Which Of These People Banned From Britain Is Not Like The Others?

by John Hawkins | May 5, 2009 11:16 am

Whatever you may think of Michael Savage, banning him from entering Britain[1] is about the dumbest thing I have ever heard.

Sixteen people banned from entering the UK were “named and shamed” by the Home Office today.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she decided to make public the names of 16 people banned since October so others could better understand what sort of behaviour Britain was not prepared to tolerate.

…The list of the 16 “least wanted” includes radio talk show host Michael Savage, real name Michael Weiner.

“This is someone who has fallen into the category of fomenting hatred, of such extreme views and expressing them in such a way that it is actually likely to cause inter-community tension or even violence if that person were allowed into the country,” Ms Smith told BBC Breakfast.

Also named are American Baptist pastor Fred Waldron Phelps Snr and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper, who have picketed the funerals of Aids victims and claimed the deaths of US soldiers are a punishment for US tolerance of homosexuality.

“If people have so clearly overstepped the mark in terms of the way not just that they are talking but the sort of attitudes that they are expressing to the extent that we think that this is likely to cause or have the potential to cause violence or inter-community tension in this country, then actually I think the right thing is not to let them into the country in the first place. Not to open the stable door then try to close it later,” Ms Smith said.

“It’s a privilege to come to this country. There are certain behaviours that mean you forfeit that privilege.”

Hamas MP Yunis Al-Astal, Jewish extremist Mike Guzovsky, former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard Stephen Donald Black and neo-Nazi Erich Gliebe are also on the list released today.

Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky, the former leaders of a violent Russian skinhead gang which committed 20 racially motivated murders, are also banned from coming to Britain. Both are currently in prison.

Making up the rest of the 16 named by the Home Office today are preachers Wadgy Abd El Hamied Mohamed Ghoneim, Abdullah Qadri Al Ahdal, Safwat Hijazi and Amir Siddique, Muslim activist Abdul Ali Musa (previously Clarence Reams), murderer and Hezbollah terrorist Samir Al Quntar and Kashmiri terror group leader Nasr Javed.

Now, you don’t want people who are advocating violence coming to your country, whether it’s radical Islamists, Neo-Nazis, members of the KKK, or Mike Guzovsky, who’s apparently the head of some violent Israeli group[2] (That info is from the Guardian, so take it with a grain of salt). Fred Phelps and his daughter? They make perfect sense, too. After all, who wants people coming to your country who are going to protest funerals in an effort to get attention? Personally, I wish we could ban them from the United States, too.

Then you get to Michael Savage who is, in all fairness, loud, brash, and bombastic — but, to accuse him of this goes beyond the pale,

“This is someone who has fallen into the category of fomenting hatred, of such extreme views and expressing them in such a way that it is actually likely to cause inter-community tension or even violence if that person were allowed into the country.”

In other words, Britain has become such a soft totalitarian Orwellian-nightmare state, that strongly held and expressed conservative opinions are viewed as “dangerous.”

Conservatives may say, “Gee, what difference does it make if they target Savage? He does use some harsh rhetoric.” He does. But, I note that none of the legions of liberals who use similarly harsh rhetoric are being banned from Britain.

So what this is, is a little “Screw you” message from the government of Britain to conservatives in the United States. It’s a way for them to try to marginalize and attack American conservatism which, quite frankly, is a slap in the face given the fond way that American conservatives have usually spoken of our British cousins over the years.

Furthermore, don’t kid yourself. Today, it’s Michael Savage — and maybe he’ll be the only conservative that they ever add to that list. But, tomorrow? It very well may be Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Dick Cheney, or even Sarah Palin. Because once they start applying some ridiculous arbitrary standard that says conservative opinions are so dangerous that they shouldn’t even be allowed in Britain, who knows where it will stop?

There may not be much a conservative blogger can do about this, but I do want to say that this is a big deal, it’s not okay that they did this, and that Britain should reverse this decision.

Endnotes:
  1. banning him from entering Britain: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/16-banned-from-britain-named-and-shamed-1679127.html
  2. head of some violent Israeli group: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/may/05/list-of-people-banned-from-uk

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