In the "I told you so" file: 'Toxic' Marine Le Pen blamed for Geert Wilders defeat in Netherlands

France has its own special set of conditions, including a massive problem with its inability to integrate an ever-growing Muslim population, which has created enclaves around Paris in which even the police are afraid to enter.  The French government's inability to deal with that ongoing issue, and certain historical sympathies for ultra-conservative extremism in France has created a regrettable but understandable backlash resulting in the growing popularity of the reprehensible far-right in that country.

But not all of Europe is in the same condition as France and while the public is seeking a more prudent and conservative policy outlook, the racist far-right is not the solution that the public in places like the Netherlands want as an alternative. So as I predicted, Dutch Freedom Party's Geert Wilders' alliance with the racist National Front in France was a catastrophe for him and his political movement.

A disastrous European Union election vote for the Dutch far-Right has been blamed on a "toxic" Marine Le Pen and is seen as vindication of Nigel Farage's refusal to work with the French Front National.

The result is a blow to Miss Le Pen and will be widely seen as the consequence of her failure to break from the Front National's extremist past, a legacy embodied by her father Jean-Marie who remains an MEP and honorary president of the party.

His close alliance with Miss Le Pen is seen as the key factor in the unexpected defeat of Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party (PVV) on Thursday night after Dutch exit polls put him in fourth place behind all the pro-EU Dutch political parties.

The dilemma of Dutch Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders going off the deep end

There's no coming back from being in bed with a hard-core, no-bones-about-it neo-fascist party. You can't do that as a credible adult in the 21st Century and say you didn't really know how bad fascism is.

Amazingly, Marxists and other contemporary communists get away with it, and they shouldn't. As ideologies in theory and practice, both  are political manifestations of pure evil. Suppression of the free exchange of ideas and the repression of any individual or groups that conflict with the will of the rulers are inherent features of these totalitarian movements. Though they use the language of liberty and justice, they do so only as empty words to manipulate the gullible; and as tools to reach the power they plan to clutch without ever intending to release it.

That's why among many, there were high hopes for what was represented by Geert Wilders' Dutch Party for Freedom. Despite being characterized as "far-right" by the media, his platform that favored women's rights, including pro-choice policies as well as gay rights and free speech, were actually reflective of classic liberalism. The "far-right" appellation came from a culturally relativist media that was enraged by Wilders' extreme criticisms of Islam. But were those criticisms justified?

Ancient kings claimed divine power so their authority could not be challenged by the inferior reasoning of mortal men. Similarly, in our time political Islam, with its Imams and leaders claiming divine authority as the temporal interpreters of Allah and Mohammed, brooks no real dissent. And woe to those who would dare try. In the Netherlands, Theo Van Gogh tried and he was stabbed to death on the street. Ayyan Hirsi Ali tried, and has spent the life under threat of death, with the unending need for security precautions.

There are critics of Catholicism who are just as harsh as those who criticize Islam. But Catholicism's critics do not have to live in constant fear of being murdered, while Islam's do not enjoy that privilege.

So while it seems Willders has not changed his Party for Freedom's platforms, his willingness to form an alliance with France's crypto-fascist National Front has plunged him into an abyss from which he will probably never emerge.  The National Front's current leader, Marine Le Pen, has tried to rehabilitate the image of the party she inherited from its founder, her Nazi-sympathising father, Jean-Marie.  But the National Front remains what it is, a genuinely far-right party, using thoughtless demonization of all Muslims and fervent opposition to gay marriage as a means to achieving their ends.

Wilders is first and foremost a politician, and seeing the increased popularity of Europe's far-right political parties, he must have seen an opportunity worth exploiting by allying with them for the upcoming European parliamentary elections.  Even if he does achieve a temporary measure of success by that alliance, the irrevocable long-term damage it will inflict on his and his party's credibility show that he is someone who lacks the wisdom to lead a nation.

The one silver lining to this sad development is the rift this has caused between Wilders' party and Britain's United Kingdom Independence Party and its firebrand leader Nigel Farage. Despite uninformed claims by Wilders that UKIP would join the alliance of the far-right, Farage has made it abundantly clear the Dutchman is talking out of his hat.

Farage has made it plain that he would have nothing to do with any multi-party union that involved the National Front, leading Marine Le Pen to lash out at him this week, like a spurned lover.

I can't say that I know Farage, but did meet him briefly and chatted with him while we were ordering drinks at the bar at an event where he spoke. It was a speech in which his firm commitment to human rights, liberty and individual freedom was passionately and abundantly clear.  His rejection of any cooperation with France's National Front, despite the immediate political gain that could come with it, reiterate Farage's commitment to those principles.

It is a very sad development for the Netherlands and Europe that Geert Wilders capitulation to expediency shows he lacks that same wisdom.

