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

[Iain]

Not a classic response from you. Needed a peppering of supposedly inciting quotation marks and veiled references to upcoming unpleasantness.

[Perd Hapley]

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.

He was sued by CAIR for saying, uh, something, I don't know what.  The only violence I've heard him incite is his perennial announcements that every shyster ACLU lawyer should be drowned at the bottom of the ocean, or something like that. 

And who could disagree with dead lawyers?  

[Iain]

And who could disagree with dead lawyers?  

I wouldn't.

But I'd be eyeing a Harvard Law Review and waiting for an opportunity to split open zombie lawyer skull with it.

(It's 3am)

[LAK]

You can be arrested and prosecuted - even imprisoned - for merely saying the wrong thing in many euro provinces now. And we are not speaking of "threats against" or related spoken words. Merely the wrong expressed opinion or question. It has been that way for awhile.

[MicroBalrog]

Hasn't a person been tried in Austria for saying the Holocaust was not a very important event, in historical terms?

[Iain]

Hasn't a person been tried in Austria for saying the Holocaust was not a very important event, in historical terms?

David Irving. 'Revisionist' (in the actual dirty sense, not the commonly meant dirty sense) historian. Holocaust denial laws. Naturally the Germans and the Austrians are sensitive about the subject, but I can't support such laws.

As you can see above I was awake until the early hours, which has given me some time to think.

My initial reaction was the usual one to the 'I'm never going there, it's a statist nanny etc...' - check your own eye first. Then had the same reaction as Micro - we get to decide who we let in and who we don't. That's what the US government does, and on a grand scale.

Savage though. Well, he's quite right to be upset. He does not belong on a list of murderers and inciters of violence. Neither do the Phelps though. They are perceived undesirables, a category into which the US govt lumps all Britons with a criminal conviction.

Wilders is clearly a hypocrite and nasty little man, but I'd let him in too although I have issues with those who use freedom of speech as a defence when they advocate the removal of such rights from others.

Which brings me back around - I'm not sure many of you would like anti-US figures who stand for everything you oppose popping in and out of the country as they see fit, going where they like and saying what they like. Your No-fly list is huge. So criticise us equitably, Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) may have made the list in error (along with many others), but he was still deported. We seem to have imposed a ban on a man who does not deserve it. I can't see how we are worse than you.

[MicroBalrog]

David Irving. 'Revisionist' (in the actual dirty sense, not the commonly meant dirty sense) historian. Holocaust denial laws. Naturally the Germans and the Austrians are sensitive about the subject, but I can't support such laws.

No, it's not him I mean.

I mean Le Pen.

Here.

He said: "If you take a 1,000-page book on World War II, the concentration camps take up only two pages and the gas chambers 10 to 15 lines. This is what one calls a detail."

I can sort of understand Holocaust denial being banned (though of course I disagree), but Germany and Austria have long gone beyond that. Germany's Office for the Protection of the Constitution is especially a joke.

[longeyes]

Iain, in the case of what Wilders is talking about, the unpleasantness isn't "upcoming," it's there, right in your face, and I don't need to "veil" it.  You know perfectly well what you are about against in Britain, and I don't need to be so cruel as to remind you of what is going on.  You can block the messenger, but you can't block the reality.  Your scepter'd isle has lost its sceptre, and your policies are governed by fear.  What bothers me is not the decline of Britain but that your decadence is infectious.

7/7, baby.

[Iain]

Oh I know what the problems are.

They will not be solved by vicious propaganda, quote mining and banning of religious freedoms.

If Wilders is your answer, your "truth" then you're asking spectacularly wrong questions. "[Y]our policies are governed by fear" - which is exactly what Wilders seeks to promote. Banning the Quran is precisely that.

[longeyes]

I am not championing everything Wilders says, I am asking why you, as a nation, are afraid to let him in among you to speak his mind and engage in honest debate.  You speak of "vicious propaganda" and "banning of religious freedoms."  Is that what you see in Holland?  Or, rather, in certain obvious pockets of Britain itself these days? 

Ban the Koran?  No.  Ban "British heritage?"  Is that your counter-proposal?

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

before we got telling the brits what to do we might wanna look at ourselves
Mowat published a denunciation of "the destruction of animal life in the north Atlantic" entitled Sea of Slaughter in 1984. In 1985, as a part of the promotional tour for this book, Mowat accepted an invitation to speak at a university in Chico, California. However, U.S. customs officials at Lester B. Pearson International Airport in Toronto denied Mowat entry to the United States. They wouldn't tell him why specifically, but did tell him that it was because of a security file about him that indicated he should be denied entry "for violating any one of 33 statutes" (which ranged from being a member of the Communist Party to being a member of several other radical groups). The result was a media circus, which brought worldwide attention to Mowat. The negative publicity eventually forced the Reagan Administration to decide that Mowat was free to visit the U.S., but Mowat, peeved by being initially refused, declined. Mowat speculated on the reasons why he was refused entry to the U.S. in his 1985 book, My Discovery of America.

