Many of the elites seem to think of themselves as The Bequeathers of Absolute Truth — proud, self-righteous, totalitarian antagonists to any contrarian thought or speech — and they have seized power in universities, in the media and in nearly all political parties. A ban takes hold, then another and another and another. And nobody notices until it's too late.
"It is Seldom That Any Kind of liberty is lost all at once," wrote David Hume. To warn that the erosion of economic freedom by interventionist measures would lead to the erosion of political and intellectual freedom, Friedrich Hayek placed this quote on the front page of The Road to Serfdom. It perfectly illustrates the threat to the destruction of freedom in Europe after World War II.
Although seven decades have passed, the warning has not been heeded. Economic freedom in Europe has been largely abolished as month after month, regulations emanating from the unelected, self-appointed, technocratic Brussels Commission continue to multiply.
Political freedom has also been confiscated as key decisions between heads of state are made — behind closed doors — by the equally unelected, self-appointed, technocratic European Council.
It now looks as if intellectual freedom is about to be eradicated as well.
In almost all European countries, only monolithic thought is allowed to be actually spoken. Many of the elites seem to think of themselves as The Bequeathers of Absolute Truth — proud, self-righteous, totalitarian antagonists to any contrarian thought or speech — and they have seized power in universities, in the media and in nearly all political parties.
In Europe, defending free market ideas and Judeo-Christian values has become almost impossible. When European journalists report on the debates between Republican candidates during the primary elections in the United States, what they hear is so strange to them that they need to invent new words. "Conservatism" is not enough; they speak of "ultra conservatism," implying, of course, that anyone "ultra conservative" must be an insane extremist.
Evoking the contributions of Western civilization, or saying that these contributions are worthy, leads immediately to harsh criticism. Silvio Berlusconi, a few weeks after the September 11 attacks on the US, said, "We must be aware of the superiority of our civilization, a system that has guaranteed well-being, respect for human rights." Faced with the unanimous indignation of his peers, he had to declare a few days later that he was withdrawing his remarks.
When the French Interior Minister Claude Gueant recently declared that "not all cultures are of equal value," a socialist deputy publicly expressed outrage, and added that sentences of this kind had "paved the way for the Third Reich;" the French National Assembly has envisioned legal action against him.
Criticizing Islam is even more dangerous. This apparently marks you as an "Islamophobe" and a "racist." Complaints are filed, and courts impose heavy fines, sometimes prison sentences.
The prominent Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who expressed the opinion that Islam was "fascism," was prosecuted in the Netherlands in January 2009 for "inciting hatred against Muslims." Although he was acquitted in June 2011 by a Dutch court, those who sued him brought the case before the European Court of Human Rights. Final judgment has not yet been reached. The plaintiffs said they felt "humiliated and threatened" by Wilders who, unlike them, must live in safe houses, under police protection. The film director Theo van Gogh was murdered for having made a short film, "Obsession," about the treatment of women in Islam. The Dutch Parliamentarian, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who had worked in women's shelters, was threatened with death for having written the script for it; she eventually fled to the United States.
An Austrian woman, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, gave a private lecture in Vienna in November 2009, during which she remarked that the prophet Mohammed, who married one of his wives, Aisha, when she was nine, "liked young girls," and one month later found herself charged with "denigrating the teachings of a recognized religion." In February 2011, she was sentenced to a heavy fine, which she paid; she nevertheless lives under constant threat.
Lars Hedegaard, President of the Danish Free Press Society and the International Free Press Society, affirmed in a December 2009 interview, that Islam treated women in a "degrading manner." He was immediately convicted of "inciting hatred" and of "racism." In May 2011, he too was sentenced to a heavy fine.
When two Frenchmen, Pierre Cassen and Pascal Hillout, created a secularist movement, Riposte Laïque, [Secular Reply] in 2007, and published several articles against the Islamization of France and Europe, they were charged with "inciting racial hatred" against Muslims. It should be noted that Cassen is a trade-unionist and belongs to the left, and that Hillout was born a Muslim. Complaints against them were filed by the League against Racism and Antisemitism (LICRA), the Movement against Racism and for Friendship among Peoples (MRAP), and the League of Human Rights (LDH) — three organizations that used to fight to defend human rights but that now pursue very different goals and act only when Islam appears "threatened." On February 3, 2012, the prosecutor requested a jail sentence of two months for Hillout, a jail sentence of three months for Cassen, and a crippling fine of 150,000 euros ($200,000) for Riposte Laïque. The verdict is to be delivered in a few weeks.
For a book about Islam in 2004 (Who's Afraid of Islam?), that criticizes Islam and defends Israel, I also have been attacked by the MRAP and still receive frequent explicit death threats — anonymous letters and e-mails, and pictures of slit throats — and copies of The Invention of the Palestinian People, my latest book, have been destroyed by organized gangs raiding bookshops.
The list of examples could be long; all who dare to criticize Islam, defend Israel, or even speak of "Western civilization" in Europe live in a situation of provisional freedom, and face increasing risks. The situation resembles nothing so much as that of dissidents in the former Soviet Union, who risk harassment, fines and even, as we have seen, incarceration. Newspapers and magazines no longer feel free to publish their writings; large publishing companies refuse their books.
