I'm reminded of a dictum of Jean-Francois Revel's which Instapundit misattributed to Thomas Wolfe the other day.

To paraphrase: the long, dark night of fascism is always falling in America, yet it always seems to land in Europe.

Can one of you European-loving liberals explain to me why European countries would want to put people in jail for saying things that are true? How progressive (not).

I'd love it if Miss Fallaci actually condescended to go there. I imagine there'd be a bit of a silence, then a slowly building crescendo of voluble, vicious, rapidfire Italian, followed by a sudden blinding white light and a small mushroom cloud rising from the ruins of the courthouse. The cloud would drift away to reveal Oriana standing alone in the middle of the rubble, slightly singed, lighting a cigarette and still muttering and fuming to herself.

I swear that lady's tongue could whip enough sparks off cement to light up Manhattan for a year and a day...

This is how the smart Islamofascists and the left operate.
The Islamofascists play the PC card and demand special protections as a minority religion. The special protections turn into privileges that they use to club their opponents into submission. Look at the attempts to establish Sharia courts in Canada, the British anti-defamation of religion laws, and this stupid law in Italy among other things.
If a theologian criticizes the philosphy of Islam, he's defaming the religion and committing a hate crime. Soon people will be afraid to criticize Islam for fear of prosecution.
The left goes along because the primary targets are Christians.

What does the average Italian think of this nonsense?

I remember Gilda Radner doing Fallacci on SNL...the hair, the cigarette, the voice.

"What does the average Italian think of this nonsense?"

We're trying to organize and react to this judiciary insanity. For more infos, please visit http://ideazione.blogspot.com/2005/05/orianagate4.html (and other posts with a similar title).