by Bruce Bawer
One of the judges from Geert Wilders's free-speech trial in The Hague quits the judiciary in a huff:
The former magistrate described how he was showered by "hatred and derision" for his part in the trial, and said it made him too embarrassed to be a judge any longer. Mr Schalken was involved in bringing Mr Wilders to court and was severely criticised for dining with a defence witness during the trial.
Okay, so you’re a judge and you haul a politician into court because you don’t like what he says – and then when it turns out that lot of your fellow countrymen don’t like you throwing your weight around like this, you act as if you’re the victim. Check.
Real story here: people like Schalken used to run the Netherlands. They called the shots. It was an exceedingly consensus-driven society, and men and women like him were accustomed to being able to silence those with differing views. They can’t do that any longer, and that outrages them. Period.
Meanwhile, another member of the Dutch establishment would appear to have changed his stripes – for the nonce, anyway. As I've written elsewhere, Piet Hein Donner, when he was Dutch Minister of Justice, said that if two-thirds of Dutch voters wanted sharia law in the Netherlands, “it would be a disgrace to say: ‘That is not allowed!’” Now he’s Interior Minister, and supports a burka ban. Discuss.
The Dish 