintiffs were not pleased that the Dutch prosecutors felt the criminal case against Geert Wilders should not proceed. Remarkably, the Court of Appeal chose to ignore the recommendations of the prosecutors and proceed with the trial.

The trial was suspended in October 2010 as it was determined that the Chief Judge had acted in a manner which could be prejudicial. Subsequently, another instance of interference surfaced. In response to this turn of events, yet another Judge inappropriately made public comments about the suspension of the trial.

The zeal and determination with which the court is pursuing Geert Wilders even in the face of so many opportunities to put a halt to this farce, bespeaks the application of a kind of law that is foreign to western principles of justice. We should all be alarmed that Shariah law appears to have taken hold in our courtrooms and in the social fabric of western nations against the wishes and unbeknownst to the majority of citizens.

It is imperative that the citizens of free nations fully understand the implications of the actions of unelected officials in courtrooms across the Western world and stand with Geert Wilders and other victims of the Thought Police and reject this stealth movement towards removing our fundamental liberties.

Geert Wilders Speech at court in Amsterdam today :: IFPS-Canada

The IFPS then provides us with an English text of Wilders' speech today at the Amsterdam court:

The lights are going out all over Europe. All over the continent where our culture flourished and where man created freedom, prosperity and civilization. Everywhere the foundation of the West is under attack.

All over Europe the elites are acting as the protectors of an ideology that has been bent on destroying us since the fourteenth century. An ideology that has sprung from the desert and that can produce only deserts because it does not give people freedom. The Islamic Mozart, the Islamic Gerard Reve [a Dutch author], the Islamic Bill Gates; they do not exist because without freedom there is no creativity. The ideology of Islam is especially noted for killing and oppression and can only produce societies that are backward and impoverished. Surprisingly, the elites do not want to hear any criticism of this ideology.

My trial is not an isolated incident. Only fools believe it is. All over Europe multicultural elites are waging total war against their populations. Their goal is to continue the strategy of mass-immigration, which will ultimately result in an islamic Europe – a Europe without freedom: Eurabia.

The lights are going out all over Europe. Anyone who thinks or speaks individually is at risk. Freedom loving citizens who criticize islam, or even merely suggest that there is a relationship between islam and crime or honour killing, must suffer and are threatened or criminalized. Those who speak the truth are in danger.

The lights are going out all over Europe. Everywhere the Orwellian thought police are at work, on the lookout for thought crimes everywhere, casting the populace back within the confines where it is allowed to think.

This trial is not about me. It is about something much greater. Freedom of speech is not the property of those who happen to belong to the elites of a country. It is an inalienable right, the birthright of our people. For centuries battles have been fought for it, and now it is being sacrificed to please a totalitarian ideology.

Future generations will look back at this trial and wonder who was right. Who defended freedom and who wanted to get rid of it.

The lights are going out all over Europe. Our freedom is being restricted everywhere, so I repeat what I said here last year:

It is not only the privilege, but also the duty of free people – and hence also my duty as a member of the Dutch Parliament – to speak out against any ideology that threatens freedom. Hence it is a right and a duty to speak the truth about the evil ideology that is called islam. I hope that freedom of speech will emerge triumphant from this trial. I hope not only that I shall be acquitted, but especially that freedom of speech will continue to exist in the Netherlands and in Europe.

But why do the "multicultural elites" need to persecute Wilders and his free speech and contribute generally to the suicide of freedom, the suicide of the ongoing creativity that defines the West in comparison to pretty much any other, relatively unfree, civilizational order? Why has the left become a cult of control freaks?

We will perhaps find our answer in a debate over the nature of White Guilt. In this debate, I agree with Adam Katz that White Guilt is ultimately the fear of what we will become (mass murderers) if we refuse the blackmail of those who threaten us with terrorism or totalitarian law (essentially, the Sharia), e.g. with demands for expansion of the Islamic culture and state. This is why, to counter the underlying fear of our cultic left, the defenders of freedom must become much more active in thinking about how our freedom and any reformed immigration policy need not entail a genocidal threat to the "third-world" that is full of resentment at being, in the present world order, marginalized economic and political losers whose culture is not readily-suited to productivity in a now single global marketplace.

