Saturday, October 27, 2018

A FRIGHTENING RULING OF THE EUROPEAN "COURT" OF "HUMAN RIGHTS".

Over at American Thinker, something extremely important gave a bright blip on Thomas Panis' radar:



"IN EUROPE, FEELINGS OF MUSLIMS NOW OFFICIALLY TRUMP FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

According to the European Court of Human Rights, the feelings of Muslims are more important than liberty. A critique of the Religion of Peace can be deemed a threat to “religious peace.” Becket Adams explains in the Washington Examiner:



~ The European Court of Human Rights ruled this week that defaming the Prophet Muhammad is not protected speech. More specifically, the court said an “Austrian woman’s conviction for calling the prophet of Islam a pedophile didn’t breach her freedom of speech,” the Associated Press reported.

The ECHR explained in its ruling that Austrian courts had “carefully balanced her right to freedom of expression with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected.” The woman explained in 2009 during a seminar discussion that the Prophet Muhammad’s marriage to a six-year-old girl was basically “pedophilia.”

"A 56-year-old and a 6-year-old? What do you call that? Give me an example? What do we call it, if it is not pedophilia?" she said.



... In 2008 and 2009, the Austrian citizen Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff held a series of seminars concerning Islam in Vienna (Austria). One of the topics was the famous 6-year old child bride of Muhammad (Aïsha). At some point she said that “... Muhammed liked to do it with little children”.

In ways that are becoming frighteningly common in the Old World, the PC-police donned its armor and Sabaditsch-Wolff was convicted by an Austrian court because she had “insulted religion.” (If you are interested in the details of this show-trial: Gatestone Institute ran a good article about it). Having the choice between a 480 euros fine (about 550 dollars) and 60 days in prison, the accused chose a third option: the European Court of Human Rights. She argued that religious groups should tolerate criticism, and that her statements served the public debate and were not intended as insults.

This European Court made a historic decision on 25 October 2018 by stating that the Austrian conviction was not in violation of article 10 of the European convention: freedom of speech has its limits.



~ “The Court found in conclusion that in the instant case the domestic courts carefully balanced the applicant’s right to freedom of expression with the rights of others to have their religious feelings protected, and to have religious peace preserved in Austrian society.”



This conclusion should give every freedom loving person pause. It is a sentence so frightening, so important and so far-reaching that it is worth further analysis. The court’s conclusion says that freedom of speech is not absolute, but should be balanced against..


1. “... the rights of others to have their religious feelings protected,”

2. “... and to have religious peace preserved in Austrian society.”


As for the first point: we all know who these “others” are. Although insulting Christianity has been a favorite pastime of the higher educated in Western Europe since the French Revolution, it rarely leads to convictions. There are no shrieking Buddhists protesting in Paris, calling for violence against infidel non-Buddhists. It is also worth noting that the court does not mention “religious rights.” It mentions religious “feelings”. How do you define that? Isn’t every form of critique slightly hurting to someone’s feelings? Isn’t that what freedom of speech is all about?

But it becomes truly creepy when we read the second point: freedom of expression has to be weighed against the right “...to have religious peace preserved in Austrian society.” The Court of Human Rights hereby confirms the fears of many libertarians and conservatives in Europe: that critique of these “others” (i.e., Muslims) may lead to a breakdown of the fragile peace that now exists, thanks to mass immigration, in every large European city. We all know where this kind of appeasement leads to.

What this shameful episode shows is that the legal elites of the faltering European Union have a complete different idea about liberty, as compared to the ideas of the Founding Fathers in the USA. In pursuit of a European “Bill of Rights” large treaties were signed, great speeches held and supranational institutions were created. But when push comes to shove, freedom of speech, one of the basic liberties -- maybe the most fundamental one of them all -- is deemed less important than the feelings of Muslims. Moreover, ironically, critique of the “Religion of Peace” is now deemed a threat to “religious peace.”



