Britain.... well, I wasn't going to go there anyway.

[jackdanson]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090505/wl_uk_afp/britainimmigrationmideastrussiasexualityneonazi

Brief:  Britain banned a bunch of people their country for no reason other than speaking their mind. (glad to see talk show hosts got lumped in with skinhead murderers)


Don't get me wrong, I'm not a savage fan, but this seems like overkill.

"This is the driving force behind tighter rules on exclusions for unacceptable behaviour," she added.

Anything to protect the state eh?

[Iain]

Not that I agree with this list particularly - but would anyone be upset if the British govt had banned "bunch of people their country for no reason other than speaking their mind" (in some cases it is clearly a bit more than that) if the list hadn't included Savage?

Plenty of people on that list who only 'speak their mind' who wouldn't find many supporters, nor would many want them in the US. I'm thinking of Abdullah Qadri Al Ahdal, Yunis Al Astal and Amir Siddique, Hamas MP Yunis Al-Astal and the Phelps.

Anyway - what might have put Savage on that list?

(This does look like an exercise in producing 16 people from a wider list who aren't all extremist Islamic preachers)

[longeyes]

There's a difference between speaking one's mind and open incitement to violence, but that's a distinction that appears to, by the day, to be disappearing...

[Cannonball888]

Rather than allowing free speech and engaging these people in head-on debates Britain takes the coward's approach and bans these people. It's like a child sticking their fingers in their ears while yelling "la la la I won't listen and you're not allowed in my yard". If you accept what socialist Britain is doing then you'll have to accept the end of the 1A for us, and if Obama gets his way it will be the end of any speech that is not "PC".

There's a difference between speaking one's mind and open incitement to violence,

If there was never an "open incitement to violence" there would never have been The American Revolution.

[Iain]

That's kinda my tedious point. The original post described it as banning for speaking your mind. Lists of undesirables are hardly anything new, I believe you lot generally won't let anyone from here in if they have a criminal conviction.

I doubt this list would have attracted much comment had it not included Savage, so there must be a (real or perceived) difference between Savage and the others and it's not to do with only speaking your mind.

Anyway, I'm wondering how similar this list is to your own? I'd be very surprised if you weren't denying access to certain individuals. Probably a good number of people on this list, not even including the ones whose criminal convictions would already bar them. 'Cowardly'?

[jackdanson]

I doubt this list would have attracted much comment had it not included Savage, so there must be a (real or perceived) difference between Savage and the others and it's not to do with only speaking your mind.

Yes, there is a difference, he isn't proposing violence.  I honestly don't know of the Islamic clerics, so I couldn't tell you whether or not they propose violence.  As far as I know, the U.S. hasn't stopped non-violent, far left wing, europeans from coming into our country.

As pointed out by the quote I highlighted, they aren't banning people based off of there potential to cause violence, they are basing the bans off of the peoples' belief system.

[longeyes]

Who are the REAL "extremists?"  That's the question of the decade.

Is it a talk jock like Michael Savage, who although he deals in raw candor that many love and many love to hate, does not incite to violence?  Or is it a government--I mean Britain's--that imports trouble and responds by banning kitchen knives, fingernails, and innuendo and putting surveillance cameras every ten feet, the same government that thinks the real trouble is "British heritage?"

[longeyes]

They're banning anyone who "causes trouble."

Never occurred to them, I guess, that they are causing trouble by their own policies.  I keep forgetting, of course: government only solves problems, never causes them.

[Standing Wolf]

Is it a talk jock like Michael Savage, who although he deals in raw candor that many love and many love to hate, does not incite to violence?

I believe it was Savage who boasted of smearing door knobs at a Republican office with mucus when he had a bad cold during the 2000 election.

[Jamisjockey]

Peer into our progressive future as a country.

[Iain]

Peer into our progressive future as a country.

I think you're there already.

No fly lists? I hate Father and Son too, but Cat Stevens ain't a terrorist.

[roo_ster]

I believe it was Savage who boasted of smearing door knobs at a Republican office with mucus when he had a bad cold during the 2000 election.

You are mistaking the manic-depressive, right wing Michael Savage for the oleaginous, queer Dan Savage.

