Talk about a genuine dilemma: two world-class international speakers coming to Melbourne and both speaking on the same night at two different venues. Both are world-renowned individuals, noted for going against the tide and refusing to bow to political correctness, the perceived wisdom, and the lamestream media.
For that brave stance both men have been maltreated and abused as pariahs and worse. They are regularly vilified, scorned and harassed – all in the name of tolerance and acceptance of course. Yet they have stood strong, and both are now here in Australia speaking at various meetings.
But both in the same city on the same night? What is one to do? Fortunately there was a happy ending for me at least, if not everyone else. I managed to get to hear both anyway, but in slightly different circumstances. But I better spill the beans first as to who I am referring to.
One is the Dutch MP Geert Wilders who has bravely sought to warn the West about the stranglehold of Islam and sharia law. He has experienced this first hand in Holland and throughout Europe, and sees how quickly freedom and democracy unravels under the Islamist onslaught.
The other is Englishman Lord Christopher Monckton, who has been courageously challenging the global warming hysteria, by means of facts, data and evidence. And as both men seek to speak truth, they have known tremendous opposition and persecution.
Geert Wilders
I have just had lunch with the famous politician, resolving my dilemma. No, it was not a quiet tete-a-tete. Even if that were possible, at best it would have been one on five: me, Geert and at least three bodyguards. The small select group got to informally meet the MP and chat with him and one another in a safe surrounding – all under the watchful eyes of his security team of course.
There were folks of different belief systems present: Jews, Christians and non-religious folks. All were concerned about the spread of radical Islam and the erosion of the West and its freedoms. And the simple fact that we had to gather in this place under strictly secretive conditions amply proves the very point of Geert: we are no longer free in the West to even discuss Islam.
Even though he is only speaking in a few Australian cities, he has had over thirty venue cancelations. This too is proof positive that dhimmitude is alive and well in this country. One venue after another pulled out, often at the last minute, leaving the organisers a real headache.
When a visiting MP cannot freely speak about threats to freedom and democracy in the West, then his talks may well be after the fact. As Andrew Bolt remarked about all his security, “If criticising Islam requires this much protection, there must be something to criticise.”
Fortunately the Australian newspaper has not succumbed as yet, and they allowed his article in this morning. It says in part:
“Contrary to what many Westerners think, Islam, rather than a religion, is a totalitarian political ideology. It is an ideology because it aims for an Islamic state and wants to impose sharia on all of us. It is totalitarian because it is not voluntary: once you are in, you cannot get out. Unlike genuine religions, Islam also makes demands on non-Muslims. We, too, are marked for death if we criticise it.
“For nine years I have been living under constant police protection. I live in a government safe house. I am driven every day to my office in an armoured police car. I have even lived in army barracks and prison cells just to be safe from assassins. I am threatened because I am a critic of Islam.
“I always make a distinction between Muslims and Islam, between the people and the ideology. Most Muslims are moderate, but this does not mean there is such a thing as a moderate Islam. People who reject Islam’s violent and intolerant commandments are not practising ‘moderate Islam’ – they are not practising Islam at all.
“That is the truth. And it needs to be said because freedom of speech is the only tool we have. We stand for our convictions, but we never use violence. We abhor violence. The reason we reject Islam is Islam’s violent nature. Our commitment to human dignity does not allow us to use violence nor to give in to cynicism and despair. As the ex-Muslim and Islam critic Ali Sina says: ‘We don’t raise a sword against darkness; we lit a light.’ So it is. We lit the light of the truth. The truth that while Muslims can embrace freedom, Islam cannot.”
Lord Monckton
As a climate realist who is not into the various Chicken Little scenarios, Lord Monckton also has experienced his fair share of abuse. He too is regularly pilloried and attacked, all for daring to take a view which challenges some of the perceived wisdom of the day. He dares to ask hard, inconvenient questions, which often go unanswered. Here he offers ten of them:
1. CO2 concentration has risen by 10% in the past 23 years, but the RSS satellite global lower-troposphere temperature-anomaly record shows warming over that period that is statistically indistinguishable from zero. How come?
2. Aristotle, 2350 years ago, demonstrated that to argue from “consensus” is a logical fallacy – the headcount fallacy. Some 95% of all published arguments for alarm about our influence on the climate say we must believe the “consensus”. Why was Aristotle wrong?
3. Aristotle, 2350 years ago, demonstrated that to argue that the “consensus” is a “consensus” of experts is a logical fallacy – the fallacy of appeal to authority. What has changed since 2350 years ago to make argument from appeal to authority acceptable rather than fallacious?
4. There has been 0.6 Celsius global warming since 1950. There are 5-7 times more polar bears today than there were in 1950. In what meaningful sense, then, are polar bears a species at imminent threat of extinction caused by global warming?
5. A recent paper shows that a naturally-occurring reduction in cloud cover has had four and a half times more warming effect than man-made increases in CO2 concentrations. Why are you so certain that the recently-published paper is wrong?
6. In the past 247 years – almost a quarter of a millennium – the trend in rainfall over England and Wales shows an increase of just 2 inches/year, or 5%. Why do you regard so insignificant an increase over so long a period as being beyond the natural variability of the climate?
7. Australia’s carbon tax, a typical measure intended to make global warming go away, will cost $150 billion over ten years. In that time, the tax is intended to abate 5% of Australia’s CO2 emissions, which represent 1.2% of global emissions. Do you agree, therefore, that at a cost of $150 billion the Australian scheme, if it succeeds, will abate just 0.06% of global CO2 emissions over ten years, at a cost of $150 billion?
8. The IPCC’s own climate-sensitivity equations show that abating 0.06% of global carbon emissions would reduce CO2 concentration from a predicted business-as-usual 410 microatmospheres to 409.988 microatmospheres, and that this would reduce global mean surface temperature by just 0.0006 Celsius degrees – if the carbon tax succeeded every bit as fully as its framers had intended. Do you consider that spending $150 billion to cut surface temperature by 0.00006 Celsius degrees is a sensible, proportionate, cost-effective use of other people’s money?
9. If Australia’s carbon tax were adopted worldwide, and if it worked every bit as well as its inventors had intended, it would cost $317 trillion to abate the one-sixth of a Celsius degree of warming that is predicted for the current decade. That is $45,000 per head of the global population over the period, or 59% of global GDP? Compared with the 1.23%-of-GDP cost of paying to abate the damage from 1/6 C of warming the day after tomorrow, is it worth spending 59% of GDP today?
10. In 2005 the UN said there would be 50 million climate refugees because of rising sea levels and other effects of global warming by 2010. Where are they?
Given all the hatred and vilification these two men must endure for simply speaking out, it would not go amiss if you kept them in your prayers. And if you have a chance to hear them in the coming days, please do so. You will not regret it.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/if_you_need_this_much_security_for_criticising_islam/
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/islamification-of-western-societies-threatens-everyones-freedoms/story-e6frgd0x-1226579834543
http://orwelliania.wordpress.com/2013/02/09/10-difficult-questions-for-climate-extremists/
[1413 words]