According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a paedophile is:

"someone who is sexually interested in children"

Muhammad was worse than that. According to his followers, women included, who consider him "The Perfect Man", he fucked Aisha when she was nine (We will just have to take the koranic scholars' word for it that he didn't penetrate her when she was six). Anyway, if an adult fucks a child, he or she is not merely a paedophile, but a child molester as well:





Muhammad was a pedophile AND a child molester. Besides a plethora of other unsavory things, of course.


This is a scandalous ruling by people who not only live in ivory towers but who deliberately abuse their power to destroy the lives of those whose rights they are supposed to protect. The time has come to judge the judges. As they apparently refuse to listen, let it be known that when their self-constructed trainwreck derails, they will, just like their colleague ideologues in politics, the media and what passes for the cultural sector, have to pay their fair share for the disasters they deliberately inflicted on Europe.


MFBB.

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

DEMOCRATS IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2018...



Nuff said, and I even said nothing.


MFBB.

Monday, October 22, 2018

A DAY OUT IN THE ARDENNES.

The weather was glorious last weekend, so I figured I'd head out to the Ardennes for what was possibly the last time this year. The rest of the family wasn't in the mood - they don't know what's good for them. So me was accompanied only by myself and I.


Cruising on the good ole E411 somewhere between Custinne and Wanlin:




View on the Chateau de Bouillon, once the home of Godfrey of Bouillon, the 'Belgian' crusader. Pic taken from somewhere below the Point de Vue de la Ramonette.




After getting off the La Ramonette crest and through Bouillon's Arboretum - which sadly, isn't such a big deal anymore since it's in the process of being overgrown by, guess what, trees, I came across the Monument des Fusillés. Seems you can't get nowhere in the Ardennes or sometime, somewhere, you are reminded of WWII. It was on this spot that on the 21st of July 1944 three men from Bouillon were cowardly shot by the Gestapo on orders of Léon Degrelle, the prewar Rex strongman and Belgium's most notorious nazi. The names of the hapless souls are René Pierlot, Henri Bodard, and Louis Bodard. As I said a prayer, I wondered about the circumstances of their tragic deaths. Degrelle was from Bouillon, and obviously, felt quite attached to the region of his birth (indeed, while in Spain after the war he ventured the desire to be buried on the nearby Tombeau du Géant, a famous landmark). The liberation of this part of Belgium was only a little more than two months away. Was Degrelle, foreseeing the imminent forced departure of his overlords, exacting revenge on compatriots who had stubbornly refused to accept his vision of a Belgium as part of the Third Reich? Was he pissed off because just the day before, his beloved Fuehrer had narrowly escaped death at the hands of Von Stauffenberg? Who will tell?




Then it was off to the Rocher du Pendu, a rocky promontory overlooking the Semois river. Rocher du Pendu means Rock of the Hanged, and an anecdote I came across years ago was this: once upon a time a farmer from Corbion who had earned a good deal of money with the sale of his cows on Bouillon's cattle market, foolishly wasted his earnings on drinking and gambling in that town's cafés. Getting sober again on the rocky path towards Corbion, which passes this very spot, he became overcome with fear at the reaction of his wife, who reportedly was an ancestor of Victoria Bissell Brown. So he hung himself, end of story.




Majestic firs, straight as an arrow, on the path towards Corbion:




Point de vue de l'Ecaillère. Below is La Grande Prairie.




A view on the Moulin de l'Epine from the Pic du Diable. Although I failed to see what was so devilish about this spot.




Descending towards the Semois, like a mirage, after some time the Abbaye de Cordemois. Which has architectural elements reminding me of the Abbaye d'Orval.




It was time to wrap up the walk. Besides, the sun was slowly setting.




The calm waters of the Semois. Perhaps some 30 kloms further - I would have to check it out - it flows into France where the name is spelled Semoy.




Almost back in Bouillon. The traffic arrangement is peculiar. What is in effect a mini "beltway" around town passes through a tunnel under the castle's keep.




A view on the Chateau. Must have been quite impenetrable defenses in its time. I read somewhere that in the 17th century, Vauban also left his mark.




Driving back, I couldn't resist making a small detour to watch Frahan sitting quietly on its peninsula in a Semois bend. Pic taken from the heights of Rochehaut:




And then it was back to Chateau Outlaw!



MFBB.