Free Speech

By lex, on February 9th, 2010

Citizens of the Netherlands have no enshrined, constitutional right of free speech, which has led to the travesty of a man being tried for speaking his mind. In the US, of course, people do have a nearly unlimited right to spout off in the face of government, a fact that the US media has often happily turned to advantage. So it’s a more than a little ironic that while the Geert Wilders trial unfolds in Holland, so little is being said over here, either about the cultural issues in play, or the underlying and dominating issue of the state’s smothering an inconvenient citizen.

Credo

"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me."

— John Paul Jones

"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature"

— George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

— Friedrich Nietzsche

"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."

— Edmund Burke

"Μολὼν λαβέ"

— Leonidas

"Blogito Ergo Sum"

— Neptunus Lex