Why Islam Sucks - The Definitive Answer

As we head into this Independence Day weekend, it is important to remember why our freedoms are so precious. Diana West gives us a very real reminder about just how fragile these freedoms are when we coddle people who are bent on destroying the very freedoms that we hold dear.

Having run the polite-but-grim gauntlet of Dutch government security to gain access to Geert Wilders, I finally understood what the 24-hour security requirements of the man's continued existence really mean: To make the survival of Western-style liberty in the Netherlands his political cause, this Dutch parliamentarian has to live under high-tech lock and key.

This stunning paradox, with no end in sight, illustrates how far political freedom in the West has already eroded. Think of it: For writing about the repressive ideology of Islam, for arguing against the inequities of Sharia (Islamic law), for making a video ("Fitna") to warn about Islamic jihad, Wilders lives in his own non-Islamic country under a specifically Islamic death threat.

If it is politically incorrect to notice this, it is also indisputably true. True, too, is that, sans state security, this death threat could conceivably be carried out anytime, anywhere -- from the picturesque streets outside the Dutch parliament, to the house Wilders hasn't slept in since 2004. That, of course, was when, on an Amsterdam street, a Muslim assassin plunged a knife into Theo van Gogh's corpse, thus attaching the Islamic manifesto threatening both Wilders and his then-parliamentary colleague, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, with death.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali knows what it is like to live this life. She lived it for many years. She finally fled the Netherlands for the US in order to live in a quasi free life. Even then, though, she spent many days with security details looking over her shoulder. That is no way to live. Nor is it acceptable for us to withhold criticism of a totalitarian religion out of fear of retribution. Instead we need to stand up for our freedoms and call a spade a spade. Islam - as it is taught - IS a totalitarian ideology. It does not mix with the freedoms that have made America great. If we are to survive as a country we need to make sure that the practitioners of Islam who are in this country understand that they are here as our guests and if they do not like the way we do things here, they are more than free and welcome to leave and go back to a country more to their religious likings.