Geert Wilders

I've been reading about Geert Wilders the last day or so. I've been hearing all kinds of stories about European authorities caving in to the demands of radical Muslims for a while, but I hadn't heard any specifics, just a lot of blubbering. Yesterday I read a couple of news stories about Geert, and today I stumbled across Archbishop Cranmer's blog, and he has a few things to say. One of the comments on this post was particularly good:

"About this notion of 'radical' or 'moderate' Islam: I have absolutely no doubt at all that Iran, for example, has a vast majority of people who would be described as 'moderate', and are appalled at such things as the stoning of women or the slow-hanging of homosexuals. No, I'm not being sarcastic - I really do believe that. However, they don't say a lot about it do they? They don't rise up and overthrow the regime; they don't render the 'radicals' powerless. It would be the same here. The 'radicals' would make the decisions and carry out the atrocities; the 'moderates' would just keep their heads down and do as they were told.

"How many Nazis did it take to wholly control the whole of Germany? I have no doubt that 'moderates' constituted the majority of Germans, but like all 'moderates' everywhere, they just kept their heads down and did as they were told."

The commenter goes on to lump all Islam together, but that's getting away from the main point. It's the radicals who stir up trouble and it's the moderates who let them get away with it. Who was it who said "all it takes for evil to triumph is for men of good will to do nothing." (It might have been Edmund Burke, or Leo Tolstoy).