Talk show host Michael Savage (aka Michael Weiner) has been banned from entry into England in the latest example of England’s rapid abandonment of free speech principles.
As a longtime critic of Savage, it takes a considerable act to get me to feel any sympathy or concern for the man. However, England appears to be struggling to make the movie V look like a documentary with ever-increasing police powers, restrictions on the media, and denial of free speech. Previously, England banned a Dutch politician because of his criticism of Islam, here and has arrested people for insulting religion. England is part of an international trend in England to punish people who criticize religions.
What is interesting is that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said that the government was publishing the names of banned individuals as a warning to others. That is an astonishing aim: use bans to encourage others to modify their views: “Coming to this country is a privilege. If you can’t live by the rules that we live by, the standards and the values that we live by, we should exclude you from this country and, what’s more, now we will make public those people that we have excluded. We are publishing the names of 16 of those that we have excluded since October. We are telling people who they are and why it is we don’t want them in this country.”
For the full story, click here.
MICHAEL SAVAGE
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. TRUE NORTH
YOU IDIOTS DO NOT LISTEN TO MICHAEL SAVAGE, YOU ARE MAKING COMMENTS THAT ARE HALF COCKED, WHAT ARE YOU SMOKING??? THE MAN IS EXTREMELY INTELLIGENT, ENTERTAINING AND THERE IS NO MENTION OF VIOLENCE AT ALL IN HIS COMMENTS, AND BEING MISCONSTRUED AND MALIGNED BY JACQIE SMITH THE TOTALLY UNINFORMED INCOMPETENT THAT SHE IS, DESTROYING THIS MAN’S CREDENTIALS IS A HORRIBLE TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE, HE ADMIRES AND PLAYS CHURCHILL ALL THE TIME ON HIS SHOWS, LOVES ENGLAND, ACTUALLY LOVES ENGLAND MORE THAN THE LEFT WING ENGLISH THEMSELVES! HE CRITICIZES OBAMA OR ANY POLITICIAN, AND ANY NEWS ITEM OF THAT DAY, WHAT IS WRONG WITH THAT?? AT LEAST HE DID NOT THROW OUT THE BUST OF CHURCHILL IN THE WHITE HOUSE LIKE OBAMA DID, THROW OUT GORDON BROWN, THROW OUT NETANYAHU, DID NOT BOW TO THE QUEEN BUT ALMOST DROPPED TO THE FLOOR WITH THE KING OF SAUDI ARABIA,- WHICH ONE SHOULD BE BANNED FROM ENGLAND???
Okay, here’s the deal. Folks from Kansas will take Savage and keep him here (leavenworth maybe) IF the UK could take Fred Phelps as a trade.
The US will be a Moslem country in less than 20 years. They are giving up all their freedoms. Soon all in the UK will be forced to obey and convert. Soon all women will wear the Hi jab at least out of respect.
There’s no excuse for keeping him out. Distasteful or not, his views are merely opinion and I agree with JT that this trend to criminalize/restrict free speech in Europe is alarming.
But what bothered me the most was what mespo wrote:
“There is no right for an alien to enter any country, and every nation has the right to restrict immigration or visitation for any reason its citizens acting through the agency of its leaders determines is warranted. Imposing our values on other people is what got Bush et crooks in trouble in the first place.”
You serious? Freedom of speech is a venerated ideal and the linchpin of non-autocratic societies. How the hell does this compare with Bush’s “you’re either with me or against me” approach? We have the right, nay the obligation, to decry such wanton disregard for opposing viewpoints. Should human rights be left to caprice as well?
O.K. here’s a bowl full of irony. From the man who wanted immigrants deported “without due process”,–Mr. Savage is now using the due process afforded him under the law to sue the UK for keeping him out.
Now in this corner, the challenger for hypocrisy, the British Home Office, Jacqui Smith, saying that Britin is a “civilized country” which does not want people coming here who espouse extremist, dangerous views. So I guess half the past and present govt. won’t be invited to speak because they ordered/justified and fail to investigate claims of torture? Or is that just what civilized nations do these days?
It was a great report on the BBC. A real expose of hypocrisy and a nice juxtaposition going directly to the heart of why speech must be protected from govt. interference. The govt. is proving it has no basis for making a judgement about who should have to right to speak. When you let in dick and george, you’ve ended any claim to evaluate speech based on morality or anything else.
rafflaw,
It is all a matter of perspective. It is like trying to figure out whose the sanest in the mental institution for the criminally insane.
I have to agree with Mike A. that I wish the Brits had allowed him entry and then decided to keep him there for a long, long time. This guy is more than just a nutjob, he is the posterboy for the radical right. He actually makes Cheney seem reasonable. I can’t believe I just said Cheney seems reasonable!
One of the few times I agree with him
http://michaelsavage.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=5798
Mike Appleton,
yes of course you’re equal opportunity critics. But such hyperbolic criticism is rather ironic if you think of the rather strict and arbitrary American entry regulations, isn’t it?
And I think the implied motivation (i.e. oppressing criticism of Islam) is, at least in this case, a wrong conclusion:
after all the majority of the persons on the Home Office’s no entry list are Islamic fundamentalists.
I think the guy has some good points sometimes, but I stopped listening to him because I realised that he is an alarmist who thrives on sensationalism rather than fact, and that he is full of hate. You seemed to me a lot more enthusiastic regarding your defense of David Duke.
Obviously I am no lawyer, but I am perplexed by my own feelings in this. Yes we have, and champion, the right to free speech. But does Free Speech have no boundaries? Everyone loves to say “Well, of course, you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater.. that’s a crime..”
Ok, then what is it that these hayseeds on AM Talk are doing? 95% of what they and the talking heads on Tv say is meant to scare and cause you to react to the shock of what they are saying, even though what they are saying has no basis in reality.
Am I mistaken in thinking that not only do you have a right to free speech, but shouldn’t you have the responsibility to it as well? If they say “queers want to rape your children they should be dealt with” — isn’t that different than saying “homosexuality is immoral, and should be opposed at every turn..” (These are these Savage has/would say) But one is clearly yelling FIRE! , and is no longer pushing an opinion but pressing it more as a fact. Maybe a bad example. But these guys need to be held to account, even though some will say this is a slippery slope. So what. Certain people in this country have worked diligently on this very thing, to blur the line between fact and opinion, between free speech and incitement.
Do we just keep letting it be eroded until no one can tell fact from fiction, and ALL of our arguments or political discussions are based on made up or imaginary pretense?