The welcome death of Section 13 and the arrogance of Canada's censors

Depending on who you talk to, a government lawyer named Richard Warman is either admired or reviled for his unrelenting effort to punish hate speech  in Canada. Joining neo-Nazi online forums, Warman has identified a number of public hatemongers and successfully pursued judgments against them through Human Rights Commission rulings.

His goal of working towards a Canada without racism and illegal discrimination  is an admirable one. From all credible accounts, Warman's efforts are the result of the noblest of motives; the desire to contribute to society and continue, in a different form, the fight against Nazism and fanatical racism that his relatives had done in battle during the Second World War.

But there is a dangerous flip side to the Human Rights Commissions that Warman and others have utilized to serve their aim. Conceived for the purpose of fighting illegal discrimination in employment, housing, education and so on, they have morphed  into tools used by special interests to try to prevent any form of speech that they consider offensive.

They have been used to intimidate people who have not promoted discrimination or racism but have merely expressed ideas. Some of the most notorious abuses were the cases of Ezra Levant being prosecuted for publishing cartoons of Islam's founder Mohammad and Mark Steyn and Macleans magazine for an article about the affect of Islam on western society. Though both cases were ultimately dismissed, there are obvious  problems with a quasi-judicial system presided over by individuals of questionable qualifications and dubious judgement, that forces defendants to appear at their own expense, while plaintiffs can launch frivolous publicly funded cases.

The notion that an ideology that is antithetical to the freedoms that western civilization has achieved is above criticism, because of an idolatrous deification of the secular concept of multiculturalism, should be abhorrent to anyone who believes in liberty and democracy. But that is precisely how Human Rights Commissions have been used, with the assistance of its petty-minded functionaries who believe that free speech is only "an American concept" without value in Canada.

Yet that is how Canada's Human Rights Commissions have been employed by defenders of Islamism. While in Canada, the majority of Muslims have rejected violent jihad, but that rejection is not universal, and Islamic nations like Iran are ruled by leaders who embrace the murderous methods of terrorism.

There is a regrettable, though somewhat amusingly illogical arrogance to the Human Rights censors who appear to think they possess a secret knowledge of the human capacity for hate. I was going to ask Richard Warman a question about that a few months ago at a public forum put on by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. At that event, Warman debated Canadian Civil Liberties Association General Counsel Nathalie Des Rosiers about the soon to be undone Section 13 of Canada's Human Rights Act that deals with hate speech. That debate took place, somewhat ironically, at the same place that almost exactly a year earlier was the site of an anti-Israel forum featuring the author of an anti-Semitic thesis sanctioned by the University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

Warman had described a short film called "Fitna"  about Islamic radicalism produced by Dutch politician Geert Wilders, as "criminal hate speech."

Fitna is not the ravings of xenophobic "right wingers" against Muslims and Islam. It is a compilation of images of Islamic leaders and demonstrators expressing approval of terrorism,murder, and repressive dictates against Muslim and non-Muslim alike. To be sure, those portrayed in Fitna are not representative of all Muslims. But Wilders did not invent those images and they are a significantly sizable minority within the Islamic world to be of serious concern to those in the West who believe in democratic ideals.

Wilders himself was described by Warman as a "far right" politician. Fitna is a warning against a religious and political ideology that suppresses women and denies them abortion rights, persecutes and kills Gays for their sexuality, persecutes religious minorities, and has no respect for free speech. In what kind of bizzaro world is someone who seeks to defend abortion rights, women's rights, gay rights and free speech against those who suppress them considered  a "right-winger"?

The question I intended to ask Warman was that as he had seen Fitna and had not been transformed into a raving Islamophobe, how is it that he sees fit to try to deprive others of that right on the basis that it would affect other people differently than it did him? Does Warman believe he is so intellectually and morally superior, like some inner party member of Orwell's 1984, that he is of a special class of person capable of correctly processing information the rest of us can not?

As it happened, I didn't get the chance to ask Warman that question, because just as it was my turn at the microphone, I was cut ahead of by Bernie Farber, the anticipated next head of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Farber, another proponent of civil hate speech regulation, used his time with Warman to engage in the verbal equivalent of mutual masturbation in which the two men lavished praise on each other, and so consumed all the remaining question and answer period.

Fortunately, questions related to Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act will soon be moot. As a result of a Private Members' Bill put forward by Alberta MP Brian Storseth, the law that let unqualified censors determine the free speech rights of Canadians will soon be repealed. Hate Speech will still be a crime in Canada, but it will have to meet the test of standards necessary for criminal prosecution in genuine courts presided over by real judges. Given the plentiful opportunities for abuse and mischief afforded by Section 13, its death is not only welcome, but long overdue.

Canada's arrogant censor class need to understand that free speech is not a privilege over which they have final say, but a basic human right that should be infringed on only under the most serious of circumstances.