The New Immorality of the British Government

No, I am not referring to the "snout in the trough" syndrome, reprehensible as that is.

I am referring to something much more important.

Conservative American radio host Michael Savage has been banned from entering Britain by the Home Secretary. Michael Savage questions Global Warming and says unpleasant things about governments and minorities. However, he has no criminal record.

As a member of a minority myself, I would defend to the death his right to say nasty things about me and mine and people like me. Certainly he has a fundamental right to criticise not only his own government (that of the USA) but also every other government if he wishes to.

That is precisely what freedom of speech is about.

Increasingly, countries around the world have passed or are currently passing "thought crime prevention bills" (the US one is titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007) to punish citizens who advocate "extreme violence, hatred, extreme views, conspiracy theories - such as the one that 9/11 was an inside job.

However, if people didn't have the right to argue their point of view about 9/11, then the truth about 9/11 would never be known.

There is no definition of "thought crime" that makes any sense.

If anyone advocates violence on the part of individual citizens or groups of citizens, then it is right to prosecute or ban such a person.

Short of the advocacy of violence, every has (and should have) the right to argue their point of view.

That is why the British government's ban on the Dutch MP Geert Wilders from entering the UK was not only morally terrible and politically inept in view of the UK's relations with fellow-EU countries, but an attack on freedom of expression - a fundamentally element not only of the UK?s tradition and constitution, but of what makes the whole of the West so fundamentally different from the rest of the world. Sphere: Related Content