Thumbing your nose at Islam as a private citizen may have to do with the freedom of speech, albeit only within certain well-defined legal limits, but doing so as a member of parliament and the leader of an anti-immigration party is something completely different. When Christians and Muslims are already at loggerheads in your country, that is not only irresponsible and callous, but also beyond the limits of free speech. This is the case of Geert Wilders, a Dutch member of parliament, who has been thumbing his nose at Islam with impunity for quite a while now (“Wild Thing,” February 9, 2008). Remember, speech is free as long as it does not involve libel, prejudicial comment about pending court cases, or “hate speech.” Desecrating the Koran, or threatening to do so in public, as Wilders has done, is well outside any definition of the freedom of speech. And it only spells trouble in the Netherlands and beyond.