Continuing from my earlier post about the Dutch MP Geert Wilders being forbidden from entering the UK, I came across a useful observation from Charles Johnson:
However, Wilders himself does not deserve to be called an icon of free speech, since he explicitly wants to ban the Koran and make Islam illegal in Europe; in other words, he wants to take away other people’s freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and that is simply wrong. Book banning is what totalitarians do, not believers in free speech.
Still, what I said before: loathsome as he may be, inhibiting his right to free speech, even if he wants to do the same to others, is not the way to go. You beat such people by exposing them to public scrutiny, not by letting them adopt the martyr's cloak.
(Linking with approval to LGF? Yup. Strange day.)*
(h/t: David T/Harry's Place)
* [Added] I gotta say, after looking at LGF's most recent fifteen or so posts, I'm tempted to remove them from The List. Plenty to disagree with, but I'm not seeing a whole lot of wingnuttery. Look, they can even laugh at themselves, which is just about grounds for automatic disqualification all by itself:
Q: What does Little Green Footballs have in common with Cuba? (Besides our Nazi-like suppression of dissent?)
A: We’re both running Linux.
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