At yesterday’s “Reclaiming American Liberty” conference, John Bolton and I were both asked about the prosecution of the Dutch politician Geert Wilders. I said that, in the Netherlands and other European countries, the political elite understands that there are frictions between an ever more assertive Muslim population and an ever more resentful “native” working class, but that, with the usual careless confidence of Big Government, it had concluded that the answer to this problem was to police and constrain public discourse within ever narrower bounds. The widened charges against Mr. Wilders are a perfect example of this:

Prosecutors, meanwhile, said Wednesday they had finalized their hate speech indictment against the MP, listing five counts of religious insult and anti-Muslim incitement.
The document, made available to AFP, was the “definitive” version, spokesman Franklin Wattimena said.
The indictment charges Wilders with insulting Muslims by describing Islam as a fascist religion and calling for the banning of the Koran, which he likens to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
He is also accused of inciting hatred and discrimination for stating Moroccan youths were violent, calling for the Koran to be banned and for Dutch borders to be closed to all “non-western immigrants”, as well as for advocating an end to what he terms “the Islamic invasion”.
Wilders, 46, faces up to one year in jail if convicted.

I don’t happen to agree with banning either the Koran or Mein Kampf. I think free peoples should be free to read them and reach their own conclusion thereupon. But, once you accept the principle that it is acceptable to ban certain books (as Mein Kampf is banned in many parts of Europe), why should it be a crime to propose additional titles to add to the proscribed list?

As for an end to “non-Western” immigration, whether one agrees or disagrees, why should it be illegal to raise the subject? As I understand, Geert Wilders mentioned ending non-western immigration in the context of what his party would do in its first days in office. Thus, the court is prosecuting his political platform. And, although Mr. Wilders is invariably described as “far right,” how “far” he is depends on where you’re standing: A poll last month found his party tied for first place in Dutch affections.

In other words, this court is explictly attempting to criminalize the political opinions of a large swath of the Dutch electorate. That doesn’t seem a smart move. Whatever it does to Wilders, it risks delegitimizing the state itself. Even by European standards, the Low Countries have too narrow a political discourse, and whenever somebody comes along to broaden the discussion, they either get killed (Pim Fortuyn), banned (Belgium’s Vlaams Blok), or prosecuted (Geert Wilders) — all for asking the same question as this piece in Germany’s impeccably non-far-right Spiegel:

How Much Allah Can The Old Continent Bear?

The way things are going in the Netherlands that headline will be illegal in a year or two. Pathetic.