[Iain]

Words. Mouth. Don't.

I think I said above that I don't support not allowing Wilders in, although I find his hiding behind free speech to more than a touch slimy.

Wilders doesn't want honest debate. His film was designed to inflame, whilst he could plausibly claim that he never incited.

http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=11592.msg207453#msg207453 - that's my analysis of the Quranic quotes as Wilders presents them, and their entirety and context from an online edition of the Quran. Quote mining is obvious when this is done.

[longeyes]

Inflammation is the natural consequence of untended injury.  Governments do nothing or do the wrong things, then wonder why tensions are rising.

I don't think the issue is quotes, it's actions. 

I'm not saying only the UK is guilty of ignoble reticence; the whole western world is.

[Perd Hapley]

Can we ban Savage from the States, too? 

[agricola]

I am not championing everything Wilders says, I am asking why you, as a nation, are afraid to let him in among you to speak his mind and engage in honest debate.  You speak of "vicious propaganda" and "banning of religious freedoms."  Is that what you see in Holland?  Or, rather, in certain obvious pockets of Britain itself these days? 

Ban the Koran?  No.  Ban "British heritage?"  Is that your counter-proposal?

No.  The problem with Wilders is that he is a hypocrite, calling for things to be done to others and yet objecting when those things are done to him.  He doesnt want a debate (because lets face it his livelyhood depends on him maintaining his views), much less an honest one any more than Phelps does - he wants the oxygen of publicity, either as the victim or as the politician telling people "like it is". 

As for whether he should be let into the UK, thats a matter for us - not him, and not you.  Personally, the more I think about it the more convinced I am that they were right to ban him.

[longeyes]

How exactly is Wilders a "hypocrite?"

Is it your business?  Yeah, and you're welcome to it.  But grouping Savage with the rest of that crowd is pure leftist politics, nothing more.

[HankB]

Looked at a Brit internet forum and if it was typical, it seems quite a few Brits were not at all pleased with banning Savage.

At least a few stalwarts opined that perhaps Britain needed to start deporting aliens - including illegal aliens - who preached violent jihad against Britain.

Wonder if they're headed for gaol now for expressing that hateful opinion. 

[Perd Hapley]

Is this the same Michael Savage who very recently said that U.S. Navy ships were "nothing more than floating brothels," and also said the Navy was now merely a welfare program?  I am really tired of hearing people, especially conservative talkers, defend him as if he were on our side.  Actually, I wouldn't mind so much if they decried the British policy on its merits, but at the same time, they should clearly state that Michael Savage is nothing more than a nightly rage-fest, with no redeeming content. 

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=pqT&q=michael+savage+navy&btnG=Search

http://michaelsavage.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=5274

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Is hypocrisy a sensible reason to exclude someone from a nation?

[Zardozimo Oprah Bannedalas]

Is this the same Michael Savage who very recently said that U.S. Navy ships were "nothing more than floating brothels," and also said the Navy was now merely a welfare program?  I am really tired of hearing people, especially conservative talkers, defend him as if he were on our side.  Actually, I wouldn't mind so much if they decried the British policy on its merits, but at the same time, they should clearly state that Michael Savage is nothing more than a nightly rage-fest, with no redeeming content. 

Savage can be very interesting when he waxes historical. The rest of the time, he seems to be on a vendetta against all the restaurants in San Fransicko (as he calls it) for their poor quality food, service, etc. Or on some other tangent.

[Perd Hapley]

Savage can be very interesting when he waxes historical. The rest of the time, he seems to be on a vendetta against all the restaurants in San Fransicko (as he calls it) for their poor quality food, service, etc. Or on some other tangent.

   He's always ranting about some "ethnic" restaurant he's been going to for years, but which he'll never patronize again. 

[RocketMan]

Savage is a hateful little savage most of the time.  Despite the fact that there is some agreement in our politics, I've no use for him.

[agricola]

Is hypocrisy a sensible reason to exclude someone from a nation?

Yes.

[Perd Hapley]

Is hypocrisy a sensible reason to exclude someone from a nation?

Someone else, yes.  Just so long as it doesn't happen to me.   

[longeyes]

Hypocrisy should include concealing the real reasons behind someone's exclusion.  It's pretty obvious why Savage is persona non grata in Britain these days.

But like the guy in Crank High Voltage he will just grow stronger through the U.K.'s governmental lightning bolts.