The announced headliners for this year’s Western Conservative Summit in Denver:
You’re Invited to the Third Annual Rally in the Rockies
Three Big Days of Real Hope and ChangeWestern Conservative Summit 2012
June 29 – July 1
Hyatt Regency, Denver, Colorado
“Calling All Citizens: It’s a Decisive Year”
Love America? Attend This Inspiring WeekendOpening Night: Glenn Beck on “No Time for Cowards”
Glenn Beck
Author & BroadcasterSen. Tom Coburn
(R-OK)Gov. Jan
Brewer
(R-AZ)Geert Wilders
Dutch ParliamentarianAnd 15 Other Star Speakers
$2500 – Table of 10
$250 – Individuals
$50 – Attendees Under age 30
You’ve heard of Sen. Tom Coburn, Arizona’s Gov. Jan Brewer, and of course right wing media “personality” Glenn Beck. But you might not have heard of Geert Wilders, a hotly controversial far-right member of the Dutch Parliament–in many ways the most noteworthy of this bunch. We found this Wikileaked State Department briefing on Wilders to be informative:
Geert Wilders, anti-Islam, nationalist Freedom Party [capitalizes] on the social stresses resulting from the failure to fully integrate almost a million Dutch Muslims, mostly of Moroccan or Turkish descent. In existence only since 2006, the Freedom Party, tightly controlled by Wilders, has grown to be the Netherlands second largest, and fastest growing, party…Wilders is no friend of the U.S.: he opposes Dutch military involvement in Afghanistan; he believes development assistance is money wasted; he opposes NATO missions outside “allied” territory; he is against most EU initiatives; and, most troubling, he forments fear and hatred of immigrants.
Mr. Wilders has very specific recommendations for dealing with Dutch Muslim immigrants:
“I have been saying this for years: there is no such thing as a moderate Islam,” Wilders wrote, [Pols emphasis] adding that there were several chapters in the Koran “that call on Muslims to oppress, persecute or kill Christians, Jews, dissidents and non-believers, to beat and rape women and to establish an Islamic state by force.”
“I am fed up with Islam in the Netherlands: no more Muslim immigrants allowed. I am fed up with the worship of Allah and Mohammed in the Netherlands: no more mosques,” he finished his letter. [Pols emphasis]
Of course, organizers of the Western Conservative Summit are not going to lead off with the extreme views of Geert Wilders: his more recent international fame resulted from his being prosecuted, but acquitted for inciting hatred under Dutch law. Mr. Wilders was also barred from the UK for a brief period, a ban that was overturned on appeal. It’s quite true that the protections we take for granted in the United States on free speech mean he would not have been prosecuted for these words here. That’s the way most Americans would want it.
But would you invite David Duke to headline your event just because you can?
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