Can that resentment be mediated, can it be turned into productive energy, with anything less than a step-by-step liberalization of the cultures of the present outcasts? And do we have the courage, and humility, to help lead that process? Or will we commit suicide? Or will we try to put up a wall around those who hate us and want to kill us, thinking that we will only have to keep them in check with occasional military strikes, and that a heavy hand will diminish and not increase their fury to destroy us, so that the situation will never escalate into the possibility that drives White Guilt: the possibility that we will wipe them out in some fury of escalating rivalry?

White Guilt seeks the suicide of the West so that we need never face that day when we lose all trust and faith in the civilizing mission of Western Judeo-Greco-Christian culture. White Guilt has already imagined that day and lost faith. And that's why Wilders, according to the guilty, must be ceaselessly pursued. While I detest their faithlessness, I think the white guilty do have one real insight: the likelihood that genocide will emerge from any strategy to lock up and contain the resentful, unfree populations of the third world. I don't see this as an argument not to fight the Islamization (Shariafication) of Europe, or at least parts of it, by changing immigration, among other, policies. But maybe that's a topic for the comments section, if anyone wants to take it up.

The Least Of Egypt's Problems: Virtual Looting

As we watch and wait for any signs of a hopeful outcome to the news from Egypt, here's a story that was shared with me this morning, with an angle that probably won't make the headlines any time soon...:

A friend of mine plays in one of those "real-time" internet games where each player faces off against other human players from around the world, rather than against a computer. Not everyone may be aware of this newer trend in online games, so permit me the following basic description: The gameplay involves each player managing medieval-styled villages scattered across a virtual landscape, inter-acting with neighboring players' villages, either through peaceful trade or strategic conquest. There are shifting alliances of players/villages that compete or co-exist, with the whole saga playing out in "real-time", rather than in "turn-based" gameplay, like chess; if you stop playing this game for a while, your neighbors can't help but notice, and that influences how they choose to co-exist with you...

When Egypt unplugged itself from the internet a few days ago, one of the minor results was an online assault upon self-identified Egyptian players' villages, as they stood suddenly helpless before online looters. You see, players have the option to include some biographical information about themselves, as part of their player profile, much as we bloggers have the option to "reveal" ourselves through our blog profiles. Players are usually circumspect about their identities, although my friend reports that gamers claiming to be from the Middle East are rarely shy about declaring where they live and who they are, when compared to the rest of the average players of these games.

In recent weeks, current events have been tipping off the players in this online world as to which specific villages/players are not likely to be able to defend themselves if attacked, because of the real-world difficulties happening in their real-life homeland. When Egypt disconnected itself from the internet, it left all their players' online communities unsupervised... and therefore, unprotected.

The online response in the game has been two-fold; on the one hand, a few charitable players have banded together to try and co-manage, and ultimately defend, these properties on behalf of their real owners, knowing as they do the real reason behind the sudden silence of their Egyptian absentee landlords. The game mechanics apparently allow for certain mutual assistance to take place without the actual owner of a village being online to supervise the transaction; consequently, several sympathetic players here and there had taken the initiative to shield their colleagues' virtual possessions during their enforced absence, in the hope that soon enough there can be more of a level playing field once again.

Unfortunately the far more common response has been the systematic looting of Egyptian players' virtual villages by rapacious competitors, who see these real-world events as a golden opportunity for easy pickings.

My friend shared a message she received this morning from an Egyptian player of her acquaintance, back online today after an understandably long absence. He thanked her for her recent help, as well as requesting their team's continued support for keeping his online virtual possessions safe and secure until he can become more involved again himself.

Now, putting aside the obvious point ("Why in the world do you still care about this online fantasyland when your real world, filled with real friends and family, is in such peril??"), isn't it interesting how human behavior in the real world is spontaneously repeating itself in this online, parallel, reality?

In real-world Egypt, some citizens are banding together for mutual protection from looters, while others see the tumultuous times as occasion for pillage and plunder. And here it is occuring again, in imaginary worlds. There are countless games like hers nowadays; is the story repeating itself in all of them, I wonder?