Time Immortal

Zeister writes in with a comment on this article.

As I recall Canada fought the Germans to rid the world of National Socialism. I don’t think our men were worried about polygamy. The Netherlands has many things they can be proud of. They too work to define a developing society. Canadians should do the same and leave the Dutch to make their own decisions.

Toronto has David Miller as their mayor. Now there is a politician that is well beyond his ‘best before’ date. His ideas about personal freedoms are a little too socialist or should I say fascist for my taste. Beware of politicians that tout civilian disarmament in the name of public safety. Historically, Hitler and Stalin held the same views. It may be that Miller is simply ignorant with questionable ethics rather than being a fascist. In any case, the man is a danger and the sooner he leaves City Hall the better for all Canadians!

Miller is indeed a shoddy mayor, and his policies leave one with little recourse other than to scratch one’s head and/or roll one’s eyes. I don’t think anything much needs to be said about his disarmament proposals; increases in violent crime have followed, almost in lockstep, with diminished rates of civilian gun ownership…and only a very deluded person could possibly believe that a different outcome would result if Miller has his way in Toronto.

That said, while I agree that our soldiers were probably not concerned with polygamy whilst they were liberating the Netherlands, the point I was making was more along the following lines: why now, after having been liberated from a hard tyrany, are the Dutch making concessions to the demands of those who a) come to the Netherlands out of an alien culture, b) have no respect for Dutch culture or norms, and c) are demanding that the Dutch adapt their own culture to the habits and proclivities of the alien culture in their midst. What makes the soft tyranny of unreasonable, unthinking multiculturalism a virtue, when the hard tyrany of Hitler was so obviously a bad thing?

And if the Dutch are willing to roll over and succumb to a soft tyrany, what does that say to all those who lost friends and family in the cause of restoring freedom to the Netherlands way back when?

Polygamy is still illegal there, of course, but only if the marriages happen within the Netherlands proper. If you skip the jurisdiction and get hitched in, say, some African country where polygamy is a-ok, then it’s “no harm, no foul” as far as the authorities in Rotterdam are concerned!

Although polygamy is banned in the Netherlands, the marriages of Muslims who have several wives are recognised by Dutch authorities.

Registrars in the major cities, in particular, record dozens of bigamous or polygamous marriages per year. These marriages are prohibited and an offence in the Netherlands. However, polygamous marriages that take place in countries where more than one wife is permitted, such as Morocco, are accepted, newspaper NRC Handelsblad reports.

If immigrants with several wives settle in the Netherlands, the local authorities register all the marriages. However, the Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS), where all marriages are registered nationally, removes these bigamous or polygamous marriages from its files, on the assumption that administrative errors have occurred. As a result, it is not known how common the phenomenon is in the Netherlands.

Two questions.

First: why did we send Canadian soldiers to fight and die to liberate this country back in the 1940s?

Second: why accept an illegal polygamous arrangement just because it is legal somewhere else? In some parts of the world, it’s legal to marry a six-year-old girl, because that’s what Muhammad did. In some parts of the world, it’s legal to have sex with a nine-year-old girl, because that’s what Muhammad did. Does the Netherlands allow paedophilic marital arrangements as long as the nuptial ceremony takes place in…say…Iran?

If so: why (also, see question #1)? If not: then why allow something else with is both illegal and immoral to flourish and be “legitimized” within the country, simply because the relevant nuptial ceremony took place on foreign soil?

On the other hand, it should be observed that the Netherlands doesn’t really have a legal leg to stand on in this matter. I do believe that they have recognized gay marriage as a “right”, haven’t they? If the gender of participants in a marriage doesn’t matter, why should the number of participants matter?

Update: Welcome, Steynians!