It is encouraging to me that there is still people in the world who have courage in the face of real danger. She is heroic. And Hirsi Ali seems to do all this with grace and dignity. The danger we face is all too real. Hers is a message that we, in t…..

And if this VB party starts killing people, then she’ll be right and I’ll be wrong. But I don’t think that quote is vague–either the Brussels Journal is misrepresenting her, or she’s saying that conservative social positions are the path to genocide.

And “fascist” was a lazy way to describe her and unfair to all she’s done. But whatever you call wanting to ban political opponents, and I realize it’s an increasingly popular idea in Europe, it goes against what ought to be our standards of Western liberty.

Further, Europe regularly bans things considers “hateful”, so a Dutch parlimentarian taking such a view of a group they see in that light isn’t especially radical. On the contrary, it’s quite pedestrian by prevailing European standards.

Lastly, we’re talking about a woman who was born and raised as a devout Muslim, who then had an awakening in the Netherlands. It’s no surprise that she’d display characteristics of the culture she was immersed in.

I think you’re way off the mark. I’ve never heard anything she’s said that would lead me to even consider using a smear like “fascist” against Ms. Hirsi Ali.

Three amazing women who have had issues with Islam. [snip] And the third is the great Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is interviewed on NPR and Norway’s NRK Television (H/T: Allahpundit at Hot Air)….

I am in total agreement. But, as moc23’s AvP reference goes…

(I love that, by the way.)

She may be a “liberal” but she’s not the campus lefty who dances with Pallies as they burn American and lsraeli flags. There is a marriage of convenience between the left and islam. If Ms. Ali fights to expose radical islam and shows the world what it really is, than she is on our side, lib or no lib.

moc23 Good analogy regarding AvP.

Dr. Rice ‘08

But a crazy, unnacceptably illiberal position is still crazy and unnaceptably illiberal, whether you’re a decadent Euro or a brave refugee from an ultra-misogynist society.

(And I have no problem at all with her positions on gay marriage, abortion, whatever; it’s the banning of her opponents’ positions and the equation of them with genocide or extreme Islam that’s the problem.)

Look up “Courageous” in the dictionary – you’ll see her face.

(foolish haiku attempt while indulging rare gentle side)

She is special though.

But I think it should be said, she’s not just a Leftist, she’s, apparently, an ultra-Left fasicst:

“I would ban the [Vlaams Belang, right-wing political party] because it hardly differs from the Hofstad group [Jihadists]. Though the VB members have not committed any violent crimes yet, they are just postponing them and waiting until they have an absolute majority. On many issues they have exactly the same opinions as the Muslim extremists: on the position of women, on the suppression of gays, on abortion. This way of thinking will lead straight to genocide.”

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/918

Okay, if they really are Nazis, if this article is giving a wrong impression, than I’ll let her off the hook. But in the few words she uses to make her case, she sounds a lot more like the fascist than she makes them out to be. She makes them out to be conservatives.

From what little I know about the Vlaams Belang, their position on gays is no marriage or adoption, and their position on abortion is none except for cases of rape and incest. I don’t know what she means about “position on women.” Maybe they really are dangerously close to Nazis. Maybe they’ve also called for burkhas, polygamy, stoning of gays and mass murder of certain ethnic groups. If so, my bad, and it’s really weird that they’ve gotten so big in Europe without more of an uproar. But if those are their positions, those probably would have been the things for Ali to cite against them, rather than her vague complaints here. (I gather the original interview is not online or not in English.) And since it’s the largest party in its country, I would think those positions would have gotten more press, even over here.

Instead, my impression from this small snapshot of Ali’s views is that she is typical of the European Left in that anyone who we would call “conservative” in this country is basically a Nazi. By wanting them banned, she may be even more extreme than most of the European Left. Certainly, she makes the GOP-tolerating liberals in this country look like, well, liberals.

So while I don’t particularly disagree with anything in this post, and clearly a fascist Leftist against Jihad is better than the Leftist majority that invites it, I think her extremism is a fairly important thing to know about her while we’re cooing at her beauty and shelling out for her book. She’s obviously a useful ally against jihadism–assuming she’ll have us–but in the Cold War authoritarian sense. She may be our son-of-a-bitch, but she is a son-of-a-bitch.