I would like to congratulate my nation on finding such a great citizen in Kees van der Staaij.
Thanks to the other upstanding citizen, Geert Wilders, we’ll have elections on 12 September. Of course, this is a busy time for the leaders of political parties to promote their causes. Dutch viewers are treated to daily debates and interviews with politicians.
Our electoral system is different from that of the U.S.A. and the U.K. We have a wide array of political parties to choose from, over 20! This also means the differences between parties can be relatively small and not at all easy to spot. So, if you take voting seriously like I do, you’ll have to do more than just watch a debate and read a newspaper article; you’ll have to bury yourself in electoral programmes.
Anyway, back to Van der Staaij. He’s the leader of an orthodox Christian party called SGP. When talking about the topic of abortion, which is legal in the Netherlands, in a TV show this morning Van der Staaij said that it is fact that women seldom get pregnant as a result of rape. Trying to avoid having to admit that in the case of a woman actually getting pregnant as a result of rape, she wouldn’t be allowed to have an abortion if he would have any say in it.
It was a response to the interviewer’s (Frits Wester) lead-in, comparing Van der Staaij’s views to those of Todd Akin, a Republican politician from the U.S.A. who said that victims of ‘legitimate’ (what does that even mean?!) rape rarely get pregnant on 19 August. After this mishap, he was kindly asked to step down as nominee for the Senate by Romney as well as Ryan.
The Terrible Three
It is one thing to have an opinion. It’s a totally different matter if you mislead and falsely educate people mixing facts up with fairy tales.
I think Dutch politics rarely make the news outside of Europe, but whenever stuff like this pops up: there we are. ABC news dedicated some air time to our dear fellow countryman. Great way to make the news, don’t you think? Maybe even better than when Geert Wilders makes the news with his anti-Islamic slogans…