This televised discussion between the leader of the Christian Union, Mr Gert-Jan Segers and the leader of the Party For Freedom, Mr Geert Wilders is fascinating not only for the content of the debate itself, but also for the quality of the speakers’ handling of the discussion – oh, and the absolute silence of the audience throughout.
Somehow, our own similar political debates here in the UK seem to me to be a poor relation to this standard of discussion style and content. Incidentally, Mr Wilders is wearing a bullet/stab-proof vest disguised as a waistcoat (which he’s worn previously), such is the nature of his political case.
Quite whose arguments you’re persuaded by, I’ll leave to you; both men speak compellingly …
I think this debate exemplifies a very basic moral dilemma: is it permissable/advisable to do ‘bad’ things in order to prevent worse things happening? Is it possible to live in a world of absolute moral values?
If my child is starving, and I have no option but to steal some food so that she can live, what should I do – break my moral code or let her die?
What deeply concerns me is the rise of religious fanaticism across the world – I’m Jewish, and I’m horrified by the extreme sects that are gaining ground within that religion here in the West; the only difference in their thinking (so far) from extreme Muslims is that they are not yet violent. We see the rise of fanatic anti-liberal Christian views influencing American politics, and there have been reports in the last couple of years of Buddhist monks in Asia committing acts that are utterly against their teachings.
BUT… what we have also seen in the last 100yrs is the resurgence of militant fanaticism, with or without the shrouds of religion – think of Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao etc. Perhaps I’m working towards the view that it the apparent human delight in vicious extremism that we need to be tackling, rather than singling out Islam.
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I can really not understand, that people still do not have gotten it that the freedom they are so eager to defend is already gone for a lot of people, namely women, homosexuals, jews, apostates, critics of Islam and a whole lot more which those so-called refugees are not ageeing with. Don’t you see that we all are disbelievers for them who have to be either eradicated from this earth or been made slaves? Why don’t you do the mathematics (you don’t have to be a genius for this) and see by about 2030 you will be outnumbered by the race of rabbit-multiplication. What does it take to get you out of the slumber and “good-people-dreamworld”. You are destroying your own people, Europe and the Western world with your empty speeches. Do you do this on purpose well knowing what you are doing or is is just insanity or dumbness? There is only one solution for the Netherlands and this is Mr. Geert Wilders. Otherwise why don’t you start looking for excuses for your children and grandchildren. So, please, Dutch people take the only right choice you have!
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The matter of the seemingly unfettered movement of what is widely considered (if not openly admitted) to be a culture alien to that of the western world is growing to become the defining issue of a generation. I don’t know what the answer is (who does?), but I do know that even now immigration is not a topic to be raised and discussed in polite society. For how long such a state of affairs can continue is anybody’s guess.
Quite possibly, by the time it does become permissible to talk freely and frankly about a clash of civilisations (a cliche, I know, but that’s what’s happening), it could be too late.
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The debate reminds me of: “The distance is so great between how we live and how we ought to live that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done learns his ruin rather than his preservation; because a man who wants to make a profession of goodness in everything, is bound to come to ruin among so many who are not good …” Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)
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Yes, I think that Wilders is being guided more by what he simply thinks is the right thing to do than by some other overriding, perceived moral imperative …
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