And it was Gary Bauer's campaign in 2000.

"Stalking Gary Bauer"
http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A13970

Naked, feverish and higher than a kite on codeine aspirin, I called the Bauer campaign and volunteered. My plan? Get close enough to Bauer to give him the flu, which, if I am successful, will lay him flat just before the New Hampshire primary. I would go to Bauer's campaign office and cough on everything--phones and pens, staplers and staffers. I even hatched a plan to infect the candidate himself. I would keep the pen in my mouth until Bauer dropped by his offices to rally the troops. And when he did, I would approach him and ask for his autograph, handing him the pen from my flu-virus-incubating mouth.
...
I went from doorknob to doorknob. They were filthy, no doubt, but there wasn't time to find a rag to spit on. My immune system wasn't all it should be--I was in the grip of the worst flu I had ever had--but I was on a mission. If for some reason I didn't manage to get a pen from my mouth to Gary's hands, I wanted to seed his office with germs, get as many of his people sick as I could, and hopefully one of them would infect the candidate.

So, as much as it pains me to confirm a hateful stereotype of gay men--we will put anything in our mouths--I started licking doorknobs. The front door, office doors, even a bathroom door. When that was done, I started in on the staplers, phones and computer keyboards. Then I stood in the kitchen and licked the rims of all the clean coffee cups drying in the rack.

Dan Savage is still allowed to travel to the UK.

[agricola]

Not really sure there is a problem here - these people want to come to our country and our government has told them they cant,  and I dont really disagree with anyone who is actually on that list being banned (even Wilders, whose objection to being banned was entirely hypocritical). 

Why should we let the likes of Phelps come here, unless he is to be a plaything of the mob? 

[MicroBalrog]

Their country, remember? They don't have to let ANYBODY in.

Since these people are not citizens...

[mtnbkr]

Micro for the win. 

Chris

[longeyes]

No, they don't have to let anybody in.

But isn't it amazing who they DO let in?

And who "they," doing the letting, are?

It says volumes about what Britain has become.

Are we in the USA a whole lot better?  I'm not saying we are.

[jackdanson]

Their country, remember? They don't have to let ANYBODY in.

Since these people are not citizens...

Of course.  And I don't have to like their selection either.  I just view it as another step towards banning "hate speech". (which will eventually come to mean anything that doesn't agree with what the nanny-state propagates)

[Perd Hapley]

I am a little bit ticked that they would ban the Savage.  Because the attention just feeds his megalomania.   

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

we barred farley mowat for goodness sakes. and we wanna whine about their choices?

[Iain]

I am a little bit ticked that they would ban the Savage.  Because the attention just feeds his megalomania.  

I figured that any talk show host would enjoy it. One or two might be wondering what they have to do to get on the list. I'm curious as to what Savage might have done.

No fly list is interesing. 16 people on it pre 9/11, was apparently over 400 by Nov 2001. 60 Minutes claimed in 2006 that the list contained 44,000. Chertoff claimed in 2008 that there were 2,500 on the list, with another 16,500 subject to extra scrutiny but allowed to fly. That's in, out or within the US.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Their country, remember? They don't have to let ANYBODY in.

Since these people are not citizens...

Sure, it's their choice who they let in.  And we're free to criticize when they make fools of themselves over who they choose to exclude.

[seeker_two]

I can't wait to see who they add to the list.....Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Miss California, fistful.....

....but then, I can see their reasons for fistful.... 

[longeyes]

They blocked Geert Wilders.  "No truth, please, we're British."

Ms Smith is just another Euro-crat who is part of a coven that is tyrannizing the EU.

[Iain]

Ag's characterisation of the Wilders issue is absolutely accurate. Hypocritical.

He calls for restrictions on the beliefs, speech and religious practice of others and cries that free speech is his right.

There's nothing truthful about Geert's film either. Hateful propaganda, and yes, I've watched it and analysed how horribly out of context his quotes from the Quran were. Shoddy propaganda designed to inflame the idiot but carefully steps away from actual incitement. Like all of his ilk.

[longeyes]

I guess insularity goes with islands.