In Defense of 'Hurtful' Speech

Some big news today on Geert Wilders' acquittal, at Telegraph UK, "Geert Wilders 'delighted' after being cleared of 'hate speech'."

And he writes about it at Wall Street Journal. A snippet:

The biggest threat to our democracies is not political debate, nor is it public dissent. As the American judge Learned Hand once said in a speech: "That community is already in the process of dissolution . . . where faith in the eventual supremacy of reason has become so timid that we dare not enter our convictions in the open lists to win or lose." It has been a tenet in European and American thinking that men are only free when they respect each other's freedom. If the courts can no longer guarantee this, then surely a community is in the process of dissolution.

RELATED: At Atlas Shrugs, "PAMELA GELLER, BIG GOVERNMENT: GEERT WILDERS VERDICT: WEST 1, ISLAM 0."

And EXTRA LULZ: Lizard Loser Charles Johnson is bummed that Wilders was acquitted: "Dutch Hatemonger Geert Wilders Acquitted of Inciting Hatred."