Muslim imams in mosques all over Europe feel free to preach hatred for the West and to call for "War against Christians and Jews," while mainstream politicians and journalists hear nothing, and judges see nothing.
What happened to Europe needs to be a warning to the American people; it needs to be urgently known and explained. The loss of freedom can occur gradually. It can also be brutal. A ban takes hold, then another, and another and another. And nobody pays attention until its too late.
© Guy Millière for The StoneGate Institute
“On august 3rd 1914, on the eve of the great war, Sir Edward Grey, the british foreign secretary, stood at the window of his office in the summer dusk and observed:”the lights are going out all over Europe;”
To day the lamps are going out on liberty all over the western world in a more subtle and elusive and profound way.”
Ce sont les premières phrases de Mark Steyn dans “lights out” (qu’il préface personnellement avec une adorable simplicité à ses lecteurs).
On n’entendra sans doute jamais parler de cet homme ici, où alors pour le qualifier d’ultra-néo-hyper-conservateur dans le cadre d’une crise de dénigrement semi-hystérique q’u’affectionnent nos élites …
Par un effet secondaire presque logique, du moins très humain, de la trouille qui s’insinue en occident, nos keufs de la Thought-Polizei eux-mêmes en viennent en effet à se précipiter vers les porteurs de flambeaux pour les éteindre.
Des sortes de Prométhée pris de panique, mais ne voulant pas pour autant renoncer à leur orgueil de paraître..
Alors ils feignent de croire à ce qu’ils professent. Et ils professent que ce n’est pas la peur qui les guide mais la raison. Dont ils sont maîtres..
Un peu avant 2000, un comédien, avait eu ce bon mot sur france –inter: “cet abîme vers lequel nous sommes en train de glisser”
Onze ans après 9/11 nous avons tiré les leçons de cette déclaration de guerre, très explicite, qu’était l’attaque: ouvrons leur grand les bras.
J’ai gardé en mémoire un petit boulot d’intérimaire, jadis, et un chef d’entrepôt, confronté à un début d’incendie: il lui était venu l’idée excellente de provoquer un courant d’air afin d’éteindre l’incendie:
Tout a cramé. On a même pas pu sauver nos vestes, ni lui les posters de son bureau.
Je revois les ruines fumantes de l’entrepôt….
The loss of freedom has already occured 🙂
Peace from Israel
Only Marine Le Pen can change this. Even if it won’t be perfect the seed of reason will be planted in France… and Europe.
Il est rare en effet, que toutes les libertés disparaissent à la fois dans un pays doté d’une constitution, d’un exécutif et d’un parlement élu. Cela ne se rencontrait que sous les dictatures personnelles, les royautés absolues ou encore dans les théocraties et leur équivalent dogmatique, la dictature d’oligarques prônant l’utopie communiste sans la démocratie qui devait aller avec.
Dire que le dirigisme technocratique des commissaires bruxellois est responsable à lui seul de la perte de souveraineté économique, puis aujourd’hui politique de la France et des pays d’Europe est un peu rapide. N’est-ce pas prendre les effets pour la cause première ?
Les effets de l’interventionnisme des lobbies anglo-saxons ne sont pas les mêmes dans tous les pays européens. Pourquoi sont-ils plus violents en France ? Parce que le péhesse, cet autre parti de droite à la fois libéral et réformiste, donc totalement schizophrène, détient la majorité absolue dans trois des quatre pouvoirs. Il contrôle le législatif, le judiciaire et avec la désinformation qui est sous son contrôle il va inciter les cloportes aux quinquets en forme d’écran télé à lui abandonner l’exécutif, dernier rempart avant la dictature de la pensée unique de gauche.
La chose publique, la res publica au péhesse: la France est FOU-TUE !
Parce que notre réalité à nous Français, c’est çà : une charia péhesse condamnant le blasphème pro-Républicain, une pensée unique (très loin de la vérité absolue !) véhiculée par les fausses indignations de vrais faux-culs. Il faut quand même rappeler que ce sont les partis socialistes et les partis libéraux confondus qui l’ont voulue cette Europe du marché unique, non ? En France ce sont majoritairement les Delors Aubry et consorts qui ont voulu et FAIT Maestritch, l’espace Shengen, le libre exercice de la spéculation, de la mondialisation, la libre circulation des marchandises et des sans-papiers.
Critiquer l’islam, c’est en effet défendre Israël. Le MRAP, la LICRA ou la LDH ne s’y sont pas trompé, eux qui luttent pour favoriser l’islamisation du pays. C’est en cela que la trahison de la gauche est insupportable au citoyen Laïque et démocrate.
Et les textes imposés aux Nations européennes par ses amis commissaires ne lui suffisaient pas ! La dictature du péhesse a rédigé des textes nationaux scélérats qui ont dévoyé le terme même de racisme en l’appliquant à la liberté imprescriptible de dire ce que l’on pense et en particulier à critiquer la pire des croyances : l’islam. Sa justice qui n’y ne voit aucune atteinte à nos libertés de citoyens dans le texte, l’applique. La plus farouche à défendre la Laïcité et nos libertés individuelles, Riposte Laïque comme le souligne justement Guy Milières, est la première association Républicaine à payer cette Dhimme illégale et intolérable.
Non, l’interventionnisme grandissant de la commission européenne n’est pas seul en cause. A force d’écouter les sirènes hurlantes du péhesse et à observer Hollande dans ses gesticulations de sémaphore, les français sont devenus sourds, aveugles … et carrément débiles à 56%.
DEUX organes “européens” qui contribuèrent directement à l’aliénation de nos “libertés” d’antan sont à pointer du doigt pour leurs actions des deux dernières décennies :
1) le Conseil de l’Europe à Strasbourg et sa “Cour d’Inquisition multi-juges” forçant les Etats membres (= 47, dont la Russie!) à se subordonner à des avis et arrêts. Soit des textes souvent contraignants en matière de D.H. “repensés” à la façon de leur parlement et/ou de diplomates.
2) le Parlement européen (à Strasbourg et Bruxelles) dans lequel s’activent avec virulence les courants gauchisants appartenant tant au PPE qu’au PSE et Verts européens. Soit trois composantes (multi-partis) gardant les oreilles grande ouvertes aux thèses de lobbyists qui leur vendent une conception D.H. dévoyée p.r. à celle 1949. Un exemple serait acté sous couvert d’AOC tels les “droits fondamentaux actualisés”.
Je ne surajouterai pas l’interférence supra d’une myriade d’agents onusiens, pourtant très présents dans la dynamique des glissements législatifs. Bon, les Etats peuvent traîner dans la ratification des textes, néanmoins ils sont tenus de les transposer à terme.
Devant ces législations/jurisprudences influentes qui ressortant des deux à trois acteurs cités, la plupart de nos élus nationaux sont dépouillés du droit d’un exercice ouvert et logique de leur gestion publique. Voyez à quel point les “arrêts” (tels Salduz et d’autres) sont perturbants sur l’exercice de nos processus de justice? Lenteurs et entraves surajoutées nous sont ainsi garanties!
Ceux qui profitent directement de ces impositions exogènes se recrutent notamment : chez certains juges (lorgnant déjà à gauche au plan idéologique), parmi les pervers et truands friands de procédures alambiquées. Ceux-ci usent vite d’assistances spontanées et calculées de la part d’avocats (dont quelques spécialistes marrons), etc.
Au final planchent de divins élus (hors tout suffrage universel) … mais élus grâce aux PARTICRATIES régnant au sein de leur Etat respectif. Ils peuvent ensuite sévir au sein de leur Cour et/ou hémicycles, sans aucunes responsabilités au plan opérationnel ni risques de sanctions.
A chaque citoyen nu de pouvoirs démocratiques de méditer alors sur le fonctionnement de ces machins-là. Ces organes indirects nous dictent un futur fort aventureux. Les populations d’honnêtes gens en sortiront plus concernés encore dans leur quotidien.
Geez, when I read this I can’t help but wonder – how long will America’s First Amendment Right hold up?
Already the amount of rights lost (in 3 1/2 years) is flabbergasting – yet the popular press hardly notices or reports on it – and the populace vegetates while viewing mindless TV shows. I can see a repeat with the American mainstream media, a frightingly familiar process already witnessed in my native France is taking shape; and there’s no other place to run away to.
I thank you Guy for speaking up, and hope that you and your readers will send this good article to our non-mainstream media in the U.S. – Thank God they’re numerous – albeit not influential enough. And leave you with a quote which you certainly know; of all people, it could certainly be yours – because you’ve fought the battle with courage and for so very long. Amities.
“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen”. Samuel Adams
One of the most interesting things about later years islamic totalitarian growth is how nazi groupings pop up alongside them, not so much in opposition as in sympaty.
This gives a short impresion of the development. It’s not complete, of course, but it’s quite accurate:
http://eee.junipersec.com/chart.htm
And this is an actual example of prominent islamics joining forces with some of the most well-known nazists in the US. The venture later fell apart, of course.
http://eee.junipersec.com/aryan.htm
@Ståle Fagerland,
It turns out that the new Islamonazis are the direct descendants of the old Nazis. I don’t use the term “Nazi” lightly. I’m talking about the actual Nazis of the Third Reich.
http://1389blog.com/2010/12/26/collaborating-with-muslim-nazis/
I agree with your article wholeheartedly, Guy, but I must point out one glaring mistake in it.
Muhammed married Ayesha when she was 6, over the protestations of her father, Muhammed’s own blood brother. He first has sexual relations with her when she was 9, and is considered a paragon of restraint by muslims by waiting that 3 years.
He did not marry her when she was 9.
I am sure that I need not mention that the 3 years difference between 6 and 9 is far more significant than between 30 and 33. This… paedophile… is considered the most perfect person in the history of the human race by muslims.
I don’t know about you, but it tells me volumes about the religion, even without having lived in muslim countries for over half my life.